Education Groups Call on Lawmakers to Sign Pledge Affirming Funding Levels for Michigan Schools
Students, Parents & Teachers Are Owed Certainty Amidst Lansing’s Failure to Provide Funding
Lansing, Mich., September 11, 2025 - As Michigan lawmakers continue to ignore their legal obligation to pass a budget for Michigan’s schools, it has forced every school in Michigan to start the academic year without clarity on which programs will have funding.
This uncertainty has forced district leaders to leave positions unfilled and prepare contingency plans for additional layoffs, program cuts, obtaining high-interest loans, and the potential elimination of free school meals, all because some lawmakers continue to prioritize partisan games and hold up the budget process in an ill-conceived effort to raid education funding to pay for a new roads plan, something 89% of Michigan voters opposed in a recent survey.
While this unnecessary and ongoing budget stalemate continues in Lansing, education groups today called on lawmakers to sign a pledge affirming that any final FY 2025–26 budget that they approve will include, at a minimum, specific funding levels outlined in the document to support the basic programming functions that our schools are already spending resources toward.
Education leaders said that while asking lawmakers to sign a pledge is unconventional, the circumstances lawmakers have created are extraordinary and, without it, school leaders have no reason to believe that the partisanship and finger-pointing in Lansing will end before irreparable harm is done.
“We are beyond frustrated that our schools are being forced to operate with this level of uncertainty and we are disappointed that our leaders in Lansing have failed to meet their most basic obligation to the public,” said Robert McCann, Executive Director of The K-12 Alliance of Michigan. “We’ve had enough of the finger pointing and want to see action. We are calling on lawmakers to either sign this pledge that guarantees their support for specific funding levels or pass a budget that includes those same commitments. Anything less would only further harm Michigan’s kids and their opportunities for success in the classroom.”
Education leaders said today that their preference remains that the Legislature and Governor pass the School Aid budget immediately, as was required by law months ago. Short of that, they want lawmakers to sign the pledge by September 18th to guarantee at least the minimum funding levels outlined within it.
“The School Aid budget is the foundation of safe classrooms, quality instruction, and the essential promise that every child deserves an opportunity to succeed and these investments should never be used as bargaining chips in a partisan, political fight,” said Don Wotruba, Executive Director of the Michigan Association of School Boards. “The damage that’s been done by lawmakers failing to pass a budget on time cannot be undone, but every day that continues to go by without any certainty in our school funding only makes it worse. We need lawmakers to provide that certainty and we need them to do it now.”
A copy of the pledge sent to lawmakers today is available here: k12michigan.org/pledge.