Detroit Schools Have Highest Cuts to Federal Funding in Michigan

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Detroit schools are facing some of the deepest cuts to federal funding in the country as The White House withholds $6.2 billion of funds nationwide.

The appropriations were already approved by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump.

But the administration informed states that they would be withholding the funding for five programs that support educator development, student enrichment programs, migrant education, English learners and 21st-century learning centers.

While data isn’t available for the program supporting migrant education, federal data organized by New America shows that Michigan stands to lose $81.6 million across the other four programs – accounting for more than $65 per student in the state.

The deepest cuts are in areas represented in Congress by Democrats, with those school districts facing a loss of $45 million compared to nearly $36.6 million in areas represented by a Republican.

That’s an average of $7.5 million per school district in Democratic areas compared to $5.2 million per district in Republican areas.

Michigan’s seven Republican members of Congress represent 713,666 students, while the six Democrats in Michigan’s congressional delegation represent 530,785 students.

On average, school districts represented by a Democrat would lose about $84 per student, while school districts represented by Republicans would lose about $51 per student.

That’s a reversal from the national trend, where the average school district represented by a Republican would lose 1.6 times as much funding per pupil than those represented by a Democrat.

That’s in part because while 91 of the 100 school districts nationwide facing the deepest cuts are in Republican congressional districts, Detroit is one of the ten districts with the most funding at risk.

They would lose the third most funding nationwide for student support and enrichment programs and the sixth most funding for education development.

In total, the district has more than $16 million on the line.

U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Detroit) represents the hardest hit congressional district, which stands to lose about $210 per student, followed by U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) at about $87 per pupil.

The school district has the highest poverty rate across the 46 states for which data was available at 46.9%.

Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti could not be reached for comment.

Zahava Stadler is the project director of the Education Funding Equity Initiative in the Education Policy Program at New America.

She told Michigan Advance that highly impoverished districts are likely to face significant cuts since poverty rates are a consideration for some federal grants.

“Higher poverty districts are going to be hit again and again and again as the federal government dithers over whether or not to release all of these individual funding streams to which school districts are legally entitled,” Stadler said.

The federal government withholding the already-allocated funding has made it even more difficult for schools to plan their budgets after the Republican-led Michigan House of Representatives failed to pass a budget by their deadline of July 1.

Even if school districts are able to maintain the programs through other funding sources, Stadler said they wouldn’t be able to then reimburse those funds later on if the federal funds came through.

“Money can’t just get moved around at will,” Stadler said. “Federal dollars have rules. And the administration is throwing districts into chaos as they are rapidly approaching a new school year.”

Beyond the programs themselves having an impact on students, Stadler said the fight over funding also symbolizes the wrong message for the students who benefit from them.

“The message that these kids are getting is that their country doesn’t want to invest in them, their schools aren’t able to invest in them,” Stadler said. “And that is a really difficult and tragic thing to hear as a young person who is just trying to grow and thrive in a community of which they’re a member.”

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jon King for questions: [email protected].

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