LANSING – State Representative Andy Schor (D-Lansing) introduced House Bill 4422 today to create the Red Tape Removal Task Force. This bill will create a task force of experts in the education field to review the many state reporting requirements for schools in order to weed out the ones that are duplicative and outdated. The task force would have six months to review the many reports, then report back to the Legislature with recommendations. The members of the temporary task force would be appointed by the Michigan Association of School Boards, the Michigan Association of School Administrators, the Michigan Education Association, the Michigan Federation of Teachers, the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals and Education Trust-Midwest. There would also be five nonvoting ex officio members including the Superintendent of Public Instruction or his/her designee and members appointed by the Senate Majority Leader, the Senate Minority Leader, the Speaker of the House and the House Minority Leader.

“We are hearing more and more around the state that school administrators and teachers have tremendously burdensome reporting requirements from the state. We talk in Lansing about the cost of education, but we also need to focus on reducing red tape so that our teachers and administrators can focus on what is most important – teaching our children,” Schor said. “Cutting down on red tape for schools is not a partisan issue and this bill has several co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle. I hope to see this legislation move quickly so we can get the task force up and running as soon as possible.”

Members of the Red Tape Removal Task Force would be charged with identifying and compiling a list of all state reporting requirements for school districts, intermediate school districts, public school academies and nonpublic schools to identify:

  • The source of the legal requirements for each report;
  • The time, staff, and other resources required to compile, submit, track and quantify each report;
  • Privacy concerns that may be present for each report; and
  • Reports that may be obsolete, duplicative, unnecessary or unduly burdensome. 

The task force would then make recommendations on how to improve efficiencies, which reports ought to be eliminated, and measures to ensure better privacy of data, among other things. Their finished report would be submitted to the governor, the State Board of Education, and the House and Senate. 

“I look forward to hearing from educators in committee hearings about how they would like this task force to function, because in the end, this is to help both lawmakers, schools and students,” Schor said.