What to expect from the Michigan Legislature this fall
by Riley Beggin (Bridge) After a summer hiatus, the members of the Michigan Senate are set to descend upon Lansing on Tuesday while their counterparts in the state House return next week. When they reconvene, they’ll have a number of issues to dig into, including, most notably, the looming deadline to assemble a budget deal […]
Amid literacy crisis, Michigan’s school librarians have all but disappeared
By Koby Levin (Bridge/Chalkbeat) When the basketball star and a local news crew showed up at Thurgood Marshall Elementary school in Detroit, the room the kids called the “library” was a glorified storage closet, complete with peeling paint, jumbled bookshelves and unopened cardboard boxes. By the end of the home makeover segment, the library looked the […]
Michigan farm country testifies to widespread crisis as crops go unplanted
By Jim Malewitz (Bridge) One of Michigan’s wettest planting seasons in history forced Doug Darling to leave about two-thirds of his Monroe County farmland unplanted. And the corn, soybeans and wheat he managed to plant in between downpours? He doesn’t expect any of it to grow up normally. The soil moisture wasn’t quite right. The […]
Michigan’s Secretary of State promised 30-minute waits — lines are worse
By Riley Beggin (Bridge) Sheryl and Neil Lightner stepped outside Mason’s packed Secretary of State branch office last Tuesday to grab a smoke. They’d already waited more than an hour to renew a driver’s license and get new plate tabs, and there were still 24 people ahead of them. The Lightners needed to get outside, […]
Michigan leans on long-term substitutes as its schools struggle
by Mike Wilkinson, Ron French (Bridge) One applied for jobs at a county road commission and as an office manager before unexpectedly being offered a teaching post. Another was an assistant basketball coach before walking into an elementary school classroom. A third was a wedding planner before teaching fifth-grade math and science. None of them were […]
After week of mass shootings, can ‘red-flag’ law gain traction in Michigan?
by Lindsay VanHulle (Bridge) State Rep. Robert Wittenberg said he has given maybe 20 media interviews since two gunmen killed more than 30 people in two American cities over the weekend, reviving sporadic debate over how to best curb gun violence. But what he really wants, he said, is action in Lansing. It’s been two years since […]
New plans for Michigan psychiatric facility raise more concerns about care
by Ted Roelofs (Bridge) As the politics of mental health care in Michigan continue to shift, it now looks like a state psychiatric hospital in the Thumb will remain open. But instead of building a $115 million, 200-bed new hospital in Caro, state officials are recommending renovating the existing hospital or building a downsized 84-bed hospital […]
Study: Untreated mental illness, substance abuse ‘staggering’ in Michigan
by Ted Roelofs (Bridge) Hundreds of thousands of Michigan residents with a mental illness or substance-use disorder are untreated, a crisis compounded by a shortage of health professionals and treatment facilities, according to the findings of a report released Tuesday. Commissioned by the Michigan Health Endowment Fund (MHEF), an independent healthcare foundation that receives funds from Blue […]
Michigan Republicans sue to stop redistricting commission before it starts
by Riley Beggin, Lindsay VanHulle (Bridge) A group of Michigan Republicans filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block the state’s voter-approved redistricting commission, saying it unconstitutionally blocks some residents from serving. The suit — filed by Michigan Freedom Fund Executive Director Tony Daunt, state Sen. Tom Barrett, Board of State Canvassers member Norm Shinkle and other […]
Being poor on rich U-M campus still a struggle as school broadens reach
by Alex Harring & Sammy Sussman (Bridge) Classes hadn’t even begun her freshman year when Lauren Schandevel learned her place in the economic pecking order at the University of Michigan. “My orientation roommate was from New York City,” said Schandevel, of Warren. “And the first thing she said to me was ‘I lost my iPhone in […]
