Detroit Free Press

Lawmakers now have a strategy in front of them to improve the way special education services are funded in Michigan, created by a group of advocates, educators, administrators, and families who spent a year building the proposed framework under a directive from the Michigan Legislature. Whether they’ll adopt that strategy is yet to be seen. The newly proposed funding system would cost an estimated additional $1.28 billion in special education funding per year, according to the plan. The framework unveiled Thursday, Oct. 30, is called the “MI Blueprint” and reimagines Michigan’s system to fund special education as a formula that distributes funding based on student needs, where certain categories of needs would come with more funding than others. For example, services for Autism Spectrum Disorders may be more costly than the funding needed for services for speech and language impairments.

Heather Eckner, a lead on the MI Blueprint project and director of statewide education with the Autism Alliance of Michigan, said that while special education funding has seen big increases in recent years in Michigan, the current formula is broken, meaning students aren’t getting the services they need.