This is the first start of a school year in quite a while that state Representative Brad Paquette of Berrien Springs isn’t in a classroom. Elected last fall to represent southern Berrien County, Paquette says the state needs to find ways to bolster its teaching roster.
“Finding the educators that are really doing it well and finding out how to support them is the most important push we can have in education reform,” says Paquette. “Because when you put a dynamic, amazing educator in front of young people, he or she changes their lives. And the way that we go about things in Michigan right now is not conducive to keeping those people in the profession.”
Paquette adds while the full state budget for the next fiscal year, which starts October 1, isn’t yet done, the House version does increase education spending. Critics, however, have argued for years that the increases have not kept up with inflation in some cases, and the money in other cases doesn’t actually get into the classroom.
