Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer: Not appropriate to have 30 kids in a kindergarten class

Craig Mauger, The Detroit News on Apr 16, 2025

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LANSING, Mich. — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Wednesday it's not appropriate for kindergarten classes to have 30 students in them after a Detroit News investigation documented class sizes across Michigan that conflicted with limits set in other states and with what education experts said is best for promoting learning.

Using Michigan's Freedom of Information Act, The News found 206 elementary classes — ranging from kindergarten through fifth grade — across 49 schools over the 2023-24 and 2024-25 years that had at least 30 students in them. Among them was a kindergarten class at Bennett Elementary, where the Detroit Public Schools Community District said 30 students were enrolled.

Similarly, Lakeview Public Schools in St. Clair Shores reported having 29 students in a kindergarten class at Ardmore Elementary last year. South Canton Scholars Charter Academy, a charter school in Canton Township, disclosed an average of 28.8 students across four kindergarten classes this year. And Bangor West Elementary in Bay County said it has 27 students in one of its current kindergarten classes.

Asked if she thought having 30 students in a kindergarten class was appropriate, Whitmer, a Democrat, told reporters on Wednesday, "No. Of course, I don't."

"I think the science would tell us that we've got to bring down class sizes," Whitmer said.

The governor, who's in her second term, added that she had promoted efforts to support teachers and pull more people into the profession. But funding is also important, along with measures to ensure children are getting what they need, she said.

"There's a lot of work to do in this space," Whitmer said. "I think it's really important we put all the old ... arguments aside and focus on what kids today need and what science says is going to be the best for our outcomes."

Whitmer commented after an event in Lansing, where she encouraged Michigan residents enrolling in college for the first time to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

For the 2024-25 school year, The News tracked class sizes for about 19,900 elementary school students from kindergarten through fifth grade in Michigan. The data represented only a small portion of the approximately 613,000 students in that grade range statewide.

Local superintendents have said the large class sizes have been caused by unpredictable enrollment fluctuations and physical space constraints.

At least 31 of the 50 states have laws about class sizes, tie funding to small classes or set goals for their schools to attempt to meet and to be accountable to. Michigan currently doesn't have such a standard.

Tennessee state law includes both average class size benchmarks for school buildings and maximum class size limits for individual classes. The average class size standard in Tennessee for kindergarten through the third grade is 20 students per class and the maximum limit is 25.

Of the 797 elementary school classes The News examined, 63% had at least 25 students in them. The News tracked 36 individual kindergarten classes with more than 25 students in them.

In recent weeks, multiple Michigan lawmakers, from both sides of the aisle, have expressed an interest in policies to encourage or require smaller class sizes.

“It’s something we’ve been hearing anecdotally from a lot of parents across our districts,” state House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, told reporters on Tuesday. “They feel that, in a lot of these cases, these kids are in classes that are too big.”

Whitmer would have to sign a proposal on the matter into law. However, she didn't endorse a specific approach to the issue on Wednesday.

The discussions in Lansing come as Michigan leaders search for ways to boost young students' reading scores. Michigan ranked 44th among the 50 states in the average reading score of fourth-graders, according to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress results.

And during her State of the State address in February, Whitmer said just 24% of Michigan fourth-graders were able to read proficiently. Michigan invests more per student than most states but achieves "bottom 10 results," the governor said.

"We spend more and we get less," Whitmer said in February. "It’s not acceptable. For our kids, let’s do better. Let’s face our literacy crisis with fierce urgency."

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Staff Writer Beth LeBlanc contributed.