HEAVY LIFTING: Dead Ahead!

Oakland Press

State schools chief says laws needed to get grants

Thursday, November 12, 2009

By TIM MARTIN
Associated Press Writer

LANSING (AP) — Michigan’s top schools official says the state Legislature will have to pass new laws for the state to have a shot at federal stimulus money set aside for innovative education programs.


States are competing for a slice of more than $4B the Obama administration will earmark for schools that make aggressive changes. Fewer than half the states are likely to win a portion of the cash when it’s doled out beginning in April.


Applications are due in January.


Michigan schools superintendent Mike Flanagan says Thursday the changes would have to include tying student data and achievement to teacher performance.


States are being urged to pursue tougher academic and student performance standards, better teacher recruitment methods and plans to turn around failing schools.

The "Vacuous Absence" of any HEAVY LIFTING!

THAT'S WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT!

Posted: Sunday, 08 November 2009 3:52PM Grant To Boost Michigan Science, Math Teachers

Addressing the shortage of math and science teachers who will equip Michigan's vulnerable students with the skills they need to compete in the work force, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has awarded the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation with a $16.7 million grant to establish a new statewide teaching fellowship program. The new W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Woodrow Wilson Michigan Teaching Fellowship will provide 240 future teachers with an exemplary intensive master's program in education and place those Fellows in hard-to-staff middle and high schools. Over the five-year timeline, almost 20,000 public school students in Mich. will receive high quality instruction in the critical subject areas of science, technology, engineering and math. Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm joined the Kellogg Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation at the announcement made last week at the Detroit Science Center. "This grant is an investment in Michigan's future, in the future of our workforce, and in the future of our children," Granholm said. "We must develop a workforce that is prepared for the high-tech careers of tomorrow. The new math and science teachers who emerge from this fellowship will inspire our kids to be excited about careers in science, math and technology." The W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Woodrow Wilson Michigan Teaching Fellowship will recruit a diverse mix of high-achieving candidates who show promise as future teachers. Fellows can be college seniors, recent graduates or career changers. The current market downturn in Michigan has forced many experienced engineers and professionals out of the workforce, making available a talented pool of workers who can share their knowledge and depth of experience with students. "The Kellogg Foundation has worked across the country to improve educational opportunities for vulnerable children from the early years through high school," said Sterling Speirn, president and CEO of the Kellogg Foundation. "But it's especially important to invest in a promising initiative in our home state that will match well-qualified teachers with students most in need." The Fellows, who will be announced in Spring 2011 and receive a $30,000 stipend to complete the master's program, commit to teach for at least three years in a high-need school after they complete their teacher education program. The Fellows also are placed in their schools in cohorts and receive intensive support and mentoring to encourage them to continue teaching as a long-term career instead of making it a brief assignment. As integral partners in the Fellowship, several Michigan universities also will undergo important changes. The adjustments will be necessary to provide the Fellows with the best combination of content knowledge and classroom expertise to most effectively address the challenges of their specific student populations. "Research has shown again and again that the most important element in a student's success is the teacher," said Arthur Levine, the president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and a respected expert on teacher education. "America's schools of education are facing the extraordinary challenge of having to prepare a new breed of teacher, ready to teach the most diverse population of students in our history to the highest levels of skills and knowledge ever required -- all in an outcomes-based system of education. This Fellowship emphasizes intensive practical preparation, rigorous grounding in the subject matter, and extensive supervised teaching experience in the same kind of high-need urban and rural schools where Fellows will later teach." "Having enough great teachers, especially in the math and sciences, shouldn't depend on where a child lives," said Mike Flanagan, Michigan's state superintendent of public instruction. "This program will help heal that disparity." The first statewide Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship, inspired by Levine's research, is already under way in Indiana. The four participating universities are Ball State University, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Purdue University and the University of Indianapolis. The first group of Fellows began their studies this past summer, and the project is being independently evaluated by the Urban Institute. Like Indiana's Fellowship, the Michigan Fellowship will serve as a model for improving teacher education across the country. Universities that participate must match a $500,000 grant and redesign their teacher education programs in science and math within a 21-month time frame by creating a collaborative relationship between the schools of arts and sciences and education. Instead of simply adding a pilot project, these model math and science teacher education programs completely replace the existing programs and are sustained for years to come. Field experience for the Fellows also starts early in the process, as they begin work in high-need schools and gradually take on more teaching responsibilities, similar to the training a medical student would receive in a teaching hospital. Mentoring support for the Fellows continues throughout their first three years in the classroom. The success of the program will be judged by the learning of the students in the Fellows' classrooms, the retention of the teachers and the changes at the university. Targeting the initiative to middle school students as well as to high school students is a key strategy for improving student performance in these subjects. The recently released National Assessment of Educational Progress mathematics results show that 8th graders have made slight gains since 2007, from an average of 281 to 283. But still, just 34 percent of students are scoring at or above the proficient level. In addition, students eligible for the federal student lunch program gained just one point over 2007 and the average score for English learners dropped this year by three points. Based in Battle Creek, the Kellogg Foundation focuses its grants on programs that improve the lives of vulnerable children. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Woodrow Wilson Michigan Teaching Fellowship matches the Foundation's goals of building innovative partnerships that create stronger conditions for learning and increasing students' ability to become productive members of society. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation has a history of administering successful fellowship programs and preparing new generations of leaders. It is respected within and beyond the higher education community. Since the 1980s, the Foundation also has forged partnerships between schools and universities in order to improve professional development for teachers. Interested applicants should contact wwteachingfellowships@woodrow.org. More at www.wkkf.org,

© MMIX WWJ Radio, All Rights Reserved.

DETROIT HEAVY LIFTERS!

MISSED BY TIME: Dan Varner of Think Detroit PAL, left, Detroit Public Schools’ Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb and Jamieson Elementary’s Kimberly Kyff, the 2006 Michigan Teacher of the Year. Not pictured: musician Kid Rock. Detroit Free Press 11/08/2009, Page A27

THEY DO THE CITY PROUD  Magazine’s ‘Committee to Save Detroit’ photo left out these proven leaders As part of its inaugural coverage of what’s happening to Motown, Time magazine published a photo of eight people it dubbed “The Committee to Save Detroit.” The group did not include any black males, and I wondered aloud: Why? In more than 1,100 e-mails, readers wondered, too, and said that Time missed an opportunity to salute a black man (besides Mayor Dave Bing, who had his own profile in the issue) who wasn’t dealing drugs, jacking cars or robbing people. (Yes, there were those expected few who said there were no black men in the picture because there are no black male leaders in Detroit. But let’s move on.) Based on reader suggestions and my own reporting, here’s who else could have been in the photo: Robert Bobb, who is cleaning up the Detroit Public Schools as the district’s emergency financial manager, was suggested four times more than anyone else named in your e-mails. Second to Bobb was Dan Varner, chief executive o fficer of Think Detroit PAL. I added a third committee member, without whom Detroit will surely fail. And that is the Detroit teacher — the instructor, counselor, nurturer, nurse, even bank — for thousands of children. With a hearty endorsement from Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson, I chose Kimberly Kyff, Michigan’s Teacher of the Year in 2006 and the first Detroit teacher to receive the award in 21 years. Here’s more about them:  ROBERT BOBB: He’s gotten plenty of attention for his work to clean up the corruption at DPS. Robert Bobb, 64, has overseen more than 84 financial audits, held hearings on bad realestate deals and successfully convinced Detroiters, one neighborhood at a time, to pass a $500.5million bond issue for new and better schools. “Robert Bobb is doing an incredible job,” Mayor Bing said in a statement. “He is the change agent needed to help make education and our children a priority.” Gov. Jennifer Granholm extended his contract through 2011. By then, perhaps Bing will have appointed him the city’s permanent schools czar.  DAN VARNER: The headline on the Feb. 2, 2005, New York Times story read: “Shrinking, Detroit Faces Fiscal Nightmare.” The story was about black middle-class flight from a dying city, and its poster child was Dan Varner, who had relocated his family to Ypsilanti Township. It didn’t stick. Varner moved back to Detroit, heeding the call felt by so many of us who haven’t given up on the city. Now the 40-year-old is CEO of Think Detroit PAL, a merger of a mentoring agency and the former Police Athletic League, that reaches 13,000 children every year through learning and sports programs and teaches children that, with hard work, they can be everything they want to be. “I’m so committed to this city,” said Varner. “The fact that people were e-mailing you and saying I should be there moves me personally. It reflects my renewed commitment and return to the roots of my work.”  KIMBERLY KYFF: Kimberly Kyff, 51, grew up in Orchard Lake Village and attended the University of Michigan. She began teaching at DPS’ Jamieson Elementary 14 years ago. By special arrangement, she follows her students from second through fifth grade. Teaching in an urban school is not for the faint of heart, Kyff said. “My philosophy is all children can learn and they can learn at very high levels, provided they are taken from where they are, accepted how they are and nurtured,” she said. Kyff also mentors younger teachers, telling them: “When you don’t enjoy teaching anymore and aren’t excited and looking forward to going to school, you need to find other options.” Time magazine couldn’t pick everyone. Neither could I. But Detroit should know who its leaders are. They aren’t always on the front page of the newspaper. They don’t all have one foot in or out of jail. Sometimes, they work in silence, saving lives and improving Detroit. But always, they deserve our recognition and support.

State of Michigan "Race to the Top" Heavy Lifting (Compliance Issues)

OUR EDITORIAL

School sabotage 

Michigan Education Association works to keep reforms, federal money at bay while school districts struggle

With Michigan schools facing an enormous funding gap, the Mi chigan Education Association is attempting to sabotage an effort that could bring in more than $600 million in federal education money.

State policymakers are working to put together one of the essential pieces of legislation required to win federal “Race to the Top” grant money. President Barack Obama is using the money to give states an incentive to enact long overdue education reforms.

Next month state school Superintendent Mike Flana gan must turn in the applica tion for the competition, now being watched by U.S. foun dations for signals about which states are serious about education reform and merit even more funding.

But the prospects for Michigan aren’t good. The MEA, the state’s largest teacher union, is pressuring cowardly lawmakers to block the Race to the Top legisla tion,  which includes provisions making it easier for nonteachers to secure classroom positions, if they have critical skills.

This seemingly innocuous change has stirred up intense political fighting, pitting teacher unions against Gov. Jennifer Granholm and others, such as the United Way of South eastern Michigan,  who want the Race to the Top funds for Michigan.

Teach for America — the heralded non profit  that prepares and places highly talented educators in struggling schools — says it must have an alternative certification pathway for its members to become full-time teachers in Mi chigan.

MEA leaders say they oppose alternative teacher certification because they believe teacher training is essential to properly instruct students. “This is not an union issue,” MEA spokesman Doug Pratt says. “This is a funda mental belief … that teachers who go through a traditional teacher prep process are going to be better for stu dents in the long run.”

But urban districts are having trouble finding highly qualified math and science teachers, in no small part because of the failure of traditional teacher training programs in the state.

That was one of the driv ing forces behind a Friday announcement by the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation that it is investing $16.7 million to establish a new statewide fellowship program to provide 240 teachers for hard-to staff schools.

If the MEA is allowed to sabotage Michi gan’s Race to the Top effort, it will mean the loss of about $600 million in federal money at a time when every classroom is facing an un precedented budget cut. Ultimately, that will mean fewer jobs for teachers, hurting the union’s own members.

It is absolutely essential that Michigan gets this money, and the education reforms that come with it .

VIRTUAL HEAVY LIFTING! (Second Life on the U.S. National Educational Technology Plan ISTE))

"Design Thinking" to Leverage the Heavy Lifting

What's Thwarting American Innovation? Too Much Science, Says Roger Martin

BY Linda TischlerWed Nov 4, 2009 at 3:18 PM

By pushing the principles of scientific management too far, corporations are short-circuiting their own futures, says the designiest dean of all the business schools. "The enemy of innovation is the phrase 'prove it,'" Roger Martin says.

The folks at McKinsey, Bain, and BCG should be happy that Roger Martin likes his job. Otherwise, he could cause them a heap of trouble.

As it is, the dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is traveling the country, throwing down the gauntlet to companies who hope to analyze and strategize their way out of a recession by bringing in armies of management consultants. You'll get what you pay for, he warns, and it won't be innovation.

"The business world is tired of having armies of analysts descend on their companies," he says. "You can't send a 28-year-old with a calculator to solve your problems."



The problem, says Martin, author of a new book, The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage, is that corporations have pushed analytical thinking so far that it's unproductive. "No idea in the world has been proved in advance with inductive or deductive reasoning," he says.

The answer? Bring in the folks whose job it is to imagine the future, and who are experts in intuitive thinking.
That's where design thinking comes in, he says.

"If I didn't like my job, I'd go out and create a killer firm that would take on McKinsey head-to-head in their own market. A company would get better results, at a fraction of the price." McKinsey, a $5B company, bills out freshly minted MBAs at $1M a year, Martin says. Their billing structure is 10 times what a design firm typically gets.

We spoke to Martin about why MBAs and designers should learn to get along prior to his coming to New York for the Rotman School of Management Design Thinking Experts series with IDEO's Tim Brown and Target's Will Setliffe.

Fast Company: As we slowly climb out of the recession, everybody's looking for where the next innovation will come from. Why does our pace of innovation seem to be slowing?

Martin: Most companies try to be innovative, but the enemy of innovation is the mandate to "prove it." You cannot prove a new idea in advance by inductive or deductive reasoning.

Fast Company: Are you saying that the regression analysis jockeys and Six Sigma black belts have got it all wrong?

Martin: Well, yes. With every good thing in life, there's often a dark shadow. The march of science is good, and corporations are being run more scientifically. But what they analyze is the past. And if the future is not exactly like the past, or there are things happening that are hard to measure scientifically, they get ignored. Corporations are pushing analytical thinking so far that it's become unproductive. The future has no legitimacy for analytical thinkers.

Fast Company: What's the alternative?

Martin: New ideas must come from a new kind of thinking. The American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce called it abductive logic. It's a logical leap of the mind that you can't prove from past data.

Fast Company: I can't see many CEOs being comfortable with that!

Martin: Why not? The scientific method starts with a hypothesis. It's often what happens in the shower or when an apple hits you on the head. It's what we call 'intuitive thinking.' Its purpose is to know without explicit reasoning.

Fast Company: So, if you're not getting these Newtonian moments from your management consultants, where are they likely to come from?

Martin: In a knowledge-intensive world, design thinking is critical to overcoming the biggest block: overcoming analytical thinking and fear of intuitive thinking. The design thinker enables the organization to balance exploration and exploitation, invention of business and administration of business, originality and mastery.

Fast Company: Who's been brave enough to embrace that idea in this market?

Martin: When he first took over, A.G. Lafley at P&G was brilliant enough to realize they were missing a lot about the holistic consumer experience by sticking to things that were rigorously quantified. For example, when the company moved into beauty products, they were looking at face cream. And the scientists decided it must be about pore coverage. So they analyzed the hell out of pores and said 'We can cover pores better than anybody.' So when women in their research started talking about wanting to feel beautiful and desirable, they'd say, 'Don't talk about that. We don't know how to quantify that!' And they couldn't understand why stupid women would go off to department stores and pay ten times more when they could cover pores just as well. Ten years ago, P&G couldn't prove they could sell women billions of dollars of Oil of Olay face cream at $30-$60. They could imagine it, but not prove it. Lafley took it as a management challenge to see across the divide.

Fast Company: If you don't have A.G. Lafley or Steve Jobs at the helm, how can you sell your organization on the idea of an intuitive leap instead of a scientific leap?

Martin: You don't have to convert the whole organization to design thinking. Propose a little experiment--say, three months in length--where you test out a bite-sized chunk of a problem using this method. If you have a little success, be sure to then attach metrics to it. In that way, you turn the future into the past in a way they understand.

Fast Company: We're a little biased toward the designers here. Don't they bear some of the responsibility for the gap in understanding?

Martin: Absolutely. Like anybody who takes a job in another country, and needs to learn the local language in order to function, design thinkers need to learn the language of reliability, terms such as proof, regression analysis, and best practices.

Fast Company: Sounds like there's a promising future for somebody who's bilingual and can combine both approaches.

Martin: This is a fascinating time, and there's an interesting battle coming. One of these smallish design firms might combine the best of the analytical from the business world and the best intuitive thinking from the design world and become gigantic. There would be massive traction for it. It wouldn't be the first time that a little company in a garage saw things differently.

BRING on the GREEN!

Metro may get lottery games, turbines

By KATHERINE YUNG

FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

Detroit Metro Airport may soon gain two new features: lottery games and small wind turbines.

On Nov. 17, the Wayne County Airport Authority board is likely to approve a licensing agreement with the Michigan Bureau of State Lot tery that would enable travel ers at Metro to play a number of state lottery games, such as instant tickets, Mega Millions and Club Keno.

The games would be avail able at gates, baggage claim  areas, sit-down bars and other locations throughout the Mc Namara and North Terminals, with staffed lottery redemption points of service provided by selected airport retailers.

Airport officials estimate the lottery agreement will gen erate $360,000 annually or $1.8 million over the initial 5 year contract term, as well as revenues for the state. Lottery games are already offered by a few other airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta In ternational Airport.

Metro could also soon start generating its own wind power.

Airport officials are seeking approval from the authority board to purchase five Windspire wind turbines.

Three of the 30-foot-tall turbines would be installed at the airport’s north entrance, near the intersection of Rogell Drive and Burton Drive.

Two others would be at the airport’s south entrance, near the south cell phone lot off of Eureka Road.

The small turbines, which are made in Manistee by Mas Tech Manufacturing, would not violate Metro’s airspace regulations.

Our 21st Century NSF GRANT Multidisciplinary Intention (Collaboration)

Grant to boost Mich. teachers

Selected universities to offer mentoring, training to students

By PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

Michigan will receive a $16.7-million grant to provide mentoring and training to new math and science teachers who promise to teach in school districts with high need, such as Detroit Public Schools or Benton Harbor.

“We want to keep people here, young mathematicians and scientists, to teach Michigan kids,” said Gov. Jennifer Granholm, present for Friday’s grant announcement. The funding includes a $30,000 stipend for 240 students and a $500,000 grant to participating universities.

It is being paid for by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which supports families, children and communities, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fel lowship Foundation, which provides fellowships in education and other areas.

“Our focus is on vulnerable children,” said Sterling Speirn, president and chief executive officer of the Kellogg Foundation.

Six Michigan universities will be selected to take part in the training in early 2010. The selected universities will be asked to change their teaching program to include collaboration with math and science departments.

They will also be asked to provide a greater amount of classroom experiences and in tensive mentoring for the stu dents during their first three years of teaching. An independent study will be done at the end of the 5-year grant period to determine the effectiveness of the new programs.

Math and science majors are preferred, but candidates can include people with back grounds in fields such as ac counting or engineering.

Fellows will complete an in tensive master’s degree program and move into the class room by fall of 2012. 

A RESULT of HEAVY LIFTING: “If we’re going to place a bet any where in Michigan, this is a great place to put it — in wild, energetic, creative minds that aren’t constrained by corporate thinking.”

CAN THESE STUDENTS

SAVE MICHIGAN?

Inventions could stimulate economy

By ROBIN ERB

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER  
We’ve all got them— those ideas that we know, just know, would make a fortune if we could get them to a store shelf.

Now, some University of Michigan students are hop ing to tap into that genius. MPowered Entrepreneur ship is challenging students to make their pitches — whether for ideas they’ve mulled for years or an unex pected flash of brilliance.

“It’s ‘Hey, you’re waking up at 3 a.m. with an idea. What is it?’ ” said MPo wered president Lauren Le land, 20, of West Bloom field.

The spiels range from the intriguing (sidewalks that capture kinetic energy from pedestrians) to the sensible (disposable dishrags for dorm rooms) to the silly (a robot clock that pummels you awake).

“Let’s face it: In terms of an economic turnaround in the state of Michigan,  there’s no question it will come from the entrepreneurial sector,” said Rich Sheridan, chief executive of the Ann Arbor-based soft ware company Menlo Innovations, one of the program’s sponsors. “If we’re going to place a bet any where in Michigan, this is a great place to put it — in wild, energetic, creative minds that aren’t constrained by corporate thinking.” 

A Variation on an AIM Theme!

Detroit students already make impact

They call themselves De troit’s Great Hope.

They are the 124 seniors at University Preparatory High School who pledged four years ago to graduate from high school, graduate from college and to return to helprebuild Detroit. But they already have done so much more. They have mentored younger stu dents and become ambassa dors of education across Detroit, encouraging others their age to stay in school.

And 10 students, all boys, just completed a video on the importance of graduating that their school plans to distribute to middle school students across the city.

For their efforts, Universi ty Prep announced Friday that the school will do what no other in the state does: Pay every expense for the first year of college for these students, except for a $2,500 subsidized loan that each family must get to accept some responsibility them selves.

That’s right. University Prep will pay tuition, room and board, books and fees, all costs for these graduates at any Michigan public universi ty. The school will award a $5,000 scholarship to any graduate who attends a pri vate or out-of-state universi ty. 

Hard work and school

Doug Ross, chairman of New Urban Learning, the nonprofit organization that manages the University Pre paratory Academy school district, made the announce ment at an assembly where four of the senior students gave advice to their class mates.

Among them were Antonio Williams and Arthur Burse, both 17.

Antonio, who lives in the Brightmoor neighborhood in Detroit and wants to be an athletic trainer or physical therapist, avoided a lifestyle that claimed people close to him.

“The dropout rate in De troit didn’t surprise us at all,” he told his classmates. “The four of us have relatives and friends, neighbors … who all decided to drop out of school and turn their lives to the streets and drugs instead of the other path, which is hard work . The four of us, as well as many others, have decided to take the second path — hard work.

And Arthur, whose family moved several times to es cape violence, said school is a way to a safer life.

“One day someone broke into our house and murdered my sister,” he said, explaining one family move.

“The reason we picked this school-college-career path is simple,” he said. “You make more money and you live longer. A high school degree means an extra $250,000 in your pocket. A college degree means an extra million. Most drug deal ers in our neighborhood have big bankroll in their pockets, but they live with their moms and grandmoms. They flash, but they ain’t rich. The big money comes from owning your business or getting into a profession like law or medi cine or engineering. They allrequire college degrees. “Most boys in our neigh borhoods who sell drugs have two options: They either die or go to jail. None of those seem like very good options.”

Oh, there was one other thing that Arthur said a teacher told him.

She said that “young men in Detroit are in great de mand with the ladies. So more money. Longer lives. No jail time. And more young ladies. That’s not such a hard choice.”

The four young men ac cepted their applause and then Hope, Faith, Promise and Potential sat down. 

Terms of the deal

The final task for the stu dents at the assembly, who also had learned in various workshops about ways to succeed, was to sign their Detroit’s Great Hope Con tract. This requires them to:

■ Have a 3.0 senior year grade point average, with only A’s and B’s.

■ Miss no more than three homework assignments in any single class in the second, third and fourth quarters.

■ Read five nonfiction books on topics related to their senior theses.

■ Complete a College Readi- ness Lecture Series with no absences and at least an 80% proficiency on assessments from the lectures.

■ Complete the Study Skills training with no absences and at least an 80% proficien cy on all assessments related to the workshops.

Ross promised them that if they successfully completed the contract, their first-year college costs would be cov ered, except for the $2,500 subsidized federal loan each student must take “so you have some skin in the game.”

Ross, a masterful fund raiser, said that Detroit’s Hope is funded by donors whose gifts range from $250 to $25,000. The district’s largest benefactors, Bob and Ellen Thompson, contribute about $400,000 to students who go to Wayne State, Grand Valley State or Bowl ing Green State, which is their alma mater.

Ross said he’ll be raising about $110,000 between now and May for this year’s Hope class to go to college next fall. He has no doubt he’ll get it.

Like his students, like his boys, he has hope. 

Critical THINKING Critical: Some REAL-HEAVY Lifting!

EDGE (Food for Thought)
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/schirrmacher09/schirrmacher09_index.html

THE HEAVY LIFTING: WHAT he SAID! (Alignment to OUR Purpose)

PREPARE for the HEAVY LIFTING!

UWSEM host's our Continuing Conversation while our ESP Equation Debut's In Between (Hot Time in the Ole "D" Tonight)

This event is free and open to the public!

"The Providence Effect" documents one of the great success stories in American education. Providence St. Mel School on Chicago's West Side which has, for 29 straight years, placed 100 percent of its high-school graduates in colleges. Please join us and see this inspiring documentary about closing the achievement gap in an urban environment through a "WHATEVER IT TAKES" approach to helping at-risk kids learn at very high levels. 

Workforce preparedness and quality education for all is one of the most critical issues facing our region and country today. If we can duplicate programs being utilized by high-performing schools, we can increase the number of quality school options for all children in the region.

"The Providence Effect" at Cobo Hall with a community conversation immediately following the film with Providence Englewood's Principal, Angela Johnson-Williams, lead by Mike Tenbusch, VP Educational Preparedness, UWSEM.

4:00 pm, Monday, November 2, 2009 Oakland Room, Cobo Hall
(full-length showing of the movie at 7:30 pm in Room M2-29)

The purpose of this event is to engage and deepen community understanding of what constitutes quality education and what the community can do to facilitate Detroit education improvement.    

This event is Free and Open to the Public.  Attendees can register at:  

Sponsored by:

United Way of Southeastern Michigan

Leadership Detroit Education Support Committee

Detroit Regional Chamber

21st Century Schools Project

DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital

Rachele J. Downs | Leadership Detroit XXX

Town Hall Meeting
Monday, Nov. 2, 2009
6 pm
Next Energy Auditorium
461 Burroughs
Detroit, MI  48202

   

440 Burroughs

Detroit, MI 48202

www.gradecheck.net

 

PROPSOAL S (chools) YES on TruSt!

Ambassador for a day

Bobb reaches out to city to drum up voter support

DPS manager says he’s fighting past with bond proposal

By ROBIN ERB

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

With time running out, Rob­ert Bobb spent part of Satur­day shaking hands, cracking jokes and getting residents out to vote on a $500.5-million bond issue Tuesday for Detroit Public Schools.

But DPS’ emergency finan­cial manager acknowledged he’s fighting the past.

“There’s a lot of support for DPS. But there’s also a lot of distrust about how funds were spent in the past,” he said at Central High School over the sound of a half-time marching band. “I tell them: ‘If we keep looking backward, we can’t move forward.’ ” Proposal S would allow the district to tap into federal stim­ulus money to pay for building a new King High and seven oth­er schools, as well as renovat­ing 10 and demolishing 29 va­cant facilities. Schools district­wide would get security and technology upgrades.

Taxpayers will have to re­pay the money, though nearly half would be repaid at 0% in­terest.

Taxes would not in­crease, but debt payments res­idents currently pay would be extended for another 6 years.

The stimulus money can’t be used to pay salaries or close the multimillion dollar budget gap.

There are a lot of issues to weigh, said Tameka Duffield, 28, of Detroit, part of the Cen­tral football crowd. She said she still hasn’t decided how she’ll vote. “Why don’t we fix the schools we have before open­ing eight more that we can’t af­ford?” she asked. “I like Bobb. I think he’s done some good things, but if you closed down some of those schools for a rea­son, why don’t we focus on what we have now?”

But Bobb found some sup­port, too.

At Big D Barber and Beauty Salon on Livernois, amid the snip of scissors and chatter from those who packed inside, Bobb shook hands that extend­ed to him from underneath plastic capes.

“She didn’t do it right, man,” Bobb joked with Cimar­ron Moorer, 35, while Moorer got a trim. “You get a free hair­cut.”

Nearby, barber Janet Rob­ertson, 46, and her client, Ezra Gray, 44, watched. It didn’t matter to them, they said, that Bobb didn’t specifically men­tion Proposal S; his presence was enough to reinforce the importance of the issue.

Both former DPS students, Robertson and Gray said they’d already decided to vote in favor of Proposal S.

Sure, the district has had better days, they agreed. “But it’s about the kids,” Gray said, “and … you can’t just give up on them.”


DECISION 2009 EDITORIAL

Vote for change

Electing right mayor and council will begin to put Detroit’s failures behind it

Tuesday’s election won’t fix all that ails Detroit. But it could help set the city on a healthier course Voters should be mindful of both the significance of this election and the opportunity it presents as they go the polls.

Unless voters walk off the dock, Mayor Dave Bing will be confirmed as the man who will hold that post for the next four years. He can finally move beyond the serial elections of the past 10 months and focus all of his energies on solving the city’s prob­lems.

A victory will give Bing the certain­ty he needs to force Detroit’s employee unions to get serious about bargaining concessions. Right now, the unions are still clinging to hope that their dona­tions and votes might get Bing’s oppo­nent, Tom Barrow, elected. After Tues­day, they should understand that Bing is the guy they have to deal with.

Bing can’t get the job done alone.

He needs help from a smart City Coun­cil that is able to stand up to the com­munity’s sometimes self-destructive tenden­cies and vote the right way.

The four open spots on the nine-member council provide an opportunity to seat such a council.

Unfortunately, the campaign has revealed that not all of the newcomers on the ballot would be a significant improvement from the incumbents they’ll replace. They’ve shown too little courage to advocate real change for the city.

We have endorsed mostly new faces in this race — Gary Brown, Saunteel Jenkins, Lisa Howze, Andre Spivey Fred Eliot Hall

and David Cross ; and that’s the order we prefer them. If those six were seated alongside incumbents Kenneth Cockrel Jr . and Bren­da Jones , it promises to be the most effective legislative body Detroit has seen in decades.

We withdrew our endorsement of a ninth candidate, Charles Pugh, after his tangled personal finances were made public.

Three other incumbents are on the ballot — Kwame Kenyatta, Alberta Tinsley-Talabi and Jo Ann Watson. The defeat of Watson would be addition by subtraction. She is the ringleader of the council faction that panders to Detroit’s worst instincts for divisive­ness and entitlement.

Eighteen candidates are vying for election to draft a new City Charter.

It’s essential that former Deputy May­or Freman Hendrix and former Ombudsman John Eddings are among the nine selected. Their experi­ence is needed in the task of revising the document.

Detroiters also will be asked to approve a $500 million bond issue to rebuild deteriorating schools. We understand their hesitance on this request; we had reservations as well, until Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb agreed to stick around to guide how the money is spent.

In many ways, this vote is a referendum on the work Bobb is doing to rid the district of corruption and improve its academic per­formance.

Nothing is more important to Detroit’s future than providing a quality education to the 80 percent of the children in the public schools who either drop out or graduate un­prepared for college. Bobb is trying to make the schools better; voters should support him with a yes vote.

Tuesday is a day Detroiters can put some of the city’s failures behind them. They should use their ballot to bring real change to Detroit. 

Cliff-Notes on the "One-Two Punch!" (Non-compliance Race to the Top)

• 

'Funding Cliff' Looms Large for States

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm talks about school funding cuts along with state budget director Bob Emerson, left, during a press conference in Lansing, Mich., Oct. 22. Gov. Granholm said that school funding would be slashed by $127 per student and would take effect in 30 days unless revenue is found to avoid the cuts.
—Al Goldis/AP

By Erik W. Robelen

Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.

Amid a still-shaky economy, a troubling reality is starting to set in for states and school districts: The budget situation may get a lot worse when the federal economic-stimulus spigot runs dry.

The hope of the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress has been that the $787 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—including some $100 billion for education—would soften the pain of the recession and help drive a recovery.

But as helpful as many state and local officials have found the once-only stimulus aid in coping with current and anticipated revenue shortfalls, it creates some awfully big holes to fill when the money begins to run out late next year in what’s widely known as the “funding cliff.”

Experts also caution that the recovery of state and local coffers is likely to significantly lag behind any progress in the national economy generally. For one thing, state budgets are largely supported by individual income and sales taxes, which will likely be slower to catch up.

“States are bracing themselves for prolonged fiscal difficulties,” said Todd Haggerty, a research analyst at the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures. “When you couple the absence of federal ARRA funds with still-declining revenues, it puts states in a difficult situation.”

An October report issued by the White House in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education highlighted the extent to which ARRA money in the $48.6 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund has already “restored” significant shares of K-12 education funding in states.

But a close look by Education Week at data submitted to the department by the states about how they planned to spend the money shows that 36 states will have to fill a collective gap of at least $16.5 billion to return to fiscal 2008 state spending levels for K-12 education.

And that figure does not reflect the more recent revenue shortfalls many states have since encountered.

The Education Department has urged states and districts to be careful to “minimize the funding cliff” when the stimulus aid ends by using the money for purposes “that do not result in unsustainable continuing commitments.”

But some analysts say that idea runs counter to the stimulus law’s emphasis on using the money to save and create jobs. Indeed, the White House announced Oct. 19 that states had already reported saving or creating at least 250,000 jobs in education with the federal aid.

“Saving and creating jobs implies expenditures on salaries, and salaries are inherently ongoing expenses,” said Jennifer S. Cohen, a policy analyst at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. “They create funding cliffs, because once the money runs out, you’ll have to continue funding them.”

Spending Pace Varies

The pace at which states are allocating money under the state-stabilization fund varies widely, Ms. Cohen noted.

“States that are in worse fiscal trouble are front-loading the spending,” she said, citing Arizona, California, and Illinois among those that planned to use all of the money to shore up their budgets for the current fiscal year and for the prior year.

In Alaska, meanwhile, none of that aid is expected to go out until fiscal 2011.

Illinois used about $1 billion in state-stabilization aid to bolster its budget for the fiscal year that ended June 30, and plans to use the remainder, approximately $1 billion, for the current budget year, fiscal 2010, according to Matthew E. Vanover, a spokesman for the Illinois state board of education.

“Certainly, there is some major concern at this point in time because next fiscal year, beginning July 1, in order to just remain the same, we have to come up with an additional $1 billion for education,” he said. That’s out of a total of more than $7 billion in state aid for schools, he said.

Benjamin S. Schwarm, an associate executive director of the Illinois Association of School Boards, said: “The question is, what happens after this, when you don’t have that [money] coming in. ... Everybody around here keeps referring to it as the ‘cliff,’ and I don’t think it’s good.”

By contrast, in South Carolina, the legislature opted not to release any of the state-stabilization money for last fiscal year. The state is allocating about half its expected total of $359 million in such funds this fiscal year, and the second half the following year, said Betsy Carpentier, a deputy superintendent in the South Carolina Department of Education.

At the same time, she said, virtually all of the additional dollars districts are getting in other parts of the stimulus package—such as from the Title I program for disadvantaged students and under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act—are going out this fiscal year. In all, South Carolina districts are receiving $335 million in preK-12 stimulus support beyond the state-stabilization aid, Ms. Carpentier said.

Deborah L. Elmore, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina School Boards Association, said that while the stimulus aid has been a huge help, it has taken the state only so far, given that South Carolina has suffered through several recent rounds of midyear budget cuts.

“It helped to keep the hole in the bottom from being a lot wider,” she said. “Unless the economy turns around, we’re left with falling through the bottom again.”

Maryland state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick said that, in her state, the stabilization money is being used both for this fiscal year and the following one.

“I think we’ve tried to structure something that would prevent us from really experiencing this cliff that we know will ultimately occur when the money runs out,” she said. Ms. Grasmick said she and Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, have told districts, “Please do not use this money to hire new positions, because when the money runs out, we don’t want to be in a position of having to terminate people.”

Instead, they have urged districts to think of the funds as onetime expenses, she said, such as to investments in technology or new instructional materials “that will yield some long-term benefit.”

‘A Lagging Indicator’

Meanwhile, a new report from the American Association of School Administrators, based in Arlington, Va., suggests that in many school districts around the country, federal stimulus aid has not been able to avert cuts to programs and staffing levels.

The AASA surveyed 875 school administrators from 49 states and the District of Columbia. More than one-third of the respondents said they were unable to save any core teaching jobs as a result of the stimulus money.

In addition, the percentage of districts increasing class sizes grew almost sixfold between the 2008-09 academic year and the current school year, to 34 percent from 6 percent, the survey data showed. The percentage of districts reporting cuts to their school bus transportation routes and availability doubled to 20 percent this school year, from 10 percent last academic year.

The AASA report suggests the worst may still lie ahead for many districts.

“Unfortunately, school districts’ economic welfare appears to be a lagging indicator, even further behind the still less-than-stable remainder of the economy,” the report says. “There is an unmistakable ‘one-two punch’ school districts are bracing themselves for as they budget for the 2010-11 school year. Not only is that when the [stimulus] funds are expected to end, it is also the likely low point for state and local budgets.”

A new report from the NCSL offers some grim budget news, too. It says the “steep revenue falloff in FY 2009 will not be the bottom for many states.” More than half the states expect a further decline in fiscal 2010, the report says.

On top of that, Mr. Haggerty of the state legislatures’ group said, at least 21 states have already reported midyear budget gaps.

“So you’re looking at a good number of states [with] some pretty large and significant budget gaps just a few months into the new fiscal year,” he said.

Concerns about the looming end to the stimulus program have raised questions about whether there might be a second round of federal legislation to extend the aid. The White House has been careful to avoid any suggestions that it’s planning to seek additional assistance.

But Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent in California, suggested that more aid should be on the table.

“While we have been told, count on this as one-time money, ... I don’t think it’s inappropriate [to have a second round],” he said, “absent economic recovery.”

William G. Milliken (Urban) State Park & Harbor Dedication

MDSTA Fall Conference 2009 Report?

A little something to SUSTAIN the "Mission of Never-Ending Unfolding Tommorrows" (And it alone Edures!)

Now I Become Myself

How do you find the right work, the work that you alone are called to do? The first step is to ask a different question... 

 

by Parker Palmer

posted Mar 31, 2001

What a long time it can take to become the person one has always been. How often in the process we mask ourselves in faces that are not our own. How much dissolving and shaking of ego we must endure before we discover our deep identity—the true self within every human being that is the seed of authentic vocation.

I first learned about vocation growing up in the church. I value much about the religious tradition in which I was raised: its humility about its own convictions, its respect for the world's diversity, its concern for justice.

But the idea of vocation I picked up in those circles created distortion until I grew strong enough to discard it. I mean the idea that vocation, or calling, comes from a voice external to ourselves, a voice of moral demand that asks us to become someone we are not yet—someone different, someone better, someone just beyond our reach.

That concept of vocation is rooted in a deep distrust of selfhood, in the belief that the sinful self will always be “selfish” unless corrected by external forces of virtue. It is a notion that made me feel inadequate to the task of living my own life, creating guilt about the distance between who I was and who I was supposed to be, leaving me exhausted as I labored to close the gap.

Today I understand vocation quite differently—not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received.

Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice “out there” calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.

The birthright gift

It is a strange gift, this birthright gift of self. Accepting it turns out to be even more demanding than attempting to become someone else. I have sometimes responded to that demand by ignoring the gift, or hiding it, or fleeing from it, or squandering it—and I think I am not alone. There is a Hasidic tale that reveals, with amazing brevity, both the universal tendency to want to be someone else and the ultimate importance of becoming one's self: Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man, said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?'”

We arrive in this world with birthright gifts—then we spend the first half of our lives abandoning them or letting others disabuse us of them. As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who we really are, expectations held by people who are not trying to discern our selfhood but to fit us into slots. In families, schools, workplaces, and religious communities, we are trained away from true self toward images of acceptability; under social pressures like racism and sexism our original shape is deformed beyond recognition; and we ourselves, driven by fear, too often betray true self to gain the approval of others.

We are disabused of original giftedness in the first half of our lives. Then—if we are awake, aware, and able to admit our loss—we spend the second half trying to recover and reclaim the gift we once possessed.

Wearing other people's faces

When we lose track of true self, how can we pick up the trail? One way is to seek clues in stories from our younger years, years when we lived closer to our birthright gifts. A few years ago, I found some clues to myself in a time machine of sorts. A friend sent me a tattered copy of my high school newspaper from May 1957 in which I had been interviewed about what I intended to do with my life. With the certainty to be expected of a high school senior, I told the interviewer that I would become a naval aviator and then take up a career in advertising.

I was indeed “wearing other people's faces,” and I can tell you exactly whose they were. My father worked with a man who had once been a navy pilot. He was Irish, charismatic, romantic, full of the wild blue yonder and a fair share of the blarney, and I wanted to be like him. The father of one of my boyhood friends was in advertising, and though I did not yearn to take on his persona, which was too buttoned-down for my taste, I did yearn for the fast car and other large toys that seemed to be the accessories of his selfhood.

These self-prophecies, now over forty years old, seem wildly misguided for a person who eventually became a Quaker, a would-be pacifist, a writer, and an activist. Taken literally, they illustrate how early in life we can lose track of who we are. But inspected through the lens of paradox, my desire to become an aviator and an advertiser contain clues to the core of true self that would take many years to emerge: clues, by definition, are coded and must be deciphered.

Hidden in my desire to become an “ad man” was a lifelong fascination with language and its power to persuade, the same fascination that has kept me writing incessantly for decades. Hidden in my desire to become a naval aviator was something more complex: a personal engagement with the problem of violence that expressed itself at first in military fantasies and then, over a period of many years, resolved itself in the pacifism I aspire to today. When I flip the coin of identity I held to so tightly in high school, I find the paradoxical “opposite” that emerged as the years went by.

If I go farther back, to an earlier stage of my life, the clues need less deciphering to yield insight into my birthright gifts and callings. In grade school I became fascinated with the mysteries of flight. As many boys did in those days, I spent endless hours, after school and on weekends, designing, crafting, flying, and (usually) crashing model airplanes made of fragile balsa wood.

Unlike most boys, however, I also spent long hours creating eight- and twelve-page books about aviation. I would turn a sheet of paper sideways, draw a vertical line down the middle, make diagrams of, say, the cross-section of a wing, roll the sheet into a typewriter, and peck out a caption explaining how the air moving across an airfoil creates a vacuum that lifts the plane. Then I would fold that sheet in half along with several others I had made, staple the collection together down the spine, and painstakingly illustrate the cover.

I had always thought that the meaning of this paperwork was obvious: fascinated with flight, I wanted to be a pilot, or at least an aeronautical engineer. But recently, when I found a couple of these literary artifacts in an old cardboard box, I suddenly saw the truth, and it was more obvious than I had imagined. I didn't want to be a pilot or an aeronautical engineer or anything else related to aviation. I wanted to be an author, to make books — a task I have been attempting from the third grade to this very moment.

From the beginning, our lives lay down clues to selfhood and vocation, though the clues may be hard to decode. But trying to interpret them is profoundly worthwhile — especially when we are in our twenties or thirties or forties, feeling profoundly lost, having wandered, or been dragged, far away from our birthright gifts.

Those clues are helpful in counteracting the conventional concept of vocation, which insists that our lives must be driven by “oughts.” As noble as that may sound, we do not find our callings by conforming ourselves to some abstract moral code. We find our callings by claiming authentic selfhood, by being who we are, by dwelling in the world as Zusya rather than straining to be Moses. The deepest vocational question is not “What ought I to do with my life?” It is the more elemental and demanding “Who am I? What is my nature?”

Everything in the universe has a nature, which means limits as well as potentials, a truth well known by people who work daily with the things of the world. Making pottery, for example, involves more than telling the clay what to become. The clay presses back on the potter's hands, telling her what it can and cannot do—and if she fails to listen, the outcome will be both frail and ungainly. Engineering involves more than telling materials what they must do. If the engineer does not honor the nature of the steel or the wood or the stone, his or her failure will go well beyond aesthetics: the bridge or the building will collapse and put human life in peril.

The human self also has a nature, limits as well as potentials. If you seek vocation without understanding the material you are working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly and may well put lives in peril, your own and some of those around you. “Faking it” in the service of high values is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an ignorant, sometimes arrogant, attempt to override one's nature, and it will always fail.

Joining self and service

Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks—we will also find our path of authentic service in the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as “the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need.”

Buechner's definition starts with the self and moves toward the needs of the world: it begins, wisely, where vocation begins—not in what the world needs (which is everything), but in the nature of the human self, in what brings the self joy, the deep joy of knowing that we are here on earth to be the gifts that God created.

Contrary to the conventions of our thinly moralistic culture, this emphasis on gladness and selfhood is not selfish. The Quaker teacher Douglas Steere was fond of saying that the ancient human question “Who am I?” leads inevitably to the equally important question “Whose am I?”—for there is no selfhood outside relationship. We must ask the question of selfhood and answer it as honestly as we can, no matter where it takes us. Only as we do so can we discover the community of our lives.

As I learn more about the seed of true self that was planted when I was born, I also learn more about the ecosystem in which I was planted—the network of communal relations in which I am called to live responsively, accountably, and joyfully with beings of every sort. Only when I know both seed and system, self and community, can I embody the great commandment to love both my neighbor and myself.

There are at least two ways to understand the link between selfhood and service. One is offered by the poet Rumi in his piercing observation: “If you are here unfaithfully with us, you're causing terrible damage.” If we are unfaithful to true self, we will extract a price from others. We will make promises we cannot keep, build houses from flimsy stuff, conjure dreams that devolve into nightmares, and other people will suffer—if we are unfaithful to true self.

---

Parker J. Palmer, writer, teacher, and activist, has been named one of the 30 most influential senior leaders in higher education. From Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation, John Wiley & Sons, 2000. Excerpted by permission of Jossey-Bass, Inc., a subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

AFTER the STIMULUS (Beware Bubbles and Sharp Objects)

TIME MAGAZINE

Can the World Agree on a Stimulus Exit Plan?
By Michael Schuman / Hong Kong Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009

During the dark days of the global credit crunch a year ago, policymakers around the world had a generally easy time coordinating decisions. As asset prices tanked, lending dried up and growth shriveled, governments and central banks were forced to take similar steps — pump up fiscal spending and slash interest rates to support growth and unfreeze financial markets. Now, as an economic recovery emerges, governments are hoping for another coordinated effort to exit from their massive stimulus plans, including near-zero interest rates. That intention was clearly laid out during the September G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pa. The leaders of the world's 20 most influential economies pledged to "withdraw our extraordinary policy support in a cooperative and coordinated way."

Yet what sounds so simple on paper will be far more complicated in the real world of economic policymaking. The problem is that the upturn isn't as synchronized as the downturn. Countries are emerging from recession at different speeds, with each facing its own special mix of inflationary pressures and unemployment — both of which affect decisions for monetary and fiscal policy. "We won't get the kind of coordinated response that is the rhetoric of the G-20," says Paul De Grauwe, professor of economics at the University of Leuven in Belgium. "Each country is going to look at its own interests."
(See TIME's special "Out of Work in America.")

That possibility is already becoming a reality, as signs appear that central-bank policies are beginning to diverge. On Oct. 6, Australia became the first G-20 nation to raise interest rates, hiking its key rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 3.25%. With "inflation close to target and the risk of serious economic contraction in Australia now having passed," Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens said in a statement, the central bank decided that it was now "prudent to begin gradually lessening the stimulus provided by monetary policy." Meanwhile, in other industrialized nations still suffering from high unemployment and yawning excess capacity, policymakers are in no hurry to tighten. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve has indicated that it won't act aggressively anytime soon on its key interest rate, which remains in a zero to 0.25% range. "It seems likely that the recovery will be less robust than desired," William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in an early October speech. "This means that the economy has significant excess slack and implies that we face meaningful downside risks to inflation over the next year or two." The Fed's key interest-rate target, he added, "is likely to remain exceptionally low for 'an extended period.' "

A haphazard exit from stimulus measures, with countries going their separate ways, could pose its own set of problems. In this era of globalization what one government does in one corner of the world can have a knock-off effect on economies in another corner. For example, countries that raise interest rates ahead of others could end up attracting money from foreign investors seeking a higher return, potentially draining funds away from economies that are still badly in need of investment. Or if too many governments turn off the stimulus tap too quickly, global demand could fall sharply. "An unruly rush to the exits is no better in a global financial crisis than in a crowded theater," wrote Adam Posen, a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, in the Financial Times in September.
(See pictures of retailers that have gone out of business.)



Though governments are aware of the dangers of an uncoordinated exit, they prefer to keep their options open, since they must also address domestic political concerns. That means clearly defined time frames or targets for any exit could prove hard to achieve. The financial crisis "is affecting differently every country. Every country will have to define its exit strategy in its own time," Portugal's Finance Minister, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, reportedly said at a conference of European Union ministers earlier this month in Sweden. "I don't think that we can have a precise, or a common, schedule. In my perspective, we need a flexible approach," he said.

Nowhere is the policy challenge bigger than in Asia. With the region's recovery gaining pace more quickly than elsewhere, it could be the first region to face inflation pressures. In China, growth is rapidly returning to pre-crisis levels. On Oct. 22, China reported that its gross domestic product grew by a healthy 8.9% in the third quarter, from the same period a year earlier. Inflation in China "will rise faster than in most other major economies and will therefore justify earlier and stronger-than-expected rate hikes," wrote Jun Ma, an economist at Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong, in a September note. Concerns are also mounting that continued loose monetary policy in Asia could fuel dangerous and unstable asset price bubbles, especially in property. There has been some speculation in financial markets that South Korea's central bank could raise interest rates in the coming months to cool a roaring housing market. Frederic Neumann, an economist at HSBC in Hong Kong, says Asian central bankers might need to hike rates by four percentage points over the next year — much more than is expected from the Fed — in order to quash inflation and asset bubbles. "This is the real test for Asia: the region's central banks have to hike earlier and far more aggressively than the Federal Reserve," Neumann says.

However, Neumann and other economists question if Asia will take such action, even if it does prove necessary. By raising rates ahead of the rest of the world, Asia could attract capital flows and put pressure on its currencies to appreciate. Stronger currencies would make Asian exports more expensive — a consequence policymakers in the region's trade-dependent economies might wish to avoid. "Unless you are really forced to do something independent of the Federal Reserve, you are probably not going to go that route," says Duncan Wooldridge, an economist at UBS in Hong Kong.

In the end, some economists believe that a coordinated global exit strategy, especially in regard to monetary policy, will ultimately happen, but by default. The Federal Reserve holds so much influence in the world economy that other central banks might be wary of deviating too far from its policy. "The nature of the coordination is not that bankers sit around a table and do things together," says the University of Leuven's De Grauwe. "The nature is that some of the big guys make a move and force everyone to move." In the global recovery, as in the downturn, everyone may sink or swim together.

THINK "The New Untouchables" STIMULUS!

 NEW YORK TIMES

 

October 21, 2009

Op-Ed Columnist

The New Untouchables

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Last summer I attended a talk by Michelle Rhee, the dynamic chancellor of public schools in Washington. Just before the session began, a man came up, introduced himself as Todd Martin and whispered to me that what Rhee was about to speak about — our struggling public schools — was actually a critical, but unspoken, reason for the Great Recession.

There’s something to that. While the subprime mortgage mess involved a huge ethical breakdown on Wall Street, it coincided with an education breakdown on Main Street — precisely when technology and open borders were enabling so many more people to compete with Americans for middle-class jobs.

In our subprime era, we thought we could have the American dream — a house and yard — with nothing down. This version of the American dream was delivered not by improving education, productivity and savings, but by Wall Street alchemy and borrowed money from Asia.

A year ago, it all exploded. Now that we are picking up the pieces, we need to understand that it is not only our financial system that needs a reboot and an upgrade, but also our public school system. Otherwise, the jobless recovery won’t be just a passing phase, but our future.

“Our education failure is the largest contributing factor to the decline of the American worker’s global competitiveness, particularly at the middle and bottom ranges,” argued Martin, a former global executive with PepsiCo and Kraft Europe and now an international investor. “This loss of competitiveness has weakened the American worker’s production of wealth, precisely when technology brought global competition much closer to home. So over a decade, American workers have maintained their standard of living by borrowing and overconsuming vis-à-vis their real income. When the Great Recession wiped out all the credit and asset bubbles that made that overconsumption possible, it left too many American workers not only deeper in debt than ever, but out of a job and lacking the skills to compete globally.”

This problem will be reversed only when the decline in worker competitiveness reverses — when we create enough new jobs and educated workers that are worth, say, $40-an-hour compared with the global alternatives. If we don’t, there’s no telling how “jobless” this recovery will be.

A Washington lawyer friend recently told me about layoffs at his firm. I asked him who was getting axed. He said it was interesting: lawyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just isn’t there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services, new opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the new untouchables.

That is the key to understanding our full education challenge today. Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies — will thrive.

Therefore, we not only need a higher percentage of our kids graduating from high school and college — more education — but we need more of them with the right education.

As the Harvard University labor expert Lawrence Katz explains it: “If you think about the labor market today, the top half of the college market, those with the high-end analytical and problem-solving skills who can compete on the world market or game the financial system or deal with new government regulations, have done great. But the bottom half of the top, those engineers and programmers working on more routine tasks and not actively engaged in developing new ideas or recombining existing technologies or thinking about what new customers want, have done poorly. They’ve been much more exposed to global competitors that make them easily substitutable.”

Those at the high end of the bottom half — high school grads in construction or manufacturing — have been clobbered by global competition and immigration, added Katz. “But those who have some interpersonal skills — the salesperson who can deal with customers face to face or the home contractor who can help you redesign your kitchen without going to an architect — have done well.”

Just being an average accountant, lawyer, contractor or assembly-line worker is not the ticket it used to be.

As Daniel Pink, the author of “A Whole New Mind,” puts it: In a world in which more and more average work can be done by a computer, robot or talented foreigner faster, cheaper “and just as well,” vanilla doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s all about what chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cherry you can put on top. So our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.

Bottom line: We’re not going back to the good old days without fixing our schools as well as our banks.

THINK Mayoral "BIG PICTURE" Education STIMULUS!

An Education Stimulus for the Nation's Cities

By Gregory A. Ballard, Cory Booker, and Karl Dean

Given the beating that city and state budgets have taken in recent months, America’s mayors have come under tremendous pressure to scale back all but the most critical investments in public safety, infrastructure, transportation, and other core services.

But for the nation’s big cities, there can be no true, long-term economic recovery without adequately educating far greater numbers of young people. No matter how steep the fiscal downturn, mayors must redouble local efforts to improve graduation rates and—no less important—to create meaningful educational options for the staggering numbers of adolescents who have been pushed aside or have given up on school altogether.

We therefore argue that one aspect of school reform—expanding high school options and alternatives—deserves to be ranked as a top priority for the nation’s mayors and school superintendents. A new generation of innovative high school models offers rigorous academic coursework, supports for students who face personal challenges outside of school, and opportunities for returning students to both catch up on what they have missed and prepare themselves for college and careers. For students who have not been well served by traditional “one size fits all” high schools, these programs offer a second chance to realize their full potential.

—Jonathan Bouw

In each of our three midsize cities, the schools lose roughly 4,000 students every year. Over their lifetimes, these students each earn about $260,000 less than high school graduates, pay about $60,000 less in taxes, and put an enormous strain on our health-care, criminal-justice, and social-welfare systems. They represent yet another generation that could have contributed to the civic and cultural life of our communities.

We are convinced that even a modest investment in well-designed alternative high schools can have a major impact on the dropout problem, and, by extension, the economic and social burdens dropouts place on our communities. Indeed, we see a movement to provide much broader high school options for all students as an essential piece of any long-term strategy for the economic, civic, and cultural recovery of our cities.

Our three cities are place-based partners in the Alternative High School Initiative that has been managed by Big Picture Learning and the National League of Cities under a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Through this initiative, our cities are beginning to make strong, systemic efforts to reach out to young people who have left school or have begun to drift away. We are in the midst of opening an array of high-quality high school options, so that all our young people can achieve academic proficiency, earn a high school diploma, and be prepared to pursue postsecondary education. Launching and expanding these alternatives, we have found, requires that city and school leaders be receptive to schools that are innovative, often started from scratch, and sometimes managed by entities other than local districts.

Newark, N.J., for example, has introduced what amounts to an education stimulus package to reclaim its dropouts. Through a partnership that includes the Newark public school system, Essex County College, and nonprofit organizations such as Gateway to College, Diploma Plus, Communities in Schools, and Big Picture Learning, the city will have launched eight new alternative schools and programs focused on dropout prevention and recovery during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years. These efforts eventually will serve between 1,000 and 2,000 young people—a sizable portion of those who have left the system.

Indianapolis and Nashville, Tenn., are continuing their successful partnerships with Big Picture Learning. Its alternative school model created in Providence, R.I.—the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, known as the Met—combines demanding academic work and experiential learning, boasts a national graduation rate of 92 percent, and regularly meets adequate-yearly-progress goals in all of its schools nationwide.

In addition, Indianapolis has already opened four new Diploma Plus schools, a model that targets students who are overage and undercredited, and a YouthBuild program that blends construction training with a return to school for dropouts. Next year, Nashville also plans to open a Diploma Plus school, and will launch a Gateway to College program, which provides high school dropouts between the ages of 16 and 20 with a means to complete their diplomas while also earning significant college credits. The city also plans to start a new YouthBuild program.

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What have we learned from these efforts? We have come to understand that for alternative programs to flourish, mayors must work closely with school leaders and play an ongoing, hands-on role, going well beyond their customary involvement in education.

Specifically, to the extent that it is possible, mayors can identify and offer available space within their cities to house alternative high schools. Further, they can lead the reform of municipal policies, such as zoning restrictions or rules governing access to public transportation, that might prevent local alternative schools from finding homes or attracting students from other parts of their cities.

Mayors also can champion increased front-end investment for principals and teachers to be trained in new approaches to teaching and learning that work with students who have had bad experiences in traditional high school environments. It is rare that a school district has funding to pay the professional-development costs for launching many new schools at once. In our cities, we have combined public and private money with the help of a broad range of community funders and partners, including philanthropic foundations, higher education institutions, and nonprofit organizations.

Equally significant, launching these efforts requires true leadership from the city agencies that support young people. Students leave school for many reasons—health challenges, problems in the justice or foster-care system, family conflicts, and so on. We therefore need to be sure that city departments are providing or are forging strong collaborations with relevant county and state agencies to provide all the necessary support services for young people and their families. In our cities, we have convened meetings of the heads of various city agencies to brainstorm new ways to collaborate on education and youth development and to create interagency agreements and realign services when necessary.

Many of our alternative high schools are operated and managed by groups outside the local school district. Indianapolis was the first city in the nation to be granted chartering authority by the state legislature. As a result, Mayor Gregory Ballard’s office is able to tap per-pupil funding for new alternative high schools opening as charters.

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Other cities and school districts can learn from our efforts. It is possible to hold students to high standards while also allowing them to learn at their own pace and in ways that respect their singular talents, interests, and learning styles. Reclaiming students who have left or are drifting away requires a broad array of interventions and innovations, as well as flexibility in regulation, which requires municipal leadership at the highest level.

Regardless of the size of the nation’s cities or the economic troubles they face, urban dropout rates are too sizable to overlook. As civic leaders across America explore ways to stimulate their economies, we urge them to spark the growth of alternative high schools and dropout-recovery programs in their communities. The development and expansion of these student-focused, project-based schools can change the odds for the most underserved students. And they have the power to transform the dynamic of leaving school early into a culture of graduating from high school ready for college and work.

But it will take leadership from mayors, who, as our experience illustrates, can be catalysts for change, ensuring adequate resources and buildings, appropriately trained staffs, flexibility, and expanded options—crucial elements of the education stimulus America’s cities so desperately need.

WHAT a DIFFERENCE a DAY MAKES!

BUDGET CLASHES

As they bicker, strife grows

GRANHOLM SAYS SHE HAD TO VETO; BISHOP CALLS IT ‘EXTORTION’

By CHRIS CHRISTOFF

FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU CHIEF

LANSING — The Capitol crackled with defi­ance, dismay and doctors in white smocks Tues­day, as new skirmishes in the state budget war erupted on several fronts.

Outside, hundreds of doctors with signs and bullhorns rallied for and against legislation to impose a 3% tax on all physicians.

Inside, Gov. Jennifer Granholm defended her Monday veto of $51.5 million for 39 of the state’s highest-spending school districts, including 26 in suburban Detroit. She said she had no choice because the school budget the Legislature sent her was unbalanced.

“There will be additional cuts, perhaps soon,” she warned, as state economists met to assess the state’s worsening finances.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R­Rochester, denied Granholm’s charge that $60 million in revenue was missing to pay for a near­ly $11-billion school budget. He called Gran­holm’s veto “extortion” but pledged not to raise taxes.

Clearly, the gulf between the two most im­portant people in the process was deeper by day’s end.

School officials caught in the middle com­plained that students were being held hostage and blamed both the governor and Legislature. Meanwhile, Bishop sent Granholm six more budget bills with a warning not to veto any items in the bills. But Granholm hinted that she would and said more money is needed to fund college scholarships, help cities and support Medicaid.

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Veto threats loom for budgets

Granholm presses for new taxes, fees

By CHRIS CHRISTOFF and KATHLEEN GRAY

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

LANSING — The ink from Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s veto of $51.5 million for 39 school districts was barely dry Tues­day when she received six more budget bills, and hinted that more vetoes are coming.

State budget director Bob Emerson cautioned that all school districts may face more cuts of as much as $120 per pu­pil this year, as tax revenues continue to weaken.

Granholm’s veto sent shock waves through the Legisla­ture. She laid blame on Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, and pressured lawmakers to approve more revenue to fund schools and other programs that were slashed in the new budget bills she received Tuesday — col­lege scholarships, revenue sharing to local governments and Medicaid payments to doctors, hospitals and nursing homes.

Bishop released the six bud­get bills Tuesday after holding them for more than two weeks after the Legislature approved them. He warned Granholm not to veto line items, saying Senate Republicans would not restore them.

Granholm, surrounded by 18 of the state’s top education lobbyists, said that without more money, many school dis­tricts face insolvency. She called for a public campaign to urge the Legislature to ap­prove new taxes and fees that she and House Democrats sup­port.

Among them: a freeze in the personal income tax exemp­tion (which is scheduled to get an inflationary increase); a re­duction in tax credits for busi­nesses; an increase in the tax on non-cigarette tobacco prod­ucts; a cut in tax credits for filmmakers, and new liquor li­cense fees for bars to remain open after 2 a.m. and on Sun­day mornings.

Granholm said the state needs to make systemic re­forms for the short and long term. On Tuesday, the short­term impact put many law­makers face-to-face with fiscal crisis in their local school dis­tricts.

“In a panic, hysterical about what these cuts mean. That was my phone call from my su­perintendents,” said Rep. Le­sia Liss, D-Warren, whose main school district, Center Line, stands to lose $570,000.

Rep. Marie Donigan, D-Roy­al Oak, said she was frustrated that legislators can’t compro­mise, as sales tax revenues de­cline and leave even less mon­ey for schools and other essen­tial services. The Royal Oak school district stands to lose $1.5 million under Granholm’s veto.

“This is scary stuff,” Doni­gan said.

Rep. Hugh Crawford, R-No­vi, represents three school dis­tricts — Northville, Novi and Walled Lake — that would lose more than $8.3 million in state funding because of Granholm’s veto.

“She’s playing games and didn’t have to do that,” he said. “I’ve never been exposed to do­ing business this way.”

Crawford said he has no plans to vote for new taxes but would be willing to look at a freeze on the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is used by low-income taxpayers.

“I have a granddaughter who is going to college, and I wasn’t happy about taking away her scholarship,” he said, referring to the $4,000 Prom­ise Scholarship eliminated by the Legislature. “But it’s going to be incumbent on schools and cities to restructure.”

Three districts in state Rep. Chuck Moss’ district — Bir­mingham, Bloomfield and West Bloomfield — all suffer deep cuts under the veto.

“It’s getting more … difficult to watch these desperate, cyn­ical measures to get more tax­es,” said Moss, R-Birmingham, instead suggesting eliminating the 1% pay increase scheduled for state employees and reduc­ing their benefits.

The easiest short-term so­lution wasn’t mentioned Tues­day: another dip into $184 mil­lion in remaining federal stim­ulus money lawmakers were hoping to save for next year.

Schools frustrated with funding veto

By LORI HIGGINS

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s veto of $51.5 million in funding for select districts means some school employees will lose their jobs, some districts will deplete their savings and oth­ers will find themselves head­ing quicker into a deficit.

The veto — and the subse­quent finger-pointing that took place Tuesday in Lansing — al­so produced harsh comments for Granholm and the Legisla­ture.

“It’s frustrating and disap­pointing that we’re playing pol­itics with kids,” said Brian Whiston, Dearborn Public Schools superintendent, whose district is to lose $5 mil­lion. “I’ve got to educate these kids this year, right now.”

Dearborn and 38 other dis­tricts statewide — 26 of them in metro Detroit — are among the state’s highest funded. They have been allowed to re­ceive the special money to maintain their high funding levels since Proposal A was en­acted in 1994 with the intent to equalize funding for districts.

In Dearborn, the loss of $5 million is on top of the $165­per-pupil cut all districts in Michigan must deal with and another $1.5 million Dearborn is to lose in funding for at-risk students. Whiston said layoffs are a certainty, though he’ll be soliciting input from employ­ees on how to make up the loss. Whiston said as many as 150 jobs could be on the line.

The West Bloomfield School District already was to end the school year with a def­icit. The loss of $1.5 million will speed that along, said Joey Spano, district spokeswoman. She and others say Granholm and the Legislature are equally to blame for the situation.

“Every parent and every citizen in the state of Michigan should be outraged at this. It’s a dysfunctional system,” Spa­no said.

Superintendents in Livonia Public Schools, which is to lose nearly $5 million, and Royal Oak Neighborhood Schools, which is to lose $1.5 million, an­ticipate they’ll have to dig deep into their reserve funds to cov­er the loss. Livonia Superin­tendent Randy Liepa said he welcomes Granholm to come to his district, review his bud­get and tell him how he can make cuts.

“There has to be some ex­planation to the parents in my community,” Liepa said.


Editorial

Lansing’s failure of leadership reaches the schoolhouse door

As Michigan’s elected leaders continue their diatribes over the state budget, now 10 days away from the next deadline, the dire consequences have begun to hit home.

On Monday, Gov. Jennifer Gran­holm vetoed nearly $60 million of spending in the School Aid Fund bud­get. Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop immediately denounced the cuts, which fall disproportionately on the state’s most affluent school dis­tricts, but vowed to let them take effect before he and his Republican Senate colleagues authorize a penny of the additional revenue Granholm insists is required to restore them.

What is coming into view now is the sort of state you get when leaders attempt to fix a long-term budget imbalance with short-term changes in only one side of the ledger — a. state that trashes schools, cripples hospi­tals and doctors who treat Medicaid patients, jeopardizes local police and fire services, and breaks promises made to its college students.

The funds Granholm vetoed yester­day are only the leading edge of more wide­spread cuts in K-12 aid. Because tax reve­nues continue to fall short of previous esti­mates, the governor warned that another $120 per pupil may need to be cut, starting perhaps as early as next month. That’s on top of the $165 per-pupil cut included in the budget bill Granholm signed.

Now you can argue, and many people will, about Granholm’s chief line-item veto tar­get: the extra payment that some of the higher-spending school districts have gotten for the last 10 years, an adjustment that was made when the state had ample dollars and which those schools had every right to as­sume had become a permanent part of their annual grants. But nothing is guaranteed in a budget this devastated, and Granholm had few other places to turn.

Those who insist Michigan cannot afford any new taxes may well get their wish. The House has appropriately thumbed its nose at an irresponsible, Senate-produced package to raise roughly $100 million this year.

Meanwhile, the Senate will not act on any House-produced tax increases. So these cuts Granholm ordered Monday look likely to stand.

That’s brutal news to Michiganders, who have long identified K-12 educa­tion as a top priority. With 24 school districts already on the financial edge, the state may not have enough emer­gency financial managers to go around. Outright closures may occur.

Without some additional taxes — or a slowdown in some programmed tax breaks — the news will get worse, and not just for schools. The Senate has sent Granholm the final six budget bills she needs to sign to prevent a state shutdown Nov. 1, along with a message from Bishop that any line­item vetoes she makes will not be vot­ed on again.

That’s fine. The more the governor saves now with line-item vetoes, the fewer cuts will have to be made later.

Granholm noted Tuesday that freez­ing the personal deduction on the state in­come tax could yield $55 million. Other stop­gap measures could produce significant dollars without increasing the general bur­den on hard-pressed taxpayers.

But Michiganders would be better off now if both sides turned their full attention to long-term changes in the way our state rais­es and spends money, such as containing employee benefit costs and adopting a tax regime that captures revenues from every segment of the state’s changing economy.

Even the best long-term reform package — and no one’s holding their breath on that — may not be able to repair the wounds occur­ring right now.

STATUS-QUO INSURED! (At least for another day or so)

See our Schools & Stimulus coverage | Follow us on Twitter

Politics K-12

Your education road map to state and federal politics

Michele McNeil covered education and state government in Indiana for a decade before joining Education Week as a state policy reporter in June 2006. Alyson Klein, who reports on federal education policy, joined the staff in February 2006 after nearly two years at Congress Daily.

« 53 House GOP Members Call for Jennings' Resignation | Main | How Big Is the Stimulus Funding Cliff? »

White House: Stimulus Saved 250,000 Education Jobs So Far

A new report out from the White House Domestic Policy Council estimates that the stimulus package has saved or created 250,000 education jobs so far—most of them probably teachers. (UPDATE: And a good chunk of them are from California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reported today that 62,204 of these education jobs, or nearly 25 percent of the estimated total, were saved or created in his state.)
The White House has the distinct advantage of being able to look at the first quarterly stimulus reports that states and other recipients of stimulus funds filed with the federal government before anyone else. The rest of us get to look at the reports when they're made public on Recovery.gov Oct. 30.
Even so, much of the 23-page report rehashes data from the already public applications states submitted to gain access to their stabilization funds—data that shows most states said they would use the money to backfill cuts they made, or were going to make, to K-12 education. The White House also drew on anecdotal reports from the media to highlight jobs that were saved in specific school districts. In a press release, the White House says that the stimulus package has enabled states to restore nearly all of their projected education budget shortfalls for fiscal 2009 and 2010. Of course, things are still projected to get much worse for states, based on latest tax collections data.
In the press release, Education Secretary Arne Duncan says: "Early feedback from states also tells us that many districts are using stimulus dollars in ways that will move us beyond the status quo."
Given that most of the money has so far been used to get state K-12 funding levels up to the status quo, it will be most interesting to see what states and school districts report spending their money on. (UPDATE 2: Read Andy Smarick's take on this issue, too.)

STIMULUS FUNDING in JEOPARDY! (NO-Not the Game but because of it!)

State examines whether waiver is needed to keep K-12 stimulus funding

Granholm administration officials are looking at whether Michigan may need to seek a waiver enabling it to keep federal stimulus funds for K-12 education.

The possibility is being considered as state officials examinewhether state funding levels for K-12 education are likely to drop below the “maintenance of effort” compliance levels required by the federal stimulus package, or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

State Budget Director Robert Emerson said at a press conference on Tuesday that any further reductions, beyond those in the school aid budget signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Monday, could jeopardize the federal stimulus funding.

Michigan used about $600 million in federal stimulus funds as part of the fiscal 2009 school aid budget and has allocated an additional $450 million as part of the current-year school budget, leaving about $183 million reserved for use in fiscal 2011.

If Michigan were to be out of compliance with the ARRA, it could potentially have to repay the money. A waiver, however, would avert that and other states have sought and received such waivers.

Emerson and Granholm said there is the potential that Michigan will need to enact additional per-pupil cuts, beyond the $165 per-pupil reductions in the just-signed budget.

Emerson said state Treasurer Robert Kleine and officials at the House Fiscal Agency and Senate Fiscal Agency were meeting on Tuesday to determine the state's current revenue outlook.

He and Granholm said the current school aid budget was underfunded by $60 million, based on May revenue estimates. But the state Treasurer has also indicated that, based on the latest revenue data, the shortfall in the school aid fund could be as high as $264 million.

Granholm on Monday vetoed $54 million in spending measures in the $12.9 billion K-12 budget, including $51.5 million in supplemental payments to districts that get among the highest per-pupil payments statewide.

Taking into account Granholm's veto, that could leave a current-year shortfall as high as $210 million, which could translate to additional, across-the-board cuts of as high as $120 per pupil, unless the Legislature provides additional funding, Emerson said.

At the Capitol press conference, Granholm and an array of education officials from across the state urged lawmakers to pass additional sources of revenue.

Granholm said education is the “thing most important for our economic recovery” and warned of “additional cuts, potentially soon.”

Also on Tuesday, the Senate sent Granholm six remaining budget bills that include controversial cuts like an 11.1 percent reduction in state revenue sharing and an 8 percent cut in Medicaid providers' reimbursement rates.

In a letter accompanying the bills, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, warned Granholm against vetoing items in the bills with the expectation that the Legislature would pass new sources of revenue to reinstate the vetoed items.

“Please remember that any line item veto you exercise will result in the total elimination of those programs,” Bishop wrote. “Do not veto portions of these budgets with the expectation that money will be reappropriated at a later date to fund the vetoed programs.

“There is not sufficient support in the Senate Republican caucus for tax increases and for you to think otherwise is a mistake.”

Bishop said the final fiscal 2010 budget represents a “bipartisan and bicameral effort that was achieved after months of tough negotiations.”

"WOW, YOU mean we've used ALL of the Federal STIMULUS Monies to merely perpetuate the STATUS-QUO?"

States Feeling Fiscal Squeeze Despite Stimulus

Michigan House Speaker Andy Dillon, left, talks with Rep. George Cushingberry on Sept. 30 in Lansing, Mich. Dillon said Democrats could begin to look at tax increases or other revenue sources to pay for the college scholarship program and lessen deep cuts Senate Republicans want.
$mdash;Al Goldis/AP

By Alyson Klein

Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.

Despite the nearly $40 billion infused into state coffers to help steady state education budgets under the federal economic-stimulus package, some states remain in dismal fiscal straits, forcing further cuts to K-12 programs.
States such as Pennsylvania that recently wrapped up protracted legislative sessions were forced to make sometimes-painful adjustments to cope with declining revenues, despite the unprecedented aid under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the stimulus law.
Lawmakers in other states, including New Mexico, are heading back for special sessions to consider further reductions to their budgets for the current fiscal year.
And many states are looking ahead to a time in the federal 2011 fiscal year when money from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, a key part of the stimulus program, will no longer be available. That funding, which was intended primarily to backfill cuts that states had already made to education programs, is spread out over two years. In some cases, states have diverted resources from K-12 programs and replaced their own dollars with stabilization funding from the federal government. ("States Stung by Criticism on Use of Stimulus Aid," October 12, 2009.)
“K-12 education has come under pressure that it has not seen in decades,” said Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures, based in Denver. “The only bright note is the money provided under the ARRA.”
That cloudy fiscal forecast appears unlikely to brighten any time soon. A report released Oct. 15 by the Nelson A. Rockeller Institute of Government, the public-policy-research arm of the State University of New York, shows that state revenues are faltering and are likely to remain shaky for the next several years.
The study found that those revenues nationwide dropped a record $63 billion in the fiscal year ending June 2009, or roughly twice the amount of money states have gained from the stimulus program so far.
That may help explain why, even with the extra cash, some states still have reduced or eliminated education programs.
For instance, this week Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, was expected to sign the state’s K-12 budget for this fiscal year by Oct. 20, in time for payments to school districts to be doled out. The budget came after lawmakers had passed a continuing resolution to keep programs afloat while the legislature hashed out its spending bills. The budget includes a cut of $165 per pupil in grants to school districts for K-12 students.
In Michigan, the governor has line-item veto power, and it is still unclear whether Gov. Granholm planned to use it on any portion of the education spending bill.
Although state lawmakers sought to give districts flexibility in determining how to find the savings, school officials are struggling to figure out what to trim next, said Brad Biladeau, the associate executive for government relations at the Michigan Association of School Administrators.
“We’ve been cutting administrative expenses and support services to school districts,” he said. “Now school districts are faced with significant cuts that could impact the classroom."

Cuts to Programs

Pennsylvania wrapped up an exhausting legislative session when Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a Democrat, signed the final budget Oct. 9. The measure, which came in more than 100 days behind schedule, offered a mixed picture for K-12 education, said Ronald Cowell, the president of the Education Policy and Leadership Center, a nonprofit organization in Harrisburg, Pa.
“The good news is that there is a $300 million increase,” to $5.5 billion, for basic education funding, which provides the largest amount of aid for school districts, Mr. Cowell said. That amount represents a 5.7 percent increase over last year.
The move was in keeping with a plan, enacted in 2007, to overhaul Pennsylvania’s school finance system. But it will be tough to keep up that level of funding once the state-stabilization dollars provided under the recovery act are gone, Mr. Cowell said.
And other programs that school districts depend on saw substantial reductions, he said. For instance, a $44.7 million program called Classrooms for the Future, which provides technology to schools, was eliminated. A high school reform program was reduced to $3.7 million, from $10.7 million.
“There’s a story to be told about each one of these program cuts,” Mr. Cowell said.
This week, New Mexico is slated to hold a special session to address its budget issues. Lawmakers will work to resolve a deficit of at least $400 million in a budget of $5.5 billion.
Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, has suggested a 3 percent across-the-board reduction in government programs, except for K-12 education.
But some New Mexico legislative leaders say cuts to schools might be unavoidable. K-12 education is receiving $2.4 billion this fiscal year.
“To sit there and say we’re not going to have any cuts in education—60 percent of the budget—is that a realistic proposal or is that just political rhetoric?” said Sen. Tim Jennings, a Democrat. “There ought to be meaningful solutions.”
But districts are going to have a tough time weathering further cuts, said Tom Sullivan, the executive director of the New Mexico Coalition of School Administrators.
“We have some superintendents who may be hanging by a thread who see this as the straw that’s going to break the camel’s back,” Mr. Sullivan said.
And he sees further trouble ahead, particularly if the state doesn’t find a new revenue source for education. Lawmakers in New Mexico used about $165 million in stimulus money to help balance school districts’ books in the current fiscal year, he said, but revenue forecasts have been even cloudier than expected.
That might force the state to tap the remaining $90 million in stimulus funding that so far hasn’t been allocated—leaving much less of a federal cushion to help finance schools in the next fiscal year.
“If that money is held back and used in building [next year’s] budget, then ... we’re not falling off the cliff yet,” Mr. Sullivan said. But, he added, “I’m not sure if they can make it through [this fiscal year] without using some or all of the $90 million sooner than they had hoped.”

‘Funding Cliff’ Coming

Other states are bracing for tough choices in the coming legislative sessions.
Florida has been hit particularly hard with the national downturn in the housing market, and that’s likely to lead to a structural deficit in the years ahead, said Wayne Blanton, the executive director of the Florida School Boards Association.
“We’re sort of at a crossroads,” Mr. Blanton said. He said state-financed programs, including K-12 education, have always benefited from the revenue bump created by an influx of new residents.
But Florida recently lost nearly 60,000 people, the first population drain in decades. “We’re going to take a 15 to 20 percent cut in state services” in the coming years, Mr. Blanton said, if there isn’t a major change in the state’s tax structure.
Right now, K-12 education in Florida is facing a $1 billion budget deficit, but Mr. Blanton said that amount would be closer to $2 billion without the federal help. The total budget for K-12, not including capital costs, was $15.9 billion.
He’s hoping that in the next legislative session, state lawmakers will start thinking about how to finance education after the stimulus money is no longer available.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

TEAMED KNOWLEDGE WORKER FUTURE THINK! (SKATE to WHERE the PUCK will BE)

The future of knowledge workers, Part 1
By Dan Holtshouse - Posted Aug 28, 2009

In times of economic turmoil, taking a look into the future toward 2020 might seem like an academic exercise at best. On the other hand, understanding what organizational strategies executives and professionals believe are needed to ensure a viable future is critical to identifying opportunities on the horizon as well as challenges before they become insurmountable. The purpose of this research was to peer into those longer-term trends to determine how organizations will likely try to provide a compelling work environment that attracts, retains and leverages the best of the knowledge workers of the future.

This study on the future of the knowledge worker was sponsored by The George Washington University (GWU) and the Institute for Knowledge and Innovation at GWU. Some KMWorld readers were part of the sample population and accessed the survey through a posting on the KMWorld Web site. Some of the main trends identified in the survey are included in the following:

Critical thinking for the future. The majority of professionals and executives who took the survey indicated that their organizations will prepare proactively for the future by building scenarios and responses to emerging trends that could impact them. A significant number of organizations, however, are heading into the future much less prepared because they have no standard or consistent approach to detect and evaluate future impacts, or, worse, will likely wait until the trend becomes a distinct disruption and requires focused recovery action.

Retirements and the loss of knowledge. The well documented, coming baby boomer retirement wave is one such important future impact facing many organizations. The overwhelming challenge organizations expect to confront is the loss of organizational knowledge through those retirements. Interestingly, the loss of critical knowledge far outweighed concern about potential operational impact, possible cultural/social disruptions or the task of mounting an aggressive recruiting program to attract replacements.

Filling knowledge worker gaps. Although knowledge loss is predicted to be a huge challenge, programs to retain retirees or delay their retirement did not score high on the action list. Instead, the professionals and executives surveyed indicated that they would likely fill future critical talent gaps by relying on an aggressive recruiting program for new employees. A significant number of organizations, however, are likely not to hire new employees at all, but will instead outsource the work, use fewer workers overall or fill the organizational needs through the use of specialized "for hire services.

Recruiting/attracting strategies. To fill those future critical talent gaps, executives and professionals indicated that they are likely to advertise and promote a range of organizational advantages (in addition to competitive compensation and benefits) to attract and recruit the necessary professional and managerial talent needed for their future work force. The survey also asked if their strategies would be different for recruiting two different age groups, those just coming into the workplace (25 years old or younger) and a more experienced worker group (26 to 40 year olds).

The top recruiting strategy picked for both age groups was an emphasis on flex telework/telecommute programs that reflect the era of the mobile work force. However, that’s where the similarity ended. For the younger workers, cultural diversity/empathy was the second- most important organizational recruiting advantage, indicating a response to the next-generation worker’s awareness of the benefits provided by a multicultural workplace. Additional recruiting advantages will include emphasis on opportunities for personal growth through mentor/coaching programs, advanced degree support and integrated life/work programs.

For the 26- to 40-year-old group of recruits, the second-most important recruiting advantage was job security, which recognizes the likely important role of home and family life for their stage in life. Other advantages to be promoted included integrated life/work programs, personal services, cultural diversity/empathy, ethical culture, mentor/coaching programs, community service programs and eco/green initiatives.

Knowledge retention strategies. Knowledge loss is anticipated to be a significant retirement issue, but it is also expected to be a continuing challenge for other employees who leave as well. The top knowledge retention strategy for younger workers (25 years or younger) who leave the organization is likely to be the education and training of replacement employment (which suggests that many organizations feel that there will not be a lot of critical knowledge to be retained). On the other hand, many other organizations felt that there will be valuable know-how worth capturing, and would use resources like communities of practice and professional networks, documentation processes and work process knowledge capture through advanced software. There were few or no plans for engineering out the work or changing processes as a replacement for retention strategies.

For the 26- to 40-year-old worker, the top strategies for retaining workers’ knowledge when they leave their job will be through communities of practice and professional networks, followed by documentation processes, the education and training of replacement employment, and the capture of work process knowledge through advanced software. There was little or no interest in engineering out the work or changing processes in place of retention strategies.

The future of knowledge workers, Part 2
Posted Sep 30, 2009

This is the second half of a two-part article that explores the findings of a recent study on the future of the knowledge worker. For Part I, click through to KMWorld Magazine.

The purpose of the research was to look at longer-term trends in how organizations will likely try to provide a compelling work environment that attracts, retains and leverages the best of the knowledge workers of the future.

The study was sponsored by The George Washington University (GWU) and the Institute for Knowledge and Innovation at GWU. Some KMWorld readers were part of the sampling population and accessed the survey through a posting on the KMWorld Web site. Several of the main trends identified in the survey are described in this article.

Top type of future knowledge work

Given the unstructured nature of knowledge work, the concept of "one size fits all" does not really apply here. Borrowing from a four-part work segmentation theme by Tom Davenport (Thinking for a Living, 2005), the survey asked what types of knowledge work are likely to become the most highly valued in the organization over the next 10 to 12 years. Collaborative work (project design team, global consultancy, etc.) received the highest ranking by the survey respondents. That was consistent with the high interest expressed throughout the survey in increasing collaborative support capabilities. Expert judgment work (research scientist, legal specialist, etc.) ranked a distant second, followed by process-oriented work (financial reporting, quality assurance, etc.) and transaction work (tech support center, billing inquiry, etc.).

Most valuable future skills

Over the next 10 to 12 years, team/collaborative skills will be the capabilities that organizations value the most for knowledge workers who are 25 years old or younger. Collaboration capabilities are essential for workers with little experience so they can learn and contribute through others in team/community participation.

The survey takers were asked to select from a list of 10 different skills and expertise possibilities. The top valued expertise of team/collaboration skills was followed closely by specialized technical expertise, which organizations indicated is a primary way that the younger worker can add immediate value to team and community initiatives. The remaining valued capabilities, in order of importance, were: analytics/ modeling, entrepreneurial skills, systems thinking and analysis, project management, strategic thinking, knowledge management, international experience and general management. PDF of charts may be viewed here.

For the 26- to 40-year-old workers who, in many cases, will form the core of the next-generation leadership, the organization would value highest the capabilities that enable major responsibility for the organization’s operations, strategy and overall performance. Those capabilities for that age group include project management as the highest skill and expertise, followed by strategy and strategic thinking, and specialized expertise. The remaining responses, in order, were for team/ collaboration, systems thinking and analysis, general management skills, knowledge management, entrepreneurial, international experience and analytics/modeling.

Top future technology investments

The top priority for future technology investment to support performance improvement for the 25-year-old worker or younger will be collaboration tools. That is consistent with organizational views that collaborative work will be the most valuable type of future work and that collaborative skills will be the most highly valued skill set of the younger worker. Technology investments will also be directed toward enabling improved communication, information access and mobile work through enhanced e-mail, search and portals infrastructure, virtual workspace tools and information processing tools for visualization, expertise location and business intelligence.

For the 26- to 40-year-old workers, the top technology investment priorities will also go toward collaboration and e-mail, search and portals infrastructure. The second tier of technology investments for the older workers, however, would be to enable better decision-making and leadership support through content analysis and sense-making tools and business intelligence capabilities. For both age groups, intelligent agent software and machine learning tools received little interest as technology investments by the survey organizations, even though ongoing update/enhancement of worker skills was projected to be a continuing challenge over the next 10 to 12 years.

Eco/green impact on knowledge work

As the eco/green movement continues to gain momentum and visibility in society, organizations are presenting a mixed view of what the major impact will likely be on the workplace over the next 10 to 12 years. The top two survey responses were a tie between two different potential impacts. Organizations believe one implication will be a significant expansion and support of virtual work, which reinforces the era of mobile work and the adoption of technology that enables work anywhere. On the other hand, an equal number of organizations foresee and expect little or no change from the current situation in the workplace, which reflects the realities of resistance to change and the requirement by some organizations of a physical presence in the workplace.

In a somewhat surprising rating, the professionals and executives who took the survey anticipated little or no increase in car-pooling and public transportation as a result of the eco/green movement.

Who took the survey?

One hundred and twenty-five professionals and executives participated in the survey, which was conducted in mid-2008. Three-quarters of the respondents were from North America and one-quarter from Europe and South America. The survey group was highly senior with almost half consisting of executives and directors/managers. A wide range of organizational sizes were represented with more than one-third reporting 25,000 or more employees. Approximately two-thirds were from business and one-third from government organizations. The 35-part questionnaire was developed through interviews with KM thought leaders, KM publishers, academic leaders, business/government professionals and survey design experts.

It's About TIME! (To DO the RIGHT THING)

WHY it's NOT About the MONEY!

Race to the Top (Update)

September 28, 2009
Editorial
Mr. Duncan and That $4.3 Billion

With sound ideas and a commitment to rigorously monitor the states’ progress, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has revitalized the school-reform effort that had lost most of its momentum by the closing days of the Bush administration.

His power to press for reforms was dramatically enhanced earlier this year when Congress gave him control of $4.3 billion in grant money — the Race to the Top fund — that is to be disbursed to the states on a competitive basis. Mr. Duncan will need to resist political pressure and special pleadings and reward only the states that are committed to effective and clearly measurable reform.

Mr. Duncan’s exhortations, and the promise of so much cash, have already persuaded eight states to adopt measures favorable to charter schools, which Mr. Duncan rightly sees as crucial in the fight to turn around failing schools.

To be eligible for the money, every state must also show how student performance will be factored into their systems for evaluating teachers. And Mr. Duncan has asked the states to come up with plausible plans to turn around failing schools — so-called dropout factories — and to better serve minority students.

He has also made clear in preliminary guidelines released earlier this year that his system for evaluating the states’ reform efforts will be rigorous — and that financing can be revoked if states renege on their promises. Even the National Education Association, the aggressively hidebound teachers’ union, seems to understand that the time for defending the status quo has passed.

For all that, the difficult part is yet to come. Mr. Duncan must be prepared to reject grant applications that do not meet the eligibility requirements, but he also must be willing to encourage states to innovate.

As he decides which applications to accept and which to reject, Mr. Duncan can expect a lot of outside pressure from politicians demanding that he finance all of their states’ programs and from community purists demanding that he reject projects that don’t comply with their views.

He will need to resist those pressures and choose substantive, innovative proposals that stand the best chance of improving the schools. For that, he will need courage, stamina and cover from the White House.

Warren Consolidated Schools / Macomb, Math, Science & Technology Center (MMSTC-Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony 9-23-2009)

A Race WORTH Running (AND ONE WE MUST NOT LOSE!)

For Release:
1:00 pm

September 24, 2008Contact:
Gary G. Naeyaert
517-281-2690

2,500 ADVOCATES HOLD EDUCATION REFORM RALLY AT STATE CAPITOL

Change agents urge legislature to pass bills to close the achievement gap and secure “Race to the Top” funds

Lansing, MI – More than 2,500 students, parents, teachers and education activists held a rally on the lawn of State Capitol Building this morning.

Education reform priorities pushed during the rally included the need to fix failing schools, provide alternative routes to teacher certification, and expand quality public school options, especially in underperforming areas.

“It is a moral imperative that we close the academic achievement gap in Michigan,” said Michael Tenbusch, Vice President for Education Preparedness at the United Way of Southeastern Michigan.

“These reforms are not only the right approach for our students – they could bring millions in federal education funds to the state,” he continued.

Most observers believe passing these types of bills are necessary before Michigan will be competitive in $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” federal incentive program.

“Each and every American citizen is entitled to have equal access to a high quality education,” said Kevin Chavous, one of the nation’s leading education reform activists, during his stirring keynote address at the rally.

Students released over 1,000 “Kids Need Great Schools” balloons after Chavous’ remarks, and each balloon represented hundreds of minority and at-risk students behind grade level and stuck in failing schools.

“Every child can learn, and all kids deserve great schools. The status quo isn’t getting it done, so we need to work together and find new ways to help kids achieve,” said Rachele Downs, Vice President, CB Richard Ellis Detroit and member of the Leadership Detroit Education Support Committee.

“We agree with President Obama that students must take responsibility for their own education, and empowering parents as true partners in public education should be a much higher priority,” said Sharlonda Buckman, Executive Director of the Detroit Parent Network.

EARLY Childhood Learning (Dollars-But WHAT does it Look Like?)

September 20, 2009
Initiative Focuses on Early Learning Programs
By SAM DILLON

Tucked away in an $87 billion higher education bill that passed the House last week was a broad new federal initiative aimed not at benefiting college students, but at raising quality in the early learning and care programs that serve children from birth through age 5.

The initiative, the Early Learning Challenge Fund, would channel $8 billion over eight years to states with plans to improve standards, training and oversight of programs serving infants, toddlers and preschoolers.

The Senate is expected to pass similar legislation this fall, giving President Obama, who proposed the Challenge Fund during the presidential campaign, a bill to sign in December.

Experts describe the current array of programs serving young children and their families nationwide as a hodgepodge of efforts with little coordination or coherence. Financing comes from a shifting mix of private, local, state and federal money. Programs are run out of storefronts and churches, homes and Head Start centers, public schools and other facilities. Quality is uneven, with some offering stimulating activities, play and instruction but others providing little more than a room and a television.

Oversight varies by state, but most lack any early childhood structure analogous to the state and local boards of education that govern public schools. A result is that poor children, even many who have access to government-financed early care or learning programs, tend to enter kindergarten less prepared for school than those with wealthier parents.

To qualify for grants, states would have to demonstrate that they have established or improved what the bill calls a “governance structure” for their networks of child care centers and prekindergarten programs.

The structure would include quality standards; a curriculum of sorts, appropriate for young children; a mechanism for reviewing programs and assigning quality ratings; minimum training requirements for providers; a plan for reaching out to parents; and a system for collecting data on children and families. The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services would jointly administer the Challenge Fund.

Sharon Lynn Kagan, a professor at Teachers College who has traced the history of American child care programs back to the early 19th century, wrote a paper last year advocating federal aid to states in building a more coherent and robust early-childhood infrastructure.

“No one bill can solve everything,” Professor Kagan said, “but this will move us more than any other piece of legislation toward higher quality in early education, not just more spaces for children.”

Since the campaign, Mr. Obama has raised expectations among early learning advocates with his endorsements of public investments in the careful nurturing of young children, especially the disadvantaged. In the economic stimulus bill, Congress last spring appropriated more than $4 billion in new financing for child care and education efforts, including Head Start, the federal program that serves about 900,000 preschoolers.

Still, not all early learning advocates are satisfied that the administration is doing all it could to integrate early learning efforts into the nation’s broader public education system.

The Department of Education is already administering a separate $4.3 billion competition among states to reward and encourage improvements to elementary and secondary schools. In August, scores of early learning groups and advocates wrote letters to the department criticizing proposed rules for that competition, known as Race to the Top, as largely ignoring early childhood education.

“We don’t see how our country can race to the top when all kids are not at the same starting line” when they reach kindergarten, said Marcy Young, project director for the Pre-K Now program at the Pew Center on the States, one group that criticized the rules.

One reason the administration focused on elementary and secondary schools in the Race to the Top competition and early childhood in the Challenge Fund is that the two are at contrasting levels of development, administration officials said, with the public schools needing initiatives to improve teacher effectiveness, for instance, and early childhood needing basic structures of governance.

Sara Mead, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, said, “I haven’t talked with anybody who isn’t excited about the prospects for this Early Learning Challenge Fund.”

“But there is disappointment in some parts of the early childhood community that it’s not more focused on adding slots,” Ms. Mead said.

One reason advocates are especially concerned about slots for children is that after a decade in which states had taken the lead in expanding access nationwide, several with deep budget troubles have recently eliminated or reduced services for tens of thousands of children.

Illinois, for instance, cut the budget for its Pre-K for All program to $305 million this fiscal year from $338 million last year, eliminating slots for about 9,500 children, according to statistics provided by Albert Wat, a project manager at Pre-K Now.

In Ohio, lawmakers did away with a program known as the Early Learning Initiative, the budget for which last year was $125 million, Mr. Wat said. The action eliminated access for 12,000 children, he said.

“In some states, we’re seeing a disaster,” said Steve Barnett, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.

But despite the tightest budgets in decades, nearly 30 states have chosen to protect or increase financing for early learning programs.

MacArthur Foundation

Follow the Mindset and Model the Practice!

Detroit Chamber presents DEPSA & Foreign Language Immersion School as models for 21st Century Learning

Many People, Business's & Organizations have asked "What do You Guys DO?" We now have an appropriate answer "WHAT HE SAID!"

President Obama Weighs-In!

The following is the prepared text of Mr. Obama's speech to students to be delivered in Arlington, Va., on Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2009, which was posted in advance on the White House Web site.


The President: Hello everyone - how's everybody doing today? I'm here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we've got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I'm glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it's your first day in a new school, so it's understandable if you're a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you're in, some of you are probably wishing it were still Summer, and you could've stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday - at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I'm here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I'm here because I want to talk with you about your education and what's expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I've given a lot of speeches about education. And I've talked a lot about responsibility.

I've talked about your teachers' responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I've talked about your parents' responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don't spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I've talked a lot about your government's responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren't working where students aren't getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world - and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer - maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper - but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor - maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine - but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life - I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You'll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that - if you quit on school - you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country.

Now I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that's like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn't fit in.

So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I'm not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life - what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home - that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That's what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn't speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer - hundreds of extra hours - to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he's headed to college this fall.

And then there's Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she's on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren't any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That's why today, I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education - and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you'll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you're not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject you study. You won't click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That's OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. JK Rowling's first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can't let your failures define you - you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one's born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice. It's the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust - a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor - and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you're struggling, even when you're discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you - don't ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It's the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you've got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down - don't let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

This Just In!

Posted: Tuesday, 08 September 2009 7:37AM

Students Head Back To School

Detroit (WWJ) -- Detroit Public Schools students and thousands of others across Metro Detroit and Michigan return to class and there are big changes in some districts.

Over 1,000 teachers have been laid off and 29 schools closed in the Detroit Public Schools, as the district tries to stop plummeting enrollment. Last fall, enrollment dropped below 100,000 and is expected to dip under 90,000 this fall.

Emergency financial manager Robert Bobb will be at several schools this morning welcoming students back.

"We want to make sure parents and students have everything they need to have a successful first day of school," Bobb said. "We know that issues will arise so we will have SWAT teams out in the schools all day. And I will be in the field at schools throughout the day, as well, to address concerns and answer questions."

Early Tuesday morning, Bobb said he was upset that there wasn't enough workers to answer a hotline number set up to answer any questions that arise.

Parents who have questions are being asked to call (313) 240-4DPS for questions not answered by their child's school. District staff will be on hand to answer phones until 5:30 p.m. Extra staff will be on hand throughout the week to address concerns.

Teachers in three suburban districts are without contracts, but they plan to be in the classroom when school starts.

According to the Michigan Education Association, all three districts -- Woodhaven-Brownstown, Southfield and Redford Union Schools -- are on the union's critical list, meaning the union does not see progress in the negotiations. Talks in the districts are stalled over salaries and health insurance.

In Pontiac, the school district opens with a new uniform policy in place and only one high school. Pontiac High School opens in what had been known as Pontiac Northern High School. Under a consolidation plan, high school students from Northern and Central High will be attending class at the new Pontiac High.

The weather for the first couple days of school includes rain. Click here for the forecast.