Detroit – Michigan eighth-graders are 36th in the nation in math and 33rd in reading. But legislators are making sure they excel at what matters — like greening school buses by checking their tire pressures.

In 2006, Michigan created a bipartisan “Green School” law that tasked government to recognize schools with green programs. To qualify, an institution must task its students to complete half of a list of 20 green options, including:

– Making sure their school “has adopted an endangered species animal and posted a picture of it in a main traffic area.”

– That students participate in “a planned program of energy savings, including dusting coils on cafeteria refrigerators, placing film on windows, setting hot water heaters one degree lower, seeing how plants and trees strategically placed can save energy, and checking proper inflation on bus tires and other school vehicles once a month.”

– That the school be visited by an “ecological spokesperson, a representative of the Sierra Club, an endangered animal species show, or a similar presentation.”

– That “the school has solar power presentations or experiments, such as a solar cookout.”

– That “the school has science class projects in which students do several home energy improvements, such as . . . clean coils on home refrigerators, and install draft guards for the doors.”

– That “the school’s classes visit internet sites where clicking saves rainforest habitat.”

In short, a program to indoctrinate students as green missionaries spreading the green gospel in school, home, and the community. Some 500 schools now participate in the program, reports the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, with legislation pending [PDF] this year to upgrade schools to “Emerald School” status (15 tasks completed) and “Evergreen School” status for completing all 20.

Michigan is one of a handful of states with a green-school program. Call it America’s Race to the Bottom.

— Henry Payne is an editorial writer and cartoonist with the Detroit News.