Chastity Pratt

Bowing to complaints about test fatigue, Detroit reins in the amount of time students spend on in-district standardized tests.

Residents say additional training, apprenticeship and internship programs will give young and older workers a boost.

With heroin and prescription drug abuse at historic levels, lawmakers are pushing for wider access to naloxone, a life-saving antidote, for some drug abusers.

Legislators want to stop big box retailers from using a controversial tax strategy that is cutting their property tax payments in half; a maneuver that small towns say is crushing their budgets and spreading to other businesses.

The state is in the midst of yet another fix for Detroit’s troubled schools. So this spring, Bridge spent time in William Weir’s social studies classroom to get a sense for what works, and what doesn’t, for one Detroit teacher.

For third- and fourth-graders with limited reading skills, a teacher must take creative measures to make lessons stick.

Budget deficits in Detroit mean even larger class sizes come this fall. Will Mr. Weir meet the challenge for his young students?

Michigan, a pioneer of the American middle class, is adding jobs but wages have fallen below the national average in the past decade.

Four-in-10 Michigan families can’t afford life’s basics, according to a report by the United Way. The report contends that helping struggling workers will ultimately benefit the state as a whole.

Could Michigan’s coast tracing the Mitten and Upper Peninsula be the centerpiece of a Great Lakes walking trail? At more than 10,000 miles, a proposed Great Lakes trail would be the world’s longest.

Grand Rapids DHS office took the biggest hit, losing 35 workers. That could leave overburdened caseworkers with a heavier administrative load.

Resignation offers piercing criticism, insider glimpse into high-powered coalition studying Detroit’s schools.

For thousands of low-income students, a four-year college degree is only within reach if they start at community college, saving money on tuition. State lawmakers are leaning on colleges and universities to make that process easier by ensuring students’ hard-earned credits transfer with them.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Education Center Academy is a State Champ by paying close attention to improving teaching practices.

Flint calls on the state to clear up the city’s low-quality drinking water. Who is responsible for the city’s water problems?

Detroit will improve its chronically low-performing schools when the system focuses more on proven, consistent academic reforms and less on changes to its power structure.

Darnell Earley has been the Flint EM since 2013. Sources tell Bridge that Gov. Rick Snyder will soon appoint Early to replace Jack Martin to head Detroit’s troubled public schools.

Traverse City optometrist Steven Ingersoll’s federal trial is the largest ever related to a Michigan charter school, and has renewed calls for more financial accountability in Michigan’s mostly for-profit charter school industry.

Thousands of positions in construction, healthcare, information technology and other high-growth fields are finally coming as Detroit emerges from bankruptcy. But a rollback in job programs and an educational system that leaves many young adults short on reading and math skills means many Detroiters can’t even quality for job training.

Detroit Public Schools once served thousands of students daily at vocational -technical career centers. Declining enrollment and high school closures led to cuts. DPS is now re-inventing the trade schools.