Informs our Understanding!

Sunday, December 28, 2008
Nolan Finley

Detroit blew chance for school rescue

With the Detroit Public Schools near disintegration, it ought to be noted that it's been five years since Plymouth philanthropist Bob Thompson was told to take his $200 million and get back to the suburbs.

Thompson, a retired road builder obsessed with spending his fortune to get urban children a high-quality education, ran into a political buzz saw when he offered to open 15 charter high schools in the city that would guarantee to graduate 90 percent of their students and send 90 percent of those graduates on to college.

Community activists denounced Thompson as a white meddler out to steal their children. They were joined in their absurdity by Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who threw their lot in with the teacher union.

The rejection of Thompson's millions became a national story of a city so seized by racial divisions it couldn't set them aside even to save its children.

So instead of a network of alternative schools that would have rescued roughly 5,000 students from the sinking DPS, look what Detroit has today: A school district that fails to graduate 70 percent of its students; a school board that's fired two superintendents and an interim superintendent in four years; 18 of its 19 high schools on the failure list; and a fiscal meltdown.

Five years after Thompson was given the boot, Detroit is officially the worst big city school district in the nation and still sends more children to welfare and prison than it does to college.

Think about how different things might have been. Had the Thompson schools been built, they would be preparing to graduate their first class in the spring. Two thousand Detroit seniors would be making college plans. And Detroit's fast-fleeing middle class would have a reason to stay.

Yet no one has dialed up Thompson to apologize, to say they were wrong, to beg him for a second chance.

In fact, the governor and Democratic lawmakers are stubbornly blocking other Bob Thompsons from saving Detroit's children.

High-quality national charter school operators are lined up to get into the city. A group of Detroit teachers are pleading for the chance to remake a school under the successful Green Dot model.

But state law still traps students in hopeless public schools. Granholm refuses to lift the cap on charter schools, and the state House just passed a law protecting DPS from competition.
Nothing's changed in Detroit.

To his credit, Thompson didn't sulk back to Plymouth. He already had his University Prep Academy up and running, and thanks to a loophole engineered by Republican lawmakers, he's at work on two more schools, a math and science school at the Detroit Science Center and an art school in the Argonaut building.

The pace is less aggressive than he hoped -- he once believed other national foundations would match his funds and make even more schools possible -- but it's a lot better than nothing.

If Detroit families are lucky, the public school system will collapse in the coming year, and in the rubble, someone will come across Thompson's phone number.

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Reach him at nfinley@detnews.com or (313) 222-2064. Watch him at 8:30 p.m. Fridays on "Am I Right?" on Detroit Public TV, Channel 56.

The SNIFF Test?

Some advice for the Detroit Public Schools

December 23, 2008
Read Comments(15)

Now that Connie Calloway has been ousted as superintendent by the Detroit school board that hired her less than two years ago, a group of prominent local citizens is offering the DPS board some unsolicited advice about finding a good successor.

It won’t be easy, given the mess the district is in and especially given the board’s reputation as an employer and the state’s impending appointment of a powerful financial manager to get the DPS books in order. Here’s the text of a letter the group sent Tuesday to DPS Board President Carla Scott. The names of the signers are at the bottom.

Dear Honorable Carla D Scott, M.D.

We are united in a fervent belief that a dynamic public education system is both imperative and possible here in Detroit. Because of that belief and our commitment to public education, we have conducted extensive research, both individually and collectively, to identify the dynamics that have enabled other urban districts to achieve turnarounds in the education they provide their students.

Clearly, a cornerstone of any successful school district, large or small, is aneffective superintendent who is focused on improving achievement scores, graduation rates and other critical indicators of performance.

Our kids need all of us working together to fix a broken system. Including these criteria in your selection process can help assure that we are working together with the single focus of improving the education that our children receive.

Our next superintendent needs to have a quality schools agenda which addresses failing schools, promotes and advances high performing schools and initiates research based innovations that are responsive to the academic needs of students.

Specifically, experience in urban school districts across this country has shown that successful urban school superintendents:

1. Can articulate a clear vision of how the district should look in three to five years. This vision would include, but not be limited to, identifying the desired size of schools and classes, goals for improving academic performance, goals for improved graduation rates and goals for improved student retention rates.

2. Can identify a specific process through which these goals can be achieved.

3. Have demonstrated the ability to effectively manage a large school district budget.

4. Should have a record of establishing a professional development system that builds the competencies of district teachers, principals and other staff.

5. Have demonstrated the ability to right-size the district in a manner that maximizes student academic performance and preserves high performing school teams.

6. Have the ability to effectively engage and work collaboratively with board members, district staff and their unions; parents/caregivers and community partners in a manner that advances student academic performance.

7. Must have knowledge and understanding of current academic research and best practices regarding successful strategies to advance student academic performance in urban school districts.

8. Must have a track record showing the ability and commitment to initiating a community engagement campaign that builds public will for quality schools and encourages the community support.

In addition, to assure community confidence in the board’s selection process and to assure broad community support for the new superintendent, it will be critical that the selection process be conducted in full compliance with all open meetings requirements. This would necessitate a full public review of the qualifications of each final candidate, including public interviews of all final candidates prior to any selection.

Clearly, at this critical time in Detroit’s history, we cannot afford an interim, caretaker superintendent or another superintendent whose term is cut short for whatever reason. We must identify the right candidate with the right qualifications and experience and then work as a united community to assure that the new superintendent has the sustained support that we all must provide if they are to succeed.

Your selection of a superintendent is critical, as is your support of the candidate you choose. We are very confident that this district can turn around when our elected board and superintendent are unified and working together toward a common goal of providing the young people the quality education they must have to compete in the 21st Century job market.

We look forward to assisting the board in any way possible as you conduct this search that is so critical to Detroit Public Schools and the City of Detroit.

Sincerely,

Shirley Stancato, President and CEO of New Detroit, Inc.
Carol Goss, President and CEO of the Skillman Foundation
Kevin Magin, Interim Deputy Superintendent of Wayne RESA
Penny Bailer, Executive Director of City Year Detroit
Michael J. Brennan, President and CEO of United Way for Southeastern
Michigan Ruby J. Newbold, President of the Detroit Association of Educational Office Employees Phil Schloop, International Vice President, International Union of Operating Engineers
N. Charles Anderson, President and CEO, Detroit Urban League
Alice Thompson, CEO of Black Family Development
Sharlonda Buckman, Executive Director of the Detroit Parent Network
David Hecker, President of the AFT of Michigan Virginia Cantrell, President of the Detroit Federation of Teachers.

GIVE STUDENTS ALTERNATIVE ENERGY EDGE by DESIGN!

Photos by ANNIE O'NEILL/Special to the Free Press

St. Clair County students work on a solar-hydrogen fuel cell car. From left: Jason Hoogerhyde, John Freeman, Cody Benedict and Evan Miller. Rather than learning TV repair, students are getting trained in alternative energy.

Schools to invest in alternative energy, give students edge

BY PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • December 27, 2008

St. Clair County RESA Career Technical Center students will be calculating actual energy outputs from school-owned windmills, solar panels and a hydroelectric plant.

In Warren Consolidated Schools, students will find lessons from a district-owned wind power station integrated into their classes.

Both programs are the result of a trend by a growing number of schools to meld alternative energy into their lesson plans.

"I think kids are interested in this type of thing. And a lot of us see it as the future, to lessen our reliance on nonrenewable sources. And there are going to be jobs there," said Dan DeGrow, superintendent of St. Clair County Regional Educational Service Agency.

St. Clair RESA plans to invest up to $450,000, depending on how much grant money it receives, in three wind turbines -- each about 100 feet tall -- solar panels next to the turbines and a mini-hydro plant. It will be working with local governments on getting site permits.

Gone are the days of students taking high school electronics to become TV repairpeople. The jobs are moving to other categories, such as alternative energy technicians.

"What we decided was we wanted a way to teach traditional electronics but within a more current context," said Pat Yanik, director of career and technical education for RESA.

Beginning next fall, students will monitor the electricity generated by their three alternative energy sources, learn how to convert the power to actual energy and make decisions on how to distribute their self-generated electricity to RESA facilities. The actual energy generated will be small, but the lessons will be huge.

"With the energy crisis and the government push for it at the federal level and the state level, alternative energy seemed to be a pretty going item that students and parents can understand," said electronics teacher Zack Diatchun.

The Warren Consolidated Schools Board of Education has approved up to $9,000 for a wind spire -- a smaller (30-foot high) version of the windmill-style turbine -- to establish a district-wide alternative energy institute, said Superintendent Robert Livernois. Like St. Clair RESA, Warren Consolidated also hopes much of the cost will be offset by grants.

"The sky's the limit for us. That's what's so exciting about it from a K-12 perspective, you can talk to a second-grader and a 12th-grader," Livernois said. "Our belief is you've got to start somewhere, so as we launch this institute, it's really designed to begin cultivating awareness."

Students at St. Clair RESA have been told their program will open in the fall.

"It doesn't seem like something that they put into a high school-type course, but it's a really good idea they're putting it in," said Cody Benedict, 17, a senior from Yale High School who will be going to school for another year and taking the energy program. "It's going to be a larger range of stuff to learn for jobs."

There's no timetable for the Warren Consolidated program yet, but Livernois expects there will be varying components of alternative energy that will be applicable to most grades.

"We're going to use it in a study of just how much energy you can produce in the community," said Mark Supal, a technology teacher at the Macomb Mathematics Science and Technology Center, where the wind spire will be located.

Even students who won't be around for the new programs recognize the possibilities.

"I got accepted to Michigan Tech ... and I'm probably going to take electrical engineering, but I'm probably going to branch into some kind of alternative energy," said Dalton Pelc, 17, a senior from Kimball Township attending Port Huron High School. "That's what we need, and that's because that's what the economy needs."

Contact PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI at 586-826-7262 or mmwalsh@freepress.com.

21st Century Digital Learning Environments (Pedagogy)

21st Century Pedagogy

Even if you have a 21st Century classroom (flexible and adaptable); even if you are a 21st century teacher ; (an adaptor, a communicator, a leader and a learner, a visionary and a model, a collaborator and risk taker) even if your curriculum reflects the new paradigm and you have the facilities and resources that could enable 21st century learning - you will only be a 21st century teacher if how you teach changes as well. Your pedagogy must also change.

So what is 21st Century pedagogy?

Definition:
pedagogy - noun the profession, science, or theory of teaching.
Source: http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/pedagogy?view=uk

How we teach must reflect how our students learn. It must also reflect the world our students will move into. This is a world which is rapidly changing, connected, adapting and evolving. Our style and approach to teaching must emphasise the learning in the 21st century.

The key features of 21st Century Pedagogy are:
? building technological, information and media fluencies [Ian Jukes]
? Developing thinking skills
? making use of project based learning
? using problem solving as a teaching tool
? using 21st C assessments with timely, appropriate and detailed feedback and reflection
? It is collaborative in nature and uses enabling and empowering technologies
? It fosters Contextual learning bridging the disciplines and curriculum areas

Knowledge
Knowledge does not specifically appear in the above diagram. Does this mean that we do not teach content or knowledge? Of course not. While a goal we often hear is for our students to create knowledge, we must scaffold and support this constructivist process. The process was aptly describe in a recent presentation by Cisco on Education 3.0 [Michael Stevenson VP Global Education Cisco 2007]

We need to teach knowledge or content in context with the tasks and activities the students are undertaking. Our students respond well to real world problems. Our delivery of knowledge should scaffold the learning process and provide a foundation for activities. As we know from the learning pyramid content delivered without context or other activity has a low retention rate.

Thinking skills
Thinking Skills are a key area. While much of the knowledge we teach may be obsolete within a few years, thinking skills acquired will remain with our students for their entire lives. Industrial age education has had a focus on Lower Order Thinking Skills. In Bloom's taxonomy the lower order thinking skills are the remembering and understanding aspects. 21st Century pedagogy focuses on the moving students from Lower Order Thinking Skills to Higher Order Thinking Skills.

The 21st Century Teacher scaffolds the learning of students, building on a basis of knowledge recall and comprehension to use and apply skills; to analyse and evaluate process, outcomes and concequences, and to make, create and innovate. For each discipline in our secondary schools the process is subtly different.

Collaboration
The 21st century is an age of collaboration as well as the Information Age. 21st Century students, our digital natives, are collaborative. The growth of social networking tools, like bebo and myspace and the like, is fueled by Digital natives and Gen Y. The world, our students are graduating into is a collaborative one.

Collaborative projects such as Julie Lindsay's and Vicki Davis's Flatclassroom project and the Horizon Project, iearns and many others are brilliant examples of collaboration in the classrooms and beyond. These projects, based around tools like ning or wikis, provide students and staff a medium to build and share knowledge and develop understanding.

For example:

My own students are collaborating with students from three other schools, one in Brisbane, another in Qatar and a third in Vienna; on developing resources for a common assessment item. Collaboratively, they are constructing base knowledge on the technologies pertent to the topic. They are examining, evaluating and analysing the social and ethical impacts of the topic. But perhaps even more holistically they are being exposed to different interpretations, cultures and perspectives - Developing an international awareness which will be a key attribute in our global future.

URL: http://casestudy-itgs.wikispaces.com


Don Tapscott in Wikinomics, gives are many of examples of the business world adopting and succeeding by using global collaboration.

In a recent blog post from the Official google Blog, Google identified these as key traits or abilities in 1st Century Employees...

"... communication skills. Marshalling and understanding the available evidence isn't useful unless you can effectively communicate your conclusions."
"... team players. Virtually every project at Google is run by a small team. People need to work well together and perform up to the team's expectations. "

Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/our-googley-advice-to-students-major-in.html

So to prepare our students, our teaching should also model collaboration. A vast array of collaborative tools are available to - wikis, classroom blogs, collaborative document tools,social networks, learning management systems - Many are available at no cost. If you have not yet tried them, look at:
? wikis - wet paint and wiki spaces
? Classroom blogs - edublogs, classroomblogmeister
? Collaborative document tools - Google documents, zoho documents
? Social Networks - ning
? learning managements systems - Moodle etc
These tools are enablers of collaboration, and therefore enablers of 21st century teaching and learning.

Collaboration is not a 21st century skill it is a 21st century essential.

If we look at UNESCO's publication "The four pillars of Education, Learning: The Treasure within" Collaboration is a key element of each of the four pillars.

• Learning to know
• Learning to do
• Learning to live together
• Learning to be

(http://www.unesco.org/delors/fourpil.htm)

Collaboration is not limited to the confines of the classroom. Students and teachers collaborate across the planet, and beyond the time constraints of the teaching day. Students work with other students regionally, nationally and globally. Learners seek and work with experts as required. This is 21st Century Collaboration

Real World, Inter-disciplinary & project based learning
21st Century students do not want abstract examples rather they focus on real world problems. They want what they learn in one subject to be relevant and applicable in another curriculum area. As teachers we need to extend our areas of expertise, collaborate with our teaching peers in other subjects and the learning in one discipline to learning in another.
Projects should bring together and reinforce learning across disciplines. The sum of the students learning will be greater than the individual aspects taught in isolation. This is a holistic overview of the education process which builds on and values every aspect of the 21st Century students education.

Assessment
Assessment is still a key part of 21st Century Pedagogy. This generation of students responds well to clear goals and objectives, assessed in a transparent manner.

Students should be involved in all aspects of the assessment process. Students who are involved in setting and developing assessment criteria, marking and moderation will have a clearer understanding of:
? what they are meant to do,
? how they are meant to do it,
? why it is significant
? why it is important.
Such students will undoubtedly do better and use the assessment process as a part of their learning.

Students are often painfully honest about their own performance and that of their peers. They will, in a collaborative project, fairly assess those who contribute and those who don't.

This is their education, their learning and their future - they must be involved in it.

Linked to assessment is the importance of timely, appropriate, detailed and specific feedback. Feedback as a learning tool, is second only to the teaching of thinking skills [Michael Pohl]. As 21st Century teachers, we must provide and facilitate safe and appropriate feedback, developing an environment where students can safely and supportively be provided with and provide feedback. Students are often full of insight and may have as valid a perspective as we teachers do.

Fluency
What is fluency and why is it better than Literacy? Ian Jukes introduced this concept at NECC. He asserts that students need to move beyond literacy to fluency. They need to be
fluent in:
? The use of technology = technological fluency,
? Collecting, processing, manipulating and validating information = information fluency,
? using, selecting, viewing and manipulating media = media fluency,

What is fluency compared to literacy? A person who is fluent in a language does not need to think about speech, or reading rather it is an unconscious process of understanding. A person who is literate in the language must translate the speech or text. This applies to our students and their use of 21st century media. We need them to be unconsciously competent in the use and manipulation of media, technology and information.

The conscious competence model illustrates the difference between Literacy and Fluency. The person or student who is literate is in the conscious competence category. The person or student who is fluent is in the unconscious competence category.

As educators, we must identify, develop and reinforce these skill sets until students become literate and then fluent..

Conclusion and the path forward.

To teach using 21st Century pedagogy, educators must be student centric. Our curricula and assessments must inclusive, interdisciplinary and contextual; based on real world examples.

Students must be key participants in the assessment process, intimate in it from start to finish, from establishing purpose and criteria, to assessing and moderating.
Educators must establish a safe environment for students to collaborate in but also to discuss, reflect and provide and receive feedback in.

We should make use of collaborative and project based learning, using enabling tools and technologies to facilitate this.

We must develop, in students, key fluencies and make use of higher order thinking skills. Our tasks, curricula, assessments and learning activities must be designed to build on the Lower Order Thinking Skills and to develop Higher Order Thinking Skills.

Acknowledgements:
For being a brilliant critical friend, thanks for the advise and especially for the grammar - Marg McLeod.

By Andrew Churches

Arne Duncan Secretary of Education

Reform Starts Now: Obama Picks Arne Duncan

His secretary of education selection shows education is a priority.

by Grace Rubenstein
December 16, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama talked reform while announcing Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan as the next U.S. secretary of education.

"For Arne, school reform isn't just a theory in a book, it's the cause of his life," Obama said at Tuesday's press conference. Obama specifically mentioned pay-for-performance teacher salaries and charter-schools development as strategies with strong potential.

"If charter schools work, let's try that," Obama said. "Let's not be clouded by ideology when it comes to figuring out what helps our kids."

Duncan described his clear-eyed view of education in a June 2007 interview [1] with Edutopia when he said, "Quality public education is the civil rights issue of our generation."

Duncan, known for transforming underperforming schools and experimenting with new models, has a record as a pragmatist with a taste for innovations. His version of reform, judging by his record, centers on boosting teacher quality and supporting students with added services such as after-school programs. In the Chicago Public Schools [2], where 85 percent of the 400,000-plus students live below the poverty line, test scores, attendance, and teacher retention all went up during Duncan's seven-year tenure, while the dropout rate declined.

The Buzz
For weeks, pundits, educators, and education bloggers have speculated on what Obama's pick would show about his true beliefs on education.

"Arne Duncan has a type of personality that Obama seems to prefer, which is a pragmatist who will bring about change, but he'll do it in a way that will minimize confrontation in conflict," says Jack Jennings, president of the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy [3]. "He's brought about change in Chicago, but it hasn't been a head-on clash with the teachers' union. He's done it in a way that they all walk away from the table congratulating each other."

Supporters say Duncan has the right constitution for the job. On both substance and style, he has won praise from divergent interest groups, including the American Federation of Teachers [4] and the New York City-based Democrats for Education Reform [5].

Duncan shut down Chicago schools that performed poorly and reopened them with entirely new staffs. He started coaching and mentoring programs for teachers. He also supported a boom in new charter schools with diverse models, from military academies to single-sex schools, and piloted a program to pay teachers bonuses for top performance -- two controversial innovations Obama supports.

An Uncertain Future

Of course, an education secretary can't exactly dictate reform from on high. But he can use the bully pulpit to put a spotlight on certain problems and solutions, says Jennings, and hand out grants to support new innovations. He can also provoke change through regulations -- most notably those that guide implementation of the No Child Left Behind law.

On NCLB, Duncan is a middle-of-the-roader [6]; he supports the law's goals of high expectations and accountability but has challenged Congress to improve it by doubling its funding and amending it "to give schools, districts, and states the maximum amount of flexibility possible."

Not the least of Duncan's hurdles will be the nation's preoccupation with the economic crisis. In a sign of the media's interest in education, the first question at Obama and Duncan's press conference after the announcement of Duncan's nomination was about the Federal Reserve Bank lowering its interest rates.

The financial squeeze hitting schools could hinder Duncan's efforts.

Making money and resources key to success, Duncan and Obama both made the case for education by defining it as the path to prosperity; Obama called it the "single biggest determinant" of the economy's long-term health.

"We're not going to transform every school overnight," Obama said. "What we can expect is that each and every day, we are thinking of new, innovative ways to make the schools better. That is what Arne has done. That's going to be his job. That's going to be his task."

Grace Rubenstein is a staff writer and multimedia producer at Edutopia.

Project-Based Learning (Begin With the End in Mind

"CRESCENDO!" (The REIGN at Spain FELL mostly on the Plain)

At Spain Elementary/Middle School, Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway waits alone Monday night for results of the board's vote on her ouster. The vote was 7-4 in favor of firing her.

Money troubles doom DPS leader Calloway

Board votes to oust DPS head, blaming her for the district's financial problems

BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • December 16, 2008

Connie Calloway's time at the top of Detroit Public Schools came to an abrupt end Monday night, as the school board voted to fire her after less than 18 months on the job.

Her dismissal came down to matters of money -- specifically the mistakes that were outlined in a scathing letter from the state superintendent last week explaining why the state would appoint an emergency financial manager to take over the district's $1.1-billion budget.

"We're holding her accountable," said Tyrone Winfrey, one of the seven board members who voted to dump Calloway during a meeting at Spain Elementary/Middle School.

Calloway countered that she was being made a scapegoat for problems that began long before she arrived in July 2007.

"I came here knowing that hard decisions had to be made, but I was told that I had the support and I have the option of making them," Calloway said, calling her firing unjust.

She was technically placed on paid administrative leave and has 15 days to request a public hearing on her termination. Calloway's five-year contract was to run through June 2012, and paid her a base salary of $280,000 annually.

The vote to oust Calloway came despite top officials of 10 community groups and school unions asking the board earlier in the day to keep her. They included leaders from New Detroit Inc., United Way for Southeastern Michigan, Skillman Foundation, Detroit Urban League, Detroit Parent Network, Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA), City Year Detroit and the unions that represent engineers and secretarial employees.

Kevin Magin, interim deputy superintendent for Wayne RESA, said that consistency is absolutely essential for DPS. He said he would make the same case to the financial manager who the state plans to appoint in the coming weeks.

"Dr. Calloway is a strong instructional leader," he said. "This is not a time to make a change on the instructional side of the house because you're being forced to make a change on the financial side," he said.

Calloway also released an e-mailed statement to the public and employees before Monday's meeting that listed some successes and gave thanks for serving the district.

Among the accomplishments she cited were: plans to restructure some high schools into smaller learning communities, encouraging data-driven decisions regarding achievement, collaborating with the regional school district to train principals and teachers in underperforming schools and working with superintendents in the tri-county area to support appropriate funding for all children.

Just before the vote, board President Carla Scott said she "wholeheartedly" disagreed with the resolution to fire Calloway, adding that in a district as broken as DPS it's easy to "go on a witch hunt."

"This reminds me of the Salem witch trials," Scott said, then read the letter signed by community leaders.

Those voting to fire Calloway were Winfrey, Joyce Hayes-Giles, Reverend David Murray, Ida Short, Marie Thornton, Jimmy Womack and Annie Carter.

Voting no were Scott, Otis Mathis, Terry Catchings and Marvis Cofield.

The board appointed district general counsel Teresa Gueyser interim superintendent. It was not immediately clear how long she would be in that role, but Winfrey said the board was vetting other candidates for the role.

Thornton interrupted Calloway as she listed a litany of problems that she said were not her fault. "This is going a little bit too far," Thornton said.

Hecklers also interrupted Calloway's speech, followed by dozens of supporters who stood to applaud after she spoke.

"My heart grieves for the children of Detroit," Calloway said. While talking to media with her attorney in tow, she appeared on the verge of tears.

Kimberly Bishop, a parent from Henry Ford High, criticized the board.

"You don't care about our children, you don't care about our community," she said. Bishop said the board "got rid of her because she opened up too many doors" that board members "wanted to keep shut."

"It's some other people who need to be held accountable right along with her," Brenda Nimocks, a substitute teacher for DPS, said. "The State of Michigan needs to be held accountable."

Tia Shepherd, Detroit Parent Advisory Council cochair, said the state, parents and local school officials are responsible for the failures during the Calloway administration.

"I've never heard anyone say which direction we're going," she said.

"We need a school improvement plan ... that's No. 1."

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


Calloway e-mail: Thank you for the opportunity to serve Detroit Public Schools

BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • December 15, 2008
Read Comments(41)


The embattled superintendent for Detroit Public Schools sent an e-mail to employees and the media today that gives thanks and lists accomplishments during her 18 months on the job.

The school board is expected to oust Calloway at tonight’s special board meeting. The vote comes a week after State Superintendent Mike Flanagan determined that an emergency financial manager must be appointed to take over DPS’s $1.1-billion budget.

Ten community and union leaders sent a letter today in support of Calloway that asks board president Carla Scott to cancel the meeting.

Among Calloway’s accomplishments according to her letter and supporters: plans to restructure some high schools into smaller learning communities, encouraging data-driven decision-making regarding achievement, collaborating with the regional school district to train principals and teachers in underperforming schools and working with superintendents in the tri-county area to support appropriate funding for all children.

The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Spain Elementary/Middle School, 3700 Beaubien.

Text of Calloway's e-mail

Thank you so very much for the opportunity to serve as your superintendent for the past 18 months. Much has been accomplished in that time. We experienced the lowest enrollment decline in the past five years.

The data analysis system known as COGNOS which brings you current academic information on schools, classrooms and students is available at the click of a mouse. Every administrator in the district has been given multiple opportunities to train on COGNOS.

The principal and assistant principal academies have continued to be implemented at a fraction of the cost originally established yet maintaining quality results. An Exemplary Teacher Cadre was established. Twenty teachers in Michigan were accepted into The National Board Certified Teacher program this year—all twenty are DPS teachers. We look forward to the prospect that another DPS teacher will join the list of Detroit educators who have received Milken National Educator Awards.

A textbook purchasing process has been developed and is in place. There is an interview process in place in Human Relations that is fair and impartial. DPS is in compliance with the FBI fingerprinting law; we processed approximately 14,000 employees in a six month time frame.

Vacant buildings have been boarded, secured and a real estate agent hired to market the properties.

A collaborative and respectful relationship was established with all of our labor organizations and meetings were held regularly to discuss and share information.

The level of engagement of our parents has increased, as we have focused on demonstrating teaching strategies to work with their children at home.

We have made progress on moving the state to accept 60,000 students as the First Class School District benchmark.

We have developed the DPS radio station WRCJ 90.9 FM which airs district information daily.

We have a quarterly newsletter.

We, like our President-elect Barack Obama, more effectively utilize technology to communicate; Superintendent’s Greetings is an example.

A Student Services Department has been established to centralize concerns for the welfare of our school children.

We presented a budget based on MDE’s enrollment projections and made efforts to align district operations to actual enrollment.

We have embarked on a high school restructuring program to explore new ideas to help our 22 high schools which did not make AYP.

We have maintained fiscal transparency, acknowledging that the district does have a deficit budget, due to the fact that actual expenditures have exceeded revenues for seven of the past eight years by approximately $10 million dollars per year.

We have called for fiscal accountability and transparency in every area.

The fabulous cabinet staff have been working as a unified team to address the many challenges the district currently faces. The entire DPS staff has continuously demonstrated a commitment to serving students; maintaining the quality of services they provide, despite budget reductions and concessions.

We have reached out to education organizations such as Wayne RESA, MASA, Tri-County Alliance; Foundations—Skillman, One D, United Way; Universities—Wayne State, Marygrove, Michigan State; and the business community—Compuware, DMC, Henry Ford –to name a few, to establish strong partnerships.

We have excelled in our school programs, such as Hanstein Elementary students writing, producing and performing an opera at the Detroit Opera House and the King band playing for the Olympics in China.

Let me close by simply saying again “Thank you” for the opportunity to serve the Detroit Public Schools as General Superintendent for one and a half years.

Have a blessed Christmas, , my wish is that DPS will thrive for the sake of the 95,000 wonderful children that we serve.

Respectfully,Your Superintendent,
Connie Calloway

Drum Roll Please!

Board to decide fate of DPS leader Calloway during vote

BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • December 15, 2008

Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway, faces ouster today when the school board meets to vote on a resolution to fire her after less than 18 months on the job.

The relationship between Calloway and the board has soured over the past several months as the district's financial outlook worsened.

Last week, the state superintendent declared a financial emergency at DPS, requiring Gov. Jennifer Granholm to appoint an emergency financial manager to take over the district's $1.1-billion budget.

Since then, the school board voted to fire its chief financial officer, whom Calloway hired from her former district in Normandy, Mo.

Board members said last week that they have the votes to fire Calloway with cause but they first wanted to secure a replacement.

The meeting is set for 6 p.m. at Spain Elementary/Middle School, 3700 Beaubien.

You tube Challenge

School of the Future World Summit 2008

Evan Arthur - The Australian Digital Education Revolution

Martin Bean - What Technology Makes Possible

Randy Fielding - Design for the Creative Age - Part 1 (slides 1-49)

Randy Fielding - Design for the Creative Age - Part 2 (slides 50-75)

Randy Fielding - Design for the Creative Age - Part 3 (slides 76 - end)

Julio Fontan - Country Spotlight: Colombia

James Grant & Lee Burley - Building Schools for the Future

Bill Hill - The Digital Renaissance Age

Michael Horn - Disrupting Class

Allyson Knox - Career Forward

Victor McNair - Teacher E-Portfolios

Katrina Reynen - Innovation that Drives Transformation Across School Systems

Don Richardson - Innovation Management

Ratnasingam Selvarani & Angeline Fern - Transformational Learning - Part 1

Ratnasingam Selvarani & Angeline Fern - Transformational Learning - Part 2

Yasutaka Shimizu - NEXT Project - Part 1

Yasutaka Shimizu - NEXT Project - Part 2

Jaeshin Song - e-Learning of Korea

Wim Veen - Homo Zappiens: New Learning Strategies in a Digital Age

Tony Wagner - The Global Achievement Gap

Open OUR Minds to NEW Possibilities!

Edison Elementary on the Art Road

LEVERAGE!

Something LARGER then themselves

Washington Post

Applicants Flock to Teacher Corps for Needy Areas

By Megan Greenwell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 6, 2008; A01

Like many Georgetown University seniors, Olubukola Bamigboye has no shortage of postgraduate options. She has a line on an internship with a high-profile fashion magazine, is considering law school or might train full time for a spot on the 2012 U.S. Olympic track and field team.

But Bamigboye is focused on her second-round interview at Teach for America, hoping to win a stressful job in one of the nation's worst public schools, where, at best, she might earn $45,000 next year.

Her chances of landing a spot: less than 15 percent -- lower than the admission rate to Georgetown itself.

In its 18th year, Teach for America has emerged as the most popular nonprofit service organization among college seniors in the United States, with 14,181 applications received this year and as many as 23,000 more expected by the end of February -- all for fewer than 5,000 teaching spots.

In part because of the dearth of other job prospects in the sagging economy but mostly because the program has captured the imagination of a generation of student leaders bent on doing good, some graduates of the nation's elite universities are fighting for low-paying teaching positions the way they once sought jobs on Wall Street.

"We were quite hopeful that we would see an increase in applications based on last year's growth, but I don't know if anyone could have predicted this," said Elissa Clapp, who oversees recruitment for the organization, which sends recent college graduates to teach for two years in schools in low-income areas.

Experts say a 50 percent increase in applications in one year is surprising for any program, but they add that young adults' growing interest in public service organizations does not end with Teach for America. Programs such as AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps also report a steady rise in applications for the past several years, though not as large as Teach for America's.

A 2007 UCLA survey of college freshmen showed that 70 percent of students say it is "essential or very important" to help those in need. And many young people became socially motivated during this year's presidential election, when record numbers volunteered for President-elect Barack Obama, inspired by his message of change.

"Teach for America may fit a perfect niche," said Peter Levine, director of a research center on civic engagement at Tufts University. "You get to work on a social problem on the public payroll, but you're going through a nonprofit, which many young people prefer to working for the government."

The program's success in attracting top talent such as Bamigboye has not silenced its critics in the world of education, many of whom say teachers need more than a summer's worth of preparation before taking jobs in inner-city schools. Lorri Harte, a 20-year teacher and administrator in New York City who writes a blog called Debunk TFA, argues that placing the least-experienced teachers with the highest-risk children is a potentially harmful combination.

"Teaching is a job where you get better as you go along, so for the first two years, people are generally not good teachers," Harte said. "The public relations blitz for the program does not address the real problems in education."

Research into Teach for America's effectiveness has been inconclusive, but at least three major studies in the past several years indicate that students taught by its teachers score significantly lower on standardized tests than do their peers. A small handful of other studies, and the organization's own research, contradict that claim.

The latest spike in applications is only the most recent high point for the program. More than 24,700 students applied for the 2008 teaching posts, a 36 percent increase over 2007. They teach in 30 cities and regions across the country, including 416 schools in the District, Prince George's County and Baltimore, where D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee began her education career as a Teach for America teacher.

Created by a Princeton graduate based on her senior thesis, the program has built a sizable staff that aggressively recruits student leaders and has become the top employer at dozens of elite colleges, including George Washington University and Georgetown. This year's expected total would more than double the number of applications received just two years ago.

Teach for America leaders say much of the growth is the result of gradual gains in name recognition rather than circumstances specific to this year. But they acknowledge that the shortage of other job prospects has prompted applications from some students who might not have considered teaching.

Business majors are expected to make up a larger percentage of the applicant pool, perhaps in part because six-figure entry-level investment banking jobs -- until this year considered natural slots for thousands of graduates of elite colleges -- have all but disappeared during the Wall Street collapse.

"The silver lining in the economic downturn is it has provided people the chance to pursue something they've always wanted to do," said Tom Clark, Teach for America's recruiting director for Georgetown and GWU. "Even last year, there was pressure to head straight to Wall Street, and now there's a lot less pressure."

Georgetown senior John Swan, the former editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, said he didn't seriously consider applying to Teach for America when he first heard about it as a sophomore. But after an internship at Forbes magazine, he decided that an entry-level reporter's position wouldn't provide enough responsibility. He met with Clark this fall, was accepted to the program and will teach in the District next year.

Personalized e-mails to student leaders -- such as the one Clark sent Swan asking him to chat over coffee -- are the heart of Teach for America's recruiting strategy. Student council members, athletes, political group leaders, newspaper editors and others whose names are provided by alumni and professors are invited to meet with campus recruiters around the beginning of each academic year. If a student does not respond or declines the invitation, more e-mails follow, a barrage that many students call incessant and unnecessary.

Yet it's difficult to dispute that the targeted recruitment strategy has been effective in luring seniors who might be worried about finding jobs. Three of Swan's friends have been accepted to the teaching corps, and seven others are in the process of applying. All told, 13 percent of seniors at Georgetown and 10 percent at GWU are expected to apply this year, numbers that are not uncommon at the most elite universities.

One major point of criticism from many educators is that the program does not specifically recruit students who are interested in teaching full time. For many, like Bamigboye, the program is a two-year stop on the way to graduate school or a corporate job, paths that program administrators encourage with a career services office and partnerships with private firms and universities.

"I'll be done when I'm 23, so jobs in fashion and law school and the Olympics will still be there," Bamigboye said.

But many current and former Teach for America participants say their work -- whether for two years or longer -- makes a significant impact on students' lives. Most former Teach for America participants can cite the moments that made them proud of their students' gains.

"Every year, teachers see the proof right in front of them that they're helping to raise achievement," said Rachel Evans, a Texas A&M graduate who taught in Baltimore and now directs Teach for America recruiting efforts at four universities in Maryland and Delaware. "It doesn't take much to sell the fact that these jobs actually change lives."

The organization's officials contend that engaging the brightest young minds to teach disadvantaged children for two years is better than not having them at all, and some do become career teachers.

The rigorous application process, Clapp said, ensures that the program accepts only graduates who are truly motivated to serve in those classrooms.

"What we need to do now is make sure we maintain our position as one of the premier things to do after college," Clapp said. "You don't stay on top unless you continue to aggressively compete for the best people."

WINDSPIRE INSPIRES! (GREAT LAKES IT REPORT)

An example of a Windspire installation

Posted: Monday, 17 November 2008 9:35PM

Warren Schools To Consider Renewable Energy Curriculum

A unique vertical-axis wind turbine would be installed at the Macomb Math, Science and Technology Center under an agreement to be considered Wednesday night by the board of the Warren Consolidated Schools.

The Windspire wind turbine would be installed by Southern Exposure Renewable Energy Co. of Ortonville. It's manufactured by Nevada-based Mariah Power.

The turbine is part of a larger proposal to create a "renewable energy institute" at the math and science magnet school, with the company and the school district working together to develop a new renewable energy curriculum.

More at www.mariahpower.com or www.seenergyco.com.

Recently Mariah Power partnered with Mastech of Sterling Heights to manufacture its Windspire product at Mastech's plant in Manistee. The first Michigan made wind turbines are scheduled to become available in February.

TRUST: Creativity, Risk, Playful Explorations by DESIGN!

Disruption Seeks/Creates Cracks in the SILO!

Published Online: October 28, 2008

Published in Print: November 5, 2008

Scholars Discuss 'Disruptive Innovation' in K-12 Education

By Andrew Trotter

Washington

A latecomer to a panel discussion this week on “disruptive innovation” in K-12 education and health care may have suspected that he or she had entered the wrong room.

The main speaker, Clayton M. Christensen, was talking about the steel industry, not education or health. Then he discussed the automobile, radio, microchip, and software industries.

To Mr. Christensen, a professor at the Harvard Business School, those industries offer profound lessons for K-12 schooling. In every case, the introduction of a new technology led to the upending of the established leaders by upstart entrants, he explained at an Oct. 27 panel discussion at the American Enterprise Institute.

See Also

What technological innovations have changed the way you teach and the way your students learn? Share your experiences in our forum.

Mr. Christensen, the lead author of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, said similar changes will soon happen to public school districts, as providers of virtual schooling gradually claim more and more students, starting with those who are poorly served by their current schools.

'No Stupidity'

The book, published last spring and co-authored by Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson, predicts that those changes will accelerate until, by 2019, roughly half of all high school courses will be taken online. ("Online Education Cast as 'Disruptive Innovation'," May 7, 2008.)

To the roomful of policy experts and educators at the think tank’s luncheon meeting, Mr. Christensen explained that the leading companies did not lose their primacy through their managers’ incompetence. Instead, it was because they obeyed two hallowed principles of business: First, listen to your best customers and give them what they want; and second, invest where the profit margin is most attractive.

Rather, businesses need to be willing to act in ways that may be opposed to their short-term interests, and that lower their costs and simplify their products or services, making them more attractive to a larger pool of potential customers.

“It’s a story with no villains and no stupidity,” noted Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies at the AEI and the moderator of the discussion.

Mr. Horn, who runs Innosight Institute, a think tank in Watertown, Mass., devoted to Mr. Christensen’s theories, was on a panel at the event. Outlining the application to education, he cited Harvard education professor Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences and said “children’s need for customization collides with schools’ imperative for standardization.”

The billions of dollars that have been invested to put computers into schools have failed to make a difference because “we have crammed them into conventional classrooms,” said Mr. Horn.

Schools and students have not been able to reap the benefits of technology, he said, because of the web of constraints—called “interdependencies”—that schools have not been able to escape, including the organization of the school day, the division of learning in academic disciplines, the architecture of school buildings, and the federal, state, and local mandates that educators must obey.

'Customization'

On hand at the Oct. 27 event as the official “responder and raconteur” was education expert Chester E. Finn Jr., the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington.

Perhaps to the surprise of some in the audience, Mr. Finn generally agreed with Mr. Christensen’s and Mr. Horn’s arguments.

Mr. Finn, who served in the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration, had two main points of contention. First, he disliked the authors’ reliance on Mr. Gardner’s theories, which, he asserted, are dismissed by “respectable cognitive psychologists.”

On that point, the authors are “wrong, but it doesn’t matter,” he concluded. “Gardner or no, I’m still in favor of greater individualization and customization of education.”

Second, Mr. Finn said, he thinks the authors have underestimated the power of politics to stymie the change in education, because in most cases it is the schools, not the students, that are the purchasers of the new technology-driven forms of education.

That means virtual schools will face “resistance and pushback and hubris, and a sort of smugness” from public education, Mr. Finn said.

As a result, he said, he did not expect regular public schools to become the “main route” for new technologies to be applied to K-12 education.

Mr. Finn added that a more likely route was for charter schools and families to purchase the technology directly, possibly in the form of supplemental private education, perhaps subsidized by philanthropies.

ONE-D Grant Announcement

INNOVATION CONSTANT: IRRESPECTIVE of Space and Time!

Unboxed

It’s No Time to Forget About Innovation

James Yang

By JANET RAE-DUPREE

Published: November 1, 2008

BY its very nature, innovation is inefficient. While blockbusters do emerge, few of the new products or processes that evolve from innovative thinking ultimately survive the test of time. During periods of economic growth, such inefficiencies are chalked up as part of the price of forging into the future.

But these aren’t such times. Wild market gyrations, frozen credit markets and an overall sour economy herald a new round of corporate belt-tightening. Foremost on the target list is anything inefficient. That’s bad news for corporate innovation, and it could spell trouble for years to come, even after the economy turns around.

“To be honest, we had a problem with innovation even before the economic crisis. That’s the reason I wrote my book,” says Judy Estrin, former chief technology officer at Cisco Systems and author of “Closing the Innovation Gap.” “We’re focusing on the short term and we’re not planting the seeds for the future.”

In tough times, of course, many companies have to scale back. But, she says: “To quote Obama, you don’t use a hatchet. You use a scalpel. Leaders need to pick and choose with great care.”

There are important things managers can do to ensure that creative forward-thinking doesn’t go out the door with each round of layoffs. Fostering a companywide atmosphere of innovation — encouraging everyone to take risks and to think about novel solutions, from receptionists to corner-suite executives — helps ensure that the loss of any particular set of minds needn’t spell trouble for the entire company.

She suggests instilling five core values to entrench innovation in the corporate mind-set: questioning, risk-taking, openness, patience and trust. All five must be used together — risk-taking without questioning leads to recklessness, she says, while patience without trust sets up an every-man-for-himself mentality.

In an era of Six Sigma black belts and brown belts, Ms. Estrin urges setting aside certain efficiency measures in favor of what she calls “green-thumb leadership” — a future-oriented management style that understands, and even encourages, taking risks. Let efficiency measures govern the existing “factory farm,” she says, but create greenhouses and experimental gardens along the sides of the farm to nurture the risky investments that likely will take a number of years to bear fruit.

“I’m not suggesting you only cut from today’s stuff and keep the future part untouched,” she says. “You have to balance it.”

Yet even that approach has its drawbacks. Companies that create silos of innovation by designating one group as the “big thinkers” while making others handle day-to-day concerns risk losing their innovative edge if any of the big thinkers leave the company or ultimately must be laid off.

“Innovation has to be embedded in the daily operation, in the entire work force,” says Jon Fisher, a business professor, serial entrepreneur, and author of “Strategic Entrepreneurism,” which advocates building a start-up’s business from the beginning with an eye toward selling the company. “A large acquirer’s interest in a start-up or smaller company is binary in nature: They either want you or they don’t, based on the innovation you have to offer. The best way to foster innovation is to create something, put it to the test, build a good company and then get it under the umbrella of a world-renowned company to move it forward.”

David Thompson, chief executive and co-founder of Genius.com Inc., based in San Mateo, Calif., says that innovation “has a bad name in down times” but that “bad times focus the mind and the best-focused minds in the down times are looking for the opportunities.”

“You do have to batten down the hatches and reduce expenses, but you can’t do it at the expense of the big picture,” Mr. Thompson adds. “You always have to keep in mind the bigger picture that’s coming down the road in two or three years.

“The last thing you want to do with innovation is just throw money at it. It’s a very tricky balance.”

In fact, hard times can be the source of innovative inspiration, says Chris Shipley, a technology analyst and executive producer of the DEMO conferences, where new ideas make their debuts. “Some of the best products and services come out of some of the worst times,” she says. In the early 1990s, tens of millions of dollars had gone down the drain in a futile effort to develop “pen computing” — an early phase of mobile computing — and a recession was shriveling the economic outlook.

Yet the tiny Palm Computing managed to revitalize the entire industry in a matter of months by transforming itself overnight from a software maker into a hardware company.

“Our biggest challenge right now is fear,” she says. “The worst thing that a company can do right now is go into hibernation, into duck-and-cover. If you just sit on your backside and wait for things to get better, they’re not going to. They’re going to get better for somebody, but not necessarily for you.”

HOWARD LIEBERMAN, also a serial entrepreneur and founder of the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute, says innovation breeds effectiveness. It’s not about efficiency, he argues. “Efficiency is for bean counters,” he says. “It’s not for C.E.O.’s or inventors or founders.”

The current economic downturn comes as no surprise to him, he says, because it mirrors the downturn at the time of the dot-com bust. Then and now, the companies that survive are those that keep creativity and innovation foremost.

“Creativity doesn’t care about economic downturns,” Mr. Lieberman says. “In the middle of the 1970s, when we were having a big economic downturn, both Apple and Microsoft were founded. Creative people don’t care about the time or the season or the state of the economy; they just go out and do their thing.”

Janet Rae-Dupree writes about science and emerging technology in Silicon Valley.

THOUGHT-LEADERS: Surrender to Open-Sourced, Self-Organizing (ORGANIC), Generative Alignment to Purpose

The Characteristics of "FLOW" Employed in the Accomplishment of Meaningful WORKS!

University Research Corridor (URC) Conference October 2007 Report-Out October 2008

An Insightful Primer on the Importance of our NSF ITEST Grant role as liaison to Industry, Business and Government

Create the right skill sets through professional co-op

Is the United States producing the right skills sets in preparing innovators and engineers?

“It’s been a topic of interest for some time,” says Kettering University Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Michael Harris.

The results of a national survey of employers’ ratings of the abilities of recent grads in 12 specific skill areas indicated that employers are not giving high marks to the skills of graduates either. The survey, conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the American Association of College and Universities, asked employers to rate new hires in the skills that represent a growing consensus regarding the abilities necessary to succeed in the 21st Century workforce.

Harris said of the employers surveyed in the AACU survey, 83 percent said that they would like to see evidence of graduates’ ability to apply college to a “real-world setting” through faculty assessments of internship projects and community-based work. The Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology has recognized this challenge and has begun to take steps in addressing this need for change. The new ABET standards, known as EC2000, ask programs to set clear educational objectives, to collaborate with industry, to conduct outcomes assessment and feed data from these assessments back into the program for continuous improvement.

“The challenge we face is further increased as a result of the downsizing of manufacturing operations in some of our largest corporations, coupled with the offshore movement of low­-skilled jobs,” Harris said. “This has created a public misconception that technical fields like engineering, and even the sciences, are no longer good areas for intellectual and career pursuit thus contributing to the very real decline in students seeking engineering degrees. Ironically, the same corporations that are downsizing are also experiencing unprecedented shortages of the workforce skills necessary to carry out their product strategies globally.”

Harris said the challenge requires a different educational paradigm and close collaboration between higher education and business and industry.

“Kettering University offers a learning model that combines two distinct learning environments -- an on-campus academic experience and a cooperative education work experience -- where students gain knowledge and skills relevant to working and living in a complex world," Harris said. "A Kettering education combines cutting-edge theory and practical application. The co-op experience is a transformative process through which students become increasingly acclimated and socialized to the corporate environment as they increase their knowledge-base and theoretical understanding of their discipline.”

Co-op education at Kettering, with more than 600 co-op sponsors, provides the opportunity for employers to take part in that transformative process and create the new hires they seek. “We can do so by increasing the cooperation and coalition building between higher education and industry, working together toward a common goal,” Harris added.

To read more about Kettering’s co-op program, visit www.kettering.edu.

The ARE THEY REALLY READY TO WORK Report Survey http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/documents/FINAL_REPORT_PDF09-29-06.pdf

GOVERNOR CALLS for EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTIONARIES (EDULUTIONARIES)

Summit deals with 20,000 dropouts a year in Michigan

Goal: Ways to keep students in school

LORI HIGGINS • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • October 21, 2008

LANSING -- As economist Andrew Sum pointed out the wide gap between lifetime earnings for high school dropouts and those who've received a diploma or college degree, he told the audience the numbers should be sobering.

"When you look at these results, you ought to tremble," said Sum, professor of economics and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

But any of the statistics Sum displayed on an overhead projector during a half-hour talk at Monday's Michigan Dropout Prevention Summit in Lansing could have caused a similar reaction. Dropouts, he said, are more likely to live in poverty, earn substantially lower pay and be incarcerated.

And Michigan, he said, is harder hit by the nation's dropout crisis because of the deindustrialization of the state and the disappearance of the kinds of jobs that years ago allowed dropouts to still make good money.

"Michigan used to have among the most well-paid dropouts," Sum said.

The all-day summit was organized by a cadre of organizations to tackle the state's dropout crisis, in which more than 20,000 high school students abandon their education each year.

The summit is a culmination of about six months of work, including 11 hearings held across the state in which parents, educators, students and others discussed the crisis. The summit goal: come up with solutions that work for keeping kids in school.

Early in the day, Gov. Jennifer Granholm urged participants to become "educational revolutionaries."

"For those kids that drop out, that's a 100% failure. There is no question ... we have to be committed to changing the status quo."

She encouraged participants to be willing to "rewrite the rules for those kids," which the current system is not working for.

But Granholm said she doesn't want to see the state's tough new graduation requirements -- which some say could lead to more dropouts -- softened in response.

Participants heard from a panel of students, most of whom had dropped out of school at one point. Among them was Robert Olivarez, 16, of Lansing, who described growing up with a mother who was in and out of jail. He experimented with drugs and alcohol, dropped out of school and found himself going down the wrong path until he talked to a cousin who had enrolled in the Michigan Youth Challenge Academy, a military-type school in Battle Creek that helps kids get caught up while focusing on infusing discipline and structure in their lives.

Before he entered the program, he had a 0.2 grade point average. Now, his GPA is up to 3.7.

"They helped me get my education," Robert said.

The students were asked, in one word, what youth like them need.

Responses ranged from "respect" to "love" to being noticed.

"Support is key," Robert said.

Contact LORI HIGGINS at 248-351-3694 or lhiggins@freepress.com.

AIM FIT!

Featured Partner: Friends of Detroit & Tri-County (Club Technology)