After 19 months and hundreds of interviews with educators across the state, a collaborative of Michigan school officials, former legislators and business leaders is set to release recommendations next month for a better way to fund schools.

The Michigan School Finance Research Collaborative was recently awarded a $50,000 grant from the Skillman Foundation and a $100,000 grant from the Mott Foundation. Combined with a 2016 grant from Kellogg and contributions from 18 intermediate school districts, the group has raised $842,609 to fund the study.

The collaborative has high hopes for this project because the report uses information from hundreds of diverse sources to decide how to properly fund Michigan schools.

A study of Michigan school finance last year recommended that the state increase school funding level to $8,667 per student with additional funds for children who have special needs and those who are still learning English. The majority of schools in the state still receive less than $8,000.

School finance in Michigan is broken,” said Robert Moore, project director and deputy superintendent of finance and operations at Oakland Schools. “You have to have good information to support the reform efforts.”

Read the full article by Amanda Rahn about Michigan education from Chalkbeat