top 10 strategic education plan

Michigan's Top 10 Strategic Education Plan: Promising Practices Exchange

The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) recognizes that contributions from our education partners are pivotal to reach the goals within Michigan's Top 10 Strategic Education Plan . Michigan education partners can submit and view promising practices that are aligned to the strategic plan goals. The Promising Practices Exchange provides an opportunity to share and learn from one another to improve learner outcomes. Thank you to all Intermediate School Districts (ISDs), Local Education Agencies (LEAs), Public School Academies (PSAs), and education partners who have contributed. The submitted practices are specific to the strategic plan goals and demonstrate improved outcomes for learners.

Michigan's Top 10 Strategic Education Plan is Michigan's plan for education in the state. The plan has been designed to concentrate energy and resources, strengthen operations, and set success measures to ensure that all stakeholders are working together toward common education goals. Michigan's Top 10 Strategic Education Plan is both a directional and aspirational document in which ISDs, LEAs, PSAs, education partners, and MDE can contribute to its implementation.

Have questions? Contact us at [email protected] .

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The following partners have helped in the development of Michigan's Top 10 Strategic Education Plan: Promising Practices Exchange

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Will Michigan’s “Top 10 Strategic Education Plan” Work?

Jun 7, 2023 | Education , Michigan | 0 comments

In 2015, a Michigan advocacy organization – The Education Trust-Midwest – set a goal for Michigan to become a top ten educational state by 2030. Shortly afterwards, Michigan’s State Board of Education updated and adopted its own Top 10 Strategic Education Plan . Michigan’s Department of Education has been implementing programs and tracking metrics for the plan ever since.

The most comprehensive rating of state school systems I can find is State Grades on K-12 Achievement 2021 from Education Week (2022 was skipped due to disruption caused by the COVID pandemic). I like their ratings because they seem comprehensive, combining 34 factors that (mostly) seem logical to me. In 2021, Michigan was stuck at 34 th place in educational quality in the U.S.

Disappointing results

Seven years into a 15-year plan to become a top ten state, few of the metrics tracked by the Department of Education are showing any significant improvement. The Education Trust-Midwest’s State of Michigan Education Report 2023 is also loaded with discouraging statements:

• “Michigan…fared worse than many states during the pandemic.”
• “Michigan’s reading scores are now seven points lower than they were nearly 20 years ago.” (On National Assessment of Educational Progress tests.)
• “In 2022, Michigan ranked as the 11th worst state for low-income student performance in 4th grade reading…”
• “…Michigan is one of only fifteen states providing less funding to its highest poverty districts than the lowest poverty districts.”
• “The statewide average proficiency rate for 7 th grade math for all students in 2022 is 30.2%”

Has Michigan devoted serious resources to making the plan work?

Does money matter in creating positive educational outcomes? I got confirmation that it does when I lined up states’ per pupil spending in 2021 with Education Week’s ranking of state educational quality. My spreadsheet is available here:

The top 10 states for educational quality spent from $17,822 to $26,097 per K-12 pupil in 2021. The bottom 10 spent from $9,571 to $13,279. Michigan spent $13,351 per pupil that year. Apparently, like most things in life you get what you pay for in state educational systems.

The 7% opportunity?

It looks like Michigan has a structural problem as well as a budget problem. North Carolina and Michigan have roughly the same number of K-12 students. However, North Carolina serves its 1.5 million students through 115 school districts. Michigan communities host 840 school districts to serve its 1.4 million. 63 of the districts have less than 300 students! The result is that Michigan has to spend 40% of its education dollars on support services while North Carolina only spends 33%. (See Education Expenditures per Pupil 2021) If Michigan had operated with North Carolina’s expense structure in 2021, it would have released an additional $934 per student per year for higher quality instruction — without raising taxes.

This structure is hard to change because Michigan voters like their local school districts and tend to vote against consolidation proposals. Since Michigan – unlike North Carolina – is a “home rule” state, local voters have the last word on consolidation plans. Lawmakers are aware of the problem and budgeted a $237 million incentive program for consolidation in 2022. So far, local school boards have not rushed to take advantage of it.

Acceleration towards the finish line?

Is Michigan willing to put the “pedal to the metal” to hit that top ten rank by 2030? By now, half the time has passed since the goal was announced. The Michigan Department of Education’s annual reports tout its efforts to improve the schools, but the metrics on student outcomes haven’t improved.

Michigan has had a discouraging start to this race towards the top ten, but it is starting to provide more resources to get the job done. To reach the middle funding range of the top 10 education states in 2021, it would have taken about a 50% increase in Michigan’s per pupil budget. Michigan’s School Aid Fund budget in the last year before the COVID pandemic, 2019-2020 , was $15.3 billion. The Executive Budget Recommendation for 2023-2024 is $20.9 billion – a 37% increase over 4 years. It is not yet in the top ten range, but it is an impressive effort.

So, Michigan’s leaders have high aspirations to make the state an educational leader. At the same time, outcomes for students have not improved since Michigan set its Top Ten goal and the state is hobbled by high administrative costs. It will be a struggle for Michigan’s education system to rise towards the top, but a struggle worth continuing for the sake of the next generation. If you’re looking for an underdog to root for, Michigan may be the one.

More resources

For more on the importance of K-12 education and what the future could be, take a look at:

Our Kids’ Brainpower Is the Best Investment for 2040

The Extraordinary Class of 2044: A Future History

For a great source on state-level education revenues and expenses, check out this report just out from the  National Center for Education Statistics :

Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: FY 21

Today’s children will live most of their lives after 2040. I created MI2040 to spark conversation about what we can do to make a better future for them in Michigan. I am a retired business executive with a PhD in Organizational Design and I now dedicate my time to writing about next generation issues.

Future makers are those who care about what we are leaving for our future generations. They are informed people who would like to share their knowledge in order to help create a future where our children and grand children can thrive. If you have something to say and would like to contribute to this site as a writer, follow the link below.

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MAC's Statements on Equity and Racial Justice for Michigan's Students

In support of our mission to improve student learning and achievement for all students, we call for societal changes that:

• ensure equity of opportunity and safety for all students and
• promote equitable assessment systems and practice  wherein schools help all students achieve ambitious outcomes through a bias-free, balanced approach to assessment that honors the unique strengths, talents, and identities of all students.

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Competency-Based Education (C-BE)

How can assessment literate practice support a competency-based education model.

It takes skilled assessment practitioners to implement Competency-Based Education well. Teachers and students need just-in-time information for each individual student to know where they are in their learning, and where they are ready to grow. This calls for skilled use of performance assessment and of the formative assessment process, which includes such elements as self-assessment, peer assessment, and instructive teacher feedback. Educators also will need to think differently about grading student learning and advancing them along their learning pathway.

Researcher Kathrine Casey points to four assessment literacy capabilities educators need to be successful in C-BE environments:

• Design and/or use formative assessment as and for learning;
• Design and/or use reliable performance based and summative assessments;
• Utilize multiple measures (aligned to expanded definition of student success) to support continuous improvement and to adjust instruction; and
• Promote learner voice and choice in selecting forms of assessment and demonstration.

Moving Toward Mastery: Growing, Developing and Sustaining Educators for Competency-Based Education (Casey, 2018)

Teacher Learning Progression: Assessment for Learning (2Revolutions)

Teacher Learning Progression: Performance Assessment (2Revolutions)

What do we mean by "competency-based education (C-BE)?"

Competency-Based Education (C-BE) is a form of personalized learning that supports all students in achieving deep understanding and application of high academic expectations and personal success goals. Education leaders from across the Michigan (and the nation) endorse these primary components as a working definition of Competency-Based Education:

• Students are empowered daily to make important decisions about their learning experiences, how they will create and apply knowledge, and how they will demonstrate their learning.
• Assessment is a meaningful, positive, and empowering learning experience for students that yields timely, relevant, and actionable evidence.
• Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs.
• Students progress based on evidence of mastery, not seat time.
• Students learn actively using different pathways and varied pacing.
• Strategies to ensure equity for all students are embedded in the culture, structure, and pedagogy of schools and education systems.
• Rigorous, common expectations for learning (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) are explicit, transparent, measurable, and transferable.

Deeper Competency-Based Learning: Making Equitable, Student-Center, Sustainable Shifts, Hess, Karin; Colby, Rose; Joseph, Daniel . Corwin, 2020

Defining Competency-Based Education in Michigan

The What and Why of C-BE

Why Competency-Based Educaton?

"Personalized, competency-based systems have the ability to empower individuals and enable educators to disrupt the historical dynamic of sorting students and replace it with one that seeks to educate 100% of students including those that may have had their education interrupted and desire to complete their diploma."*

Competency-Based Education is embraced by the Michigan Department of Education as a strategy that supports Michigan’s Top 10 Strategic Education Plan. When implemented well and supported by high-quality assessment practices, C-BE helps create equitable learning opportunities for students by:

• ensuring all students have the opportunity to achieve competency
• avoiding the tendency to sort students into categories (e.g., smart vs not smart; those kids vs these kids)
• recognizing and building on student assets

*from Sturgis, C. and Casey, K., Designing for Equity: Leveraging Competency-Based Education to Ensure All Students Succeed, 2018.

Designing for Equity: Leveraging Competency-Based Education to Ensure All Students Succeed (Sturgis & Casey 2018)

Michigan’s Top 10 Strategic Education Plan

Compentency-Based Education webpage (MDE)

How does a C-BE approach ensure students master Michigan's academic content standards?

Competency-based systems seek to reduce variability in what is to be learned and what it means to demonstrate mastery. C-BE engages teachers and students in focusing on the essential skills (or model competencies) that lead to mastery of Michigan’s standards and goals for graduates . Essential skills are the core concepts and skills that students need to know deeply so that they are ready for each new level of learning. As such, essential skills act as the building blocks for coherent learning trajectories, curricula, and assessments that support Tier 1 instruction for students as they move through their education toward career and college readiness. Within a C-BE model, students can move through this trajectory in their own way, at their own pace.

Michigan’s Profile of a Graduate (handout)

Model Competencies for English Language Arts (MDE)

Model Competencies for Mathematics (MDE)

Professional Learning to Support Assessment Capabilities Needed for C-BE

A shift to C-BE approach asks educators to make significant changes in their practice, including in how they assess and evaluate student work. The MAC is here to help you achieve the assessment capabilities you will need. We offer a wide range of professional development opportunities and resources and are working with partners to expand a set of performance assessments connected to Michigan’s content standards.

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• Assessment for Learning
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We’ve featured below select resources to support you in using assessment within a Competency-Based Education model.

Featured resources include: recorded webinars and expert interviews; and readings explaining components and elements of the formative assessment process (FAP), performance assessment, and other practices that support learning.

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CompetencyWorks/Aurora Institute

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Embedding performance assessment in instruction.

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LM-Jay McTighe: What are the benefits of “mapping the curriculum” in terms of desired performances?- Mar. 4, 2020

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LM-Margaret Heritage: Why do students need to be partners in the assessment process?

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Ensure your strategic plan succeeds with your educational partners’ input

September 29, 2023

Sarah Mathias

Strategic planning in education – 3 keys to success.

Effective strategic planning is critical for creating positive change in your district. Among the many benefits, strategic plans align educational partners with a shared vision, mission, and values; promote productive decision-making; and help students reach their full potential.

While having a plan in place will usually improve results, strategic planning can present challenges—resulting in endless meetings, countless goal and tactic revisions, and plans that are never fully realized.

In this post, we explore strategic planning in education, touch on some K-12 planning tips, and share three best practices for making strategic planning successful in your school district. With your community’s insights and the right tools, you can win at strategic planning. Here’s how.

In this Article

• What is Strategic Planning in Education?

Strategic planning tips for K12

See thoughtexchange in action — watch the product tour, what is strategic planning in education.

Strategic planning is the process of setting goals, deciding on actions to achieve those goals, and mobilizing the resources needed to take those actions. A strategic plan describes how goals will be achieved using available resources.

While the concept initially stemmed from business practices due to people moving from the private sector into educational leadership positions, many strategic planning tools and paradigms have been adapted to focus on engagement and consensus.

This is because effective strategic planning requires community support at the school district level, both functionally and legislatively. School districts of all sizes use strategic planning to improve student outcomes and respond to changing demographics while staying within the given funding box.

In top-performing schools, leaders have proactively shifted their strategic planning process to include their educational partners. They know that their strategic plans are more likely to succeed with community support and the insights that come with community engagement.

Strategic planning is key to setting students up for success in K-12 and beyond. A solid strategic plan articulates a shared vision, mission, and values, increasing engagement while providing a framework to ensure students’ needs are met so they can reach their full potential.

Your strategic plan will benefit from your district’s input. Here are a few effective ways to engage your district in K-12 strategic planning.

Tap into your educational partners’ wisdom

Your educational partners have valuable insights. Consult teachers, staff, students , parents, and community members throughout the planning process, so your strategy aligns with their perspectives.

Whether you’re setting strategy at the district, school, or department level, consulting diverse participants will uncover unbiased insights, enhance trust and buy-in, and ensure greater success with new strategic directions.

Using ThoughtExchange , leaders can scale their engagement to efficiently and effectively include their community in their district strategic plans.

Use climate surveys

Completed by all students, parents/guardians, and staff, school climate surveys allow leaders to collect participants’ perceptions about issues like school safety, bullying, and mental health and well-being, as well as the general school environment.

ThoughtExchange Surveys get you both nuanced qualitative and robust quantitative data with instant in-depth analysis, ensuring your district understands all angles of school climate. Run surveys independently or combine them with Exchanges for faster, more accurate results.

• Collect benchmark comparisons while tracking and measuring improvements over time
• Gather quality quantitative data for reporting to state agencies or funders
• Identify outliers and trends across demographic groups

Put in some face time with town halls, meetings, or listening tours

In-person gatherings like town halls, meetings, and listening tours are effective ways to understand your educational partners’ wants and needs to ensure they line up with your strategic priorities.

When managed effectively, they give staff and other educational partners the chance to closely interact. In-person gatherings can build trust and morale, promote transparency, and help create a sense of purpose.

Leverage community engagement platforms

Community engagement software lets you streamline your community engagement initiatives. It allows education leaders to gather feedback and get tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people on the same page in just days. It also facilitates candid, collaborative community conversations that help districts realize their goals.

A comprehensive community engagement platform like ThoughtExchange allows you to integrate your strategy with your community and take decisive, supported action in less time. It provides planning, scheduling, and analysis tools to help you quickly set strategy and monitor execution.

3 keys to strategic planning success

1. get everyone on the same page.

Make sure your educational partners are on the same page by allowing them to contribute to and shape your strategy from the start. Lack of alignment about what strategy involves can hinder even the best plans. So the first step in creating a successful strategic plan is getting everyone involved to provide their insights and opinions.

Letting your people know you’re listening and that their insights affect decisions, builds trust and buy-in. Your community will be much more likely to support—not sabotage—a strategy or decision.

2. Be a collaborative leader

According to ThinkStrategic , creating a school strategic plan should always be a collaborative process. Avoiding a top-down approach and getting input from educational partners will help minimize blind spots and unlock collective intelligence. It will also ensure everyone is committed to the plan. Get all community members involved in how to make the most of the school’s possibilities.

Commit to becoming a collaborative leader and put a plan in place to ensure you can achieve that goal. That may include implementing technology that can support scaled, real-time discussion safely and inclusively for students, teachers, and other educational partners.

3. Get a holistic view of your district

Getting a holistic view of your educational partners’ wants and needs helps you build more inclusive, supported strategic plans.

Depend on a platform that meets all your engagement needs in one place—from surveys to Exchanges—and allows you to consult more people in an inclusive, anti-biased environment. You’ll reduce the time and resources spent on town halls and meetings, and reach your district’s goals more efficiently and effectively.

Engagement and survey software has been proven to contribute to more effective strategic planning in education. It empowers leaders to run and scale unbiased engagement initiatives where they can learn what the people who matter really think— explore ThoughtExchange success stories to learn more .

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College of Education grad program ranks in Top 40 among U.S. public universities

The Purdue University College of Education ranks #48 in 2024 Best Education Schools – Graduate  Education , according to the 2024 U.S. News & World Report rankings released Apr. 9. This is an increase from #49 in 2023.

Education is among the five top-ranked academic disciplines at Purdue ranked by the USNWR .

“We are #2 in Indiana, and in the top 19% nationally,” said Wayne E. Wright , College of Education associate dean for research, graduate programs, and faculty development.

This ranking places Purdue’s College of Education graduate program in the Top 40 among U.S. public universities, at #37.

“While this is a very small improvement over our ranking last year, it is evidence that our graduate programs are strengthening — especially in the area of research,” said Phillip J. VanFossen , interim dean of the College. “In fact, the College has one of the highest levels of research productivity at Purdue.”

“We are thrilled to see our graduate program move even higher in the 2024 U.S. News and World Report Rankings,” Wright said. “We truly have outstanding programs and faculty who are dedicated to teaching and providing our students with highest quality education.”

U.S. News & World Report is a recognized leader in ranking colleges, programs, and graduate schools. Each year, Purdue’s College of Education strives to continually improve its programs and relies on the rankings to help promote and serve as a recruiting tool for prospective students seeking a quality online educational experience.

U.S. News and World Report rankings of the 2024 Best Graduate Schools – Education programs https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-education-schools/purdue-university-main-campus-06068   

Source: Wayne E. Wright, [email protected]