LANSING, Mich. — Sen. Joseph Bellino on Friday said he fully supports a recently announced Senate Republican plan to improve childhood learning and support teachers in Michigan’s K-12 schools.
“Getting a good education is critical to a child’s success in life, yet students across our state continue to fall behind despite repeated record K-12 funding,” said Bellino, R-Monroe. “The MI Brighter Future plan is a commonsense blueprint to building an education system that will provide students, parents, and teachers with the tools they need to achieve positive results.
“Michigan students currently are in the bottom 10 nationally in reading and math proficiency and high school graduation rates. It’s unacceptable, and we need real solutions to help our kids — such as expanding learning opportunities, empowering parents, and helping keep good teachers by offering performance-based bonuses.”
The four pillars of the MI Brighter Future plan are:
- Set the bar high. Strengthen key provisions of the third-grade reading law, require student progress to be part of every teacher’s evaluation process once again, and restore the A-F grading scale for parents to easily understand how schools are performing.
- The best teachers where they’re needed most. Provide bonuses to highly effective teachers who take positions in schools where they can have the biggest impact.
- Give every kid a chance. No student should ever be left behind because of their means or ZIP code. Scholarship opportunities will help families afford additional educational assistance and help cover the costs of summer or after-school reading programs.
- Back to the basics. Reading is the foundation of a successful education. But too many schools have gone away from teaching the basics and reading scores have plummeted. Our plan will ensure teachers are trained in proven phonics-based reading methods that have worked for decades.
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