Governor Gretchen Whitmer spent part of Wednesday reading to a class of distractable 4- and 5-year-olds at a Saginaw early childhood center.
She also made the case for the state to invest more in Pre-Kindergarten education and literacy programs.
The governor’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget proposal includes $181 million to expand Pre-K for All, a free pre-school program for 4-year-olds designed to prepare them for kindergarten and beyond.
Whitmer’s budget blueprint also includes $625 million in literacy programs that she said are designed to support early starts, proven methods (including expanded training for educators in evidence-based reading instruction and increased literacy coaching in classrooms), and extra help for students who need it most.
“We’ve done great work together already with the Science of Reading,” said Whitmer, referring to literacy legislation that passed in 2024, “but this is just the next step to bringing about the outcomes we all desperately want to see.”
The governor is hopeful that bipartisan support for the goals of the education programs will translate into funding.
