Oct. 5, 1993

Gov. John Engler included charter schools as a key component of the sweeping education reforms he told a joint session of the Michigan legislature he wanted to see.

In addition to the creation of charters, Engler proposed an overhaul of the state’s school funding system to address a crisis. He also proposed report cards for Michigan public schools as a means for parents to compare the academic performance of schools when making decisions about where to send their kids.

Overall, his reform plan would give parents more school options and create a net tax cut for Michigan residents.

(Screenshot of C-SPAN)

Dec. 3, 1993

The Michigan legislature passed legislation to allow for the creation of public school academies, or charter schools, and it made the boards of public universities, community colleges, and traditional public school districts eligible to authorize the schools. The law established that the authorizing bodies appoint their charter schools’ boards of directors.

(Elaine Cromie / Chalkbeat)

Jan. 14, 1994

Engler signed the charter school legislation into law, making Michigan the ninth state to enact a charter school law.

March 15, 1994

Michigan voters approved Proposal A, which changed the way schools are funded in the state. It tied state school funding to the number of students in each district.

The new law also allowed parents to choose which public school to send their children to, though their choices were limited to districts participating in the program and schools with space.

August 1994

Central Michigan University became the first charter school authorizer in the state under the new law. It initially opened three schools. It is now one of the largest authorizers in the state.

Wayne State University opened the first charter school in the state before the law passed.

(Anthony Lanzilote for Chalkbeat)

Nov. 1, 1994

A Michigan circuit court judge ruled the state’s new charter school law was unconstitutional. The judge ruled charter schools did not meet the state constitution’s definition of a public school.

The lawsuit was filed by three members of the State Board of Education, including an official from the Michigan Education Association, a teachers union. They claimed the new law violated the state’s constitution because private schools were getting public funding.

Noah Webster Academy, which secured a charter for home-schooling families, was at the center of the lawsuit. The academy was a religious-based organization.

The lawsuit alleged the charter violated the new law because it accepted students outside of its geographic region.

The judge in the case issued an injunction that blocked the charter schools operating in Michigan at that time from receiving state funding. The move left the new schools in a financial lurch.

Engler vowed to appeal the decision.

The Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which supported the idea of creating competition among schools, helped pay for the legal costs of defending the charter school law.

(Jeremy Woodhouse / Getty Images)

Dec. 13, 1994

In response to the circuit court ruling, Public Act 416 revised the law to temporarily allow charter schools to continue operations while the legal battle over their constitutionality played out.

1996

The Michigan Association of Public School Academies formed as an advocacy and lobbying group for charter schools.

March 29, 1996

The Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the 1994 circuit court decision that charter schools were unconstitutional in the state.

July 30, 1997

In a 6-1 decision, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled charter schools did not violate the state constitution. The injunction on charter schools receiving state funding was lifted.

March 6, 1997

President Bill Clinton spoke to a joint session of the Michigan legislature about his education plan, which called for 3,000 charter schools in the country by 2002.

The 1997-98 school year

Michigan started the school year by reaching the 100-charter school milestone, with 106 charter schools.

1999

The state reached 150 charter schools. At the time, the law put a 150-school cap on the number of university-authorized charter schools.

May 12, 1999

Amid a push for school safety measures after the 1999 Columbine High School mass shooting in Littleton, Colorado, Michigan created a new kind of charter school: strict discipline academies. They were designed to help students with behavioral issues rooted in social-emotional challenges.

(Mike Kline / Getty Images)

January 2001

Bay Mills Community College, a federally recognized college, authorized two charter schools.

Though there was a restriction that community colleges could only authorize charter schools in their regions, the Upper Peninsula school’s position was that it could authorize anywhere in the state because it was under federal tribal control.

Because of its federal status, the college argued it was immune to the statewide 150-charter school cap.

A yearslong legal battle over the college’s right to authorize the schools followed. Ultimately, a judge decided in 2005 to dismiss the lawsuit.

2002

The Michigan Council of Charter School Authorizers was created as a nonprofit professional advocacy organization.

2003

The school code was changed to allow public state universities to charter up to 15 urban high school academies.

December 2009

Michigan lawmakers approved legislation to create a new type of charter school: schools of excellence. The new schools were created to attract charter school operators to educate high school students in urban and lower-income communities.

The law also allowed for 10 of the schools of excellence to be cyber schools, or public charter schools that solely operate online.

The move was part of Michigan lawmakers’ plans to win more federal stimulus money from President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top program.

December 2011

The cap on the number of charter schools in the state was lifted by the Michigan legislature.

The legislature also attempted to address conflicts of interest, updating the law to prohibit family members of employees or people with a financial stake in schools from serving on the schools’ boards.

The law still allowed management companies to contract business with companies owned by board members, family, and friends.

January 2018

The Michigan legislature approved a bill to allow regional enhancement millages to be shared with charter schools. Since the passage of Proposal A, regional millages are the only way other than per-pupil dollar increases for local school districts to raise operating revenues. Millages are proposed to voters by regional educational service agencies.

Democrats warned at the time the portion of tax revenue opened up to charter schools may not make it to classrooms and instead end up going to for-profit EMOs.

December 2019

A study from the Network for Public Education, a group that advocates for public schools, found 72 charter schools in Michigan were granted federal startup funding but never enrolled any students.

June 8, 2021

The Michigan State Board of Education passed a resolution that called on the state Department of Education to prepare a Freedom of Information Act request to send to charter schools and traditional public schools asking for financial information, such as average teacher salaries.

The purpose of the request was to demonstrate that charter schools are not subject to the same public information laws as traditional public schools –- and most don’t provide the information when asked.

According to the board, only 12 of 166 charter schools responded to the request. All of the 112 traditional public school districts responded to the same request.

The lack of responses from charter schools prompted the board to make several public pleas with lawmakers to increase transparency regulations.

March 1, 2022

Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia, introduced a package of charter school transparency bills. The proposal would have made public audited financial statements from EMOs, ensured authorizers provide appropriate oversight or risk suspension by the state, prevented “authorizer shopping” for poorly performing charter schools, and required property leases or purchases be made at fair market rates.

The bills failed to pass.

The 2022-23 school year: There were approximately 373 charter schools in Michigan serving around 150,000 students, or 10.5% of all public school students in the state.

(Courtesy of Michigan Senate Democrats)

Aug. 8, 2022

MAPSA, along with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a think tank that authorizes charter schools in Ohio, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education over new rules on charter eligibility for federal startup funds.

The rules call for applicants to show that there is a demand for high-quality K-12 seats in the area, demonstrate that a new school wouldn’t worsen school segregation, and disclose business relationships with for-profit companies.

November 2024

After losing control of the House, Michigan Democrats vowed to use their final days of total control of the state government to push forward nine charter school transparency bills.

The proposals in the bill package included a bill that would prohibit for-profit EMOs from selling or leasing properties to the charter schools they run and open public access to financial audits of individual expenditures.

(Screengrab of Michigan Senate Education Committee)