Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan delivers a keynote address during the second day of the Mackinac Policy Conference at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Mich., on May 28, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)
MACKINAC ISLAND – Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan says he would propose investing $4.5 billion in Michigan’s schools if elected governor.
But he warned that investment would come with “punishment” for school administrators who fail to show progress toward education goals.
“If we’re going to pour $4.5 billion into our schools, the people who run the schools need to have some skin in the game,” Duggan said of his proposal, which he said was likely to “piss people off.”
Duggan gives a keynote address at the Mackinac Policy Conference every year as Detroit’s mayor, offering him a platform to tout his independent campaign in a way that his opponents in the Democratic and Republican primaries could not.
He said he decided to run for governor as an independent because of a “broken system” that has failed the state’s residents, as evidenced by population loss and low fourth-grade reading scores.
“I look at the trends of young people leaving across a whole bunch of governors. I look at the trend of the kids reading scores declining across a whole bunch of governors. And I thought, somebody has to say, the problem isn’t the governor, the problem’s the system,” Duggan said.
Other than suggesting the additional funding would come from reallocating existing state revenues and unspecified federal funds, Duggan provided no additional financial details.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan delivers a keynote address during the second day of the Mackinac Policy Conference at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Mich., on May 28, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)
Duggan pointed to shifting policies under Republican and Democratic governors as an example, including an A-F grading system for school performances that was created, replaced and saw its replacement get replaced before it was created again and then repealed again, all in the span of about 10 years.
“There’s no central vision that says, here’s what we’re going to do for the kids,” Duggan said. “It’s ‘what can I do to pass a bill that will give me a partisan advantage in the next election?’”
He said he would collaborate with educator groups to create some form of school grading plan – whether it be an A-F scale, based on percentages, or some other format that is easy for parents to understand – and place a five-year moratorium on changes to the grading system to allow results to be measured over time.
Results would be measured over five years, the same amount of time the $4.5 billion would be invested over to train more teachers and literacy instructors, as well as rebuilding career technical education programs offered in high schools.
If a school is failing in the first year, they would be required to submit an improvement plan. If they fail to improve by year two, the state would offer a support team to help turn things around. By the third year, if there is still no improvement, the principal would be fired and a new leadership team would be put in place.
“If you were in business and your business declined three years in a row, you either get rid of the leader or you go out of business,” Duggan said. “Only in public education can the principal fail year after year, and you send the next group of kids.”
If there is still no improvement by year five, Duggan said the district’s superintendent would be fired as well.
He said selecting replacement principals and superintendents would be left up to the local school boards.
Duggan said Michigan residents are “losing confidence in what’s happening in the schools,” citing the number of local millages that failed to pass in May special elections.
Polling commissioned by the Detroit Regional Chamber shows that Duggan pulls voters equally from Democrats and Republicans and is the only candidate with favorable views from both liberals and conservatives.
Other candidates for governor include Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson in the Democratic primary, as well as U.S. Rep. John James, Michigan Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, former Attorney General Mike Cox and former congressional nominee Anthony Hudson in the Republican primary.
Duggan chastised Benson and Attorney General Dana Nessel for criticizing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s appearances with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office and at Selfridge Air Force Base.
“This chaos became a national embarrassment,” Duggan said.
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