School closures imposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer during the pandemic continue to plague Michigan students, particularly with fundamental reading skills.

A recent report from the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative analyzed assessments of about 716,000 Michigan’s K-8 students in 678 school districts from the spring and fall of 2024 to offer perspective on recovery from learning loss during school closures four years prior.

Researchers found that while students made some progress in math in 2024, reading proficiency among Michigan students remains at a 10-year low, with little improvement since Whitmer forced schools to shut down in-person instruction.

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“This report shows that, more than four years since COVID-19’s unprecedented disruptions to learning and schooling began, student achievement trends in Michigan show signs of progress but not full ‘recovery,’” according to EPIC. “On average, math achievement has improved significantly, while reading achievement has remained largely unchanged.”

EPIC warns the benchmark assessment data is imperfect, and likely underestimates the number of students who continue to struggle with foundational reading skills that are often a predictor of future academic success.

“For instance, students most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic may have been less likely to participate in benchmark assessments and more likely to switch districts over the study period, potentially resulting in their underrepresentation in our analysis,” researchers wrote. “Moreover, with the repeal of MCL 388.1698b in 2023, districts are no longer required to administer benchmark assessments.”

The EPIC researchers added: “Although most districts in the state continued participating in these assessments, 91 fewer school districts and 57,000 fewer students are represented in this year’s analysis than in last year’s.”

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Both reading and math scores in Michigan remain below the 50^th percentile nationally, with math at the 49^th percentile and reading at the 46th in the spring of 2024. Those figures in the fall of 2020 were 44^th for math and 52^nd for reading.

For both students who were locked out of in-person instruction for a full year in 2020-21 and those who were not, reading scores remain well below the national average. While scores for students who did not miss in-person instruction dived from the 55^th percentile nationally to the 49^th, the decline for those with no in person instruction was more drastic, going from the 48^th percentile to the 37^th.

“I think like every observer around Lansing and across the state, we were disappointed in the numbers, but also not entirely surprised to see the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Peter Spadafore, with Michigan Alliance for Student Opportunity, told WDET when state test results were released in September. “The state superintendent talks a lot about the impact of virtual instruction. When we were not able to be in classrooms having an impact on those early learners when we’re trying to get at them, soon and quickly to grasp those early reading skills.”

The EPIC report provides context to the results of state M-STEP assessment results for 2024 that showed reading scores for third graders have continued a downward trend to hit a 10-year low, going from 40.9% proficiency in 2023 to 39.6%.

“This compared to … 41.6% in 2021-22, and 42.8% the year before,” WDIV reports. “Students didn’t take the M-STEP in the 2019-20 year, but in the school year before the pandemic, 45.1% of third graders were proficient in English Language Arts.”

That data critical to measuring future educational development, as research has found that third graders who lack reading proficiency are four times more likely to become high school dropouts.

Despite the dire situation, Republicans in Lansing argue Whitmer’s policies and budget priorities are only making matters worse. They point to educational changes she approved to water down reading standards and eliminate student progress to evaluate teachers.

There’s also the Whitmer created Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential that state Rep. Jaime Greene, R-Richmond, told the Washington Examiner is “detracting from funding that the department actually needs.”

Whitmer’s MiLEAP, Greene said, “split the Department of Education” to create the governor’s “own parallel department,” a move that came with an executive FY 2025 budget request to transfer 75% or $414 million of Department of Education funds to MiLEAP, though the final budget spent $138.8 million, according to a conference report.

The declining reading proficiency, chronic student absenteeism, increasing mental health issues, and continued threats to school safety are all reasons Republicans opposed significant education cuts in Michigan’s 2025 budget approved by Democrats this summer.

The budget cut $302 million from school safety and mental health funding, while keeping per-pupil education funding flat for the first time in a decade. Those cuts helped to fund other priorities, including $330 million in pet projects for lawmakers, $1 million in legal aid for “asylum seekers,” electric bike incentives, menstrual products in men’s restrooms, and the governor’s multi-billion dollar climate goals.

Michigan Senate Republican Leader Aric Nesbitt highlighted the bottom line when Michigan’s abysmal third-grade reading scores for 2023-24 were released in late August: “6 in 10 Michigan students being unable to read at their grade level is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE and an indictment of Democrats’ education polices during and since the pandemic,” he posted to X.

“@GovWhitmer and Lansing Democrats have done immeasurable harm to an entire generation of our kids.”