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The asking price for bonds has doubled in 24 years, but even with increased spending, academic performance has not improved.
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Michigan taxpayers are refusing to issue more school bonds than they did at the beginning of this century, when average debt demands were less than half their current levels.
The average school bond request increased from $21.7 million in 2000 to $44.6 million in 2024.
School districts typically request about 40 to 60 bonds a year, according to a confidential Michigan Statehouse review of state websites that have tracked school bonds since 1996.
Michigan schools have asked voters to approve 60 school bonds so far this year. Voters approved 29 and rejected 32. Voters are scheduled to decide on 22 more school bond questions on November 5, 2024, with an average request amount of $40 million.
In 2020, schools asked voters to approve 61 school bonds. Of those, 48 passed and 13 failed, giving the school officials a 78% pass rate. The average school bond request at the time was $40.6 million.
In 2013, the school solicited 43 bond offers, with an average request amount of $16 million. Of those, voters approved 32, averaging $17 million. Eleven were rejected, with an average amount of $14 million.
In 2004, voters approved 45 school bonds and rejected 28 bonds with an average request amount of $34 million.
Macomb Township Treasurer Leon Drolet told Michigan Capital Confidential there are several reasons why bonds are failing more often than before. Absentee voting allows groups opposed to school bonds to track and oppose the policy by mailing pamphlets to voters the same day they receive their ballots.
“A growing percentage of people think schools are becoming more partisan, too,” Dore said in a phone interview. “Twenty years ago, people may have perceived schools as neutral entities that educated children…Through social media and other mechanisms, many people realized that schools were I think I’ve come to believe that it’s consistent with a left-leaning worldview.”
Michigan schools will receive $5.6 billion in coronavirus funds to try to maintain spending levels that have skyrocketed since the turn of the century.
In the 2000-2001 school year, spending in Michigan’s School Aid Fund amounted to $10.8 billion. Spending more than doubled to $21 billion by fiscal year 2023-24, according to the nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency.
As Michigan’s enrollment declines due to a decline in birth rates, school spending is also increasing. According to data from the Michigan Department of Education, more than 1.6 million students were enrolled in school in 2010, and more than 1.3 million students were enrolled in school in 2024.
Mischooldata.org
Although funding is increasing, academic performance is declining.
In Detroit, 90% of students in public elementary and middle schools are not proficient or only partially proficient in English, said Molly Macek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Only 5% of eighth graders are good at math.
