A new initiative spearheaded by U-M and the Detroit Regional Chamber aims to generate a renewed age of economic prosperity for southeast Michigan.
“The scariest things I’ve experienced in my forty-plus years” as a federally funded researcher, says U-M nursing school professor Janet Larson.
Throughout the debate over Ann Arbor Public Schools’ money troubles, there have been rumors about the prospect of shutting down schools. But this summer, board members began treating it as a foregone conclusion. The real questions seem to be: How many? And which ones?
Results from the 2025 Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP) show that 60 percent of Washtenaw County’s third-graders categorized as economically disadvantaged—including those who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, whose families receive food aid, and foster children, among other categories—scored in the lowest level for English Language Arts, compared with 26 percent of all students. Narrowing such disparities requires interventions with individual students that schools may not be equipped to handle on their own.
Pioneer Theatre Guild’s reimagined Hamlet embodies exactly the type of theater program Quinn Strassel wants for students: “Theater is better when everyone is invited to the table.” And in Ann Arbor Public Schools, high school students have an open invitation.
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This is the U School approach: a philosophy of constructive conflict resolution, developed by U School leadership, blended with the Reggio Emilia approach, eco-justice, and play- and place-based education.
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Standardized test scores show that many Ann Arbor–area kids are struggling with reading proficiency. According to results released last year from the 2024–25 Michigan Student Test of Education Progress, only 56 percent of AAPS third-graders met or exceeded proficiency standards in English Language Arts. On a key national study known as the Nation’s Report Card, Michigan was ranked forty-fourth in the U.S. for fourth-grade reading in 2024—dropping eight places since 2019.
In an exceedingly rare political maneuver, resigned Ann Arbor school board treasurer Don Wilkerson filed in June to run in the November special election called to fill the seat he vacated.
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In late June, three Democratic state reps—Jason Morgan and Morgan Foreman of Ann Arbor and Jimmie Wilson of Ypsilanti—introduced legislation that would require university officials to follow local zoning requirements and ordinances. This followed U-M’s announcement in May that it would purchase the 140-acre Concordia University campus for $60 million. Because the university has legal autonomy on land purchases, the move did not require local input.
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There were at least two reasons why U-M’s $60 million deal to buy Concordia University’s Geddes Rd. campus rankled city hall.
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In April, the community was shaken when the regents’ choice for president, Kent Syverud, announced he would not take office due to a cancer diagnosis. He had been scheduled to assume the job on May 11. For now, interim president Domenico Grasso continues to lead U-M’s 68,000 students across the three campuses and about 50,000 faculty and staff at the university and hospital.
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Four students were admitted to Yale—which Huron High college counselor Emily Mashal says may only take thirty students from the entire state—alongside acceptances to Columbia, Stanford, Northwestern, and Brown. More than ninety-five students were admitted to U-M, and several first-generation students earned spots at top institutions with full financial support.
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Kathy Kosobud, a longtime Ann Arbor resident and educator, received the David McMahon Human Rights Award from the Michigan Education Association in April. The award honors moral and ethical leadership in the fields of human and civil rights.
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In May 2024, a week before police stormed and dismantled the Gaza solidarity encampment on the Diag, first-term Democrat U-M Regent Jordan Acker wrote on social media that he would never budge from his view that the university must not divest its endowment from companies that profit from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. “If these protesters do not like these answers, they are free to run for office and try to get the people of Michigan to elect them,” Acker posited.
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After a whopping 99.6 percent of the members of the Ann Arbor Education Association (AAEA) voted against a tentative teachers contract in April, two big questions remained: What now? And, also, why did the union make everyone vote on an agreement that was so universally loathed?
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The local orchestra program broadens young people’s horizons—and has a broader reach than just Ann Arbor.
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Huron has one of Michigan’s highest chronic absenteeism rates: 68.6 percent of its students in the 2024–25 school year—more than two-thirds—missed at least 10 percent, or eighteen days, of class. Ann Arbor Public Schools’ other two traditional high schools aren’t much better: Pioneer’s rate was 63.7 percent, and Skyline’s was 61.6 percent. (Chronic absenteeism rates include excused and unexcused absences, but neither AAPS nor the state collects data on how many of each are occurring.)
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Washtenaw County will continue to offer services, but others weren’t so lucky.
Read MoreI am writing as a concerned Ann Arbor community member and AAPS parent regarding the ongoing stalemate in contract negotiations with our teachers. The continued inability to reach an agreement that fairly compensates the educators who serve our students is deeply troubling.
Read MoreUncontracted for the first time since 1994, AAPS teachers are now “working to rule,” effectively only doing what is specifically articulated in the expired contract.
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