Shortly after Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s special message on education in April of 2011, Lansing attorney and Chair of the Michigan Law Revision Commission, Richard McLellan, was asked to advise the Governor and to provide a roadmap for reform. PAAdvisory has learned that a large step in that direction is expected very soon with the initial draft rewrite of the School Aid Act release.

 The School Aid Act distributes the roughly $14 billion spent on K-12 education in Michigan annually.

 The draft proposal, which will be posted online for comment and input, will include two of the Governor’s basic philosophies on effective education reform. First, a funding mechanism that distributes resources based on performance, rewarding high performing schools. The current system is based on pupil count alone. Secondly, the bill will include elements of the Governor’s mantra of “any time, any space, any place, any way,” suggesting that schools need to evolve to students’ learning styles and create learning environments best-suited for the success of each individual.