Claims of school defunding collide with record education budgets

Gov.-elect Jocelyn Benson said in her run for governor that “Michigan has defunded our schools at a higher rate than any other state for three decades.” The record, however, shows that public schools in Michigan have benefited from a 44% spending hike in this decade.

The union that represents many public school employees echoed Benson’s claim. Benson “repeatedly points out studies that have shown Michigan led the nation in cuts to education funding over 25 years,” Brenda Ortega wrote in an Oct. 8 article for MEA Voice. School funding experienced “an inflation-adjusted decline of 30% from 2002 to 2015, according to education policy researchers at Michigan State University,” she continued.

Total funding for K-12 schools increased from $14.8 billion in the 2018-19 school year to $21.3 billion in 2025-26, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency.

Year-over-year total spending, which includes federal money, increased in most years over that period, with the only significant exception coming when emergency COVID funds declined after schools reopened. Michigan public schools received the following amounts in successive years, starting with the 2019-20 year, according to Senate data: $16.0 billion; $21.7 billion; $17.1 billion; $20.2 billion; $21.6 billion; and $21.1 billion in 2024-25.

Outgoing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer mentioned the state’s record-high education spending in her two most recent State of the State speeches, and Michigan news media have reported on billions of federal dollars flowing into state school budgets.

Inflation-adjusted spending is up, even after emergency COVID funding ended. Had the $14.8 billion budget from 2019-20 stayed the same relative to inflation, it would be $19.3 billion this year. The spending hike has coincided with an overall decline in student enrollment and subpar performance on standardized tests.

The study cited by MEA Voice was done more than a decade ago and is tied to the state’s so-called Lost Decade, which the Citizens Research Council of Michigan defines as a period of stagnation in Michigan that started in 2001 and continued through the 2008-09 recession.

“Benson’s claims about the supposed defunding of Michigan education rely on a long out-of-date data,” Mackinac Center Director of Education Policy Shawn Cooper told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email. “That study, which covered the years 1995–2015, ignores more than a decade of substantial and sustained investment in Michigan schools. Measured since 2015, Michigan’s K-12 state funding growth places it in the top ten in the nation: an inflation-adjusted increase of $2.5 billion. And as of 2024, Michigan ranked 18th in the nation for per-pupil state funding ($18,314), putting it well ahead of the national average.”

Benson pushed the defunding theme during her campaign. “The fact is we have defunded our schools at a higher rate than any other state for three decades,” the governor-elect said at an MEA gubernatorial forum in February. “And the small amount of work that Democrats have done recently to restore some of that funding is far from what’s needed to actually get to where we need to be to have the excellent schools we want.”

Michigan residents seem to agree with that assessment, according to one recent poll. The Glengariff Group reported in March that half of respondents in its Michigan Education Funding Survey believed school districts weren’t getting enough money.

“Would you say that your local public school has the funding it needs or would you say that your local public school is short of the funding it needs?” the survey asked.

Some 50% said their local school district was short of the funding it needed. About 33.2% said the local school district had the funding it needed and 15.8% didn't know. Just 1% didn't offer an answer.