DETROIT – Governor Rick Snyder pushed for more emphasis on career and technical education as he launched the first merger of the Governor’s Education Summit and the Governor’s Economic Summit.

Noting that the education and economic development people had tended to segregate themselves in the room, he urged participants for the remainder of Monday’s events and through the day Tuesday to mingle and share ideas.

“It was an area where too often we live in silos,” he said of education and economic development. “The Michigan of the future is blurring those lines. … The greatest thing we have going for us is when we cross those lines, when we erase those lines.”

When the two sectors work together, options for career education improve, he said.

“That’s our future, the combination of economics and education,” he said. “That’s our opportunity to get young people into great careers.”

His presentation included a video, narrated by “Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe, urging students to consider training in tool and die.

“We must expand and energize the opportunities for career and technical education,” said Michigan Economic Development Corporation CEO Steve Arwood, who will be director of the upcoming Department of Talent and Economic Development.

Snyder said his new education advisor, Ottawa Intermediate School District Superintendent Karen McPhee, would also contribute to the effort to promote career education.

“Number one is the skilled trades issue,” Snyder said of McPhee’s tasks when she starts the position in April. “I couldn’t think of a better background to have.”

In many regions, ISDs run the career education programs.

McPhee said her primary initial goal is to gather priorities, not only from the administration, but from others involved in education.

But she said the idea of joining the two summits made sense. “At the end of the day, we all want the exact same thing: we want strong communities; we want an educated citizenry, and we want them productive,” she said.

McPhee defended Snyder’s budget changes to date, including moving some programs to the School Aid Fund from the General Fund, but she said the transfers deserved continued scrutiny.

“Historically, those transfers have happened, and we have to do what’s in the best interests of the state,” she said.

She acknowledged the condition of local schools was a combination of local management and state funding.

“Our local schools are in the shape that they’re in because of the decisions they made over time and the impact of revenues on those,” she said, adding to questions whether sufficient funding had been restored after cuts in the 2011-12 budget that the additional funding for the Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System has removed some burdens from districts.

Snyder told reporters after his presentation that passage of Proposal 15-1 would further restore some of those funding cuts, while also implementing additional restrictions on use of the School Aid Fund.

To critics of the plan, particularly some local leaders like Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel and Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, Snyder said it was more important to look at the policy result than the process that developed it.

“If you’re a county executive, you’re going to see major benefits to your county in terms of road dollars and other opportunities to improve your local environment and economy,” he said. “It’s a much better option than nothing happening.”

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