As the mother of three, grandmother of one and volunteer at the Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, I am — and will continue to be — a champion for our kids’ schools here in southeastern Michigan. Our kids need top-quality public schools, so they can get the education and skills they need to compete for jobs in the 21st century economy.

I’ve fought back against nearly $1 billion in cuts Lansing Republicans have forced on Michigan’s schools. These cuts have devastated local schools, costing Plymouth-Canton Community Schools more than $4 million and Van Buren Public Schools more than $1.1 million in funding. Because of the slashed funding, Plymouth-Canton laid off 269 teachers last year and an additional 68 teachers this year. In western Wayne County schools, they’ve increased class sizes up to 35 students per class. This only served to hurt the quality of education our kids receive.

In this year’s budget, House Republicans restored a tiny percentage of their harmful cuts and only for certain schools. For school districts like Plymouth-Canton and Van Buren, they provided nothing in additional per-pupil funding to restore last year’s cuts. They did this just so they could mislead voters in an election year, attempting to hide the damage they’ve done to our kids’ schools.

Our kids deserve to have the best education possible, and the only way we can do that is by restoring all of the funding taken from our local schools.

Rep. Dian Slavens
21st House District