trying to quietly welsh on a pledge to give an estimated 48,600 middle school students scholarships of up to $500 for college if they passed state achievement tests.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm has cut the Michigan Merit Award funding promised to middle schoolers five years ago to save $9 million in her proposed state budget.
Granholm is going back on promises made to students that if they passed the MEAP exams they would receive scholarship money for college. While the $500 scholarship may not pay for all of college, every bit helps, and it would be going to students who put in the effort to pass the MEAp tests in High School, thus helping to reinforce the value of studying hard and learning.
The effect of the breach of the promise, is, in the words of Ellison Franklin, principal at Plymouth's West Middle School
going to be such a negative lesson about government -- that you can't trust government
That lesson may very well be the most valuable lesson the kids will learn in school.
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