State Representative Brad Paquette is hoping to pursue some education reforms in Michigan following Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s call to improve childhood literacy during her State of the State address last week.

Paquette tells us listening to the speech, he was struck by Whitmer’s apparent acknowledgement that Michigan children have fallen behind. He says the loss of progress on literacy is partly due to a “bouncing back and forth” of policy as control of the state switched from Republicans to Democrats.

“Last term, all those laws were undone in the Democratic trifecta that they had in place with specific regard to teacher evaluation, with third grade reading retention,” Paquette said. “We’re passing kids on that cannot read, and that’s something that was overturned. That sounded to me like there’s an appetite to go back to.”

Paquette says the governor can find cooperation from him on education reform.

“My mind goes to, if she’s willing and wants to, we can do a couple of different big initiatives to really reform our system of education here in the state.”

Paquette’s promoting plans to allow for direct teacher hires by parents and rewarding newer, younger teachers with higher pay when they show success, rather than just paying the most experienced teachers the most.

As for other proposals in the governor’s address, Paquette says property tax reform for seniors caught his attention. He adds the governor was more energetic in her speech than previous State of the State addresses, something that surprised him.