The new school year is here. Teachers are meeting fresh faces, setting up their classrooms, and laying out lesson plans.

But the reality? Michigan doesn’t have enough teachers. Prep hours are disappearing. Class sizes are growing. Burnout is rising. And more teachers are walking away, some to retire, others to leave the profession altogether.

All of this comes at a tough moment for students. The latest state test scores released this week show that  say kids are still struggling, especially in reading. Only four in ten third-graders hit proficiency on the M-STEP this spring. 

There is some good news, though. Middle schoolers, especially eighth-graders, posted gains in reading. But overall, proficiency in both reading and math is still below pre-pandemic levels.

Teachers in Michigan make less on average than in many other states with an average starting salary of around $38,000.

Still, there are signs of resilience. According to a 2025 report from Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University (EPIC), Michigan’s teaching workforce is slowly climbing back from the losses of the COVID years.

Tara Kilbride is a co-author of that report and the Associate Director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University. She joined the show to help make sense of Michigan’s teacher workforce.

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