Every child should have the opportunity to flourish. To accomplish this goal, children need access to necessary resources, particularly with resources that support their education.
Ensuring equitable access is a guiding principle for MCC when it comes to advocating for more than 100,000 children who attend nonpublic schools. On an annual basis, our policy staff engages with lawmakers to extend funding for support services to nonpublic school students if they are also available for public school students.
Support for students should not be a zero-sum game; it is possible to support students, regardless of the school they attend. Thankfully, the new state budget recently signed into law continues to extend equitable access to state resources to students who attend both public and nonpublic schools.
Children learn best in safe environments. As in previous years, the Legislature passed, and the Governor signed, a fiscal year 2027 budget that continues critical funding for school safety improvements at public and nonpublic schools. Fostering a safe school environment also includes meeting the mental health needs of students. The budget extends resources to nonpublic schools to help hire school counselors to address those needs.
We know that children cannot learn without proper nutrition. To that end, the state has expanded an existing federal breakfast and meal program so that all schools are included, regardless of family income. This ensures all children have access to healthy meals at school. The past two budget cycles – including the newly signed budget – extends the meal program to eligible nonpublic schools, as well.
Additionally, lawmakers in recent years have been trying to address a statewide teacher shortage. To do so, they have funded two programs providing financial support both to individuals studying to be teachers as well as individuals fulfilling their student teacher assignments. Unfortunately, those programs had not allowed prospective teachers who received state assistance to consider a nonpublic school as an initial career option.
The new budget lifts these restrictions, allowing those teachers that received state assistance to also teach in nonpublic schools.
As part of MCC’s efforts to advocate for nonpublic students, MCC staff spent months meeting with key Republican and Democratic lawmakers and staff in both the House and Senate to explain how this funding is important to all students.
But this achievement cannot be accomplished alone. We are grateful for the nonpublic school leaders who came from across the state to an annual public policy day in Lansing, hosted by the Michigan Association of Nonpublic Schools. As part of the event, administrators meet with their elected representatives to share the importance of approving a state budget that supports all students.
We also acknowledge members of the grassroots Catholic Advocacy Network who in the past have answered the call to contact their lawmakers and advocate for nonpublic students.
Together, these efforts have resulted in a state budget that continues critical resources and provides new, additional resources to help our Catholic and other nonpublic schools, and ultimately, the children who learn in those schools.
Successfully advocating for resources that reach nonpublic schools is another step toward helping all students, in every type of learning environment, receive access to the tools and resources needed to reach their God-given potential and to advance the common good.
The Word from Lansing is a regular column for Catholic news outlets provided by Michigan Catholic Conference, the official public policy voice of the Catholic Church in this state.
