Koby Levin, Chalkbeat

Many Michigan students are feeling the effects of the tight labor market as schools struggle to fill a wide range of positions, from teachers to nurses to social workers.

Michigan’s Black teacher workforce declined 48 percent between 2005 and 2015, far outpacing overall declines in the size of the state’s educator corps, according to a new study from Michigan State University.

A new state audit on Michigan’s cyber charter schools raises questions about whether students are participating in the classes in which they’re enrolled, and whether they’re receiving the required hours of instruction.

Scores fall, in some cases alarmingly so. But educators caution against reading too much into results from a year in which students were in and out of classrooms.

Detroiters have long told city and school officials that almost anything would be better than leaving unused school buildings vacant.

The $105 million payout comes from federal funds that weren’t spent because of COVID.

Hundreds of prospective teachers attended training programs in Michigan but failed the licensing exam to become a teacher.

Some Michigan school districts are opening full-time, online schools as an alternative to traditional classrooms, on the belief that not all families will want to return to school buildings this year.

Lawmakers went on summer break before allocating $1.4 billion in federal COVID aid for child care. That’s left some worrying about making payroll.

With classrooms shuttered across Detroit earlier this school year, leaders at Detroit Leadership Academy, a Brightmoor-area charter school, told neighborhood leaders that many students didn’t have a space where they could focus.

A new Republican-backed bill would sharply limit Michigan classroom discussions of how race and racism have shaped American history.

Districts spotlighted in the audit couldn’t prove that new teachers had been assigned mentors or that teachers’ annual evaluations were based on a classroom visit — both of which are legal requirements.

The students who need in-person instruction the most are among the least likely to get it, new Michigan data shows.

The Troy School District in suburban Detroit shut down its in-person classrooms last week because of an alarming rise in COVID-19 cases. Just like that, life for the Onyx family was back to impossible.

The coronavirus child care crunch is falling hardest on low-income families of color, many of whom work in-person jobs in sanitation, grocery, and health care that the state has defined as “essential.” When these families have young students learning online, many parents find that they have no safe place to send their children during the work day.

With Michigan facing a $2.39 billion shortfall in its education budget, schools across the state are bracing for what could be the largest cut in state history.

“These are the greatest gains that Detroit has seen since it started taking the assessment,” said one education expert.

Backers of Davis Aerospace Technical Academy refused to allow Detroit to shut one of the only high schools in the nation to train aviation mechanics. Their success suggests a disconnect between Detroiters and their schools is beginning to mend.

Taken at face value, the M-STEP results leave plenty of room for concern. But figures are up significantly from last year, and individual Detroit schools made double-digit point gains, in some cases exceeding the state average.

Michigan ranks 47th nationwide in school librarians per pupil. Legislation in Lansing proposes that each school have at least one.