• Former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan touts 10-point plan for education reform at a public event in Grand Rapids 
  • Duggan ‘studying’  federal program that would help fund private school attendance, saying he’s analyzing for public school benefit
  • He also is calling for a surge in funding to support literacy and career technical education

GRAND RAPIDS — Independent gubernatorial candidate Mike Duggan signaled Tuesday he may be open to a new federal tax credit program that parents could use to pay for private education.

“I’m studying it carefully,” Duggan said of the Trump administration program that would essentially allow parents to be refunded up to $1,700 through scholarship-granting nonprofits that pay for education expenses.

The “Education Freedom Tax Credit” program touches on an issue that has bitterly divided the education world: public funding for private schools. 

It has been seen as a historic victory for school choice advocates, but harshly criticized by teachers’ unions and others who contend the program is a “school voucher scheme” designed to siphon funding from public schools. 

Twenty-three states have opted into the program so far, primarily states with Republican leadership. 

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Duggan, the former Detroit mayor, said he wants “to see if there is a way that it can benefit both” public and private schools, and said an initial review indicated the scholarships could be used to fund public after-school programs. 

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a Democrat receptive toward expanding private school funding, is reportedly awaiting federal regulations expected to provide more specifics about how the tax credit will work. 

That’s “exactly the same analysis” Duggan is seeking, he said. 

“I want to see whether it’s something that would benefit the public schools,” Duggan reiterated. Michigan would have to opt into the program for parents to be able to use the tax credit, which is slated to go into effect in 2027.

Term-limited Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has not opted into the tax credit program, but multiple Republican gubernatorial candidates have said they would do so, including US Rep. John James, who included it in a parental “bill of rights” he proposed earlier this week. 

Asked about new state sex education standards that James and other Republicans have criticized because they recommend schools discuss gender identity and sexual orientation with students, Duggan said he had not “looked at” the issue. 

In a subsequent statement provided by his campaign, Duggan said health education is “particularly challenging” and suggested officials must do more to find common ground. 

“Lansing today is quick to turn every public school issue into a partisan conflict that each party then weaponizes in their ongoing culture war,” he said. 

Duggan left the Democratic Party in late 2024 as he launched his independent bid for governor. His former party has criticized the financial support he’s received from Michigan school choice boosters, such as JC Huizenga, who founded the National Heritage Academies chain of charter schools. 

“Anti-public school donors are lining up behind Mike Duggan because they know he’s open to their disastrous plans to drain funding from public schools and hurt students,” a Michigan Democratic Party spokesperson said last month.

‘The problem is with the system’

Duggan discussed the tax credit with reporters after presenting his larger education plan to a mostly full room at the Grand Rapids Downtown Market. He also fielded questions and mingled with attendees.

“I have never seen anything as bad as what’s going on in the Michigan public school system,” Duggan said. “I’m convinced the problem is not with educators, the problem is not with our students — the problem is with the system.”

His pitch for Michigan schools was framed as a 10-point plan.

Duggan said he wants to keep all School Aid Fund revenue with K-12 schools, ending three decades of budget diversions, including $1.3 billion that Whitmer and lawmakers agreed to send to universities and community colleges this year. 

“It’s been nothing but a shell game and somebody’s got to stop it,” Duggan said, noting he wants to ensure all sales tax revenue goes exclusively to K-12 schools over five years, passing a new law to ensure it stays there. It would amount to a roughly 7% increase in the overall K-12 budget.

Duggan earned applause from the crowd at the event by saying he wants to withhold lawmakers’ pay if they fail to pass a budget by July 1 — the start of the fiscal year for Michigan schools. 

Last year, Michigan’s politically divided Legislature failed to pass a budget until early October, forcing schools to submit budgets for the next year without knowing how much funding they would receive from the state.

He also wants to build out “weighting” funding — giving schools extra money for the additional services they have to pay for, such as special education or support services. Democratic candidate Jocelyn Benson has proposed something similar, saying Michigan needs to move away from a “one-size-fits-all” funding model.

Duggan also reiterated his calls for a “Marshall Plan for reading” to help reverse Michigan’s slide toward the bottom of states for reading proficiency, enforcing the “science of reading,” funding more reading teachers and guaranteeing a library in every school.

The event was framed in part as a conversation with attendees, and when some audience members asked about a particular policy, Duggan flipped their questions and asked what they would like to see done, promising he would refine his plan in response to their feedback.

Firing administrators at failing schools

Duggan also wants to concentrate oversight for schools under the governor, an issue Whitmer and predecessors have raised in Michigan, where the Board of Education is constitutionally separate and picks a superintendent.

Whitmer created some friction with the state board by creating the Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential to take oversight of community colleges, pre-kindergarten and career technical education.

Duggan would preserve MILEAP, he previously told reporters, but wants to directly oversee school accountability.

“What exactly the structure is, I don’t know, but my guess is it would not be under MILEAP. My guess is I’d have it in the governor’s office, where it is really close,” he said. 

In his Tuesday presentation, Duggan said he would call it the Office of School Performance and give failing schools three years to turn around. 

“First year you’re failing, we’ll give you more resources. … Second year, we’ll give you help again, but by the third year, you’re failing and still declining, we have to have an honest conversation that says we can demand a change in direction,” Duggan said. 

His plan calls for firing a school’s principal if a school has not improved in three years, and firing the district superintendent if improvement does not occur by year five.

Ken Gorman, the superintendent of Kent ISD, attended Duggan’s talk and told him he thought aspects of the plan were a “throw the superintendent, throw the principal under the bus model,” but still reacted positively to Duggan’s promise he could deliver multi-year stability for schools.

“Get rid of the ambiguity, get us our funding on time, give us a clear road map and then hold us accountable,” Gorman said. “I think all educators can get behind that.”

Duggan argued Michigan’s low-performing schools should be graded on how they are improving, not how they are performing in absolute terms, while high-performing schools could opt to be graded on their overall learning proficiency or a combination of the two — and let school districts pick which metric they want to be judged by every five years.

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