Michigan is the deepest university-charter ecosystem in the country. All eight public university authorizers are now coded. Between them they hold well over 200 schools and exactly one preparation program.
The working hypothesis was simple and testable: universities build for this sector when they hold schools in it. Michigan was the place to test it, because Michigan universities have chartered schools since 1994 and eight of them still do.
Six were unexamined until this edition — Oakland, Saginaw Valley State, Northern Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Ferris State and Lake Superior State. All six are now coded. None has built a preparation program for the sector. Central Michigan's Charter School Leadership M.A. remains the only one in a scan of 39 institutions.
The result is not that nothing happens. Three of the six reach the education college directly, and each does it in a different way. Oakland University houses its Office of Public School Academies inside the School of Education and Human Services and states the reason plainly — the placement exists “marshalling the strength of its programs and faculty to increase the proficiency and expertise of Academy teachers and administrators.” Its leadership degrees still prepare principals and deans of students, with no charter or choice content. Saginaw Valley State gives teachers and administrators of its 17 academies 50–75% tuition remission to complete a College of Education program — a change in the price of the standard degree, not in its contents. Northern Michigan describes its nine academies as providing “hands-on classroom experience for NMU's hundreds of elementary and secondary education majors” — the charter schools are practicum sites feeding conventional licensure.
Proximity, subsidy and access were each present. None produced a program.
The hypothesis does not survive in its simple form. Scale does not rescue it either: Grand Valley State holds 78 schools and more than 34,000 students, more than Central Michigan, and has built no degree. Holding schools, holding many schools, and holding them inside the education college were all insufficient.
That leaves a sharper question than the one we started with. Michigan is complete and the answer is no. The open problem is no longer whether the Central Michigan pattern repeats — it does not — but why it happened once.
Cite as: When Money Follows the Child. Eight authorizers, one program. Field Note 04, August 2026. https://www.whenmoneyfollowsthechild.org/notes/04/ Accessed [date].