Monday, November 30, 2009

Brutal Heavy Lifting (DO the RIGHT Thing)

Editorial

En route to the ‘Top’



The carrot is tantalizing: a share of $4.3 bil lion set aside in federal stimulus money to help a handful of states revamp failing schools.

But some in Michigan’s educational estab lishment are balking at the stick: more charter schools, expanded alternative teacher certifi cation, and teacher reviews tied to student performance.

If Michigan is going to win, or even compete for, the federal Race to the Top dollars that are being dangled in front of states, it will need to embrace reforms that have confounded the state in the past.

It’s well worth doing, no matter whose hide gets a little tanned in the process.

In a way, Race to the Top is a shrewd fol low- up to the No Child Left Behind reforms rolled out by former President George W.

Bush. He believed his landmark education act would incentivize states to embrace reforms through the enforcement of tough standards.

He learned pretty quickly that the education establishment could be bullheaded in its recal citrance.

Enter President Barack Obama and his administration, which puts the proposition more bluntly: Enact reforms, or be left out of key federal funding.

Race to the Top requires states who even apply for funds to align their schools with fed eral guidelines. It’s an attempt to change pol icy in a lot of states in a short time.

In Michigan, as in most states, the primary opposition is expected to come from teachers’ unions, which have opposed most such re forms in the past.

But Michigan Education Association presi dent Iris Salters says her organization hasn’t decided whether, or how, it might oppose changes to help the state qualify for the federal money. Her union, Michigan’s biggest for teachers, is working with the governor and the Department of Education to figure out what the state needs to change to compete.

Some of Salters’ concerns are reasonable and ought to help shape the state’s efforts. But if MEA leaders are primarily interested in preserving the status quo, state policymakers will have to move forward without them.

Salters, for example, points out that open ing up broader alternative certification might make it even harder for the 9,000 teachers the state graduates each year to land jobs here.

That may be so for teachers in some fields, but many districts have trouble recruiting good math and science teachers, and alternative certification might help there. Salters cautions that those who’ve mastered specialized con tent areas can’t be presumed to have mastered teaching them, as well. But no one proposes putting wholly untrained instructors in class rooms; reformers simply want to rethink the requirement that every teacher have an educa tion degree.

Salters also says the Race to the Top re quirement to tie teacher performance to stu dent performance is limited to a single test (in Michigan, probably the MEAP), and she ques tions whether that would serve educational purposes. But nothing in Race to the Top pre vents the state from going further. Michigan could create more sophisticated ways to mea sure student achievement. The MEA would do better to help shape those measures than it would to oppose the idea.

The MEA has historically opposed the ex pansion of charter schools. One of its objec tions has been lax oversight. Race to the Top could be seen as an opportunity to tighten that oversight, a long overdue reform, so the expan sion does not come with a downside.

If the MEA is savvy, it could use Race to the Top as a way to help put its own mark on re form.

If it doesn’t, state officials should stiffen their spines to oppose union obstruction. The federal money, and the reforms that are tied to it, are too important to Michigan’s future.

MSNBC

Friday, November 27, 2009

Regional STEM Partnered Efforts



The combined team of Pontiac High School and Rochester Adams High School are the new county champions in the 2009 Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association season.

    They came out on top at the finals Saturday at Holly High School, where robots made by 20 Oakland County high school teams competed in a game of basketball.

    “It was an emotionally charged atmosphere,” said Mike McIntyre, an OCCRA official and robotics instructor at Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast.

    “It was intense. It was a lot of fun and it is not often you get an academic endeavor that generates that kind of excitement,” McIntyre said. The county meet was a double elimination tournament, which means a team is eliminated if it loses twice.

    Pontiac High had been the favorite all season and the second favorite was Oakland Schools Technology Center Northeast. Both came out at the top in the county matches and had to play each other.

    In the championship finals, Pontiac High School chose as its partner Rochester Adams and Oak Tech Northeast chose as its partner the International Academy. It was a two-againsttwo format, with the championship going to the teams with the best two out of three games.

    “We ended up playing five matches,” McIntyre said. “Everyone was on their feet the entire time. Every match boiled down to the last five seconds. There were ties, which are rare.”

    There was a one-point difference in one match and then power was lost during one match. The Top Seed Award and VEX Award also went to Team 51 Pontiac High School. The Quality Award went to Team 1 Oak Tech Northeast.

    “It was a day of high energy,” said Sherry Kuchon, who is in charge of developing funds to operate the association that is sponsored by Oakland Schools Intermediate District.

    Kuchon said the Pontiac High School team was made up of the combined Pontiac Central and Northern high school teams that had excelled independently in past years. There had been some concern about whether two such competitive teams could come together and work as one, she said.

    “They became Pontiac High School team and they were the championship team,” Kuchon said, with praise for the group of students.

    Semifinalists were Team 573 Brother Rice and Marian High School, Team 1188 Royal Oak High School, Team 777 South Lyon High School and Team 4 Birmingham Seaholm High School.

    Other awards and the teams they went to were the Beautiful BOT award — Team 3098 Waterford Kettering High School; Spirit of the Competition Award — Team 33 Notre Dame Prep; Technical Excellence Award — Team 245 Rochester Adams; Strategic Design Award — Team 9 Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Prep; Simple Solutions Award — Team 777 South Lyon High School; Most Improved Award — Team 1213 Birmingham Groves High School; Judge’s Award — Team 469 International Academy; Judge’s Award — Team 573 Brother Rice and Marian High School.

    In the competition were teams from Birmingham Groves and Seaholm, Bloomfield Hills International Academy, Brother Rice and Marian high schools, Catholic Central, North Farmington, Holly, Lamphere, Notre Dame Prep, Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast, Oakland Schools Technical Campus Southeast, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Prep, Pontiac, Rochester Adams, Roeper School, Royal Oak, South Lyon schools, Walled Lake Northern, Waterford Kettering and West Bloomfield.

    The winner of the Oakland Schools Education Foundation Award will be announced at the banquet scheduled for 6 p.m. Dec. 2 at Oakland Schools.

    The competitive robotics association is administered by Oakland Schools and supported by the Oakland Schools Education Foundation.

    The assistance is made possible through the generosity and support of area businesses and individuals, spokeswoman Danielle Gittus said in a press release.

    Current corporate sponsors include: DTE Energy Foundation, Chrysler, Delphi Automotive Systems, Denso International America Inc., General Motors Powertrain and SMC Pneumatics.

    Contact staff writer Diana Dillaber Murray at (248) 745-4638 ordiana.dillaber@oakpress.com.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

HEAVY LIFTING: No MISDEED HOWEVER SMALL shall escape our scutiny!

DPS: Teacher pawned school laptop for $60

A teacher at Mc Coll Elementary has been suspended without pay after being accused of pawning a school laptop for $60.

The teacher told investigators that the cash was needed for a car repair, Detroit Public Schools officials said.

The incident follows a rash of thefts of more than 500 computers from the school district over the last six months.
 

HEAVY LIFTING: BRING IT ON HOME!

DPS teachers contract nearly ready for vote

In an announcement with Detroit Public Schools emergency fi nancial manager Robert Bobb on Tuesday, Detroit Federation of Teachers union President Keith Johnson said negotiations are 99% complete on a contract that expired in June. Both said negotia tors could have a final contract next week.

Johnson is scheduling a contract vote for Dec. 5
 or 6 at Cobo Hall. Neither Bobb nor Johnson would discuss particulars, including the possibility of wage and benefit changes.

TARGET Success!

At-risk students targeted


By LORI HIGGINS


FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER


School officials across Michigan have taken a crucial pledge to keep struggling stu dents in school.

The goal? Keep these kids from giving up and worsening already troubling statistics that show a quarter of Michi gan students fail to graduate on time and 15% drop out.

Nearly 1,100 schools across the state — including all 172 schools in Detroit Public Schools — have signed on to a dropout challenge, according to information released this week by the Michigan Depart ment of Education.

But signing up is one thing. Actually doing something about the problem is another. The state has asked the schools to identify 10 to 15 stu dents who are at risk of drop­ping out.

The schools must then pro vide interventions and sup ports to those students that are proven to work. Among the steps being taken across metro Detroit: extra instruction for students who are behind, as signing mentors to students so they have positive relation ships with adults, easing the transition from middle school to high school, and improving teaching methods.

Though just 30% of the state’s schools signed up, the challenge has the potential to reach more than 16,000 chil dren who might otherwise drop out. And many educators say they won’t stop at just 15 kids.

“We’re not going to say to the rest that we’re not going to worry about you. We’re going to work with everybody,” said Keith Wunderlich, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for L’ Anse Creuse Public Schools
.

HEAVY "Sifting and Winnowing" (Governor Granholm on Reform Frameworks: Race to the Top and More)

Governor Granholm on Race to the Top

Flashpoint Governor Granholm on Race to the Top 11-22-2009

Monday, November 23, 2009

HEAVY LIFTER (WILL NOT BE DENIED!)

Editorial

Tell it to Bobb or tell it to the judge


With a half-billion dollars about to flow into the Detroit Public Schools for new buildings and renovations, it’s past time to tell the truth about what really happened to the $1.5 billion voters ap proved for school construction in 1994.


But apparently, some folks still don’t want to talk.


DPS lawyers will be in court today seeking to subpoena school board member Anthony Adams, former DPS appraiser Sharon Harbin, and Andrew and David Farbman, principals in the South field- based Farbman group, to answer questions about transac tions in which the school district bought and leased office space from the Farbmans and gave one of their subsidiaries a lucrative no-bid contract to make improvements. Adams, who served as deputy mayor under former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, was the school district’s general counsel when some of the controversial transactions took place.


Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb is pursuing the subpoenas as part of a series of public hearings designed to shed light on what happened to the $1.5 billion, and specifically on a clus ter of shady real estate deals.


So far, Bobb’s crusade has unearthed some real head-scratch ing decisions and possibly corrupt dealings. So far, everyone else called to testify has shown up.


But Adams, Harbin and the Farbmans have resisted. Thus, Bobb’s trip to court today to compel their testimony.


Given his well demonstrated tenacity, it probably goes without saying, but Bobb shouldn’t back down here. If the four witnesses’ only objections to testifying under oath are technical ones, as their lawyers have indicated, the court should be able to clear any proce dural roadblocks quickly. If the real problem is “the arrogance of those who … hold public funds and believe they can remain unac countable to the public,” as Bobb contends, we trust the court will disabuse the four witnesses of that conceit with similar dispatch.


Either way, taxpayers who agreed to indebt themselves for the betterment of the school system need to know exactly who got their money and whether anything of comparable worth was of fered in return.


It’s time for those with answers to put up their right hands, take a seat on the witness stand, and start talking.

Heavy Lifting (Update Teachers)

Wayne


DETROIT


Teachers union, DPS get help in contract talks
 

The current contract between Detroit Public Schools and the teachers union will be extended until Wednesday as nego tiations for a new con tract continue, according to a joint statement Sun day from the district and the Detroit Federation of
 Teachers. The contract expired Saturday. Both sides have reportedly agreed to include such ideas as peer evaluations, shared decision-making and incentive pay.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten took part in Sunday’s negotia tions, including talks about academic reforms.

DFT President Keith Johnson and AFT Michi gan President David Hecker asked her to at tend the meeting.

Johnson said he want ed to have Weingarten— who held a workshop for teachers in May about reforms other unions have adopted — there to answer questions.

HEAVING LIFTING (Regional)



HEAVY LIFTER (Keith Johnson) for TEACHERS and STUDENTS Makes a COMPELLING Argument for "ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!"

 
RASHAUN RUCKER/Detroit Free Press

“REFORM SHOULD BE DRIVEN BY THE UNION AND DEFINED BY THE UNION IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SCHOOL DISTRICT.”


KEITH JOHNSON, president, Detroit Federation of Teachers

Posted: Nov. 20, 2009


Detroit teachers' leader calls for change

BY ROCHELLE RILEY
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST


Twenty-nine years ago, Keith Johnson had just completed his undergraduate studies at Wayne State University and was headed to law school.

"Being a teacher was the last thing I thought I'd ever do," he said.

But his mother, a retired Detroit Public Schools teacher, convinced him to get a teaching certificate to pay his way.

"The moment I stepped into a classroom for student teaching, I knew this was what I was going to do," said Johnson, now president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. That union is negotiating a new contract with a team led by Robert Bobb, the governor-appointed DPS emergency financial manager, who has been widely praised for curtailing corruption and changing the way the beleaguered district does business.

But if the current DPS-DFT contract negotiations are an indicator, Johnson has helped forge a new education debate in Detroit. He's calling for a reform revolution led by teachers, not administrators, that forces a conversation about children, not politics. And his union may be listening. For possibly the first time ever, it is embracing peer reviews that could weed out bad teachers. Change is in the air.

"We have to be willing to embrace change, embrace reform," said Johnson, 54. "Reform is not the enemy of progress as a union. Reform should be driven by the union and defined by the union in collaboration with the school district."

The right leaders

Johnson's philosophy and efforts make clear that Bobb has a partner in rebuilding a new DPS.

"I have respect for his intellect, knowledge of the school system, how it should work and how it functions, his tenaciousness and his focus on kids," Bobb said.

The pair's relationship is good news for children and for teachers who, at least in Detroit, have the toughest jobs in the city. Like Detroit, all DPS teachers have been defined by the worst of them. That maligns the thousands of teachers who not only have taught math and science, but saved wayward lives.

From bully to change agent

This new reform movement, this new conversation, could be the most serendipitous event in the city since William Ford moved from County Cork, Ireland, to Greenfield Township and had a son named Henry. And ironically, the conversation is being led by a former school bully who was saved by a good teacher.

"I didn't come from a broken home," Johnson recalled. "My mother was an educator and my father was a cement mason. I was 4-foot-10 and weighed about 85 pounds. Now I'm 6-1 and 215."

Johnson's habit of beating up people who picked on him got him kicked out of Cass Tech and Central High.
His senior year at Henry Ford High School, a teacher, Ben Rosenberg, finally approached him.

"He got up in my face and told me I was the biggest waste of time and talent and space he'd ever seen in his life," Johnson recalled. "He said, 'Yeah, you can go around beating up everybody, but you're going to end up driving away many of the people who will someday be in a position to help you.'

"For this little Jewish guy to stand up to me like that ... I found it be rather profound. It really made me take inventory on myself and my life. I give him a lot of credit for turning me around."

Johnson said that Mr. Rosenberg used to send him letters of encouragement and praise, including notes about the articles Johnson wrote for the Detroit Teacher, the union newsletter.

"Mr. Rosenberg would call me or write to me how proud he was of me," Johnson said.
But Rosenberg, who died five years ago, did something else. He made Johnson come back to Henry Ford and talk to classes.

"He had me talk about my life as a young black male and how angry and misguided I'd allowed myself to become and how I transformed my life," Johnson said.

Johnson, who is married to Shenise Johnson, an executive assistant to Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano, is the father of three children who all attended Detroit public schools. His oldest, a Central High graduate, won an Emmy last year for his work at Fox Sports.

Educators defining themselves

Johnson spoke with state Superintendent Mike Flanagan about his vision last year.

"As the newly elected president, I wanted him to know where my head was," Johnson said. "I told him my primary goal was to challenge my membership to embrace, define and take ownership of this profession and this school district. You don't have non-journalists defining what a good journalist is. You don't have nonphysicians establishing what makes a good physician. You don't have non-attorneys determining what constitutes a good lawyer. So why should non-educators define what a quality educator is?"

Actually, we have non-journalists defining journalism and insurance companies defining adequate medical care -- and it's not working. But that's another column.

This one is about a new day for Detroit schoolchildren and a new conversation about Detroit's public schools.
Flanagan, who recalled that conversation with Johnson, said the DFT leader is "willing to forge a 21st-Century contract" and the Detroit union "could actually lead the state on this."

"That's the hope," he said. "Bobb can't do that job alone. He needs strong union leadership and seems to have it."

For too long, Detroit has been bogged down in the wrong conversation. It has been about money and power instead of learning and children. Now, teachers, parents, administrators and elected officials are having a new conversation. With that, all things are possible.

Contact ROCHELLE RILEY: rriley99@freepress.com

HEAVY LIFTING SHARED-VISION: (Barbara Byrd-Bennett / Academic Czar)

Byrd-Bennett is Bobb's academic czar and more: She is his co-chief. (John T. Greilick / The Detroit News)

detnews.com






November 19, 2009
http://detnews.com/article/20091119/SCHOOLS/911190336
Tough job for Detroit's academic czar

AMBER ARELLANO
The Detroit News


It's 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, and Barbara Byrd-Bennett is e-mailing Detroit Public Schools' Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb one more thing to add to their to-do list.

She e-mails him at 4 a.m., when she cannot sleep. She e-mails him at 11 p.m., before she goes to bed. She e-mails him at 8:30 a.m. on Sundays from Cleveland, where she lives some weekends with her husband, Bruce, before returning to Detroit to do one of America's toughest big city jobs.
Byrd-Bennett is Bobb's academic czar and more: She is his co-chief.

When Byrd-Bennett told Bobb he was proposing budget cuts that would hurt children's learning, he backed off. When she recommended they negotiate a dramatically different teachers' contract, he followed. When she said Detroit had to radically change to compete with charter schools, Bobb agreed.

While Bobb is the school district's showman who woos the public with his no-nonsense message and anti-corruption results, Byrd-Bennett is the behind-the-scenes policy strategist charged with the arguably tougher job: dramatically improving student achievement in the country's most troubled urban school district.

"What is important to her is not the glory; it's the students and what's best for them," says Sharif Shakrani, co-director of Michigan State University's Education Policy Center, who worked with Byrd-Bennett in Washington, D.C.

This week is one of Byrd-Bennett's most critical early tests. She is one of the lead negotiators in talks with the Detroit Federation of Teachers' union. Negotiations have been extended until Saturday.

The negotiations are considered by experts to be essential to the district's survival. Byrd-Bennett wants the teacher union to agree to a new special contract for the city's lowest-performing schools, modeled after a successful effort she headed in New York City.

"What Barbara is working on now, along with the current teacher contract negotiations, will dictate the future of the Detroit Public Schools," Bobb says.

Despite her influence, Byrd-Bennett is relatively unknown in Detroit. Outside the city, she is considered a superstar. Hundreds of wanna-be reformers have tried to boost poor urban student achievement levels. Byrd-Bennett is one of the rare leaders who has done it.

What reformers around the nation are watching now: Whether Byrd-Bennett -- who led the turn around of New York City's and Cleveland's failing schools -- will be given the opportunity to flourish in the Motor City.


Children drive her


Byrd-Bennett's passion for disadvantaged children drives her. Growing up in the "projects" in a black working-class family in New York City, she says, she always wanted to be part of a movement to empower disenfranchised people.

Byrd-Bennett was inspired by her dad, Wallace Lee, a postal worker who rose to become a leader in his union. Her mom, Helen, worked in retail.

She found her opportunity in a chance meeting in her early 20s with a renowned New York City educator called Mother Hale. The woman asked her, "Do you want to be a teacher?" Byrd-Bennett answered, "No, but I want to be part of a movement." Mother Hale said, "You're hired."

Struggling as a teacher early in her career, Byrd-Bennett eventually made a name for herself in her mid-30s when she began to unravel the mystery of how to boost student achievement in high-poverty schools.

She was charged with improving instruction and curriculum in dozens of schools. Her first year, test results flat-lined.

"I could almost cry, just thinking about it," she says. "We looked at why and made changes."

By years two and three, students' reading and math test scores improved, eventually reaching a jump of 30 percent. National experts paid attention. The model she developed is championed by Mass Insight Education & Research Institute and other school turnaround experts.

"Barbara laid the foundation for everything we're doing with District 79 (New York City's alternative schools and programs)," says Giulia Cox, executive director of student support services for the New York City Department of Education.

The city has revamped its General Educational Development (GED) degree and other programs for teenagers and young adults who weren't succeeding in traditional high schools. The result: The GED passage rate doubled in the first year, and the city's graduation rate is rising, Cox says.

Byrd-Bennett built that foundation as the superintendent of the Big Apple's special Chancellor's District in the 1990s.

Byrd-Bennett wants to apply that model to Detroit. She and Bobb are proposing to create a "high priority district" within the larger district for the city's chronically failing schools.

The high priority district's success largely rides on securing a special teachers' contract, as it did in New York. Byrd-Bennett wants failing schools' staffs to be hired based on performance, not just seniority; and ensure students have longer school days and smaller classrooms.

To encourage the Detroit teacher union to support such changes, Byrd-Bennett and Bobb are offering an unprecedented $45 million in performance-based bonuses for school employees.

Such a carrot helped build buy-in from New York City teachers' union.
Detroit hasn't been that easy.


Detroit talks difficult

Byrd-Bennett had anticipated difficult contract negotiations; budget deficits; brutal public scrutiny and an intrusive school board in Detroit -- all are part of the typical urban district's terrain.

What she had not expected is Detroit's almost total lack of workable systems.

"This really isn't about reform," she says of Detroit. "In a reform district, you see some measurable results relatively quickly ... Children are not dying in a reform district."

"Detroit is very different, in my mind," she added candidly. "This is about turnaround. ... I failed to judge how deep and intense the work would be here. It's very heavy lifting."

On the other hand, Byrd-Bennett says Detroit is similar to New York City and Cleveland, the latter of which she served as superintendent for eight years until 2006.

"Every community thinks their circumstances are worse than any other city," she says. "They think nothing can be done."

Experts say the results of her work will not be seen until next fall, at the earliest, if she is given the chance to succeed.

"Barbara knows all of the challenges; she knows what the hiccups are," says Michelle Rhee, chancellor for Washington, D.C., public schools. "At the end of the day, she can be as great as anybody, but if there is not the political will and infrastructure in place to support reforms, it's not going to matter."

Like Bobb, Byrd-Bennett is ambitious and decisive -- and often works 14-hour days, her staff says. Her buoyant energy is contagious.

"I've done incremental school change and rapid change," she says, explaining her workaholic lifestyle. "Rapid change is what parents want."

Unlike Bobb, Byrd-Bennett is so warm and gracious, even her critics like her. Keith Johnson, the teachers' union president, says he has so much faith in her -- unlike Bobb -- he believes the district could be turned around in just three years under her.

For her, she says "Detroit is a high for me in my career." It's a chance to ensure some of the country's neediest children get the high-quality schools which they deserve, the civil rights movement of her era.

She says the biggest obstacle to school reform is faith.

"You have to suspend your disbelief," she says. "Change can happen, and it does happen. I've seen it."



Amber Arellano is a Detroit News editorial writer who writes about education policy. Please sSend letters to The Detroit News at Editorial Page, 615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI 48226 or (313) 496-5253 orletters@detnews.com">letters@detnews.com.

Additional Facts




Thursday, November 19, 2009

"Fly Me to the Moon!"


Posted: Wednesday, 18 November 2009 3:38PM

Metro Airport Explores Wind Power





Detroit Metropolitan Airport will further reduce its consumption of fossil fuels by producing its own wind energy at two locations on opposite ends of the facility.


The Wayne County Airport Authority Board approved a contract with Michigan-based Southern Exposure Renewable Energy Co. to install five wind turbines at the airport entrance on Rogell Drive and at the South Cell Phone Lot on Eureka Road.


Unlike the traditional, towering, three-blade, windmill-type turbines, the Windspire units, manufactured by MasTech Manufacturing of Manisee, are cylindrical, vertical-axis wind turbines that operate quietly while generating electricity for immediate use regardless of wind direction. At only 30-feet in height, they easily fit within DTW’s airspace height limitations.


“We have calculated that the two units at the South Cell Phone Lot will, on average, generate 60 to 70 percent of the power needed for the lot’s overhead lights and to illuminate the sign,” said WCAA Director of Facilities and Infrastructure Ali Dib. “On windy days and during daylight hours, we will be feeding electricity back to DTE Energy’s grid.”


The wind energy project is one of many environmentally friendly initiatives at the airport. DTW has been the world leader in recycling aircraft de-icing fluid for eight of the past nine years. The new North Terminal is programmed to harvest daylight and to automatically reduce lighting and cooling in terminal areas not in use. The North Terminal also supplies pre-conditioned air, 400hz power and underground jet fuel to each gate which reduces the need for aircraft engines to be idling and excess vehicles on the ramp. This is expected to reduce emissions of various air pollutants by more than 1,300 tons over the expected life-span of the building.


The airport has installed a solar panel and LED lighting prototype at the North Cell Phone Lot and established more efficient electrical fixtures in the parking structures saving $79,000 in energy costs annually.


In 1999, Detroit Metropolitan Airport received international acclamation for the creation of Crosswinds Marsh, a 1,000-acre wetland preserve constructed in Sumpter Township to replace airfield wetlands disturbed by runway and terminal construction. Described as “Michigan’s showcase wetland,” the preserve continues to provide spectacular habitat for a variety of wildlife and offers public access and educational opportunities for children.


“Many other such initiatives are under way or planned for the future,” said WCAA CEO Lester Robinson. “We continue to look for opportunities to be a friend to the environment while maintaining one of the most operationally-capable airports in the world.”

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

EXAMPLE OF: HEAVY LIFTING "Paying Off"

Editorial

DPS future seems brighter as Bobb, DFT near deal



This is not a typo: The Detroit Federation of Teachers is close to forging a new contract with the Detroit Public Schools that would include peer review and merit pay.

Getting either in place would be a major accomplishment in a district where both con cepts have long been anathema. Getting both would be a sign that the district’s teachers are truly embracing reform, and understand that it can’t happen without them.

So congrats are in order for the two leaders involved here: emergency financial manager Robert Bobb and DFT President Keith John son.

Just a few months ago, Bobb saw union trouble on the horizon. He needed major con cessions from teachers to continue his fight to balance the district’s books. And for long-need ed educational progress, he needed the unions to accept some modifications to the current tenure provisions, which, in the harshest terms, protect bad teachers from consequence. But Bobb didn’t wage a big, public anti-
 union campaign. In fact, it’s difficult to recall him ever disparaging the unions. Instead, he stayed at the bargaining table, extended the contract after he hit an expiration deadline, and worked to get what he needed.

Bobb wields extraordinary powers as an emergency manager and is here, at least in part, to run roughshod over old processes that didn’t produce desired results. He could have thrown up his hands at his inability to simply wipe out collective bargaining agreements.

Instead, he seized the opportunity to build trust and credibility with the unions, whose members are so critical to education reform.

Johnson deserves credit, too, for even in dulging Bobb’s advances in this regard. Detroit teachers have struck in the past over these very issues, and national unions continue to be slow to embrace substantial changes to tenure.

But Johnson properly recognizes that the status quo is a disaster for Detroit’s students, even if it provides temporary security for teachers. He has embraced Bobb’s invitations to see how peer review and merit pay work in other cities. And he has kept an open mind at the bargaining table. Hence the announcement this week that both sides are close to a deal.

None of this is to say that all disputes be tween DPS and the unions have been resolved.

There is disagreement about the role seniority should play in layoffs. Down the road, more far-reaching reforms (especially ones that make it even easier to identify and get rid of bad teachers) will cause friction.

But this is a huge step forward. Bobb contin ues to impress. Johnson is making his bones as an innovative, forward-thinking union leader.

The children of Detroit will be the beneficiaries.
 

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Legislative Alignment (Now we're Talking) Race to the Top!


Alignment to Purpose (Race to the Top) Beginning to Unfold

Bargaining for big reforms 

DPS, teachers closing in on merit pay, peer review



By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY


FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER


In an effort to improve aca demic performance in Detroit Public Schools, the teachers union and school district are negotiating to mandate sweep ing academic reforms in the new labor contract.

The reforms under discus sion for the next teacher con tract include peer evaluations and school-based performance bonuses. Site-based manage ment — a topic that in 1992 sparked controversy and a strike — also is on the table. It essentially would allow teach ers and administrators to each have a role in making key deci sions for the schools.

“This is going to be revolu tionary,” said Keith Johnson, who embraced talk of reform after becoming president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers this year. “Both sides acknowledge that what we’re doing is not giving us the re sults that this community has a right to expect.”

DFT also has committed to help DPS cut $45 million from the budget, suggesting mea sures such as adjusting teach er preparation periods to save $11 million.

With threats of bankruptcy looming over the deficit-ridden Detroit school district, now has become the perfect time to talk not about unlikely raises, but about academic reforms, Johnson said.

The DFT contract for its 5,000 teachers and estimated 2,400 support personnel ex pired on June 30, but the union and the school district have agreed twice to extend it. The contract now is set to expire on Saturday.

Robert Bobb, emergency fi nancial manager for DPS, said the issue of seniority is a stick ing point in the negotiations. Bobb would not elaborate, but Johnson said the union would fight any effort by the district to circumvent seniority when it comes to layoffs.

“We believe there are ways all parties can win,” Bobb said, noting that the major focus of talks is reform.

Both sides appear to be working toward that common goal of meaningful change.

For instance, Bobb and the DFT agreed to cancel classes on May 26 so teachers could at tend workshops — including one with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten — about reforms other unions have adopted na tionwide.
 

Peer review


Detroit is using Toledo as its model. That city has led the way nationwide in Peer Assis tance and Review programs since instituting them in 1981. Detroit teachers and adminis trators have been there twice
 this fall to learn how they do it. Dal Lawrence, founder of the PAR program in Toledo, who has helped institute simi lar programs in cities such as Chicago, said about 8% to 10% of Toledo’s new teachers are terminated each year as a re sult of peer evaluations.

In Toledo, veteran teachers are selected to work as evalua tors for three years to observe colleagues — mostly new teachers. Recommendations go to a panel that includes ad ministrators.

“It’s the most popular thing we do,” said Lawrence, former president of the Toledo Feder ation of Teachers.

He said the program never has been measured for aca demic impact, but two years after it was instituted, the dis trict’s state rating went from an F grade to a C.

“These efforts alone do not lead to improved academic achievement for students. But there is evidence that where implemented fairly, aggres sively and deliberately, there has been increased — and in some cases, dramatic increas es — in student achievement,” said Barbara Byrd-Bennett, chief DPS academic officer.

Detroit principals who ob served the Toledo peer pro gram in September welcome the chance to turn over the evaluation process to veteran teachers.

“Who knows better about teaching than teachers?” said Tracy Johnson, principal at Durfee Elementary.

James Hearn, principal at Marcus Garvey Academy, said a peer review process may re move the us-versus-them ten sion between administrators and teachers.

“This process will change the culture because if bad teaching is going on, guess who’s allowing it — other teachers. You can’t blame ad ministrators,” he said. Teach ers also would get mentors and more hands-on assistance, he added.

DPS principals get short handed and may not have the time to spend helping teachers improve, Hearn said.
 

Financial incentives


Differentiated pay, com monly known as merit pay or performance incentives, for teachers who reach agreed upon goals is discussed far more than it has been institut ed. The American Federation of Teachers cites Toledo, New York and smaller districts such as Douglas County public schools in Colorado and St. Francis public schools in Min nesota among the districts that have adopted it.

With the help of a federal grant, Toledo started the Teacher Incentive Fund that awards $2,000 to each person
 on staff if students meet two academic goals and a goal in another area such as atten dance. The staffs get $1,000 each if two goals are met. Last year, 28 Toledo schools met two or three of the goals, cost ing $1.8 million, said Joan Kuchcinski, coordinator for in centive programs for Toledo Public Schools.

Each of the last three years, the number of schools meeting goals increased, she said.

“Toledo has done the right thing,” she said. “We have the results to show it.”

Parent Ida Byrd-Hill said the Detroit contract negotia tions should include reforms that parents want, like making it easier to get rid of poor-per forming teachers.

“I shouldn’t have to give you a bonus to achieve,” she said. “They keep negotiating con tracts with teachers, and it’s not about what I want as a par ent.”
 

Site-based
 management

The union and the district have agreed in principle to in stitute voluntary site-based management, Johnson said. If a school wanted to take on
 more authority over areas such as hiring and budgeting, and be free to adopt measures such as a longer school year, 75% of teachers would have to agree.

Supporters say site-based management empowers em ployees. But it’s also the issue that led to a DPS teacher strike 1992. Back then, the union feared principals would wield too much power and hiring practices would erode working conditions.

Johnson said this time, site based management will in clude teachers in decision making about everything from curriculum and professional development to hiring.

DPS teacher Kimberly Kyff, the Michigan Teacher of the Year for 2006-07, favors the reforms.

“Working together, having professional development and programs based on building needs and a structured assis tance program — designed to improve teaching and learning — will lead to student achieve ment and a flourishing dis trict,”
 she said.

CONTACT CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY: 313-223-4537 OR  

“THIS PROCESS WILL CHANGE THE CULTURE BECAUSE IF BAD TEACHING IS GOING ON, GUESS WHO’ S ALLOWING IT — OTHER TEACHERS.”


JAMES HEARN,
 principal at Marcus Garvey Academy, on a proposed peer review process for teachers in Detroit Public Schools

Sunday, November 15, 2009

WHAT ALL THIS HEAVY LIFTING SHOULD BE ABOUT!

HEAVY LIFTING of the MINDSET (Daniel Pink)

NATIONAL Heavy Lifting MEET the PRESS (Arne Duncan) Sunday, November 15, 2009

ON EDUCATION begins at 19:30 of Video (PATIENCE PLEASE)


LEGISLATIVE Heavy Lifting GOVERNOR GRANHOLM

Gov. Jennifer Granholm shakes hands as people gather at the state Capitol on Tuesday to rally for increased school funding. (ROD SANFORD/Associated Press)
Posted: Nov. 15, 2009

COMMENTARY

Education cuts put recovery at risk

Disinvestment in schools will discourage employers

BY JENNIFER M. GRANHOLM

This past week, superintendents, teachers and parents journeyed to Lansing to demand that the Legislature raise money for the School Aid Fund to prevent the deep cuts that will begin impacting our schools within weeks. I strongly support their efforts to prevent these cuts from happening. You don't need to have kids or grandkids in public schools to know that funding for education is vital to Michigan's economy.


Michigan is undergoing an unprecedented, historic economic transformation. The global manufacturing economy has shifted, and Michigan must accept the change and adapt. There's no time for denial, blame or finger-pointing; we must face this new reality head-on. What is the fundamental strategy for success in overcoming this challenge? Education, education, education.

An educated work force is the single most important asset we can have if we want to attract new investment and new good-paying jobs to our state in this knowledge-driven economy. Without action by the Legislature now, schools will have to disinvest -- laying off teachers and increasing class sizes. It has been estimated that these cuts could eliminate three thousand to five thousand jobs in our schools. The Legislature would justifiably do back-flips to bring a major employer with that number of jobs to our state. But so far, with an equal number of jobs at stake in our schools, the Legislature appears to be sitting on its hands.

The cause of this financial crisis in our schools could not be more clear. When our largest employers go bankrupt and citizens lose their jobs, state budget revenues plummet. It's particularly true for the school budget, which is funded in large part by the sales tax. When people don't shop during a recession, money for schools disappears. That's why our School Aid Fund is in deep trouble. Both of the state's nonpartisan fiscal agencies have issued warnings: There is not enough money to fund schools at current levels. The law mandates that when the money is not in the bank, school funding must be cut. But the story doesn't have to end there.

I have asked the Legislature to do two things. First, pass an immediate solution now. Second, work with me on long-term solutions to stabilize funding and reform our education system. In the short term, the Legislature can pass three targeted revenues to soften the blow to schools: freeze the personal exemption on the income tax at this year's level ($55 million), reduce special interest loopholes as much as we have reduced state government departments ($150 million) and tax loose tobacco and flavored cigarillos as we tax cigarettes ($35 million). These three, narrow measures would be a small price to pay to prevent devastating mid-year cuts to our schools.

Schools understand that they will have to accept some cuts this year. They will have to share services and consolidate. Teachers and administrators all must have skin in the game to channel every available cent to the classroom. But the additional deep cuts the Legislature is forcing on these schools cannot stand.

In addition to closing the gap in our School Aid Fund, the Legislature must act now to restore the Michigan Promise scholarship. In order to move our economy forward, we set an audacious goal of doubling the number of college graduates. The Michigan Promise scholarship, promised to almost 100,000 college students this year alone, has been a key part of that strategy. The Legislature eliminated it in the budget, making it much harder for Michigan students and Michigan families to afford higher education. I am asking the Legislature to raise the funds to keep that Promise. It is not too late.

Whether it's in our K-12 schools or in our colleges and universities, we must commit Michigan to educational greatness, not mediocrity. Every economist agrees that if we want a vibrant, diverse economy, we must have a skilled, educated workforce.

That's why I am joining with students, parents, educators and citizens across our great state to fight for a stable stream of revenue to ensure that goal is met. There's no more important issue in our state today if we want to promote economic recovery and more good-paying jobs in Michigan.

Jennifer M. Granholm is governor of Michigan.

LOCAL Heavy Lifting FLASHPOINT Sunday, Novmeber 15, 2009

FLASHPOINT On Education
http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/21607471/index.html

HEAVY LIFTING: New Information on "Success Factors!"

School Districts to Be Big Players in Race to the Top Contest

By Lesli Maxwell on November 12, 2009 12:45 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

It's clear now in the final rules for the Race to the Top grants that states will have to guarantee some big time buy-in from local school districts if they want to snag a slice of the $4 billion prize.

A state's "success factors," which include securing commitments from local districts, is worth 125 points of out of a total of 500. That's second only to teacher and principal effectiveness, worth 138 points. And of those 125 points, 65 are connected to how well a state can guarantee that local districts will carry out whatever reform agenda it proposes.

As Michele McNeil writes in her story today, the support of local school districts is so key that if there's a tie between states, and not enough money to award both of them, then the strength of the districts' commitment is the tiebreaker.

So, just how will a state's school district commitments be judged? According to the rules, states will have to show that districts, through binding agreements, have committed to "implement all or significant portions of the work outlined in the State's plan." On those agreements, Race to the Top judges will be looking for signatures of superintendents, school board presidents, and local teachers' union leaders, as well as "tables that summarize which portions of the State plans [local districts] are committing to implement and how extensive the [local district's] leadership support is."

I scoured the rules to find more on this, and, on page 223, found language explaining that once a state wins an RttT grant, its local districts will have three months to detail how they will implement the state's chosen reforms by completing "specific goals, activities, timelines, budgets, key personnel, and annual targets for key performance measures."

And if you look on page 768 (yes, I said page 768) of the full lineup of rules, you will find a "model" Memorandum of Understanding that the department would consider to be a strong agreement between states and their local school districts.

Judges will also be looking at not just how many districts have bought in, but how broad an impact they will have on student outcomes, which is probably good news for a state like California where it would be next to impossible to corral agreement from more than 1,000 school districts.

If California can get a few of its massive districts such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Long Beach, Sacramento, and Fresno to commit, the potential statewide impact would be broad indeed. Those six districts alone educate roughly 1 million of the state's 6 million public school children.

But would that be looked on as favorably, say, as a state like Colorado, where more than half of the 178 school districts have already signed letters of intent to indicate that they are on board?

HEAVY LIFTING: Underpinnings and Tent-poles



Overview

Two years ago, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for American Progress, and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute came together to grade the states on school performance. In that first Leaders and Laggards report, we found much to applaud but even more that requires urgent improvement. 


In this follow-up report, we turn our attention to the future, looking not at how states are performing today, but at what they are doing to prepare themselves for the challenges that lie ahead. Thus, some states with positive academic results receive poor grades on our measures of innovation, while others with lackluster scholarly achievement nevertheless earn high marks for policies that are creating an entrepreneurial culture in their schools. We chose this focus because, regardless of current academic accomplishment in each state, we believe innovative educational practices are vital to laying the groundwork for continuous and transformational change.


And change is essential. Put bluntly, we believe our education system needs to be reinvented. After decades of political inaction and ineffective reforms, our schools consistently produce students unready for the rigors of the modern workplace. The lack of preparedness is staggering. Roughly one in three eighth graders is proficient in reading. Most high schools graduate little more than two-thirds of their students on time. And even the students who do receive a high school diploma lack adequate skills: More than 33% of first-year college students require remediation in either math or English.


We think of educational innovation not as a fad but as the prerequisite for deep, systematic change, the kind of change that is necessary--and long overdue.

But we also believe that reinvention will never be accomplished with silver bullets. Our school system needs far-reaching innovation. It is archaic and broken, a relic of a time when high school graduates could expect to live prosperous lives, when steel and auto factories formed the backbone of the American economy, and when laptop computers and the Internet were the preserve of science fiction writers. And while the challenges are many--inflexible regulations, excessive bureaucracy, a dearth of fresh thinking--the bottom line is that most education institutions simply lack the tools, incentives, and opportunities to reinvent themselves in profoundly more effective ways.


By "innovation" we do not mean blindly celebrating every nifty-sounding reform. If anything, we have had too much of such educational innovation over the years, as evidenced by the sequential embrace of fads and the hurried cycling from one new "best practice" to another that so often characterizes K-12 schooling. States and school systems, in other words, have too long confused the novel with the useful. Rather, we believe innovation to be the process of leveraging new tools, talent, and management strategies to craft solutions that were not possible or necessary in an earlier era.


Our aim is to encourage states to embrace policies that make it easier to design smart solutions that serve 21st century students and address 21st century challenges. The impulse to either dictate one-size-fits-all solutions from the top or simply to do something--anything--differently will not address our pressing needs. Instead, this report seeks to foster a flexible, performance-oriented culture that will help our schools meet educational challenges.


Today, various organizations are addressing stubborn challenges by pursuing familiar notions of good teaching and effective schooling in impressively coherent, disciplined, and strategic ways. Some are public school districts, such as Long Beach Unified School District in California and Aldine Independent School District in Texas. An array of charter school entrepreneurs are also working within the public school system and seeing encouraging results, such as the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Academies, YES Prep, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, and Achievement First. Other independent ventures have also devised promising approaches to important challenges, including Citizen Schools, EdisonLearning, The New Teacher Project, K12 Inc., Blackboard Inc., Wireless Generation, Teach for America, and New Leaders for New Schools.


Even these marquee reformers, however, struggle to sidestep entrenched practices, raise funds, find talent, and secure support. Moreover, these highly successful ventures often pale when viewed beside the larger K-12 enterprise. The 80-odd KIPP schools, approximately 130 school leaders trained annually by New Leaders for New Schools, and 2,200 teachers trained each year by The New Teacher Project are dwarfed by the nation's 14,000 school districts, 100,000 schools, and 3.2 million teachers. The challenge is to boost the chance that creative problem solvers will ultimately make a real, lasting difference for our nation and our children.


Fortunately, our report comes at a time when national attention to educational innovation is on the upswing. The new federal Race to the Top Fund has brought additional attention to the need to rethink our system, for instance, while numerous other efforts are under way at the state and local levels. It is far too early to endorse any particular plan or to say which ones will be effective. But now is the time for state leaders to show the political will to pursue reform.


Along the way, high standards, accountability, and sensible progress measures are essential. But care must be taken not to allow familiar modes of measurement to smother reform. Too often, reformers tend to embrace only those advances that we can conveniently measure with today's crude tools, such as grades three-to-eight reading and math scores. The principal virtue of the No Child Left Behind Act, for example--a much-needed focus on outcomes and transparency--has been coupled with a bureaucratic impulse and an inflexible, cookie-cutter approach to gauging teacher and school quality. We must not retreat from the promise of high standards and accountability. But we should also embrace what might be called smart quality control. That means measuring the value of various providers and solutions in terms of what they are intended to do--whether that is recruiting teachers or tutoring foreign languages--rather than merely on whether they affect the rate at which students improve their performance on middle school reading and math tests.


Improved accountability and flexibility, while vital, will not be enough to achieve the changes we seek: Capacity building is also crucial. We define this overused term to mean the need for a variety of new providers that deliver additional support to educators in answering classroom and schoolwide challenges. More broadly, however, this effort must be complemented by giving new providers the freedom and encouragement they need to promote high-quality research and development, and to develop innovative "green shoot" reform ventures that pioneer more effective tools and strategies.


Ultimately, though, the key to improving results will be to help schools not only to avoid mistakes, but to position themselves better to adopt imaginative solutions. In brief, for reform to take hold our states and schools must practice purposeful innovation.


To examine the degree to which states have developed such a culture, we focused on eight areas:
  • School Management (including the strength of charter school laws and the percentage of teachers who like the way their schools are run)
  • Finance (including the accessibility of state financial data)
  • Staffing: Hiring & Evaluation (including alternative certification for teachers)
  • Staffing: Removing Ineffective Teachers (including the percentage of principals who report barriers to the removal of poor-performing teachers)
  • Data (including such measures as state-collected college student remediation data)
  • Technology (including students per Internet-connected computer)
  • Pipeline to Postsecondary (including the percentage of schools reporting dual-enrollment programs)
  • State Reform Environment (an ungraded category that includes data on the presence of reform groups and participation in international assessments)
Our data come from a wide variety of sources, from federal education databases to our own 50-state surveys. We should note that the data limitations we encountered were a significant hindrance to our efforts, even more so than when we prepared our first Leaders and Laggards report.


We received invaluable assistance from an outside panel of academic experts. We shared our methodology with Jack Buckley, professor of applied statistics at New York University; Dan Goldhaber, research professor at the University of Washington; Paul Herdman, president of the Rodel Foundation of Delaware; Monica Higgins, professor of education at Harvard University; and Richard Ingersoll, professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. The panel reviewed our approach and results, and provided helpful feedback. However, our research team takes full responsibility for the methodology and resulting grades.


In many respects the recent troubles of the auto and newspaper industries provide a cautionary tale for today's education policymakers. Analysts predicted structural challenges in both industries for decades. Outside consultants urged major change. Yet altering entrenched practices at businesses from General Motors to the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News proved enormously difficult. And the results of inaction for both organizations were disastrous. The same must not happen to our nation's education system. The stakes are just too high.

The findings and recommendations detailed in the following section cover everything from the need for more thoughtful use of technology to the overarching importance of giving educators flexibility in meeting shared student-achievement goals. In particular, we believe that reform requires a nondoctrinaire emphasis on overhauling the status quo and replacing it, not with some imagined one best system, but with a new performance-oriented culture that may take many forms. In the end, we think of educational innovation not as a fad but as the prerequisite for deep, systematic change, the kind of change that is necessary--and long overdue.

As we observed two years ago in our first Leaders and Laggards report, even as businesses have revolutionized their practices, "student achievement has remained stagnant and our K-12 schools have stayed remarkably unchanged--preserving, as if in amber, the routines, culture, and operations of a 1930s manufacturing plant." Now, as we look forward, our aim is nothing less than to crush the amber. That is the challenge before us.