Michigan’s new budget will channel $203 million toward increasing the compensation of public school employees, a move supporters are hailing as a win for the state’s teachers.
The Republican-led House and Democratic-controlled Senate approved the new annual funding proposal for state operations early Friday morning. It is expected to be signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the coming days.
Embedded within one of the bills was a provision to repurpose $203 million that had been previously allocated to provide financial assistance to educators who were repaying student loans, but which had gone unused.
Now, the dollars will be given to schools “to increase compensation” for employees and the pay bumps must be on top of “any existing compensation negotiated in a collective bargaining agreement” between a school district and union representing educators or support staff, according to the budget blueprint.
Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, said the $225 million student loan forgiveness program, authorized in 2023, didn’t work as he intended and he wanted the dollars to now be used for financial relief for school employees who are facing rising health care costs.
“It was important to put more money back in the pockets of our educators,” Camilleri said.
In addition to teachers, the new initiative will benefit a wide array of school employees covered by union contracts, including librarians, counselors, social workers, custodians, bus drivers and literacy coaches, according to the bill.
Camilleri, a former teacher and the top Senate Democrat on the K-12 budget, said it will be up to districts and local unions to negotiate how the money will be handed out.
There will likely be one-time payments to staff at some point this school year, Camilleri said.
Somewhere around 381,000 people work for K-12 schools in Michigan, according to state data. It’s not clear how many of them would qualify for the new compensation. If they all did, which is not likely, and everyone got the same amount, an individual would receive $532.
“It should be a good one-time bonus,” Camilleri said.
The Michigan Education Association, which represents school staff in many districts across the state, touted the $203 million allocation in a statement on the budget Friday.
“Most critically, it provides $200 million in funding to directly put money in the paychecks of public school employees — whose pay increases are being consumed by skyrocketing out-of-pocket health insurance costs,” said Chandra Madafferi, president and CEO of the state’s largest teacher union.
4th grade reading and writing teacher Stephen Taft, interacts with his students during a geology lesson in class at Riddle Elementary on Feb. 10 in Lansing. Educators across the state are poised to share a portion of $203 million in state funding aimed at boosting pay for public school employees and offsetting rising health care premiums. (Clarence Tabb Jr./The Detroit News)
The City of Dearborn says new absentee ballots will be mailed to residents after a printing error was discovered.
City Clerk George Darany says the original ballots included the name of a city council candidate who dropped out of the race.
Darany says people should throw away the old ballot and fill out the new one. Voters who have already submitted their ballot or those who do not send in the correct ballot will have their ballot ‘duplicated’—which does not mean counted twice.
“So in other words, we will have two people assigned to remove the ballot and put it into the duplicate new ballot, so everything they chose would be transferred to the new ballot,” says Darany.
Voters should receive the new ballots in the next ten days.
Early voting begins in Dearborn October 25.
Additional headlines for Thursday, October 2, 2025
Mosques encouraged to increase security
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, Michigan chapter is encouraging local mosques to step up protection after an individual threatened to burn down a mosque in Dearborn Heights this week.
CAIR Michigan Executive Director Dawud Walid says he’s concerned in light of the political climate and the attack on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc on Sunday.
“We encourage all mosques in the state of Michigan to review the care community safety kit an to make sure that they have the property security measures for the Friday congressional prayers.”
Walid says he hopes Dearborn Heights Police investigate the threats at The Islamic Institute of America as a potential hate crime.
He says several mosques in Michigan have received threats in recent weeks.
Detroit Public Schools fills District Board of Education seat
The Detroit Public Schools Community District Board of Education voted not to start a lengthy selection process to fill a vacant seat and will instead offer the seat to the runner up of the last special election.
Current board member Sherry Gay-Dagnogo is expected to resign and start as the city of Detroit’s next Ombudsman.
During a special meeting the board recommended leveraging the finalist from the July 2025 vacancy process, because it has been less than 90 days since a thorough, transparent, and public search was conducted.
Local business pitch competition
The Arab American Women’s Business Council and the New Economy Initiative are announcing their 2025 Pitch Competition. Local Small Businesses and entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas and compete for seed money. Cash prizes between $1000 and $3000, and a grand prize of $5000 will be offered.
The application deadline is October 17. Eligible applicants must be in the ideation phase or have a business less than five years old.
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It’s the home stretch for Detroit City Council candidates with election day only about a month away.
On the city’s northeast side incumbent Scott Benson faces a challenge from a life-long resident of Council District 3, Cranstana Anderson.
She’s a former UAW local official and administrator who works from home preparing taxes.
Anderson says she wants to change how city government operates on the eastside.
Listen: Detroit Council candidate Cranstana Anderson says she can represent struggling residents—she’s one too
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Cranstana Anderson: For instance, the rainfall sewage fee. They call it a fee but it’s actually a tax. If people want to build around their homes and they put more cement down, there is nowhere to absorb the rainwater. So your drainage fees are higher. A lot of churches experienced it because they made parking lots or created more sidewalks. Anything that is not grass or trees to absorb, that rainfall becomes an additional charge.
Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: If you were elected to council, how would you address those kind of problems?
CA: I would first have to see how we get out of something that we got into. I really believe Detroit not having control over the water has led to these types of actions by leadership. The water bill used to be less than what it is every month now, even every three months. So, it seems like that’s a long-term consequence of them giving control of it to the Great Lakes Water Authority.
QK: There’s been a lot of talk about a “financial cliff” that Detroit could be facing because federal funding and some other money is running out. Some of the mayoral candidates have talked about increasing revenue by perhaps raising certain taxes on things like events downtown. Do you think that that’s a way to go?
CA: I do believe that we’ve given out enough tax abatements and incentives for those businesses downtown to be a contributor into paying a higher tax, if that’s what’s going to help the neighborhoods. Because originally, that’s what downtown was getting built up for. It was to change the dynamics of the way downtown looked, to change the dynamics of economic growth in Detroit and build-up downtown. But it was also supposed to contribute to building up the residential communities, making sure those who have retired, bought their home, worked their 30 years, are not left out. And that’s what we want to focus on, not leaving those who have already paved the way for us to stabilize the community be forced out by business or investors. I believe in gentrification versus nullification. So if it’s nothing, then gentrification sounds pretty good when it’s nothing.
QK: I still hear lots of concerns about crime, not just on the northeast side, but throughout the city. If you were on council, how would you try and help address that?
CA: I would try to create some different policies about how we retain our public safety officers. I believe when they were given the option to live outside of Detroit, that’s when we had more crime created. The crime rate is just at a flat line right now. I don’t see the quality of policing in Detroit, in my area and in many other areas, the way it used to be. When I grew up, relying on police was the route to go to keep the community safe. But now, to engage with them, to build a certain amount of trust with them, and have none of our officers that want to live in Detroit, that says a lot about their policing.
There’s a lot that needs to be done. But I want to make sure we look right.
QK: You’ve mentioned that you’d like to see more political accountability. Do you think that’s lacking at the moment with some of the Detroit officials?
CA: Yes, especially mine, in my district. I think we’ve compromised our office.
QK: You’re talking about Detroit City Council member Scott Benson. There had been some allegations made about bribery charges. But federal authorities said that they had closed that case. And Benson said he and his staff came up completely clean. So, in your view, wouldn’t that kind of clean his slate in terms of that?
CA: No, not with me. Because I’m analytical. I’m from Detroit. And I know everybody who is in prison is not guilty and some of those who are guilty are still walking around.
QK: In any political campaign it is often hard to beat an incumbent. And you’re the challenger in this one. What do you say to people in District 3 if they ask why they should vote for you for council?
CA: Because I understand exactly the hardships that they’re going through. I am a person that’s just like them. And I will fight harder for them. The people who live there, who built there, who are maintaining their property and shopping in that area, doing business in that area, should be entitled to good service. There needs to be some type of resources made available that help these residents qualify for the investors that we want to come into our community.
As far as jobs go, you have the Work First program. But the jobs pay minimum wages, $15-$16 an hour. That’s just not a fair wage. We’re supposed to live off 30% of our income. How do we manage that? Affordable housing is $1,200 and your wages are $1,500. What does that calculate up to? That calculates up to a struggle.
One of the things that hasn’t been invested in is the blighted buildings in my community. A lot of schools shut down. And no one’s talking about doing anything with them except maybe utilizing them as training spots for the police or other public safety departments. These are buildings in the community that used to educate. And we believe, not just myself but a lot of residents, that we can turn these buildings into community hubs where they teach about things like drones, auto mechanics. We don’t want those buildings torn down. We want to utilize those buildings to put back into the education system what they took away. Creative arts. Let the residents, the children, tap into their natural talents or introduce them to the skills that they don’t know they have. Those are places that we can renovate and make into state-of-the art facilities. To make sure that we have the resources not 50 miles from us, not across town, but right here in our own community, where our children can actually walk to school. There’s a lot that needs to be done.
But I want to make sure we look right, so that we don’t invite the wrong type of activity into the community. Get rid of what we do have that’s not a positive influence in our community. Our children are becoming a product of their environment. We say we want to help them, but we have an overpopulation of alcohol stores. We have a population of marijuana dispensaries. It’s legal and a lot of people voted for it because they were tired of people going to jail for marijuana, which is understandable. But it’s something we need to go back to the drawing board about to make sure that it’s regulated properly, that our children don’t have such easy access to it. It’s really hurting us. And in order to build a community up, you have to eliminate the things that take them down.
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Funding for arts and culture grants in Michigan is preserved in the state budget for fiscal year 2026.
Last week, Governor Whitmer, Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks and House Speaker Matt Hall announced they had agreed on a framework for the state budget and it would be passed before October 1. The state budget was passed early Friday morning, with state funding for arts and culture grants preserved.
Last month’s budget proposal passed by the Republican-led State House eliminated all funding for arts and culture grants from the state.
The entity that administers arts and culture grants for the state is the Michigan Arts and Culture Council (MACC). In 2025, MACC grants awarded totaled over $10.5 million.
The council distributes grant funds to arts and culture programs throughout the state, providing funding for things like K-12 arts programs, cultural festivals and museums.
To better understand what arts and culture grants from the state fund, Cary Junior II spoke with Lauren Ward, director of the Cultural Advocacy Network of Michigan. They spoke on Thursday, before the final state budget had been passed for fiscal year 2026.
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Rochester Christian University will feature the inauguration of Reggies Wenyika as its 11th president on Oct. 23rd and 24th.
Inaugural activities begin with a Community Blessing Service at 7 p.m.on Thursday, Oct. 23 in the Westside Central Chapel.
The official inauguration will occur at 11 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 24,in the Alumni Center and later that day, an alumni reception will be held at 6 p.m. in the Gallaher Welcome Center.
“I’m deeply honored and excited for the journey ahead. I look forward to working together as we strive to elevate RCU to new heights,” Wenyika said when he was named to the position back in March.. “This is a unique opportunity to collaborate with the entire university community of students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends and partners as we collectively enhance the student experience, and foster innovation through a vibrant and values-driven transformative campus culture. Together, we can continue to make RCU a destination for many, from the region, nation and beyond.”
Wenyika started at RCU on June 1, 2025 and previously served as president of Ottawa University Kansas from 2018 to 2024 and of Southwestern Christian University in Bethany, Oklahoma, from 2014 to 2018.
He earned his Doctor of Education degree from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is currently pursuing another doctorate in ethnomedicine and indigenous knowledge systems from Chinhoyi University of Technology in Zimbabwe. He also holds degrees from Southwestern Christian University, Logos University and the University of Zimbabwe.
He will replace Brian Stogner who resigned in 2024 to become president of the Michigan School of Psychology in Farmington Hills.
For more information, go to rcu.edu/inauguration.
Wenyika will replace Brian Stogner who resigned last year to become president of the Michigan School of Psychology.
photo courtesy RCU
Detroit Outdoors has taken a group of students and teachers to Yosemite National Park for the second time.
The Detroit to Gloryland journey is designed to introduce youth to outdoor activities like camping and rock climbing and pick up on some history.
The group travels to Yosemite in late July so they are in there during National Buffalo Soldier Day, and within reach of the park system’s expert on the history of Buffalo Soldiers in the park.
Shelton Johnson is a native Detroiter, an alum of Cass Technical High School and a park ranger. He has worked to collect the narratives of the Black and other non-white soldiers who served as Yosemite’s first rangers and share their individual and collective stories.
Park ranger Shelton Johnson helps guide the Gloryland students and teach them the park’s history.
WDET’s Sascha Raiyn got to travel with the students both years. You can hear stories from the first Detroit to Gloryland trip and learn more about Shelton Johnson in 2024 here.
‘Gloryland’ veterans speak
Jaiden Nedd, Cameron Thomas and Arcia Quinn in Yosemite.
Listen: ‘Gloryland’ veterans speak
It was Cass Tech High School Junior Tiffany Orr’s first-time camping and first-time in Yosemite. She interviewed the three students who came on the trip for a second time: Jaiden Nedd, Cameron Thomas and Arcia Quinn.
Expressing Yosemite: a poet’s guide to being in nature
Poet and author Jacqueline Suskind traveled to Yosemite with the students.
Listen: Expressing Yosemite: a poet’s guide to being in nature
Poet and author Jacqueline Suskind traveled with the students. Suskind’s work focuses on her relationship to nature – and on teaching others to explore their own relationships to nature — through writing.
Students had an inside guide to Yosemite this year
Listen: Students had an inside guide to Yosemite this year
Students learned some photography skills from professional Rodel Fessehatzion.
Robel Fessehatzion is a landscape photographer who works at and with Yosemite National Park.
He met the students who traveled from Detroit to Yosemite on the 2024 trip.
This year, Fessehatzion introduced the students to the people, places and history that shape his relationship to Yosemite.
He also gave them a little lesson in landscape photography.
A look at how Detroit Outdoors gets it done
Moving more than 20 people across the country to camp is a big undertaking.
Listen: A look at how Detroit Outdoors gets it done
Moving more than 20 people across the country to camp — many for the first time — is a big undertaking. We take a look at the logisitcs of the trip.
‘Gloryland’ first-timers speak
Pershing student Eva Effinger and Hamtramck High grad Nora Algahaim in Yosemite.
Listen: ‘Gloryland’ first-timers speak
Sascha Raiyn gave her recorder to Pershing student Eva Effinger and Hamtramck High grad Nora Algahaim. They interviewed each other — on the one night the campers had very loud neighbors. They talked about their first camping experience and starting the trip not feeling so well.
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Suzanne McAtee has attended the classes offered through Munson Hospital’s Fruit and Vegetables Prescription Program since they began five years ago.
At 93, she credits the program — through which doctors prescribe diet education as a treatment for chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure — with helping her manage her health.
“I have stage-five kidney disease. My next step is dialysis,” McAtee said. “I have controlled this through my diet, which is very important to me, and that’s the other reason I pay particular attention to everything I eat.”
Come month’s end, the class may not exist.
The class is led for free by educators who are part of the federally funded SNAP-Education program, which partners with more than 33,000 organizations nationwide to promote healthy eating, physical activity, and better food access. In Michigan, two agencies — Michigan State University Extension and the Michigan Fitness Foundation — operate SNAP-Ed programs in places such as schools, senior centers, and food pantries.
Funding cuts
Congress slashed funding for SNAP-Ed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act earlier this year. More than 120 MSU Extension health educators will lose their jobs across Michigan this month, and the Michigan Fitness Foundation is in the process of sunsetting some of its programs into next year.
Sarah Eichberger, a Traverse City SNAP-Ed educator, disagreed that that was proof SNAP-Ed programs failed. Rather, she said, that highlights how large the American health crisis really is.
“How can you now say one underfunded federal nutrition program is responsible for not making our entire country healthy?” Eichberger said. “We live in a country where there are systems and structures that prevent people from being healthy.”
Michigan’s share of the SNAP-Ed budget
Of the SNAP-Ed budget — $536 million in fiscal year 2025 — Michigan received $27 million and relied on that funding more than any other state of its size — with only California, New York and Pennsylvania receiving more funding.
Much of the work done by SNAP-Ed, according to Eichberger, is behind the scenes, like securing grants for its 1,000 community partners. Those partnerships allowed the program to stretch its budget further and reach more people.
How can you now say one underfunded federal nutrition program is responsible for not making our entire country healthy? We live in a country where there are systems and structures that prevent people from being healthy.
—SNAP-Ed educator Sarah Eichberger
Two years ago, Eichberger helped launch a program to deliver boxes of locally grown fruits and vegetables to daycares across 32 counties. That initiative, made possible through outside grants, relied on the network of SNAP-Ed staff working directly with child care providers to offer expertise and support.
The loss of SNAP-Ed, Eichberg said, is not just health and nutrition classes going away. It’s the loss of an entire network of people and partnerships working to create healthy systems and programs.
“If you can get people to be healthier, if you can prevent Type 2 diabetes, heart disease… that’s so much more impactful than some of these things the conversation has been moving more towards,” said Eichberger.
Eichberger worries about the long-term effects, especially as fewer people will have access to food stamps and health care coverage.
“Less people are going to be able to access food stamps. There’ll be less access (to) health care coverage,” Eichberger said. “We haven’t fully seen the impact yet… but it will be significant.”
Hopes for new funding
Patti Tibaldi, the project manager for SNAP-Ed at Traverse City Area Public Schools through the Michigan Fitness Foundation, had to let go of four staff members when funding was cut earlier this year. However, she may be able to bring them back if new funding becomes available.
The US Department of Agriculture recently opened a new grant for SNAP-Ed programs, although with reduced funding. The grant is meant to sunset the program, Tibaldi said, and will only last until next summer. Many organizations, Tibaldi said, have chosen not to pursue it.
For now, Tibaldi and the few remaining SNAP-Ed programs are waiting to find out about that USDA grant — and see if they have just one year left.
“We’re going to try to hang in there — whatever little thing we can do to help these families and the kids,” said Tibaldi. “I think it’s very shortsighted to lose the focus on how important it is for kids and families to learn healthy habits.”
This reporting is made possible by the Northern Michigan Journalism Collaborative, a project led by Interlochen Public Radio and Bridge Michigan, and funded by Press Forward Northern Michigan.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Republican Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s top public schools official who lauded President Donald Trump, pledged to put a Turning Point USA chapter in every high school to honor Charlie Kirk and end what he called “wokeness” in public schools, is resigning to lead a conservative educators’ group.
Walters, 40, said Wednesday night on Fox News that he is stepping down as state superintendent of public instruction to become the CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit that says it assists educators “in their mission to develop free, moral, and upright American citizens.”
“We’re going to destroy the teachers unions,” Walters said on Fox. “We have seen the teachers unions use money and power to corrupt our schools, to undermine our schools.”
Walters has leaned into culture-war politics and sought to infuse religion into classroom instruction, including a mandate that public schoolteachers incorporate the Bible into lesson plans for children in grades 5 though 12.
He has also tried to require social studies teachers to promote conspiracies about the 2020 election, track the immigration status of children in schools and require applicants for teacher jobs coming from California and New York to pass an exam designed to safeguard what he described as “radical leftist ideology.” Many of his efforts have led to lawsuits against him and the agency, even as Oklahoma’s national ranking in several education metrics has continued to decline.
Just Tuesday, Walters announced that Oklahoma high schools will have Turning Point USA chapters. He said parents, teachers and students “want their young people to be engaged in a process that understands free speech, open engagement, dialogue about American greatness, a dialogue around American values.”
Kirk founded the organization to mobilize young, Christian conservatives. It has seen a massive surge in interest and support since the activist’s assassination on Sept. 10.
Walters, a former teacher, was elected to the superintendent’s job. He had served as Oklahoma Secretary of Education from September 2020 to April 2023. He was appointed to that position by Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Ever since then, “we have witnessed a stream of never-ending scandal and political drama,” Oklahoma Attorney General Genter Drummond said in a statement.
“It’s time for a State Superintendent of Public Instruction who will actually focus on quality instruction in our public schools,” Drummond, a Republican and candidate for governor in 2026, said.
FILE – Ryan Walters, Republican candidate for Oklahoma State Superintendent, speaks at a rally, Nov. 1, 2022, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
Detroit has a new coalition fighting for its creative future.
The Detroit Partnership for Arts Education is a cross-sector coalition, supported by Detroit public schools, health leaders, philanthropists and artists. Its mission is to connect more young people with music, media, and the arts.
The initiative is employing a three-prong approach meant to connect students with arts programs with an online navigator, set a vision and benchmarks for arts education in Detroit, and gather data to support a well-funded and accountable system.
A number of leaders in the arts in Detroit are joining the partnership.
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The group Dearborn Wants Wards has been pushing for districted elections in Dearborn. The measure is now officially on the ballot as Proposal 1 in the general election in November.
Mona Mawari is a community organizer for the Dearborn Wants Wards. She says the group had to go to court after submitting more than 8,000 signatures for the petition.
“To ensure that the the proposal was going to be on the ballot in November, we had followed up with the city multiple times and weren’t getting a clear answer and a clear response.”
Mawari says Dearborn Wants Wards volunteers are campaigning door-to-door and organizing town halls and phone banks to spread the word about the measure. The group says districted elections would provide better representation for the city’s east and south sides.
Additional headlines from Monday, August 22, 2025
Neighborhood Business Lab
ProsperUs Detroit and the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services or ACCESS are hosting a Neighborhood Business Lab in October. The team will provide business insights to area residents.
The neighborhood lab takes place in two time slots: on October 1st from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. OR 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the ACCESS Hamtramck office, 9301 Joseph Campau Avenue in Hamtramck.
Light refreshments will be provided.
Dearborn’s Esper Library to be Children’s Exploration and STEAM center
Dearborn is creating a state-of-the-art children’s Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics or STEAM Center. It will be located at the city’s Esper Library at 12929 Warren Avenue.
The library will offer robotics, music, art, and engineering activities. It will also include hands-on STEAM discovery zones, technology and a podcast studio.
Construction began this past weekend.
Detroit Fire Dept. Appoints Jamal Mickles as chief
Detroit Executive Fire Commissioner Chuck Simms, has appointed Captain Jamal Mickles as the Chief of the Detroit Fire Department Training Division.
Mickles has 20 years of experience. He began his work with the department through the DFD’s Fire Cadet Program. He was assigned to Engine 51, later serving at Engine 57, Ladder 14, Ladder 26 and the Fire Investigation Division, before becoming a fire instructor and training leader.
Mickles served as a Lieutenant at the academy, overseeing the firefight apprenticeship program which gives Detroiters a pathway to a career in public safety. He also rebuilt the Regional Training Center gym which was used to train more than 200 firefighters across Michigan. Last year as captain, Mickles launched the DFD Paramedic Training Program to train firefighters to deliver advanced pre-hospital medical care.
He is replacing Chief Alfie Green, who retired after 34 years with the Detroit Fire Department.
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Wayne State University President Kimberly Espy is resigning. That’s according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Espy has reportedly been under pressure from the school’s board of governors to step down. In recent weeks, there’s been criticism about the unexplained decision to place the dean of Wayne State’s Medical School on leave.
A story by the Detroit News says the Interim Med School Dean resigned because his appointment did not follow proper channels. Espy was also criticized for not fully engaging in the Detroit community. She did not appear at an event on campus earlier this week to announce a program to make it easier for DPSCD high school students to attend Wayne State. Espy became the President of the university in August 2023.
A Wayne State Board of Governors’ meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 17 at 5 p.m.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is ending several grant programs reserved for colleges that have large numbers of minority students, saying they amount to illegal discrimination by tying federal money to racial quotas.
In a shift upending decades of precedent, the Education Department said Wednesday it now believes it’s unconstitutional to award federal grants using eligibility requirements based on racial or ethnic enrollment levels. The agency said it’s holding back a total of $350 million in grants budgeted for this year and called on Congress to “reenvision” the programs for future years.
More than $250 million of that figure was budgeted for the government’s Hispanic-Serving Institution program, which offers grants to colleges and universities where at least a quarter of undergraduates are Hispanic. Congress created the program in 1998 after finding that Latino students were going to college and graduating at far lower rates than white students.
Several smaller programs are also being cut, including $22 million for schools where at least 40% of students are Black, along with programs reserved for schools with certain enrollment levels of Asian American, Pacific Islander or Native American students. The programs have traditionally received bipartisan support in Congress and were created to address longstanding racial disparities in education.
Not included in the cuts is federal funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which are open to all students regardless of race.
“Diversity is not merely the presence of a skin color,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement Wednesday. “Stereotyping an individual based on immutable characteristics diminishes the full picture of that person’s life and contributions, including their character, resiliency, and merit.”
McMahon added that she aims to work with Congress to repurpose the funding for institutions that serve “underprepared or under-resourced” students without using quotas. She did not elaborate on plans to repurpose the $350 million.
The government’s grants for Hispanic-Serving Institutions are being challenged in a federal lawsuit brought by the state of Tennessee and the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions. Tennessee argues that all of its public universities serve Hispanic students, but none meet the “arbitrary ethnic threshold” to be eligible for the grants.
The Justice Department declined to defend the grants in the lawsuit, saying in a July memo that the 25% enrollment requirement violates the Constitution.
In court filings, a national association of Hispanic-Serving Institutions said the grants are legal and help put its members on an even playing field.
More than 500 colleges and universities are designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions, making them eligible for the grants. It includes flagship campuses like the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Arizona, along with many community colleges and smaller institutions.
The new cuts drew backlash from Democrats in Congress.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Trump is “putting politics ahead of students simply looking to get ahead.” She drew attention to the government’s current funding bill, a stopgap measure passed in March that gives the administration more flexibility to redirect federal funding.
“This is another important reminder of why Congress needs to pass funding bills, like the one the Senate marked up this summer, that ensure Congress — not Donald Trump or Linda McMahon — decides how limited taxpayer dollars are spent,” Murray said in a statement.
The Education Department said it will still release about $132 million for similar grant programs that are considered mandatory, meaning their levels are dictated by existing laws. Even so, the department said it “continues to consider the underlying legal issues associated with the mandatory funding mechanism in these programs.”
Former President Joe Biden made Hispanic universities a priority, signing an executive action last year that promised a new presidential advisory board and increased funding. President Donald Trump revoked the order on his first day back in office earlier this year.
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
FILE – Pedestrians cross University Ave on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., July 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is visiting Renaissance High School in Detroit on Monday, raising alarms among teachers who say the Trump administration’s education agenda threatens the future of public schools. McMahon, the former World Wrestling Entertainment executive whom President Donald Trump tasked with dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, is on a 50-state […]
A Detroit Montessori school is asking a Wayne County judge to immediately halt construction of a Chick-fil-A restaurant next door, arguing developers violated zoning laws and endangered children by building just feet from its playground. The Giving Tree Montessori, which serves 116 children from infancy through kindergarten, filed an emergency motion last week, accusing Verus […]
A Jewish children’s author and public school teacher has filed a lawsuit accusing Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit and Lake Orion Community Schools of violating her civil rights and misusing taxpayer dollars by forcing her to teach religion under a state-funded program intended for secular instruction. The case, brought by Lisa Rose in Oakland […]
CHICAGO (AP) — When Elizabeth Rivera’s phone would ring during the overnight shift, it was usually because the bus didn’t show up again and one of her three kids needed a ride to school.
After leaving early from her job at a Houston-area Amazon warehouse several times, Rivera was devastated — but not surprised — when she was fired.
“Right now, I’m kind of depressed about it,” said Rivera, 42. “I’m depressed because of the simple fact that it’s kind of hard to find a job, and there’s bills I have to pay. But at the same time, the kids have to go to school.”
Rivera is far from the only parent forced to choose between their job and their kids’ education, according to a new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and HopSkipDrive, a company that relies on artificial intelligence and a network of drivers using their own vehicles to help school districts address transportation challenges.
Most parents drive their children to school, the survey found, and those responsibilities can have a major impact.
About one-third of parents say taking their kids to school has caused them to miss work, according to the poll. Roughly 3 in 10 say they’ve been prevented from seeking or taking work opportunities. And 11% say school transportation has even caused them to lose a job.
Mothers are especially likely to say school transportation needs have interfered with their jobs and opportunities.
Around 4 in 10 parents with a household income below $100,000 a year said they’ve missed work due to pick-up needs, compared with around 3 in 10 parents with a household income of $100,000 or more.
Meredyth Saieed and her two children, ages 7 and 10, used to live in a homeless shelter in North Carolina. Saieed said the kids’ father has been incarcerated since May.
Although the family qualified for government-paid transportation to school, Saieed said the kids would arrive far too early or leave too late under that system. So, she decided to drop them off and pick them up herself.
She had been working double shifts as a bartender and server at a French restaurant in Wilmington but lost that job due to repeatedly missing the dinner rush for pickups.
“Sometimes when you’ve got kids and you don’t have a village, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” said Saieed, 30. “As a mom, you just find a way around it.”
The latest obstacle: a broken-down car. She couldn’t afford to repair it, so she sold it to a junk yard. She’s hoping this year the school will offer transportation that works better for her family.
Not all kids have access to a school bus
Although about half of parents living in rural areas and small towns say their kids still take a bus to school, that fell to about one-third of parents in urban areas.
A separate AP-NORC/HopSkipDrive survey of school administrators found that nearly half said school bus driver shortages were a “major problem” in their district.
Some school systems don’t offer bus service. In other cases, the available options don’t work for families.
The community in Long Island, New York, where police Officer Dorothy Criscuolo’s two children attend school provides bus service, but she doesn’t want them riding it because they’ve been diagnosed as neurodivergent.
“I can’t have my kids on a bus for 45 minutes, with all the screaming and yelling, and then expect them to be OK once they get to school, be regulated and learn,” said Criscuolo, 49. “I think it’s impossible.”
So Criscuolo drops them off, and her wife picks them up. It doesn’t interfere much with their work, but it does get in the way of Criscuolo’s sleep. Because her typical shift is 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and her children start at different times at different schools, it’s not uncommon for her to get only three hours of sleep a day during the school year.
The transportation burden falls heavier on moms
Mothers are most often the ones driving their children to and from school, with 68% saying they typically take on this task, compared with 57% of fathers.
Most mothers, 55%, say they have missed work, have lost jobs or were kept from personal or professional opportunities because of school transportation needs, compared with 45% of dads.
Syrina Franklin says she didn’t have a choice. The father of her two high school-age children is deceased, so she has to take them and a 5-year-old grandson to different schools on Chicago’s South Side.
After she was late to work more than 10 times, she lost her job as a mail sorter at the post office and turned to driving for Uber and Instacart to make ends meet.
“Most of the kids, they have people that help out with dropping them off and picking them up,” said Franklin, 41. “They have their father, a grandmother, somebody in the family helps.”
When both parents are able to pitch in, school pickup and drop-off duties can be easier.
Computer programmer Jonathan Heiner takes his three kids to school in Bellbrook, Ohio, and his wife picks them up.
“We are definitely highly privileged because of the fact that I have a very flexible job and she’s a teacher, so she gets off when school gets out,” said Heiner, 45. “Not a lot of people have that.”
Roughly 4 in 10 parents said getting their kids to school would be “much easier” or “somewhat easier” if there were more school bus routes, school-arranged transportation services or improved pedestrian and bike infrastructure near school. Around a third cited a desire for earlier or later start times, or centralized pick-up and drop-off locations for school buses.
Joanna McFarland, the CEO and co-founder of HopSkipDrive, said districts need to reclaim the responsibility of making sure students have a ride to school.
“I don’t think the way to solve this is to ask parents to look for innovative ideas,” McFarland said. “I think we really need to come up with innovative ideas systematically and institutionally.”
In Houston, Rivera is waiting on a background check for another job. In the meantime, she’s found a new solution for her family’s school transportation needs.
Her 25-year-old daughter, who still works at Amazon on a day shift, has moved back into the home and is handling drop-offs for her three younger siblings.
“It’s going very well,” Rivera said.
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The AP-NORC poll of 838 U.S. adults who are parents of school-age children was conducted June 30-July 11, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.
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Sanders reported from Washington.
FILE – School buses are lined up in a storage lot, Aug. 14, 2025, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
Detroit’s schools are still recovering from the deep wounds of systemic neglect. Redlining, segregation, and a crash in city revenue starved schools of resources. Meanwhile, state funding for Detroit continues to lag behind wealthier districts.
Over the years, control of Detroit schools has taken many turns that have added to the trauma.
First, it was mayoral control, and later, state‑appointed emergency managers. These interventions were supposed to help, but they often made things worse.
Through it all, poverty has entrenched itself in the households of many Detroit students. Housing instability, unreliable transportation, and inaccessible healthcare have added trauma on top of trauma. And then came the pandemic, erasing precious early learning time.
But like the city itself, Detroit schools have been slowly, steadily rising. The latest glimmer is the new M‑STEP results, which show Detroit public school students largely making steady incremental improvements in math and English.
A Chalkbeat Detroit analysis of Michigan’s 2024-25 standardized tests puts the results into deeper context, showing Detroit’s third‑graders reading at their best level in over a decade.
Still, only about 13% of DPSCD third graders reached reading proficiency, that’s compared to nearly 39% statewide.
So what do these modest gains really mean, and how long can they last?
Dr. Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District, joined Robyn Vincent to answer these questions.
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Longtime Detroit businessman and youth advocate Ed Deeb has died. The Michigan Youth Appreciation Foundation says the founder of Metro Detroit Youth Day passed away at home on Sept. 2, 2025. He was 89.
WDET’s Pat Batcheller was there when the Michigan Department of Natural Resources honored Deeb in 2018. Here’s Pat’s report.
The following story was originally published July 11, 2018.
Ed Deeb’s legacy lives on
Tensions were high in Detroit when a grocery store owner and two teenagers were killed in 1980. Then-Detroit Mayor Coleman Young called business leaders into his office, and challenged them to do something to keep young people out of trouble and ease the problems between retailers and the city’s youth. Ed Deeb was in that meeting. He founded the Michigan Food and Beverage Association. Deeb accepted Young’s challenge, and organized an event on Belle Isle. Since then, Metro Detroit Youth Day has become an annual rite of summer for thousands of kids across the city and the region. Deeb, who coached football at Eastern High School, says Belle Isle was a natural choice.
Pat Batcheller
“We didn’t have a practice field for football. We came here to practice,” Deeb says. “So when they said, ‘where are we going to have this event?’, I said, ‘well, the only thing I could think of is the athletic field at Belle Isle. Nobody’s using it, and we practice there’—so we got the permission to have our first one there, and we did.”
Deeb was disappointed with the turnout for the first Youth Day, which drew about 1,200 people and a few local celebrities. It’s where a young Bruce Ross met his idol, Detroit LionsHall of Famer Lem Barney. But Ross says Barney didn’t talk to him about football. Instead, he had message for Ross.
“You need to go to college. Make something of yourself,” Ross recalls. “So, Metro Detroit Youth Day has been more than just a fun event, it’s been an event that has reached out to me, have a college education.”
Ross earned his degree from Wayne State University and now works with Ed Deeb as a Youth Day board member. Education is a key component of Youth Day, which has presented more than 2,000 scholarships to young Metro Detroiters since its inception.
Pat Batcheller
Bruce Ross watched as city and state officials honored Deeb on July 6, 2018. From now on, Vista Avenue will be known as Edward Deeb Avenue. A new, bright blue sign bearing Deeb’s name now overlooks the athletic fields where the event has been held from the beginning. Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones says it’s a fitting tribute.
“And he can know that he has been appreciated, is still appreciated,” Jones says.
Ed Deeb says he expects the 2018 Metro Detroit Youth Day to attract about 40,000 people to Belle Isle,which is now a state park managed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Deeb says he’s noticed the difference the DNR has made working with the Belle Isle Conservancy to improve the island for everyone.
“What they’ve done and what the conservancy has done,” Deeb says. “This is a new Belle Isle, and it’s going to get better than ever, and I’m just pleased to be part of it.”
Edward Deeb Avenue ensures he’ll be a part of Belle Isle for this Youth Day and many more to come.
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WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge in Boston on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to reverse its cuts of more than $2.6 billion in research funding for Harvard University, delivering a significant victory to the Ivy League school in its battle with the White House.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled the cuts amounted to illegal retaliation for Harvard’s rejection of the Trump administration’s demands for changes to Harvard’s governance and policies.
The government had tied the funding freezes to Harvard’s delays in dealing with antisemitism, but the judge said the university’s federally backed research had little connection to discrimination against Jews. “A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that (the government) used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities,” Burroughs wrote. The country must fight antisemitism, she wrote, but it also must protect the right to free speech.
The ruling reverses a series of funding freezes that later became outright cuts as the Trump administration escalated its fight with the nation’s wealthiest university. The administration also has sought to prevent the school from hosting foreign students and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status in a clash watched widely across higher education.
The restoration of federal money would revive Harvard’s sprawling research operation and hundreds of projects that sustained cuts. But whether Harvard actually receives the federal money remains to be seen. The government plans an immediate appeal, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said in a statement, calling Burroughs an “activist Obama-appointed judge.”
“To any fair-minded observer, it is clear that Harvard University failed to protect their students from harassment and allowed discrimination to plague their campus for years,” Huston said. “Harvard does not have a constitutional right to taxpayer dollars.”
Harvard’s research scientists said they had been watching the case closely, but feared their funding would not be restored anytime soon.
“Many of us are worried that the federal government is going to appeal this decision or find other ways to obstruct the delivery of research dollars, despite the judge’s clear statement that the funding terminations were illegal,” said Rita Hamad, director of a center that researches the impact of social policies on health.
Beyond the courthouse, the Trump administration and Harvard officials have been discussing a potential agreement that would end investigations and allow the university to regain access to federal funding. President Donald Trump has said he wants Harvard to pay no less than $500 million, but no deal has materialized, even as the administration has struck agreements with Columbia and Brown.
Wednesday’s federal court ruling should embolden Harvard’s administration, said historian Kirsten Weld, president of Harvard’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which also prevailed in a lawsuit over the funding cuts. “We hope this decision makes clear to Harvard’s administration that bargaining the Harvard community’s rights away in a compromise with the government is unacceptable,” Weld said.
Harvard’s lawsuit accused the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university after it rejected a series of demands in an April 11 letter from a federal antisemitism task force.
The letter demanded sweeping changes related to campus protests, academics and admissions. It was meant to address government accusations that the university had become a hotbed of liberalism and tolerated anti-Jewish harassment on campus.
Harvard President Alan Garber pledged to fight antisemitism. But, he said, no government “should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
Trump officials moved to freeze $2.2 billion in research grants the same day Harvard rejected the administration’s demands. Education Secretary Linda McMahon declared in May that Harvard would no longer be eligible for new grants, and weeks later, the administration began canceling contracts with Harvard.
As Harvard fought the funding freeze in court, individual agencies began sending letters announcing that the frozen research grants were being terminated under a clause allowing grants to be scrapped if they no longer align with government policies. Harvard has moved to self-fund some of its research but warned it can’t absorb the full cost of the federal cuts.
The judge’s order reverses all of Harvard’s federal funding freezes and cuts since April 14, and it bars the government from future cuts that violate Harvard’s constitutional rights or run afoul of federal law.
Burroughs sided with the university’s argument that the cuts amounted to retaliation in violation of its First Amendment rights and that the government put unconstitutional conditions on Harvard’s federal money.
“As pertains to this case, it is important to recognize and remember that if speech can be curtailed in the name of the Jewish people today, then just as easily the speech of the Jews (and anyone else) can be curtailed when the political winds change direction,” the judge wrote.
Burroughs also agreed with Harvard’s claim that the government failed to follow steps prescribed by Congress to cut federal money under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, a federal law that forbids discrimination in education.
The Trump administration denied the cuts were made in retaliation, saying the grants were under review even before the April demand letter was sent. It argues the government has wide discretion to cancel contracts for policy reasons.
“It is the policy of the United States under the Trump Administration not to fund institutions that fail to adequately address antisemitism in their programs,” it said in court documents.
In a separate lawsuit filed by Harvard, Burroughs previously blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent the school from hosting international students.
Binkley reported from Washington, D.C. AP reporter Aamer Madhani contributed from Washington.
FILE – This Nov. 13, 2008 file photo shows the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole, File)
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This reporting is made possible by the Northern Michigan Journalism Collaborative, a project led by Interlochen Public Radio and Bridge Michigan, and funded by Press Forward Northern Michigan.
