Governor Snyder has signed into law legislation that will create a one-time exception to the minimum days of instruction requirement for districts that have had excessive days off of school during the 2012-13 school year due to circumstances outside the control of school officials.

By now, you have likely heard of Governor Snyder's vision for education that calls for a, "Any Time, Any Place, Any Way, Any Pace Public School Learning Model."

In February, Governor Snyder shared one initiative to this model specific to online learning in which he articulated, “every child in Michigan who needs or wants up to two hours of daily online education must receive it.”

A rare bit of good economic news came out of today's Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference in Lansing. The May projection, which will form the basis on which lawmakers build their final FY 2013-14 budgets, shows moderate increases in School Aid Fund (SAF) revenue and a significant bump in general fund, general purpose (GF-GP) money. This is positive for schools that have seen massive cuts over the past several years, though it falls far short of completely making schools whole. Keep reading for the main points to take away from today's announcement:

As a principal, imagine raising a key school metric by more than 10% in one year, enabling your students to receive an extra $100,000 in additional financial aid for college, and also laying the groundwork for even bigger increases in the years to come. That’s what the EduCash program did for many schools in 2012-13, and thanks to a national grant, the national award-winning nonprofit EduGuide is scaling up their EduCash program to provide grants to more schools like yours for the 2013-14 school year.

The House Education Committee was busy this week, first holding a Tuesday hearing to vote out bills to make changes to the Michigan Merit Curriculum, and then holding another on Wednesday to debate performance pay for educators.