WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Susannah Barnes Petitt: Michigan’s Pre-K Expansion Is Failing—Here’s Why

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

Despite massive funding increases, Michigan’s state-run Pre-K program isn’t attracting enough students. Could expanding community-based options and giving parents more flexibility be the real solution?Susannah Barnes Petitt—a research program manager and a Young Voices Contributor—analyzes why Michigan’s Pre-K system is struggling to enroll students and what policymakers can do about it in her latest op-ed for The Detroit News.She joins Skye Graham on WRFH to discuss.

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Sky Graham, and with me today is Susanna Barnes-Petit. She is a social mobility fellow with young voices and a policy manager in the Washington, D.C. area. She is here today to talk about her recent article for the Detroit News called Michigan's pre-K promise can do more to reach families, where she outlines the problems and then some potential solutions to a lack of students enrolling in Michigan's public pre-K education. So my first question then is, what is the state of pre-K in Michigan? Yeah, great question. Thanks for having me on Sky. The state of pre-K education in Michigan is actually quite good. We have a great set of universal pre-K programs that have really good outcomes for students. We're hitting all the education benchmarks set by the accreditation agencies for

for pre-K programs that are state-run. The problem is, is that these programs aren't meeting the needs of families who maybe don't want to send their children to public preschools. So children who maybe are interested in religious-based or nature-based programs. And so we see a gap of about 14,000 open seats in Michigan that could be filled by better meeting the needs of those who would rather send their kids to kind of a more unique program than what's currently being offered. There's been a lot of discussion and debate in the public recently about the voucher system for private schools that allow underprivileged families to access private education. So would you say that that is a viable option or should we be more focused on improving Michigan's

public education system? Or is there a better option than both of those? So I think there's kind of two ways that you could take this, right? And I think you outlined them well. It's like you have the voucher system or improvements to make public school better. If you're interested in doing, like in trying to make the public school more comprehensive, there are currently about 30% of seats in Michigan's universal pre-K programs are allocated to community-based organizations, which are those parochial, Montessori, nature-based programs that,

I talked about earlier. And so one way that you could better reach families is to expand the amount of seats that are allocated towards these CBOs. Another way that you could improve public preschool in Michigan is to, as you said, give them as vouchers to families. So instead of giving money directly to the schools, money would go to the parents and they could choose how to use it as they say fit. It's not wrong that Michigan wants to support improving education outcomes for students.

There's a lot of education disparities in Michigan. It's just the question is, is the money better suited going to schools or to parents? Would you say that it's necessarily a problem or a bad negative thing that parents are deciding to opt out of the Michigan public pre-K system in favor of a more private or Montessori-based education for their children? So it's not a problem that they're choosing private options. The problem, I mean, that parents are making that decision, the difficulty is that Gretchen Whitmer has a goal to reach 75% enrollment within the next few years. And that's just not going to be attainable with the current numbers that we have. So if we hope to attain the level of universality, which is, as I said, 70 to 75%, we will need, there will, Michigan will need to do something to better reach families. And so one option would be to expand those public programs.

And so it's not that it's bad that they're enrolling in private programs or nature-based monosurie-based. It's more that those decisions are flying in the face of the goal of 75% of Michigan's four-year-olds enrolled in a public program. So for those who might not necessarily be aware, what do those nature-based monosory-based programs entail? and why might parents be gravitating towards them at this particular moment? So a nature-based preschool might have, you know, a lot of it is done outside. So there's a nature base. I'm from Michigan. There's a nature-based program in my hometown at a nature center.

And they go out there and focus primarily on learning kind of science through nature. So they're interested in how, you know, how they can go outside and learn from being, in nature and the monastery programs are a lot more student-led. So students are the ones making the decisions about their education, even from the age of four. So parents might be interested in these sorts of alternative programs because of what they value. Could any, could parents do something individually themselves rather than, you know, waiting for the government to do something? Because there is, like you said, a lot of hold up in the government actually following throughout. on their promises. Could parents do something right now to solve this? So the unique problem is that,

you know, as I mentioned, trying to reach that 75% goal that Gretchen Whitmer has set. But yeah, families in Michigan, there isn't like, there isn't a need for school choice programs because preschool programs are optional in Michigan. So parents already have the freedom to choose where they want to go. The concern that I wrote about in my article is more if we actually want to achieve the goal set out by Gretchen Whitmer, how could we do that? So there's definitely things that parents could do. A lot of the, you know, MyLeep,

so Michigan's education department, has tried really hard to reach these parents, but they are getting kind of resistance because of not wanting their children to go to these specific public-based programs. So parents are kind of already expressing that, even though there's supply, there isn't necessarily demand.

Yeah. So you talked about in the article about community-based organizations such as Gretchen's House, and you said that they're more concentrated in wealthy areas. How does the income wealth disparity play into this issue? Yeah, so one part about that is so I'm from Midland, which is a pretty wealthy town, and there's a lot of these community-based organizations in my hometown. But more poor areas, like the suburbs of Detroit, are less likely to see these types of preschool programs. And so part of that is because there's more families that can afford to send their children to preschool.

So more families can have the ability to send their kids to preschool. And so they demand to go to these kind of more unique niche programs because they can afford it. But not every child has the ability to afford these kind of more specialized programs. And so there is definitely an income angle where, especially in Michigan, where we have really high-level of education disparity when it comes to math and reading levels. Starting in preschool is really important to help close those gaps that are socioeconomic-based. So you said, you mentioned, Michigan has major disparities when it comes to math and reading levels. Is that disparities among classes in Michigan or are we, you know, doing worse better than other states?

How does that play out? We are doing worse compared to other states. So we have achievement gaps. About half of Michigan students of color and about two-thirds of students of color attend schools of black students, excuse me, two-thirds of black students, attend schools in districts with high concentrations of poverty. And then that leads to these lower reading scores, lower math scores that experts are concerned about, including myself. So I believe Michigan ranked about 41st in the country for education. which shows that we are not doing well at meeting the needs of lower income children and children overall.

If the state were to impose some sort of program to meet the needs of these parents, do you think that something like a voucher system would encourage a lot of parents to send their kids to these schools? or would they not end up doing that? Because you were talking about how it's very concentrated in low-income communities and they might not have access to one of these schools around them. Yeah. So I think one of the problems with the current way that we supply education to low-income students in Michigan is that these seats sometimes aren't confirmed until a few weeks before preschool starts.

And data shows that lower income families generally need a bit more time to kind of get things like daycare and order, transportation in order. And so if they find out that a seat in a school that they really would like to go to is open the week before school starts, it's going to be harder for them to be able to actually enroll in that class. So the one value of vouchers is that it gives kind of certainty to parents so they know that they're going to have the money. They can look into classes that they're interested in or into preschool classes that they're interested in. and enroll in them without having to worry about if the funds will be there for their child. So it brings certain to a program that's a little bit uncertain, both for families and teachers. This is Susanna Barnes-Pettit on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Would it be possible for some of those private, community-based organizations

to move into those low-income areas, or is that kind of out of the scope of what we're talking about here? Oh, that's a really good point of clarification. So it's not necessarily that there isn't community-based organizations in low-income neighborhoods. The problem is that the seats with the Great Start Readiness Program, which is universal pre-K for poor four-year-olds in Michigan, those programs in lower-income areas, they don't have GSRP seats. So it's not that there's no private preschools in lower-income areas. it's that they don't have seats dedicated to low-income students who couldn't pay out of pocket. So giving vouchers or adding seats in these CBOs would increase access by removing the tuition barrier that currently exists for low-income families. And then point of clarification, what is a GSRP seat?

Great Start Readiness Program. So that is Gretchen Whitmer's universal pre-K program. So they allocate a certain number of seats to low-income students, you said, correct? Correct. So as I said, it's about 20,000 seats across the country right now, or excuse me, across the state right now. How do they determine who gets those seats? Is it random or is there some sort of decision-making process that goes into that? It's need-based. So it's allocated based on who has the greatest need for those programs. So it's income-based in that way of like someone who is extremely low income, maybe 400% of the poverty or very far below the poverty level would be allocated one of those seats first. And then it's scaled up by income to 400% of the poverty level. I believe it's 400%.

Is the government doing anything right now that you know of or have they done anything recently to try to solve this problem? So I talked to members of MyLeap, so Michigan's Education Department, and they are trying to do kind of more community outreach. And when I spoke to experts and kind of administrators in preschools across the state, they all said that the outreach was good. There wasn't a lot of effort done previously to try and reach low-income families. So I don't think it's that the government doesn't see that there's a problem. I think that their solutions aimed at expanding versus kind of just like adding more seats to the program without considering how we get low-income children in those seats versus just a child in those seats has not been as successful.

So it's great that they're trying to get the message out that there's options for low-income families. But as I said, if there's uncertainty, it's just unfair. And it leads to higher-income children who maybe could have otherwise afforded preschool taking those seats. And how would they kind of sell those seats to those low-income families if they're, you know, concerned about the public school system in Michigan? When you say sell those seats, do you mean like how would they convince the students to enroll in them? Yes. Yeah. So a lot of students are demanding these programs. The administrator of one CBO I talked to said that they're turning people away.

They're turning low-income families away. who are interested in being a part of one of these CBO programs, I think that's, you know, on behalf of the administrators of those schools, right, that they can say, hey, you were interested in this program last semester. We now have more seats available for you versus public campaigns aimed at just kind of expanding access generally. I think more targeted efforts by the schools in the intermediate school districts could go far. So do you think, as of right now, parents in Michigan know what their options? are or does that need to be, does that need to be a priority for the government and for organizations

across the state? I'm actually not sure. I think it's probably mixed. I think those who know about the program probably enroll in the program. And then I do think that there's some people who don't know that they're maybe eligible, especially for those who aren't in the like extreme poverty range, but maybe still can't afford preschool. And so I think some clarification about it's kind of different.

to figure out who's eligible. And so being a lot more explicit about like these are, you know, this is who can attend this program and here is, here are the programs that are open in your city would go far versus just saying, hey, there's universal seeds available. And maybe that's happening. But from my research, I couldn't see these sort of targeted community-based outreach efforts. You did say that the government is trying to increase enrollment. in their pre-K program to 75% correct? I believe 75% yes. So yeah, 70, 75% somewhere around there.

Why do you think they are trying to do that? So that's the benchmark for what is considered a universal pre-K program. So that's kind of the nationally accepted standard that if you have that level, that percentage of students enrolled in preschool, it's considered universal. And so Michigan's trying to reach that level of universal. Is there anything for these public schools right now that maybe the school administrators or the teachers can do to incentivize parents to choose public pre-K? I think one thing is, you know, if you are in an area or you have a student and you know they have a younger sibling, talking to their parent and saying, hey, like, you have Johnny in our kindergarten class.

Do you happen to have a three-year-old who's going to be four later this year? There's a universal pre-k program here that we'd love to help you get plugged into. Just kind of seeing what families need, I think teachers can play a big role in helping families find these pre-K programs that are. available to them. Could public schools start taking a more Montessori nature-based approach in some ways to maybe help those parents who really like that aspect of these private community-based organizations, but also can't afford to send their kids to those organizations? Well, there's nothing that says that they can't. The problem is that Michigan is facing a really big shortage of preschool teachers. And so these public programs are already getting kind of

overflowed. And while teachers are getting, Michigan has been doing a lot to try and boost enrollment in these, or boost teacher retention and recruiting of teachers, it would be difficult for a teacher in a 30 kid classroom to do Montessori tactics, which are very hands-on, very one-on-one instruction. And so in order for public schools to meet that need, there would be need to be a lot more teachers that there just currently is not. So then just explicitly, what policy proposal do you think is the best to remedy this situation in the current moment? I mean, I'm definitely, I lean towards team vouchers. I think that there's value in the parents having certainty about having money and being able to choose where their children go.

I'm very fortunate that I was a product of school choice. And as a very distractible student, a very social student, having a program that catered to that was really valuable for me. And I think that every student should have that opportunity from the age of four on. And just to clarify if anyone's listening and doesn't know what the voucher program is, could you explain kind of what a voucher is,

what it does, how it gives opportunities to parents and students? Yeah, so vouchers are a means of providing school choice that are payments from the government to help parents pay for private schools. So these can also be used for homeschooling or they can be used for other types of education needs, but they are means to help families pay for private school

that they maybe would not have otherwise been able to afford. In your research for this article, did you feel that, did you find that parents were choosing homeschools or you did. It's really hard to get data for that since public schools aren't, like, since preschool isn't required. And so parents don't have to report what method they're choosing for preschool education. So it's not like with public schools where you have to say, okay, I'm pulling my child out

of school and we're going to go to this private school. We're going to homeschool. It's not the same with homeschooling. So I couldn't find any data about if children are being homeschooled more for preschool. but homeschool preschool also looks a little bit different. So there's probably a lot of parents who are supplementing preschool with home-based methods or who are doing homeschooling for preschool. All right. And I think that's all we have time for today.

But how can people reach you, see your work, et cetera? Yeah. So I'm on Twitter at Susanna E. Barnes. And then I also have my own substack called Upward Bound. So if anyone's interested in reading more of my work, you can find me there. Thank you so much for coming on to interview today. This has been Susanna Barnes-Petit talking about the pre-K education system in Michigan. I'm Sky Graham and you are listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

Thanks, Sky!