Although they’ve declined, Ann Arbor’s third-grade M-STEP scores remain higher than the Michigan average, and are among the highest in Washtenaw County.

Students in grades 3–7 took the Michigan Student Test of Education Progress (M-STEP) last spring and the results were released on the same late-August day they returned to their classrooms. 56 percent of Ann Arbor’s third graders scored proficient or better, and 61 percent of fourth graders.

Three AAPS elementaries—Angell, King, and Wines—ranked in the top 1 percent statewide, and most local schools scored better than the state averages. But Michigan sets a low bar: this year, just 39 percent of third graders and 42 percent of fourth graders were proficient in English Language Arts (ELA).

Compared to Ann Arbor’s 56 percent, third graders in Chelsea and Manchester posted slightly lower ELA scores (52 and 53 percent, respectively). In Dexter, 59 percent tested proficient or advanced, while Saline stood out at 68 percent.

In contrast, 19 percent of third graders in the Ypsilanti Community Schools were proficient—and this marks an 8 percent increase from 2019. An ambitious “district improvement plan” implemented in 2017 targeted a ten-point gain, and YCS is close to achieving it.

The results highlight the huge challenges educators face in turning around learning patterns that were declining even before the pandemic. And they’re especially disappointing considering that a decade ago, the State Board of Education announced a lofty goal: to make Michigan a top-ten state in education by 2025. Yet this year, U.S. News & World Report placed Michigan forty-fifth in the nation.

After months of uncertainty, the state budget adopted in October increased K–12 funding by about $600 million. But that’s just 3 percent of the $21.3 billion total, and there are many calls on those dollars: before retiring in October, state superintendent Michael Rice recommended reducing class sizes in “high-poverty” K–3 classrooms, additional in-person instruction, funding for more research-based early literacy materials, and mandatory training in language essentials for teachers, administrators, and literacy coaches.

“Today’s M-STEP results underscore an urgent truth: too many Michigan students are still not getting what they need to succeed,” State Board of Education President Pamela Pugh said in a press release. Third and fourth graders in particular are showing the effects of Covid school shutdowns, since they were just beginning their schooling at that time. But Ann Arbor’s decline began before Covid, and grew worse following the budget cuts in 2024, when the district belatedly discovered a $25 million deficit.

Yet some states that spend less saw their scores improve. Mississippi, ranked forty-ninth in fourth-grade reading in 2013, is now in the top twenty. An article in Chalkbeat Detroit credits their success to in part to Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) training, which emphasizes the “science of reading.”

Related: Dyslexia Help

Pugh said that the state board is “committed to accelerating improvement, including, among other measures, mandating … training in the science of reading, funding additional high-quality early-literacy materials, reducing K–3 class sizes where poverty is highest, and fully implementing dyslexia screening and intervention. And we need a legislature that puts students over politics.”

That ball is now in the hands of Michigan’s incoming superintendent, former Dearborn Public Schools Superintendent Glenn Maleyko.

Inquiries to Ann Arbor principals, the early elementary education director, and superintendent’s office were referred to AAPS director ofcommunications Andrew Cluley. He emails that AAPS staff and trustees are reviewing M-STEP data—“and as we do annually, will give a report to the Board of Education later this fall. We will be happy to discuss the results after we have done our review and shared the information with the Board, but do not have comment at this time.”