El-Sayed blames outdated funding approach for school woes

Michigan’s public schools suffer from an inadequate funding mechanism, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said in recent comments reported by Fox News. But the state abandoned that approach to funding in 1994.

“Those public schools are deeply underfunded,” El-Sayed told Martha MacCallum during an Oct. 5 interview. “We continue to pattern the way we pay taxes based on property tax.”

Michigan spends an average of $23,867 per pupil, from all sources, and funding has risen more than 30% over the past two years. The national per-pupil average is $16,526, according to Shawn Cooper, education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

“Mr. El-Sayed's belief that property taxes are responsible for funding education in the classroom is simply incorrect,” Cooper told Michigan Capitol Confidential. “El-Sayed is right to be concerned about the challenges facing Michigan's students, but he would do well to remember that the data consistently show little or no correlation between per-pupil spending and educational success.”

Michigan voters approved Proposal A in 1994. The ballot measure capped the portion of property taxes going to education but replaced that funding with an increase in the sales tax. As a result, local property taxes are not responsible for most of the money schools spend, and the state funds school districts based on the number of students enrolled.

“Voters said yes to Proposal A, which reduced school property taxes by about 33 percent and increased the sales tax from 4 to 6 percent,” Matthew Brouillette, former Mackinac Center education policy director, said in 2001 testimony to a committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

The change largely removed local property tax revenues as a factor in education funding, another Mackinac Center expert said. “The foundation allowance (from the state budget) has helped reduce funding disparities between poor and wealthy districts,” Molly Macek wrote in 2024. “Proposal A ensures the value of local property has no impact on this base funding amount.”

Before Proposition A, 69% of the money districts received from state and local sources came from local taxes, the Senate Fiscal Agency reported in 2023. After Prop A, it said, the split between state and local governments became approximately 80% to 20%. Michigan school districts do levy property taxes, but largely on rental, commercial and industrial property.

The U.S. government plays a major role in school finances, providing roughly 11% of all funding, according to USA Facts.

Federal funding plays a more significant role in some districts than others. School districts with less affluent residents can and often receive more per-pupil funding than those with more affluent residents, thanks to increased federal funding.

But increased funding has not led to significant academic gains.

Funding for the Pontiac Public Schools District increased from $18,405 per pupil from all sources in 2018-19 to $31,850 in 2024-25, a 73% increase. Yet there was no change in proficiency, with 87% of students not being proficient in English Language Arts in 2024-25 — that same share as recorded by the 2018-19 M-STEP.

Bloomfield Hills, like Pontiac, is in Oakland County, but its population is affluent. The school system there experienced a much smaller rise in per-pupil funding over the same timeframe: a 32% increase from $16,748 to $22,119. But proficiency among its fourth graders improved from 29% to 32%.

Just one year after Flint Community Schools received record funding, in 2024-25, 94% of fourth graders were either partially or not proficient in English Language Arts.

El-Sayed did not respond to an email seeking comment.