To ring in the new year, Granholm presented a slew of new plans, proposals and initiatives in her speech Tuesday. Although jobs, the economy and the environment were high on her priority list, Granholm spent a great deal of time on education.

With her proposed 21st Century Schools Fund, crowded high schools would be replaced with smaller schools able to focus on students’ needs. Her budget plan also would make way for about 100 high schools — called “early college high schools” — that would partner with a hospital or other industry to help students earn a college-level education in certain fields before graduating. These high schools would have a five-year program, with college-level courses as the focus of a students’ fifth year.

Also, the dropout age would increase from 16 to 18 years old for all Michigan high school students.

Granholm also wants to create more Kalamazoo Promise-type programs — a mix of private donations and city funds — to make higher education more affordable for students throughout Michigan. They sound like good plans. Great plans, actually.

Education is key to all the other plans proposed for Michigan. You can’t have jobs without businesses. An educated population makes it possible for businesses and industries to locate and survive in this state. And if education is affordable — especially with more Kalamazoo Promise-inspired programs around — more people are likely to stay within the state to take those jobs.

Adding an extra year, especially in smaller schools that offer a more career-specific set of courses, students will have more time to figure out their options. Although some might consider the freshman year of college a perfect time to do the same, having that flexibility built into high school might make for a smoother transition to a college or university.

But with any plan like this, the details matter. Although Granholm claims sufficient funding for the next three to five years is possible, these potential reforms seem expensive, problematic and prone to fall apart. Where are these new and improved schools going to be located? In areas that continually flunk No Child Left Behind Act standards and have a history of insufficient resources, a more intimate school setting might help to bring students up to par.

But if located in already affluent areas, the disparities between students in some parts of the state will only worsen.

An extra year earning college credit without having to pay tuition can serve as an incentive to continue education, but there is the concern that students might use that training to get a job right away and not choose to further their education after high school.

And most school districts are low on adequate teachers and other resources. If Granholm doesn’t plan on bringing in more competent teachers and providing for necessary materials, her plan to improve education will quickly fall apart.

Naturally, specifics weren’t revealed in her address to Michigan residents, but hopefully she’ll act quickly to fill in the gaps.

It isn’t nice to get our hopes up.