John Engler called rape and harassment claims by women prisoners “baseless” and “without merit” when he was Michigan goveronor. He was wrong. The state eventually paid $100 million to more than 500 women assaulted by male prison guards. Engler was named interim president of Michigan State in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal.
Ted Roelofs
Ted Roelofs of Kentwood, has written extensively on healthcare as well as prison and juvenile justice reform. Roelofs spent nearly three decades at the Grand Rapids Press where he covered politics, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rural poverty and mental illness among the homeless. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. Reach Ted at ted.roelofs@gmail.com
Posted inChildren & Families
Amid brutal flu season, who gets vaccinated? Check our Michigan map.
Rural counties in Michigan and poor cities like Detroit are at the bottom for flu immunization
Posted inSpecial report
Michigan's K-12 performance dropping at alarming rate
If K-12 achievement in Michigan were a trendline, it is clearly pointing the wrong direction. By just about any measuring stick, the state is losing the race to educational excellence.
Posted inSpecial report
Many Michigan K-12 reform ideas are jumbled, broad, or wildly expensive
Some 1.5 million students attend some 3,000 public schools in Michigan. As academic performance has lagged, competing school reform proposals have sprouted like Michigan summer corn.
Posted inSpecial report
College funding cuts in Michigan have led to fewer students, greater debt
A commonly shared premise among economic experts: a well-educated work force is key to high-wage jobs and prosperity in the 21st century.
Posted inSpecial report
Michigan business climate improves, but educated workforce is shrinking
Michigan’s economy has long centered around manufacturing — especially autos. But reliance on a single industry produces boom and bust cycles.
Posted inSpecial report
Michigan's adverse health trends track along racial, poverty lines
If Michigan’s nearly 10 million residents received a collective physical exam, the result would be a mixed bag – and likely a frown from the doctor.
Posted inSpecial report
Health care in rural Michigan communities suffering, despite Obamacare
In 2010, an estimated 1.2 million Michigan residents had no health insurance. By 2016, that fell to approximately 527,000. But, as of this writing in early 2018, the future of health care is unclear.
Posted inSpecial report
$1B of Michigan’s welfare money went to college students who weren't poor
For more than a quarter century, policy makers have tinkered with Michigan’s social safety net. Whether reforms have improved the state’s welfare system remains a matter of ongoing debate.
Posted inSpecial report
Limited Internet in rural Michigan depresses student, business opportunity
Take a drive along Michigan’s rural roads and you will encounter treasures we know as Pure Michigan. But rural Michigan holds other, often hidden, stories… Poverty, uneven medical care and lack of high-speed Internet access. Young adults continue to leave rural communities for jobs elsewhere.