AFT Michigan Higher Education: A Michigan Platform

Quality Teaching and Learning - Students

The Issue

Students must be held to high standards of achievement. Today, too many students are coming to college unprepared to handle college-level work. Colleges and universities have established hundreds of programs to bring students up to par, but the real solution is to raise public school students' achievement levels.

Michigan's higher education institutions must become full partners in K-16 education reform, working closely with the schools on curriculum, graduation and college entry standards.

In addition, a college's own program of study must be coherent and challenging, with high grading standards. A certificate or degree from an occupational or academic program should always be a mark of achievement and readiness to assume new responsibility.

Students must be given access to the technology and skills they need in today's information age. It is unacceptable to create classes of "have" and "have-not" colleges when it comes to training in technology.

Action Steps

• State Funded Partnerships: The state should endorse and fund K-12 education reform measures for partnerships between K-12 systems, community colleges, and four year institutions in teacher training*;
  
  
• Restore Michigan Department of Education: To ensure ongoing, coordinated, and productive partnerships among school districts and higher education institutions, state agencies, which provide services and scholarships to higher education, should not be diffused across state government. Further steps should be taken to restore functions to the Michigan Department of Education.
  

*Building a Profession: Strengthening Teacher Preparation and Induction, an American Federation of Teachers publication outlines such reform and is available upon request.

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