Susan Broman is director of the state’s Office of Great Start, an office created in 2011 by Gov. Rick Snyder to consolidate the state’s early childhood education efforts. Broman recently responded to written questions posed by Bridge regarding the state’s Great Start Readiness Program, and the 30,000 eligible 4-year-olds who aren’t in classrooms. Bridge: Our […]
Ron French
Ron French is the senior enterprise reporter at Bridge Michigan, covering a wide range of topics including rural communities, federal policy impacts, education and public health. Born and raised in Indiana, Ron came to Bridge in 2011 from The Detroit News, where he was a project reporter, and previously reported for newspapers across Indiana. He graduated from Purdue University.
Rooted in Okemos, Ron has become a true Michigander — complete with a family cabin Up North.
Posted inMichigan Education Watch
30,000 children lose out on pre-K classes
Landen Ford wants to go to preschool. The 4-year-old Flushing boy with a crew cut and a toothy grin thought he’d learn the alphabet and his sounds, and maybe make some friends, just like his big brother Logan did last year. But instead of learning to write his name, Landen is learning an early lesson […]
Posted inMichigan Politics Watch
Center for Michigan, Bridge win battle for transparency on welfare records
Bridge Magazine and the Center for Michigan prevailed in a Freedom of Information Act appeal, gaining access to records related to Michigan residents removed from cash assistance as a result of the state’s massive welfare reform. In May, Bridge requested data from the Michigan Department of Human Services documenting how many of the more than […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Sorry, baby: Delivery docs in short supply Up North
Kristin and Warren Scaife fishtailed along the gravel road that winds south out of Grand Marais, on the rocky shores of Lake Superior. Kristin was in labor, but she couldn’t go to the closest hospital. Helen Newberry Joy Hospital didn’t have a birthing unit. A decade earlier, Kristin’s mother-in-law had found that out when she […]
Posted inQuality of Life
CMU eyes locals to relieve doctor shortage for rural Michigan
Northern Michigan needs to take a gardening approach to solve its shortage of medical services, and grow its own doctors. That’s the advice of Ernie Yoder, dean of the yet-to-open Central Michigan University College of Medicine. The shortage of physicians in the northern half of the Lower Peninsula and in the U.P. causes some rural […]
Posted inChildren & Families
Welfare reform results: few jobs, few state answers, refuge in a vacant home
Welfare reform hasn’t been kind to Tamika Thomas. Eight months ago, the 33-year-old lived in a rental home in Detroit with her four children. She attended Wayne County Community College, where she was working her way toward an associate’s degree in radiological technology that would have led to the first good-paying job of her life. […]
Posted inChildren & Families
Some Michigan welfare recipients get reprieve
When the long-awaited cash appeared in her Bridge card account June 29, Elizabeth Weaver had her list ready. She made an appointment to repair her car, which had been leaking coolant for months. The 31-year-old bought shelves, and filled them with toilet paper and toothpaste, things she can’t buy with food stamps. “I need to […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
What's the business case for second Detroit bridge?
Editor’s note: Gov. Rick Snyder joined Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last Friday to announce a formal deal to start construction on a second bridge linking Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. Snyder announced his support for the span in his first weeks as governor in 2011. Michigan’s share of the construction costs — $550 million — […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Michigan gets med-school boom, doctor bust
More doctors will be graduating from Michigan medical schools in the next decade. Whether that means more doctors practicing in Michigan is another matter. New medical schools have opened, or will open soon, at Oakland University, Central Michigan University and Western Michigan University. Michigan State University’s two medical schools also are greatly expanding their enrollment. […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Beaumont's success fuels medical brain drain
You can’t swing a stethoscope at Beaumont Health System without hitting a resident. More than 400 young doctors — 429, to be exact — are working as residents and fellows at hospitals in Royal Oak, Troy and Grosse Pointe, making Beaumont, until recently, the largest training hospital in the country without its own medical school, […]
