Immediately following the announcement last Friday of a new multi-million dollar teacher training grant from the Kellogg Foundation, Gov. Jennifer Granholm fielded questions from a horde of journalists at the Detroit Science Center. And the main topic wasn’t Michigan’s shiny new teacher fellowship.

Instead, reporters asked mostly about the state budget. This was one question that came up: What happens if the bill the House passed that uses $184 million in federal stimulus funds to reduce deep cuts to public education in this year’s budget isn’t supported by a majority of state senators?

“If they don’t,” the governor began…

… then these districts across the state are telling us that they are going to lay off the newest teachers they’ve hired, the young energetic teachers. They’re gonna be gone. They’re going to have to consolidate classes. Classes will be on the range of 35 to 40. Yesterday I was in Montcalm County. They’re AP classes are already 43 kids to a class. Every district across the state is saying the same thing.

At the end of the press conference, I asked Granholm if an announcement like the one today with Kellogg — basically, an infusion of private funds for public education as public funds seem to be drying up — makes her think any differently about the need for structural changes to the way public education is funded?

Absolutely, there has to be structural change in the way education is funded. Proposal A and the way schools are funded right now, is not working and it’s clear from what we’re seeing in the school aid fund. So there has to be better, more stable revenue that goes in to the system. There has to be more equitable revenue that goes into the system as well. So that has to be part of the solution. What I’m talking about by next week is a short-term solution. The patient is in the emergency room. But the patient is ill long-term. We have to have a more stable funding for schools.

What specifically would bring about that stability?

Well, there have been a couple suggestions that have been made. And I encourage the education committee to focus on either one. I think either could go. The business community has said that they would support, for example, potentially, a lowering of the sales tax rate and spreading it more broadly to services. That would create a more stable base to fund the school aid fund. Some have suggested a graduated income tax to be able to ask those who are privileged and get a lot more, to be able to pay a few percentage points or a percentage point more and have that go to education. Either way, we have got to stabilize the school system in Michigan.

Rep. Mark Meadows (D-East Lansing) has submitted a bill in the state legislature on that first idea. The Meadows bill would reduce the state sales tax from six percent to five percent, but would extend it to services as well as products. The bill is estimated to raise about $1 billion in new revenue each year.