LANSING -- "I want a better job."

Jennifer Makel is like many Michiganders -- out of work, and heading back to school to try to land one. She wants to become a teacher, and is set to begin classes at Lansing Community College.

"Teaching is always going to be around," Jennifer says. "I know there are cuts, but they always need teachers."

And with four children, she's hoping the government can help foot the bill for that retraining.

In this economy, she's in luck. The federal government announced today it's granting another $100 million dollars to train out-of-work Americans.

"We have some good news today," Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said Wednesday in a teleconference from Washington, D.C. "I am happy to announce the Department of Labor is supporting nearly $100 million for green jobs training grants."

Two Michigan projects received a chunk of that $100 million: SER Metro-Detroit got about $4 million; and the International Training Institute for the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Industry saw $5 million, to be split among Michigan and six other states.

While that money in particular is going to place folks in so-called green jobs, it's part of a much larger chunk of the stimulus plan -- almost a billion devoted to retraining America's workforce.

The question: Does it work?

"Of 100 percent who start, we expect about 85 percent to end up employed," Capital Area Michigan Works CEO Doug Stites said.

His group just received a separate $1.2 million federal dollars to retrain the area's unemployed. He's certain the funds are putting folks back to work (especially in the health care and IT fields), though he's less certain the green economy is the answer.

"Yes, there are green jobs out there. There aren't as many as people maybe thought there were," Stites said.

But DELEG Workforce Chief Andy Levin isn't quite so sure: "When we looked at the green firms that we could find, from 2005 to 2008, they grew 2,500 new jobs in our state," he said.

Levin argues those numbers prove the green economy does present an opportunity, but he cautions there's no silver bullet to plugging Michigan's joblessness. Green or not, putting people back to work is a score for the economy. Stites agrees.

"They turn out from being someone with no income, frequently on unemployment insurance or welfare, to someone who becomes a taxpayer," he said.

Something Michigan certainly needs.