Providing Quality Education for All Students

What does quality education mean to you?

Is it having the best teachers? The most modern classrooms? An active and engaged counselor? A curriculum that focuses on career readiness? Perhaps math and science? Arts and music? Language skills? Extra-curricular activities? Does it come down to a sense of security? Is it simply about having options to choose from?

Priorities tend to differ depending on a student’s circumstances, and enabling success for every child requires more than a cookie-cutter approach to education. A range of resources can make the difference in addressing the needs of “at-risk” students experiencing poverty, homelessness, physical and emotional health challenges, and other factors that impact their ability to succeed in school.

The SEMCOG/Metropolitan Affairs Coalition (MAC) Education Reform Task Force, co-chaired by David Hecker, President, American Federation of Teachers – Michigan, and Don Hubler, Secretary of the Macomb Intermediate School District, and made up of representatives of business, education, labor, and government, worked together for over a year to develop policy recommendations to “provide every child access to an aligned, high-quality education from early childhood through post-secondary attainment to prepare for academic, career, and lifelong success.“

• Providing High-Quality Instruction in Every Classroom
• Redesigning Funding to Adequately Meet the Needs of all Students
• Promoting Career Technical Education
• Serving At-Risk and Special Needs Populations
• Ensuring Governance Structure Supports Accountability

Supportive teachers are critical to quality education.

These ideas are not new, but it is critical to implement them now. Our efforts toward education reform recognize that a well-educated population is an invaluable asset, and we can do better to prepare the state and its citizens for the inevitable changes resulting from national and global demographic and economic trends.

Dearborn Public Schools’ Cotter Early Childhood Center offers an attractive environment where preschoolers can succeed.

SEMCOG’s 2045 Forecast projects that a combination of an aging population and declining school-age population will result in a labor shortage for Southeast Michigan. To address this challenge, we need to develop an education system that provides all students with the tools needed to achieve lifelong success. In addition, the economic vitality and overall quality of life in Southeast Michigan will be greatly enhanced by a quality education system.

Michael Berry Career Center provides hands-on learning for students in Career Technical Education and STEM.

We understand the challenge before us, and we think we offer some answers that will help our region succeed. So what are we doing to turn these recommendations into reality? To ensure that every child in the region has access to a quality education that works for them, SEMCOG and MAC are sharing these recommendations with partners to help promote and implement the action steps contained in this report. We are available to present our recommendations to education and business groups. Please contact Naheed Huq at 313 324-3356 to arrange a presentation.