Tax The Rich To Fund Schools?

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 05/30/2025) (ARTICLE EDITED, 3:08 p.m. 6/6/25) – A broad coalition of education groups are coming together with a ballot proposal designed to raise taxes on the state's wealthier residents and divert as much as an estimated $4 billion in new revenue to schools.

The Michigan Parents, Advocates, Attorneys Coalition is among the 30-some groups that are a part of the Michigan Education Justice Coalition (MEJC), which is seeking an ambitious petition drive. The American Federation of Teachers and its Detroit local is on board, as is Mothering Justice and a group known as Red, Wine and Blue Michigan.

While the initiative is designed to raise a yet-to-be-determined amount money, the MEJC's own page says its vision is to raise $4 billion additional for schools.

The MEJC's vision also includes eliminating “count days,” those specific days out of the year where the state takes the student population of each district and bases their per-pupil funding on that number. The coalition also wants salaries for teachers, money earmarked for "emotional health services, and the elimination of suspensions and expulsions in schools replaced with peer-lead practices. Standardized testing would also be wiped out.

Students would be eligible to run for a local school board, and the long-term objective is to remove from  the system "racism, oppression, and trauma."

Whether any, some or none of these ideas make it to the ballot has not yet been announced.

Bridge Michigan reported this week that the goal of organizers is to get petition language approved by the Board of State Canvassers in June, so signatures can be collected for a fall 2026 ballot proposal.