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Lansing Bills Seek to Impose Open Enrollment Mandate for All Michigan Public Schools
In Feb. 4 testimony before the Michigan House Education and Workforce Development Committee, Grosse Pointe Public School System Board of Education Trustee Sean Cotton, testifying in his personal capacity, defended the existing “opt out” provision of Michigan’s School of Choice statute.
His testimony was in response to a package of bills that, if enacted, would force every Michigan district to participate in schools of choice and nullify the current opt out provision. The Grosse Pointe Public School System is one of several dozen districts which have consistently elected not to admit non-resident students, except in special circumstances.
Following his Lansing testimony, Cotton offered via email the following update and reported that the committee has not, as of the date of this post, passed the proposal out of committee.
Cotton encourages Pointers to contact members of the House Committee and provides links to a list of their addresses.
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
I am writing to provide an update on the School of Choice legislation currently moving through Lansing and to share a report from my meetings at the Capitol last week.
First, I want to be very clear about the broader context. As you may have seen today, the Mackinac Center just openly declared war on the Grosse Pointes and specifically on the Grosse Pointe Public School System: https://www.mackinac.org/blog/2026/house-bill-a-shot-in-the-arm-for-schools-of-choice-law. This is very troubling as I am hearing that there are groups that are passionately lobbying for this bill that are painting this as a racial issue and opposition as racist. They are meeting with legislators and bringing the full court press to getting this passed in the house so that it is a plank of the Republican platform in our state. The groups that are pushing the hardest for this bill, along with the Mackinac Center, are the Michigan Chamber, Americans for Prosperity, the Reason Foundation and a few additional organizations.
With respect to last week’s committee meeting, it was extremely encouraging. A strong group of engaged parents, municipal leaders, and community advocates attended in opposition to the legislation. Several individuals, including myself, provided public comment, and many others formally registered their opposition. This visible and unified presence matters, and committee members clearly took notice.
If you have not yet done so, I strongly encourage you to email members of the House Education Committee urging them to oppose House Bill 5310. Contact information is available here:
https://www.house.mi.gov/Committee/HEDUC. Please also encourage friends, neighbors, and colleagues to do the same….
…Following the committee hearing, I met directly with Speaker of the House Matt Hall. This was one of the most constructive and substantive meetings I have had with state leadership in Michigan. Speaker Hall asked thoughtful questions, engaged seriously with the concerns raised, and stated that he would take a closer look at these bills. If you have relationships with House leadership or Republican leadership at the state level, I strongly urge you to reach out and raise this issue directly. If you have a relationship with any of the groups that are pushing this legislation I hope that you would address this with them.
I do not yet know when the next committee meeting will be scheduled, but I will provide an update as soon as that information becomes available.
You may hear some suggest that this legislation could never pass the Senate. That may be true today. However, anyone who follows Lansing closely knows there are no guarantees. More importantly, our objective should not be to rely on current partisan politics. The goal must be to ensure that this proposal never becomes a priority of the Republican Party in Michigan.
Abolishing the ability to opt out of Schools of Choice, as contemplated in these bills, is not a solution to any challenges facing public education. The consequences to our school system would be significant. The loss of local control over our school system would undermine one of the central pillars of our successful school system. We cannot allow the future of our schools and our community to become a bargaining chip in state budget negotiations. This issue must be taken off the table entirely before those negotiations begin.
Sean Cotton
To learn more about this poorly conceived legislation and the disastrous implications it could have on the Grosse Pointe community, read Cotton’s testimony printed in the Feb. 12 issue of the Grosse Pointe News, or on this website here.