Who's on First, What's on Second and I Dunno is on Third

DETROIT

School district expects final student tally under 100,000

BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • September 27, 2008

While denying reports that enrollment is down to 88,000 students, Detroit Public Schools officials acknowledged Thursday that it has dropped below the 100,000 mark needed to maintain first-class district status.

As a result, two community colleges and suburban districts will be able to open charter schools within the city and the number of DPS board members could change and their powers diminish. The district's ability to borrow money, contract for services, issue bonds, collect property taxes and direct its school police department also is now in question.

The Michigan School Code is unclear about when the school district will lose first-class district powers, said Jeff Williams, senior vice president of Public Sector Consultants in Lansing.

"These are serious, serious operational issues," he said "You probably need a lawyer, and whatever the lawyer says someone will take to court."

Because of the uncertainty, Superintendent Connie Calloway "does not know who's on her board, what their powers are and what their budget will be," Williams said. "It all depends on what the Legislature is going to do about it."

The Legislature could rewrite the law to keep the district's first-class powers, but discussions are unlikely before the November election.

After Wednesday's statewide enrollment count day, reports circulated that the Detroit district has 88,000 students, down from 104,000 last fall.

"The 88,000 number is wrong, I know that for a fact," said school board president Carla Scott. She said that figure did not include part-time students such as some high school, alternative education, kindergarten and preschool students. The true number is expected to be between 94,000 and 96,000, students, Scott said. A preliminary total could be available next week.

Detroit Public Schools has suffered an enrollment plunge; the student population is down from 173,878 students a decade ago. The system has a $1.1-billion budget and must cut $522 million over the next two years.

Speculation about the student total and the first-class designation occurred a week after the state announced that a review team will look through the district's finances starting next month. The team could recommend that the governor appoint a financial manager to take over the district's finances.

Gary Naeyaert, spokesman for Michigan's Charter Schools, said there are about 200 applicants awaiting approval to open charter schools, but they would probably not be ready to open any in Detroit until fall 2009.

Contact CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY at 313-223-4537 or cpratt@freepress.com.

AIM to TAP-IN to OUR CREATIVE SUBCONSCIOUS!

Article location:http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/129/rewiring-the-creative-mind.html

September 17, 2008

Neuroscience Sheds New Light on Creativity

By Gregory Berns

Close your eyes and visualize the sun setting over a beach.

How detailed was your image? Did you envision a bland orb sinking below calm waters, or did you call up an image filled with activity -- palm trees swaying gently, waves lapping at your feet, perhaps a loved one holding your hand?

Now imagine you're standing on the surface of Pluto. What would a sunset look like from there? Notice how hard you had to work to imagine this

scene. Did you picture a featureless ball of ice with the sun a speck of light barely brighter than a star along the horizon? Did you envision frozen lakes of exotic chemicals or icy fjords glimmering in the starlight?

What you conjured illuminates how our brains work, why it can be so hard to come up with new ideas -- and how you can rewire your mind to open up the holy grail of creativity. Recent advances in neuroscience, driven by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that lets scientists watch brain activity as never before, have changed what we know about key attributes of creativity. These advances, for example, have swept away the idea that there is a pleasure center in the brain that somehow acts as an accelerator to the engine of human behavior. Rather, chemicals such as dopamine shuttle between neurons in ways that look remarkably like the calculations modern robots perform.

Creativity and imagination begin with perception. Neuroscientists have come to realize that how you perceive something isn't simply a product of what your eyes and ears transmit to your brain. It's a product of your brain itself. And iconoclasts, a class of people I define as those who do something that others say can't be done -- think Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, or Florence Nightingale -- see things differently. Literally. Some iconoclasts are born that way, but we all can learn how to see things not for what they are, but for what they might be.

Perception and imagination are linked because the brain uses the same neural circuits for both functions. Imagination is like running perception in reverse. The reason it's so difficult to imagine truly novel ideas has to do with how the brain interprets signals from your eyes. The images that strike your retina do not, by themselves, tell you with certainty what you are seeing. Visual perception is largely a result of statistical expectations, the brain's way of explaining ambiguous visual signals in the most likely way. And the likelihood of these explanations is a direct result of past experience.

Entire books have been written about learning, but the important elements for creative thinkers can be boiled down to this: Experience modifies the connections between neurons so that they become more efficient at processing information. Neuroscientists have observed that while an entire network of neurons might process a stimulus initially, by about the sixth presentation, the heavy lifting is performed by only a subset of neurons. Because fewer neurons are being used, the network becomes more efficient in carrying out its function.

The brain is fundamentally a lazy piece of meat. It doesn't want to waste energy. That's why there is a striking lack of imagination in most people's visualization of a beach sunset. It's an iconic image, so your brain simply takes the path of least resistance and reactivates neurons that have been optimized to process this sort of scene. If you imagine something that you have never actually seen, like a Pluto sunset, the possibilities for creative thinking become much greater because the brain can no longer rely on connections shaped by past experience.

In order to think creatively, you must develop new neural pathways and break out of the cycle of experience-dependent categorization. As Mark Twain said, "Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned." For most people, this does not come naturally. Often, the harder you try to think differently, the more rigid the categories become.

Most corporate off-sites, for example, are ineffective idea generators, because they're scheduled rather than organic; the brain has time to predict the future, which means the potential novelty will be diminished. Transplanting the same mix of people to a different location, even an exotic one, then dropping them into a conference room much like the one back home doesn't create an environment that leads to new insights. No, new insights come from new people and new environments -- any circumstance in which the brain has a hard time predicting what will happen next.

Fortunately, the networks that govern both perception and imagination can be reprogrammed. By deploying your attention differently, the frontal cortex, which contains rules for decision making, can reconfigure neural networks so that you can see things that you didn't see before. You need a novel stimulus -- either a new piece of information or an unfamiliar environment -- to jolt attentional systems awake. The more radical the change, the greater the likelihood of fresh insights.

Some of the most startling breakthroughs have had their origins in exactly these types of novel circumstances. Chemist Kary Mullis came up with the basic principle of the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR -- the fundamental technology that makes genetic tests possible -- not hunched over his lab bench, but on a spring evening while he was driving up the northern California coast. Walt Disney was a decent illustrator, but he didn't imagine the possibilities of animation until he saw his advertising illustrations projected onto the screen in a movie theater. In an extreme example, the preeminent glass artist Dale Chihuly didn't discover his sculptural genius until a car accident led to the loss of an eye and literally forced him to see the world differently. Only when the brain is confronted with stimuli that it has not encountered before does it start to reorganize perception. The surest way to provoke the imagination, then, is to seek out environments you have no experience with. They may have nothing to do with your area of expertise. It doesn't matter. Because the same systems in the brain carry out both perception and imagination, there will be cross talk.

Novel experiences are so effective at unleashing the imagination because they force the perceptual system out of categorization, the tendency of the brain to take shortcuts. You have to confront these categories directly. Try this: When your brain is categorizing a person or an idea, just jot down the categories that come to mind. Use analogies. You will find that you naturally fall back on the things you are familiar with. Then allow yourself the freedom to write down gut feelings, even if they're vague or visceral, such as "stupid" or "hot." Only when you consciously confront your brain's shortcuts will you be able to imagine outside of its boundaries.

Adapted from the book Iconoclast, by Gregory Berns, by permission of Harvard Business Press. Copyright 2008 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. All Rights Reserved.

AIM for 3-D Outcomes!

Posted: Monday, 22 September 2008 6:21PM

Troy's Edutronix Adds Three-D Printers

Troy-based Edutronix LLC has announced staff and business line additions.

The company says it has added three-dimensional printing and three-dimensional scanning gear from Z Corp. to its product portfolio.

The reverse engineering and rapid prototyping capabilities suit all applications from high school education through the most demanding commercial corporate environments. The devices use a combination of powder and cement, deposited in thin layers by technology now used in two-dimensional printing, to create highly accurate three-dimensional objects from CAD data.

The company also added staff: Greg Engle as sales account manager for education, Michele Nieswand as sales coordinator, Keith Locke as sales account manager for corporate, Rick Amato as application engineer and Jennifer Swiderski as marketing, public relations and media coordinator.

Edutronix' Educational Services business unit features career training software by Applied Technologies, which improves the students’ skills and ignites their interest in health sciences, agriscience and IT. The CAD Academy, featuring SolidWorks, ArchiCAD, Google SketchUp, A+ CAD, and Blender allows students to explore career paths through real world projects, while establishing a solid foundation for science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers. The Genesis World Language Labs permits the students to experience a dynamic software based language lab while allowing the instructor full control systems featuring the newest technologies available for multimedia interactivity.

The company also is participating in several upcoming educational conferences -- Oakland Tech Prep Wednesday in Farmington Hills; Trends Oct. 2 and 3, intended for Michigan community college educators in occupational studies, at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids; and Technology Discovery Day Oct. 31 at the University of Detroit Mercy.

The CAD Academy will also feature hands-on test drives for teachers Oct. 13 at Automation Alley in Troy and Oct. 15 at the Dasi office in Grandville. Both events take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

To register, e-mail grege@edutronix.com.

© MMVIII WWJ Radio, All Rights Reserved.

INFORMS OUR UNDERSTANDING

DETROIT

DPS seeks help from the state


Change in law could limit charter schools


BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • September 19, 2008

Detroit could see an unlimited number of charter and suburban districts open schools in the city if enrollment falls below 100,000 next week as expected, local officials and researchers say.

Those new schools would likely accelerate the exodus from Michigan's largest school system. The drop also could diminish the school board's powers.

Lansing lawmakers are being asked to change state law so Detroit Public Schools can remain the state's only first-class school district. The status allows DPS to have unique financial powers because of its size and seven board members elected by districts. It also limits charter schools within DPS boundaries.

Enrollment is at about 96,000 students, Superintendent Connie Calloway said last week. If that number holds on the day students are counted to determine state funding, DPS would no longer be considered a first-class district -- unless the Legislature changes the definition. Currently, a first-class district must have 100,000 students.

The district's first-class status is among three discussions brewing in Lansing that could result in drastic changes for financially troubled DPS.

This week, Republicans discussed allowing a new and potentially larger charter school system as an alternative to failing districts, though it's unclear whether such a plan could pass.

On Wednesday, state Superintendent Mike Flanagan declared DPS in serious financial trouble, and asked the governor to appoint a financial review team. The state could appoint a financial manager to take over operations.

If lawmakers are going to change the Michigan School Revised Code so DPS can maintain its status, it must act soon -- count day is Wednesday, and audited figures typically become official by Nov. 15.

"People are starting to realize this is a pretty important issue we need to address," Tim Melton, D-Pontiac, chairman of the House Education Committee said of DPS's first-class status. "We're trying to use this as an opportunity for school reform."

DPS spokesman Steve Wasko, who is also its acting lobbyist, said the district's stability is at stake. "So many things we count on, that our community counts on" are "incumbent on remaining a first-class school district," he said. "To put us in a process where the very governance of the school board would be in question would just be another unnecessary indicator of instability."

Solutions to problems sought

But help for the deficit-ridden district -- which has to cut $522 million over two years -- could prove hard to get in Lansing.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, said Thursday that he doubts lawmakers will change the law. The governor's review team should quickly report on DPS finances and allow officials to craft some informed long-term solutions, he said.

"What the vast majority of legislators are looking at is trying to solve the problems. We don't want to keep funding a district that doesn't function properly," Bishop said.

The legislature in June lowered the enrollment threshold for a first-class school district from 100,000 to 60,000 within the school budget bill. But another law, the Michigan School Revised Code, maintains the 100,000 figure. If it is not changed, the district could undergo several changes.

How the district could change

All 11 board seats could become at-large and the number of seats increased or decreased. Currently, seven of the 11 are by district. Whether an election would be needed soon is unclear, said Jeff Williams, senior vice president at Public Sector Consultants, a Lansing think tank. The Skillman Foundation hired the company to analyze the law's impact.

If first-class status is lost, other operations could change, too, including the way DPS borrows money, contracts for services, issues bonds, collects property taxes and operates the school police department, consultants found.

"This is an issue that's more than just about Detroit's kids. It's about many different aspects of public service in Wayne County," Williams said.

Without first-class status, Wayne County Community College and Bay Mills Community College could open charter schools in Detroit, though both said they have no plans for them now. Suburban districts could open schools, too.

"That's something to be concerned about," said Detroit school board member Tyrone Winfrey.

Fear, politics play a role

Detroit officials and unions fear that if lawmakers do not change the law, it's a doomsday prediction for DPS.

The past decade has shown that new charter schools in the city have resulted in more parents leaving the district, leaving DPS to deal with 60,000 fewer students, less funding and school closures.

Although the school officials want to retain first-class status to keep out more charter schools, some lawmakers are discussing allowing a new charter school system.

Led by Bishop and Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, lawmakers discussed an idea this week that they are calling "Neighborhood Public Schools."

The idea -- not yet a bill -- would allow corporations and community groups to open schools without an authorizer. It would target underperforming districts, not just Detroit.

Sen. Irma Clark-Coleman, D-Detroit, a former DPS board member, said a Republican-led reform bill would be worse than the fallout from losing first-class district status.

"Republicans have never been interested in helping out Detroit in terms of school issues. I don't see any evidence that they are going to be agreeable to assist Detroit in redefining what a first-class school district is," she said.

Contact CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY at 313-223-4537 or cpratt@freepress.com.


Posted: Wednesday, 17 September 2008 4:37PM

Review Team To Examine DPS Finances

Detroit (WWJ) -- Detroit Public Schools have a serious financial problem and a state review team will examine the district's finances, according to state schools Superintendent Mike Flanagan.

The designation could eventually lead to an emergency financial manager being appointed to make decisions for the district.

Flanagan says he's confident Michigan's largest school district can get back on track financially, however if no agreement is reached between a review team and the school board, Flanagan could ask Gov. Jennifer Granholm to appoint a financial manager.

The decision was announced one day after Flanagan met with Detroit Superintendent Connie Calloway and some Detroit School Board members in Lansing to outline a deficit elimination plan.

Detroit Public Schools spokesman Steve Wasko tells WWJ the district "thoroughly welcomes" the move. Wasko said the move is an extension of a strong partnership between DPS and the Michigan Department of Education.

Detroit Public Schools submitted a two year deficit elimination program that would eliminate a 408 million dollar deficit, however Wasko says the deficit would balloon to 525 million dollars at the end of two years. Wasko said the deficit was the result of past administrations not "rightsizing" the district over several years.

Wasko and Flanagan both stressed the action isn't a state takeover of the district like one that happened during the Engler Administration.

"This is an opportunity to help get the district on-track financially,” Flanagan said. “We see positive things being done in the classrooms that are focused on student achievement, and need to secure the financial stability of the district.

“I firmly believe that the actions being taken are going to make the Detroit Public Schools stronger for the children of Detroit,” Flanagan said.

The Governor will appoint the Review Team, which by law must consist of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, State Treasurer, State Budget Director, and nominees of the Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives and Senate Majority Leader.

The group has a month to examine the financial condition of the district and report its findings to the Governor and Flanagan as to whether a financial emergency exists in the district.

To avoid a financial emergency being declared, the Review Team and the local board of education can enter into an agreement that outlines direct actions the district must take to resolve the problem.

If no agreement can be reached, the State Superintendent has the authority to determine that an emergency financial condition exists and submit to the Governor three names from which to appoint an Emergency Financial Manager.

An Emergency Financial Manager would assume authority over all fiscal matters of the school district and makes all fiscal decisions for the district.

EDUTOPIA Wants to SEE and HEAR from YOU!

Calling All Modern Students!

Edutopia.org wants to hear from you about which skills you think your school should teach to help you succeed in life. Kids are experts on the modern digital world, and we think it's time adults listened. Create a video stating your opinion, and submit it by October 15 -- we'll publish our favorites on Edutopia.org.

It's simple -- there are just five steps:

Create a video, no more than one minute long, answering this question:"What do you think is the most important skill to learn for your future -- and why?"

The footage could consist of straightforward talking to the camera, or something more creative.

Introduce yourself with your first name only.

Obtain parental consent for taping and posting on the Internet if you are younger than eighteen years old.

Post the video on YouTube and tag it "edutopiaskills." (Note that YouTube users must be at least thirteen years old.)

Send an email to skills@edutopia.org, telling us your name, age, parental contact information, and hometown, and include a link to the video.

You'll need a (free) YouTube account to do the upload. Find YouTube's instructions for uploading here and for directions for tagging here.

We look forward to hearing from you!

MEETING: Thursday, September 18, 2008 9:30AM

Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce

http://www.detroitchamber.com/main/index.asp

ADDS to OUR Mutual Understanding!

The DPS "Ship of State" Continues to be a Distraction

Detroit schools chief in trouble

Calloway is hit with reprimand

BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • September 12, 2008

A majority of Detroit school board members say they are unsatisfied with Superintendent Connie Calloway's performance after just one year on the job and voted to reprimand her late Thursday for "inappropriate behavior.

One board member, Reverend David Murray, said the board is building a case for dismissal.
The board voted 6-4 in favor of a reprimand requested by board members Annie Carter and Tyrone Winfrey, who wrote memos last month questioning Calloway's competence and stating that she is rude, among other complaints.

The impact of the reprimand, the details of which will be spelled out in a letter to Calloway, was unclear, as board members did not specify what penalties she would face.

Murray, however, called the measure progressive discipline, saying Calloway's immediate removal would send the district into a tailspin.

In addition, the board panned the superintendent in her first annual review, with five or more of nine board members giving her unsatisfactory ratings in nearly every category. The board rated her performance in academic objective, safety, finances and operations.

The worst marks related to her leadership. Eight board members gave her unsatisfactory marks for establishing cohesive and trusting relationships. Murray said Calloway doesn't communicate important information to board members.

Earlier this year, she hung up the phone on him in a conversation, leading him to ask for a public apology.

"Staff is literally scared of her," he said.

Murray said he gave her mostly unsatisfactory marks.

On a more positive note for the superintendent, five board members gave her a satisfactory mark for developing processes to monitor academic achievement.

Parent Tamara Wills said the board has never given Calloway a chance.

"They were planning on hanging this woman the day she got here," said Wills, who has a daughter at Sampson Webber Academy and a son at Chadsey High School.

But activist Helen Moore said, "The board was too kind."

When asked for comment about her review, Calloway simply said she will continue to work in the best interests of children.

The action comes after months of increasing tension between the board and the superintendent.

Since the spring, board members and Calloway have clashed over a litany of issues: the $400-million budget shortfall announced in June; the board's vote to remove the chief financial officer's duties as treasurer responsible for reporting information to the board; amendments to the new auditor's contract, and the board's evaluation of Calloway's performance.

Carter and Winfrey are among at least four of the 11 board members who have complained in writing about Calloway's poor communication with the board and questioned her skills.

Carter is among at least four board members who have suggested that the district has cause to fire Calloway. Her 5-year contract goes through 2012 and stipulates that if the board fires her for poor performance, no payment is due to her. However, if a court finds the firing was without reason, the district would have to pay Calloway a lump sum equal to her salary, vacation and sick time from the date of firing to the 3-year anniversary, which is July 1, 2010.

In an Aug. 18 "written reprimand" Carter wrote that Calloway was rude to her at a principal's meeting, indicating Calloway's "business as usual" and "unprofessionalism."

Winfrey's confidential Aug. 1 memo requesting a reprimand cites concerns that Calloway failed to monitor the chief financial officer and give the board timely notification about the deficit, failed to properly assign the correct number of teachers and accused her of having a "condescending managerial approach" that has caused "improper morale and almost irreparable harm."

"I have become disheartened, disillusioned and definitely disappointed in her extremely controlling, unnecessarily condescending and utterly repulsive grandstanding demeanor," Winfrey wrote. "I am deeply saddened by the perhaps unconscious or apparently covert dismantling of the Detroit Public Schools under the leadership of Dr. Connie Calloway."

"It's an employee, employer relationship. Reprimands happen all the time," Winfrey said, adding that the current flap is reaching epic proportions.

The two board members join at least two others -- Murray and Marie Thornton -- who have written letters demanding that Calloway apologize for being rude to and uncommunicative with the board.

Contact CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY at 313-223-4537 or cpratt@freepress.com.

AIM to Go Green!

Posted: Sunday, 07 September 2008 2:33PM NY Times' Friedman To Focus On Green Revolution In Ypsi Speech

Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman will offer the keynote at a day-long event focused on making green power the next great global industry. The event, bringing together and recognizing Michigan's leading alternative energy companies, features remarks by University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman and Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon in addition to Friedman. The program begins at 12:20 p.m.; registration starts at 10:30 a.m. Friedman's No. 1 bestseller "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century," changed the national discussion on the opportunities and challenges of a global economy. His newest book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution -- and How it Can Renew America" is the topic of his address, as energy has become one of the top election year issues. The event is being organized by the Washtenaw Economic Club, the Michigan Business Review and Michigan's University Research Corridor. Friedman's talk is part of a day-long focus on Michigan-based innovations forming the seeds of a growing green energy industry, including Michigan Business Review Innovation, bringing together Michigan's most innovative companies utilizing and supplying alternative energy. The University Research Corridor will also make available a new report offering a break-out on Michigan's opportunities for developing green technologies. Friedman's new book contends America has been overwhelmed with articles about "easy ways to go green'' and notes "green'' was the single-most trademarked word in 2007 but he complains the over-abundance of such articles shows the makings of "a party -- not a revolution.'' The real changes, he contends, will be hard, not easy, and most are yet to come. Despite the increasing need for new green technologies, U.S. venture capital funds invested just $5 billion in green revolution investments last year compared to $100 billion invested in IT in 2000, the peak of the dot-com boom, Friedman notes. "Anyone who looks at the growth of middle classes around the world and their rising demands for natural resources, plus the dangers of climate change driven by our addiction to fossil fuels, can see that clean renewable energy -- wind, solar, nuclear and stuff we haven't yet invented -- is going to be the next great global industry,'' Friedman wrote in a recent column. "It has to be if we are going to grow in a stable way. Therefore, the country that most owns the clean power industry is going to most own the next great technology breakthrough -- the E.T. revolution, the energy technology revolution -- and create millions of jobs and thousands of new businesses, just like the IT revolution did." Friedman, the Times' foreign affairs columnist who has done his research in many countries around the world, argues that a population explosion, a "flattening world'' with China, India and their rising middle classes, as well as climate change have all converged. Calling it a hopeful book, he argues that "if America seizes the opportunity to solve these problems it will be a huge engine propelling our economy in the 21st century." The University Research Corridor, an alliance of Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, was formed to transform, strengthen and diversify the state's economy. The universities are working together to leverage their collective assets and encourage collaboration with business, government and communities to help accelerate innovation and economic growth. A limited block of 1,000 free tickets for the speech only are available to MSU, U-M and WSU students, faculty and staff. They are available at the URC campuses: At U-M, call (734) 763-5554 or visit the Michigan Union Ticket Office. University ID required (limit two tickets per person). At MSU, call (517) 353-9000. At WSU, call (313) 577-5284. Tickets to the general public are $30. Premium business tickets (including lunch and premium seating) are $120. For more information, contact Ashley Robinson, (734) 302-1726 or Karen Koziel, (734) 302-1719 for table sponsorships. For more details visit: www.mlive.com/innovation or www.washtenaweconclub.com/tix.php

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Dalton Sherman