Michigan Department of Education

What’s the public school ROI? Should the state offer transitional kindergarten? Why do eligible college students leave financial aid on the table? The Education Policy Initiative's Michigan Education Data Center helps us understand what work–and why–...

Catch up with Fordies and learn about recent accomplishments, moves, and babies!

The Youth Policy Lab evaluated the effectiveness of Michigan's Project AWARE in improving mental health infrastructure in public schools, especially in rural communities

As the federal government appears poised to pull back on collecting and disseminating educational data, it’s increasingly critical that information collected and maintained by states and local districts is available to inform policy, according to a p...

One of Michigan's largest financial aid programs offers great promise in boosting college affordability as well as the number of college graduates—with room to reach many more who qualify for it.

In partnership with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), a team of researchers from the Ford School will conduct a study into how Michigan’s education governance system can be improved for the benefit of public school students. “An effective s...

A new $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education will improve Michigan’s statewide longitudinal data system, the go-to source for critical education data going to researchers and other stakeholders in Michigan and nationwide. The grant wa...

A recent study conducted by the Wayne State University College of Education’s Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research (Detroit PEER) found that students experiencing homelessness and housing instability are severely under-identified by De...

Expanding access to high-quality early education has been a bipartisan goal of Michigan policymakers for at least a decade.  New findings by the University of Michigan Education Policy Initiative provide the first systematic description of transi...

The state of Michigan’s Tuition Incentive Program (TIP) has a unique structure that distinguishes it from other state need-based financial aid programs. Currently funding some 25,000 students annually, the program is a “first-dollar" scholarship that...

Increased investment in public schools pays off through reductions in adult crime, a new Education Policy Initiative brief shows. The working paper, “Public School Funding, School Quality, and Adult Crime,” authored by E. Jason Baron, Joshua Hyman, a...

After all of the disruption in Michigan schools since the COVID-19 pandemic began – establishing remote learning curricula and the technical infrastructure needed to maintain it, lack of socialization among students, conflicts between school boards, ...

High school-aged youth who are homeless report higher rates of attempted suicide, prescription drug misuse, pregnancy and being forced to have sex.  Transgender youth are especially at risk of experiencing homelessness and being estranged from a ...

Improving literacy outcomes for children is critical to students’ academic success as well as their career and life outcomes. Michigan's Top 10 Strategic Education Plan (SEP) aims to provide focused direction to Michigan's education community in supp...

Access to early education programs have been shown for decades to improve the educational prospects for children in kindergarten and beyond. A new type of early education program widespread in Michigan and California—transitional kindergarten (TK)—ha...

Does waiting a year to start kindergarten lead to better academic outcomes? How does participation in summer youth employment impact high school graduation and college enrollment? What career pathways are students pursuing? Researchers from aroun...

The launch of a new research collaboration and a data center at the University of Michigan marks the start of a unique collaboration between U-M, Michigan State University, the Michigan Department of Education and the Center for Educational Performan...

A new study by the University of Michigan’s Education Policy Initiative (EPI) shows Michigan’s charter schools follow similar practices as the traditional public schools that their students would otherwise attend. At a time when one of the major forc...

Over the past year, significant new research and post-doctoral training grants added to the already active slate of education policy initiatives underway at the Ford School. In May, Susan M. Dynarski and Brian A. Jacob received a $250,000 grant fr...