Our origin story
Michigan Parents for Schools was founded by a group of public school parents who wanted to know why their children’s schools were always cutting their budgets and wanted to know what they, as parents, could do about it.
Why can’t we?
Imagine, if you will, a PTO or PTA meeting in an elementary school library. The next item on the agenda is planning the fundraisers scheduled for the school year. A conversation ensues:
New parent: Why do we have to have all these fundraisers? Do we really have to keep on selling wrapping paper/pizza kits/holiday candles/whatever?
Weary, experienced parent: Well, the funds we raise are important. They help purchase supplies for our teachers and the school office, some musical instruments and art supplies, and some special enrichment activities.
New parent: But, why doesn’t the school district pay for this stuff?
Weary parent: They used to, but over the last decade or so they have had to keep cutting their spending to have a balanced budget. A lot of things that weren’t essential went by the wayside. So, parent groups like ours have tried to fill the gap by raising money, if we can. We’re lucky here - not every school can do this.
New parent: Ok, but if the schools need money, why can’t we just raise taxes? I mean, our community loves our schools and surely we’d be willing to chip in more.
Weary parent: Well, we can’t. Thanks to the way school funding works in Michigan, we’re not allowed to raise taxes locally to run our schools.
New parent: What?! So where does the money come from and who decides how much we get?
Weary parent: Every year, the state legislature decides how much money we get per student. Our local school board can only figure out how to make do with what we’re given.
New parent: So why doesn’t the legislature give us enough money?
Weary parent: Well, that’s a long story….
So a group of parents decided to dig into their local school district’s budget problems, and pretty soon it was clear that the real problem was in Lansing. They knew that they had to bring together parents from around the state if they were going to change things in the state Capitol. And so Michigan Parents for Schools was born in 2007.
Why is this so hard?
Michigan’s school funding system is complicated and opaque. You have to have a lot of patience and a strong stomach to really understand how the system works — and does not work. Then you have to figure out where changes might be made, and who you should talk with to make something happen. This process is hard for regular citizens to navigate, and that’s partly on purpose.
So at MIPFS we decided on a three part mission:
- To help give parents from across the state an effective voice in Lansing;
- To inform and organize parents so that they can mobilize their local communities;
- And to change the way people think about public schools.
Changing the frame
For a long time, we’ve been encouraged to see public schools as wasteful government programs that consume our tax dollars and fail our kids. In reality, our public schools are the tool we use to invest in our children and our communities. Nearly all parents like their own schools and teachers; we’ve been tricked into believing that it’s all the other schools that are wasteful and failing. In reality, the professionals in all our schools are caring and committed people who are doing their best in a difficult environment. Requirements and performance metrics keep changing, standardized tests replaced deep learning as the goal, and money is always running short. More and more students come to school carrying burdens that make it hard to learn. Others have special needs that require extra resources which are increasingly scarce. Class sizes have grown, making it hard for all students to learn. And the policy “reforms” usually undermine our local public schools instead of strengthening them.