LANSING – Governor Rick Snyder said the introduction of the inaugural W.K. Kellogg-Woodrow Wilson Michigan Teaching Fellowship class at the Capitol on Thursday symbolized something much more important than the tax debate going on down the hall.

Six of the first 92 recipients joined Snyder at a news conference. Each will receive $30,000 to pursue a customized, one-year master’s degree program designed to prepare them to teach in high-need urban or rural high schools.

“This is about our kids,” Snyder said. “One of the things we talk about quite often is the most important asset we have in the state of Michigan is not our tax system, not our regulatory system, not any other single feature and I would even list some of our natural beauties.

The three-year program is geared toward recent college graduates and those from the workforce looking to pursue a teaching career. The fellows were selected from a pool of 1,500 applicants with strong backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The recipients will attend one of the six universities – Wayne State, Eastern Michigan, Michigan, Michigan State, Grand Valley State and Western Michigan – working in conjunction with the W.K. Kellogg and Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship foundations.

After earning their postgraduate degrees, the fellows will teach in seven partner public school districts: Battle Creek, Benton Harbor, Detroit, Godfrey-Lee, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Muskegon.

In exchange for the fellowship, each recipient has made a commitment to work at least three years in a Michigan public school.

Snyder was asked about his call to move Michigan forward through partnerships between the public and private sectors, and, given the fact tax cuts he seeks will decrease state-funding by $420 per pupil, whether schools will have to rely more on private entities for help.

“I feel we (the state) will continue to invest in education over the longer term,” he said. “Again, we had to deal with a one-and-a-half billion dollar budget deficit this year in a very difficult environment. So, we had to reset the base. The other thing is, in our educational system, there’s too much discussion simply over funding.”

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