Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson wants to do something about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s disappointing legacy on education.

In a recent interview with Crain’s Detroit Business, the former hate crimes investigator who will oversee her own election to replace Whitmer in 2026, pointed to Michigan’s decline to 41^st in education in a recent Kids Count report from The Annie E. Casey Foundation as a major motivation and theme for her campaign.

“We cannot be a state that attracts the best and brightest and keeps them here if we don’t have a public education system that is among the best in the country,” Benson said.

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

More recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress released in January show the learning loss during Whitmer’s pandemic edicts, exacerbated by a Democratic government trifecta that reduced instructional days and did away with student performance to evaluate teachers, has only continued the downward trajectory.

“I’m deeply disappointed by the latest Nation’s Report Card, which shows 75% of Michigan’s fourth graders and 76% of eighth graders are not reading at grade level,” Sen. Lana Theis, R-Brighton, posted to X about the NEAP results. “This is a crisis, and yet instead of raising the bar, Democrats have repealed key literacy policies, weakened teacher standards, and eliminated the A-F school grading scale – all while celebrating these decisions.”

“Michigan kids are falling behind, and their future is on the line,” Theis wrote. “We need to correct course – immediately.”

Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Lawton, who is also running to replace Whitmer in 2026, told One America News “I think it’s time we have a governor that cares more about whether or not students are reading at grade level and being able to excel than trying to sell books in Martha’s Island or San Francisco,” he said, referring to Whitmer’s book tours for True Gretch and the recent release of its Young Adult edition.

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

Nesbitt described the test results as “unbelievable.”

“Three out of four students can’t read at grade level!” he said.

If elected, Benson told Crain’s she plans to study what other states are doing well and collaborate with business leaders “to not just better invest in public education but make sure our outcomes and our standards are being met and among the best in the country.”

The effort, she said, is among her top three priorities, with others including housing affordability and economic policy. But how she expects to “better invest in education” to ensure better outcomes is less clear.

Democrats in the Michigan legislature have blamed the state’s education issues on the pandemic and “longstanding divestment,” ignoring the fact that reading scores were much better with smaller budgets before Democrats gained full control of government from 2022 through 2024.

“Student performance is a complex, nuanced issue — and unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution that can immediately reverse the effects that longstanding disinvestment and a global public health emergency have had on our education system,” Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, said in a statement to The Detroit News.

“Here in the Senate, we’ve championed education policy to help address lagging student performance in Michigan, from bipartisan bills to support students with dyslexia to intentional state budget investments for our students and districts that need it most,” she said. “There are additional tools at our disposal that we’ll continue exploring to help work toward better student outcomes, including hours of instruction and science-based literacy trainings for educators.”

While Senate Democrats “continue exploring” solutions, Benson is on a “listening tour across the state” to promote herself as a leader who “knows how to get things done” and “make government work.”

The priorities on her campaign website, meanwhile, include only one platitude about education: “As an educator and daughter of public school teachers, it’s deeply personal for her to know that every child can receive a world-class education.”