Michigan to screen children for dyslexia

Oct 23, 2026, Bridge MI: To fix Michigan schools, experts urge better reading skills, less politics - Bridge Michigan

Education experts say the state’s literacy goals are directly tied to students’ futures

Panelists encourage people to volunteer with their local schools

The discussion is a culmination of several months of listening to readers about what issues matter most to them 

DETROIT — If Michigan wants to improve its education system, it must double down on efforts to improve literacy, train more students for the workforce and encourage people to volunteer with their schools.

That’s according to four education experts who spoke Wednesday on a panel titled “The Talent Pipeline: Balancing Early Literacy with Postsecondary Goals” at Bridge Michigan’s inaugural Issues Summit at Marygrove Conservancy. Other panels at the summit focused on rising healthcare costs, housing challenges and the tension around data centers. 

The summit was a result of Bridge Listens, a yearlong effort to hear from residents about the state’s top issues as the 2026 election season got underway. Bridge received more than 6,400 survey responses and education ranked fifth for readers’ most-important issue. . . .

More than 375 people attended the Issues Summit in Detroit or virtually. Bridge also hosted a watch party at Alpena Community College where local residents spoke about how statewide issues affect northeast Michigan. 

Wednesday’s education discussion came at a time when the state is struggling on several metrics: More than a fourth of students are chronically absent, reading scores remain low and only a fourth of high school juniors are considered “college ready.”

Venessa Keesler, president and CEO of Launch Michigan, a group aiming to redo Michigan’s high school graduation standards and requirements, said at the Issues Summit that Michigan can fix its education system. 

“We have to be really honest about the fact that Michigan starts and stops and starts and stops and starts and stops and we let politics come in,” she said. “We make policy competitive and not collaborative. And who pays for that is our kids.”

Michigan tried to improve reading scores before by making struggling third-graders repeat the grade. But many students got exemptions and lawmakers repealed the rule. The state briefly graded schools on an A-F scale before lawmakers dropped that, too. 

Michigan will soon require elementary teachers to take mandatory “science of reading” training and require school districts to screen students for traits of dyslexia thanks to bipartisan legislation passed in recent years. 

One of the options for training is called LETRS, a training that Ferndale Public Schools K-5 literacy coach Danielle Cover said changed the way she saw reading instruction. . . .

 “We’re not preparing enough kids in K-12 — and I would argue adults, who are beyond K-12 — to go into college, providing them the opportunities to pay for it, without a lot of debt, providing them a pathway through college into the workforce,” he said. “And so that system is broken.”

He urged adults to share “better and science-based and fact-based advice to students” about the value of college and other workforce training options. 

Fewins-Bliss urged the public to “stop demonizing education,” while Keesler urged people to vote for political candidates who “care about education and are also willing to work across the aisle.

“Education system change requires systems change, which means we need to stay the course, keep on the path, give up some of our own priorities and keep kids at the center,” Keesler said.