Implementing a New Personal Finance Graduation Requirement
Just as the new school year brings Michigan students fresh challenges and opportunities, it offers educators and administrators altered realities to manage. This August, Chalkbeat Detroit offered a summary of some of these “new requirements,” including:
- Changed policy around evaluations to “no longer” mandate “heavily rely[ing] on student scores on standardized tests,”
- “New provisions” in the Read by Grade Three law to require that kindergarteners be “given a reading assessment within the first 90 days of the school year” and “kids in grades one through three” get one “within the first 30 days” after last year’s elimination of the law’s retention mandate for struggling readers,
- An obligation to “give students in sixth through 12th grade age-appropriate material” covering sexual assault and harassment,
- The need for districts to “collect data on how many students have tribal affiliation,”
- The removal of mandatory punishments for school employees who “[refer] students to abortion services,” and
- The implementation of a law that means “kids will have to get a dental assessment within six months of enrolling in school for the first time” (Chalkbeat Detroit).
Additionally, school leaders will need to keep in mind a new requirement for students, starting with this fall’s 9th graders, to “complete a half-credit of personal finance education as a graduation requirement” (WKFR). Legislatively, this change goes back to lawmakers’ June 2022 approval of HB 5190, which made Michigan “the 14th state to mandate personal finance education at the high school level” (CNBC; June 2022 Capitol Perspectives). To comply with the new mandate, students can take “a personal finance class or…another course that adds the new standards, such as economics, a career and technical education program, or math” (Chalkbeat Detroit; WKFR). In signing the change into law, Governor Whitmer explained, “I want every kid…to enter the world with a diverse set of skills and knowledge, and that must include financial literacy.” Regarding course development to ensure that students can meet this new pre-requisite for finishing high school, the Michigan Department of Education has already begun “providing guidance to school districts and will be working closely to help schools design curriculum to meet the new requirements” (WCRZ). With that, non-profit organizations and private actors excited about the new focus on personal finance have stepped up to offer their expertise. Emblematically, entities like Junior Achievement of the Michigan Great Lakes and Eaton Community Bank have begun collaborating with some centrally-located schools (WILX 10).
On the eve of this new requirement’s rollout, there is some clear excitement. For instance, various educators have commented that personal finance courses created due to the new requirement will provide students with information that is “useful for life right off the bat” and “could lead to financial success later in life” (WILX 10). At the same time, there are some concerns around the new law from voices like the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, State Superintendent Michael Rice, and the Michigan Education Association, who have previously warned that the policy will decrease local control over what content is taught, advance the “crowd out [of] humanities instruction,” and struggle to be implemented with fidelity given persistent educator shortages (Chalkbeat Detroit; Fox 47). Over the first few weeks of the 2024-25 school year, Michigan high schools will have the chance to test out these new required courses and tinker with them to hopefully capture potential upsides mentioned by supporters and manage possible roadblocks identified by opponents. As always, updates about how this new law and others are implemented throughout the new year will be in future editions of Capitol Perspectives.
Federal Scrutiny of Michigan’s Treatment of Students with Disabilities
As any COVID-era student, parent, educator, or district leader can attest, the initial stages of the pandemic presented many unique challenges for the K-12 education ecosystem. Retrospectively, researchers have identified “students with disabilities…among those [pupils] most severely affected by COVID-19’s disruption of schools and communities” as buildings were “shuttered,” educators “struggled to provide accommodations and therapies remotely,” and district leaders scrambled to efficiently “[review] and [update]…children’s individualized education programs” (EdWeek). With greater clarity surrounding the extent of this era’s impact on students with disabilities, a debate has emerged over the causes of learning loss for these individuals, whether civil rights violations occurred, and who is responsible. In Michigan, the origins of this controversy and its status can be traced as such:
- In November 2020, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) issued guidance involving “students who lost access to special education services” during the COVID-19 pandemic and “districts’ obligation[s] to make up for those losses later through so-called compensatory services,” which read, “compensatory services ‘may be awarded as a result of a finding from a state complaint, due process hearing, or monitoring activity’” (Chalkbeat Detroit).
- Following this MDE announcement, “a complaint” was sent to the federal government, arguing that the MDE’s policy was “illegal,” and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation in 2022 over whether the MDE suggested that “districts don’t owe students compensatory services unless families demand them” (Chalkbeat Detroit).
- After their review, in June 2023, the federal government notified Michigan that the state’s guidance was noncompliant with federal law (K-12 Dive). Normally, such a finding would trigger some collaboration between the parties to “remedy wrongdoings discovered,” but the Office for Civil Rights alleges that Michigan “refused to enter into a resolution agreement and…failed to achieve compliance by voluntary means” in this case (K-12 Dive).
- As a follow-up action, in May 2024, the federal government sent Michigan’s assistant attorney general an “opportunity for a hearing” related to the inquiry and disseminated its finding that the MDE “gave school districts pandemic-era guidance that was inconsistent with Section 504 rules and ‘exacerbated and contributed to the harm to students with disabilities’” (K-12 Dive). The U.S. Department of Education also charged the Michigan School for the Deaf with “[failing] to provide speech and language services from at least January 2021 to May 2, 2022, to 29 students” along with the MDE for “‘repeatedly’ [giving] incorrect information,” insufficiently responding to parental concerns regarding “IEPs and 504 plans,” and “not designat[ing] a 504 coordinator or…notify[ing] stakeholders of who the coordinator is” (K-12 Dive; Bridge).
- Reacting to these reports, in July 2024, Michigan officials filed a motion asking the U.S. Department of Education to “dismiss [these] claims” and a line-by-line response to the federal government’s “notice of opportunity for hearing” (Chalkbeat Detroit).
This August, the saga continued. Early in the month, the U.S. Department of Education issued its response to Michigan’s filing, saying the MDE is “seeking to ‘shield itself from any scrutiny’ in its violation of the rights of students with disabilities,” asking “administrative hearing officers to deny the MDE’s request last month to dismiss all claims made against it,” and arguing that the MDE deleted incorrect information without issuing corrections (Chalkbeat Detroit). Hitherto, MDE officials have used “appropriate legal channels” instead of commenting on the developments (Chalkbeat Detroit). However, they have denied wrongdoing and explained that they are “strongly committed to providing equal access to educational opportunities to all students in Michigan – including students with disabilities” (Chalkbeat Detroit). Dissimilarly, various observers have not been so reserved, and some members of the Michigan State Board of Education have called for “an audit of Michigan’s special education services” and a presentation by the MDE on the complaint (Chalkbeat Detroit).
Looming over the multi-year back-and-forth is not just local and state backlash but the reality that “states that don’t comply [with the Office for Civil Rights’ adjudicated findings] risk losing federal funding,” which in Michigan’s case is $461 million (Chalkbeat Detroit). That said, Office for Civil Rights leaders have indicated a preference for “negotiations” that can “expedite the ultimate resolution of this case,” including compensatory services for impacted students (Chalkbeat Detroit). Regardless of the result of this review, commentators have noted that “even before COVID, Michigan…struggled to improve the quality of special education programs in public schools” (Chalkbeat Detroit). Consequently, it is possible that action around this potential violation of the rights of students with disabilities could just be an opening salvo in a broader debate around this issue.
Understanding Patchwork Title IX Requirements
In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Education “unveil[ed]” a new rule “realigning the Education Department’s interpretation of Title IX to ban ‘all forms of sex discrimination,’ including discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy or related conditions” (Politico). The move, which goes back to initial departmental actions covered in the June 2022 Capitol Perspectives, was designed “to clarify schools’ obligations under Title IX, the 1972 women’s rights law that outlaws discrimination based on sex in education,” and it was centrally focused on “undoing sexual assault rules put in place by…former President Donald Trump,” protecting “the rights of LGBTQ+ students,” and enshrining safeguards for pregnant students and employees (PBS; Politico). With the department’s guidance that Title IX, which does not explicitly address LGBTQ+ students, “also forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” impacted “students who face discrimination will be entitled to a response from their school under Title IX, and those failed by their schools can seek recourse from the federal government” (PBS). At the time of the new rule, “civil rights advocates and LGBTQ+ groups” celebrated the Biden administration’s actions (Politico). However, reactions to the clarification were not universally positive, with the announcement triggering “furious legal battles” and a statement from “Rep. Virginia Foxx, chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce,” that “this final rule dumps kerosene on [an] already raging fire” tied to the education culture wars (The Detroit Free Press; K-12 Dive).
At the start of August, the rule was scheduled to go into effect (American Council on Education). While it did for many states, generally, a U.S. District Court judge “issued an injunction July 19 blocking the regulations from being enforced specifically in schools attended by the children of current and prospective members of Moms for Liberty,” Young America’s Foundation, and Female Athletes United (The Detroit Free Press). In Michigan, the ruling impacted 100 schools with such students, creating “a complicated legal landscape” where the new Title IX rules apply to some but not all schools in the state (Chalkbeat Detroit). Consequently, the decision complicated federal enforcement efforts and district planning, including by some local entities that have a collection of schools subject to the old Trump-era Title IX rules and others covered by the new ones simultaneously (WOOD).
Looking ahead, once “higher courts consider appeals to challenges made in other states” related to the Title IX changes, the temporary injunction will either be lifted or the rule will be struck down (The Detroit Free Press). That said, even such a decision is unlikely to generate finality around the broader question of Title IX changes. Individuals on both sides have expressed deeply-held, rights-based arguments, with supporters of the rule arguing that the approach is vital to counter discrimination and critics positing “that the new regulations will impact free speech for students and promote” new cultural norms they oppose (The Detroit Free Press). Such entrenched disunity is visible in the fact that when the U.S. Department of Education proposed the rule change “nearly two years ago,” they received a “record” 240,000 public comments that took months to review (PBS).
More immediately, while the ruling clearly creates some uncertainty around federal protections, it “may have little impact” in Michigan because “state law also includes protections for discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in educational institutions, and the Michigan Department of Civil Rights oversees and investigates complaints” (The Detroit Free Press). Though, some commentators have estimated that the constitutionality of federal protections could make it all the “way to the U.S. Supreme Court by early next year,” and petitioners are likely to ask the federal court to apply any arguments against federal Title IX changes to state laws like the Elliot-Larson Civil Rights Act because “the state constitution…cannot violate federal law” (WOOD). Already, in the middle of August, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, allowed “two [separate] injunctions barring the Education Department from enforcing most of its Title IX rule” to stand while the rule change is litigated in lower courts (The Hill; Politico; WOOD). What happens in these looming cases remains to be seen.
For questions or more information, please contact Tyler Thur in the Office of K-12 Outreach at thurtyle@msu.edu.