21st Century Digital Learning Environments (Just WHAT the Doctor Ordered)

Students, teachers brace for new reality

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY and LORI HIGGINS FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITERS

   When the school buses roll this morning, it will be the beginning of a crucial year for Michigan because stringent, systemic changes are headed to all 800 school districts and charter schools.

   A financial crisis means many students will head back to schools where class sizes are larger, programs have been cut, their favorite teacher may have been laid off and where services are being privatized. Some children may have to walk farther to catch the bus — if bus service is offered at all. Some are paying more to participate in sports and other extracurricular activities.

   Some teachers have taken pay cuts and are paying more for health insurance. All are faced with higher standards under a new evaluation system whereby student test scores will soon weigh significantly in their performance evaluations.

   And, this year, it will be harder to earn a passing score on the MEAP test and Michigan Merit Exam.

   “We need to do a better job getting all students prepared for 21st-Century careers,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan. “Recent reforms, combined with those under consideration, will transform the way teachers instruct, students learn and schools perform.”

Budget cuts cloud 1st day for students

New schools are opening in Detroit

By LORI HIGGINS and CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITERS

   This school year is expected to bring the kind of change that marks the start of a new era — with widespread budget cuts that will be felt in the classroom and parents’ wallets, legislative changes that have teachers feeling demoralized, a more intense focus on the worst-performing schools and several new schools opening in Detroit.

   “There’s a lot going on at every level,” said Judy Pritchett, chief academic officer for the Macomb Intermediate School District. It’s the kind of transformative change happening in one year that Pritchett has never seen before.

   Much of it is bringing anxiety, but Pritchett said despite that, she expects school staff to walk into buildings today for the first day of school with renewed excitement.

   “Those kids are going to come … and all those rituals and traditions we go through — that’s exciting. The staff will be there, and they’ll be waiting.”

   But the journey to the beginning of the 2011-12 school year hasn’t been easy.Teachers in many districts are heading back to the classroom making less money and digging deeper to pay for health insurance. The challenges have attracted the attention of Randi Weingarten, the national president of the American Federation of Teachers, who will be in Detroit today to tour schools and meet with officials. In Detroit Public Schools, unions are fighting a 10% pay cut imposed on employees by the state-appointed emergency manager, Roy Roberts.

   The financial pinch also will be felt in Northville Public Schools, where teachers agreed last month to an overall wage cut of 4% and where the average teacher will go from paying $350 annually for health care to paying $3,500.

   The contract will mean sacrifices all around to maintain the quality of the school district, said Nick Nugent, a middle school math teacher and president of the Northville Education Association.

   “People are going to have to rework their family budgets … just like every other family has had to do in the metro area,” he said.

   Cuts and sweeping changes to the state’s teacher tenure laws — which make it easier to get rid of ineffective teachers, strengthened evaluation systems for teachers and principals and restricted unions from bargaining over some things — have left many teachers feeling put upon, said Doug Pratt, spokesman for the Michigan Education Association.

   “They feel so attacked and vilified,” Pratt said. “It’s sad because this is normally the time of the year that educators look forward to every year. It’s a new beginning.”

   Kids are heading back to classes that will be more crowded than ever, Pritchett said.

   “Will it be off the wall — with 30, 40, 50 kids in a classroom? That’s an individual issue with districts. But generally they’re going to see class sizes increase,” Pritchett said.

   The budget crunch won’t end there. Many districts that didn’t have pay-to-play fees for students who participate in athletics and some other extracurriculars have instituted those fees. Some districts increased the fees.

   Busing took a hit, too.

   More districts outsourced busing service to private firms. And some cut back on the amount of busing they offer. Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, for instance, cut noon busing for kindergarten students.

   The impact? Parents have to pick their kids up from morning kindergarten classes, or get their kids to school for afternoon kindergarten classes. The move saved the district nearly $500,000, Jim Larson-Shidler, assistant superintendent for business services for the Plymouth-Canton district, said recently.

   In an effort to hold onto students and funding, Detroit Public Schools has allowed parents for the past several years to send their children to any school they wanted.

   Not this year.

   Parents who want to transfer their students from one building to another within DPS will find that they have to stay put through the first week of October. DPS is requiring students to attend their neighborhood school or stay in their current school.

   DPS is losing thousands of students each year — 100,000 in the last decade — and that has left officials scrambling to shift teachers each fall to school buildings where they are more needed. If everyone stays put, it will be easier to assign teachers and track students for the Oct. 5 statewide student count day, said Karen Ridgeway, the DPS interim superintendent. “We need to stabilize the enrollment,” Ridgeway said.

   The student enrollments at schools statewide on that day will determine 90% of each district’s state aid per-pupil funding for the year, up from 75% in past years.

   Skeptics predict the change could push parents away from DPS.

   “When you make it difficult for a parent to get a child into a school, they’re going to take their kids elsewhere,” said Annie Carter, vice president of the Detroit school board. “You’re saying to some parents their child has to stay in a failing school. This can end up in court.”

   Three new high schools will open today in Detroit that were launched with the help of grants from Michigan Future a nonprofit organization — Detroit Collegiate Prep and Ben Carson School of Science and Medicine in DPS and the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, a charter school.

   Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, said the group will announce this month three more high schools that will open in 2012. “At least at the high school level, Detroit parents are actively looking for alternatives,” he said.

   DPS is unveiling some improvements designed to make the district more attractive. For instance, today is the largest rollout of construction under the $500.5-million DPS bond with 10 new and renovated buildings opening. DPS also will become the first in the nation to use an airport-style concealed weapons detection system in all its high schools.

   And for the first time, parents will be able to access student assignments, attendance records, textbooks and other information via an online database.

   “If anyone believes that the new Detroit Public Schools will operate like the old, you will see otherwise this year,” Roberts said.

2011 2010 Commencement Challenge (Winners)

Detroit Collegiate Prep

Detroit Collegiate Prep High School Accepting 9th Grade Applications Detroit Collegiate Prep High School (DCPHS) is an exciting new, DPS college preparatory high school in Detroit opening for the 2011-12 school year with its inaugural 9th grade class of 162 students!  A collaboration between DPS, Michigan Future and Diplomas Now, DCPHS partners with City Year Detroit, Communities in Schools of Detroit and utilizes John Hopkins University's (JHU’s) award winning “Talent Development” curriculum model.  DCPHS is open to any student eligible for 9th grade and offers each of them a unique college preparatory high school environment, enriched with positive role models, mentoring and support services geared toward life success in college and beyond. Detroit Collegiate Prep will open for the 2011-2012 school year as a DPS "priority school," built on the “small high school” model, eventually enrolling approximately 500 total students in grades 9-12.   It will be located at the newly renovated Northwestern High School building's east wing at 2200 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit 48208, complete with its own Detroit Collegiate Prep building entrance, principal and staff, classrooms, mentors, tutors and after school program. DCPHS offers students and their families: Small Class Sizes/small high school model: A student: staff ratio of 8:1* and a maximum class size of 27 allow for a highly personalized, nurturing environment where positive 1:1 relationships and mentoring can thrive. Accelerated College Prep Curriculum: Every student engages in a college preparatory curriculumthat includes an accelerated math and reading curricula designed by Johns Hopkins University to ensure that all students can succeed in college prep math and English classes, the basis for success throughout college years. More Academic Classes: A block schedule allowing students to focus on 4 courses at a time and take 8 additional academic courses over their 4 years in high school (32 courses vs. 28 on a traditional schedule). Mentors: A team of City Year young adult corps members will serve as full time "near peer" mentorsby providing additional academic, mentoring, tutoring and social support, serving as positive role models for all students. Enrichment Programs: A wide range of individual support for the special needs of students, plus after school enrichment programs provided through Community in Schools of Detroit (CIS). Positive School Environment: A positive collaborative "whole school" environment that values the voice of students and their families. We want to engage teenagers and their families in building our school traditions, celebrating our successes and creating a bright future for every DCPHS student! *11 DPS and JHU staff members, a team of 7-8 full time young adult City Year corps members and a CISSocial Worker (MSW) for the 9th grade class. We still have several 9th grade spaces left to enroll for our Inaugural 2011-2012 School Year – the high school graduating class of 2015!!  If you will be a 9th grader this year or know of a student or family who would like more information on DCPHS, please have them call us at: (313) 899-7370 or visit our website at http://www.diplomasnowdetroit.org  Piloted in Philadelphia, the Diplomas Now model that will shape Detroit Collegiate Prep is currently running in schools in Detroit, Los Angeles, New Orleans, San Antonio, Chicago and Philadelphia, with commitments for expansion from additional districts this upcoming school year. Diplomas Now Feltonville Full-Year Pilot Results The Feltonville School of Arts & Sciences, a high poverty 750-student public school in Philadelphia, was the national demonstration site for Diplomas Now Students made dramatic improvement in the three researched-proven “early warning indicators” of dropping out:  Attendance, Behavior and Course performance in math & English (see below) 4,500 instructional hours were regained through reduced suspensions The school met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for the first time Also visit:  www.cityyear.org/diplomasnow or www.diplomasnow.org or http://michiganfuture.org/schools/2010-11-schools/ for further results and information on the Diplomas Now model of DCPHS.

City Year unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service, giving them the skills and opportunities to change the world. In communities across the United States and through two international affiliates, these diverse young leaders help turn around high-need schools and get at-risk students back on track to graduation by working to improve their attendance, behavior and course performance. For more information, please visitcityyear.org. Founded in Boston in 1988, City Year has established programs in Boston; Chicago; Cleveland; Columbia, SC; Columbus, OH; Denver; Detroit; Little Rock/North Little Rock; Los Angeles; Louisiana: Baton Rouge; Louisiana: New Orleans; Miami; Milwaukee; New Hampshire; New York; Greater Philadelphia; Rhode Island; San Antonio; San Jose/Silicon Valley; Seattle/King County; and Washington, D.C.; and international affiliates in Johannesburg, South Africa and London, England. For more information, please visit www.cityyear.org/detroit.

"Any Time, Any Place, Any Way, Any Pace!" (Digital Learning Model)

Schools of Choice bill coming

Legislature likely to get proposal this week as foes from Detroit, suburbs gear for fight

By CECIL ANGEL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

   An education reform package that includes mandatory Schools of Choice and cyber schools could be introduced in the state Legislature as early as Wednesday, the chairman of the state Senate Education Committee said.

   “It’s a good possibility on Wednesday, the 24th, we’ll have part of the package ready for introduction,” said state Sen. Phil Pavlov, R-St. Clair Township.

   The education package also addresses charter school caps and school aid. The package is part of Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed “Any Time, Any Place, Any Way, Any Pace” public school learning model.

   Education Committee hearings on the package will begin Sept. 7, Pavlov said.

   Mandatory Schools of Choice is emerging as the most controversial part of the education package.

   Opposition is strong in the heavily Republican Grosse Pointes. In heavily Democratic Detroit, three legislators have said they are opposed to state-mandated Schools of Choice because, they said, it will negatively impact Detroit Public Schools.

   “I don’t want the state to help usher children from one community to another at the expense of the community where they are,” said state Sen. Bert Johnson, D-Highland Park, whose district includes the Grosse Pointes and part of Detroit.

   State Sen. Coleman A. Young II, D-Detroit, said every proposal out of Lansing that was supposed to help DPS has hurt it. He cited the 1999 state takeover that was supposed to improve the district academically.

   At the time, the district had 180,000 students, a $93-million fund balance and a $1.5-billion bond project. Under state control, DPS wound up with a $200-million deficit, he said.

   “I don’t think the state should be imposing another mandate on the city or any other city,” Young said.

   State Rep. Lisa Howze, D-Detroit, said mandatory Schools of Choice “would further impact DPS’s ability to stabilize.”

   Last week, the Grosse Pointe Woods City Council passed a resolution against mandated Schools of Choice.

   The Grosse Pointe Woods-based Michigan Communities For Local Control has set up a Web site at www.miclc.com   and is contacting other school districts to build opposition.

   Peter Spadafore, assistant director of government relations for the Michigan Association of School Boards, said the MASB has been talking with the Snyder administration and legislators about the bill.

   Based on the ongoing discussion, the bill likely will include “universal choice K-12 up to capacity. The problem is how to define capacity,” he said.

   Spadafore said the MASB is opposed to mandatory Schools of Choice. “We feel that decision should be made by the local school district,” he said. “By mandating Schools of Choice, it’s just a solution looking for a problem.”

21st Century Digital Learning Environments & Studios (2)

Models our Practice (Real-World Learning by Doing!)

Sunday: August 14, 2011 12:00PM to 2:00PM (Channel #4 MSNBC A Stronger America: "Making the Grade")

Clickondetroit.com
http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/28851709/index.html

21st Century Digital Learning Environments & Studios

WHEN is Less MORE?

ROBERTS OKS 10% PAY CUT AT DPS

Union contract change the 1st under new manager law

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

   A month after warning union workers that they would see a 10% wage cut next school year, Roy Roberts, the emergency manager for Detroit Public Schools, signed executive orders Friday that impose $81 million in wage concessions on workers starting in August.

   Union leaders called the new law an attempt to bust public unions and pledged to fight for their contracts in court.

   “I’m not taking this lying down,” said Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers.

   All 10,000 workers in the district — union and nonunion, including Roberts — will see a 10% cut in their paychecks starting Aug. 23. They will begin to pay 20% of health care benefits costs Sept. 1.

   The decision marks the first time that Public Act 4 of 2011 — the new emergency manager law — has been used to modify school employee collective bargaining agreements.

   The contract modifications and concessions are part of an effort to eliminate the district’s $327-million deficit, Roberts said in a written statement.

   “The No.1 priority is providing the children of Detroit Public Schools with a quality education. For that to happen, the school district must be financially sound,” he said.

   On Thursday, state Treasurer Andy Dillon gave Roberts the required permission to go ahead with the cuts. Gov. Rick Snyder, who appointed Roberts in May to run DPS, also expressed support for the decision.

Impasse cited in changes at DPS

Union plans to sue, says negotiation efforts lacking

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

   The state’s controversial emergency manager law is being used to impose cuts on Detroit Public Schools unions partly because of a negotiations impasse with workers, officials said Friday.

   DPS emergency manager Roy Roberts decided to modify the eight unions’ contracts after 45 meet-and-confer sessions with labor representatives, according to a statement released by DPS.

   However, union leaders said there were no real efforts to negotiate.

   “There was really no impasse because there was no back-and-forth,” said Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. “We were told, ‘I’ll get back to you.’ ”

   Johnson promised to file suit against the district in connection with an executive order Roberts signed Friday that modifies union contracts to help get $81.8 million in savings.

   As a result, all 10,000 workers in the district — union and nonunion — will see a 10% cut in their paychecks on Aug. 23 and will begin to pay 20% of health care benefits costs Sept. 1.

   The decision marks the first time that the state’s new emergency manager law — Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act, Public Act 4 of 2011 — has been used to modify collective bargaining agreements for school employees.

   The contract modifications are part of the effort to eliminate the district’s $327-million deficit, Roberts said.

   “We are in an extremely difficult financial period for Detroit Public Schools, requiring extreme measures,” Roberts said in a written statement.

   On Thursday, state Treasurer Andy Dillon gave Roberts permission to modify the union contracts. Dillon’s approval was required by law. Gov. Rick Snyder also supported the modification to the union contracts.

   In an e-mail Friday, Geralyn Lasher, a spokeswoman for Snyder, stressed the importance of providing DPS students a quality education and making the district financially sound.

   Ruby Newbold, president of the DPS secretaries union and the DPS Coalition of Unions, said, “Roberts is doing what he was sent here to do.”

   Unions agreed to millions in cuts, furlough days and concessions last year, and further cuts won’t bring DPS out of the red, she said.

   “There’s no way they can reduce the deficit with our salaries,” she said.

   The imposed concessions will take the place of previous concessions. Teachers will no longer have to defer $250 per paycheck for the Termination Incentive Plan that has helped address the district’s cash flow problems. Other cuts announced Friday will suspend teachers union bonuses, sick leave payouts and other measures.

   The wage and benefits concessions will affect everyone from teachers to principals and executive staff. Roberts’ $250,000-a-year salary is paid by the district and will also be subject to the 10% cut.

   Public Act 4 of 2011 allows the state-appointed emergency manager to modify or terminate a union contract after meeting and conferring with union representatives. Last month, when Roberts released the 2011-12 budget, he announced that he intended to impose the cuts.

   By law, the contract modifications will last until the state declaration of fiscal emergency in DPS is revoked.

   The lowest paid union workers will now earn at or near minimum wage, said Keith January, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 345, which represents about 1,400 DPS food service workers, technicians and bus attendants. The average worker in the union earns about $20,000 a year, January said.

   “These are the parents of the children in DPS that are being devastated,” he said.

   Union workers are part of a petition drive to repeal the emergency manager law through a ballot initiative.

   • CONTACT CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY:

   313-223-4537 OR CPRATT@ FREEPRESS  

   .COM  

ANDRE J. JACKSON/Detroit Free Press

   Roy Roberts’ $250,000 a year salary also will see a10% cut.

The Good Old Days (Today), A 21st Century Job AND That GIANT SUCKING Sound! (Hummed to the soundtrack of The GOOD, The BAD and the Brutally UGLY!)

Michigan must become a land of opportunity

   Dan Redford has gone from being a Michigan ambassador to one of its exports.

   A 2010 Michigan State University grad with degrees in international relations and Mandarin Chinese, Redford spent four months last year as one of 80 American students taking visitors through the U.S. pavilion at the huge World Expo in Shanghai. He returned to East Lansing to work on community-building projects among MSU’s 2,400 Chinese students and this month moved to Beijing, where he is working for a company that seeks out wealthy Chinese willing to invest in America in return for a green card.

   Unfortunately for Michigan, Redford’s employer is in Wisconsin, which will reap the benefits of his efforts.

   “It’s where the opportunity was,” Redford, 22, said in an interview from his home in Frankenmuth before he left for China. “I’ll always be a Michigan guy, but I’m representing southeast Wisconsin.”

   His company is FirstPathway Partners of Milwaukee, which pursues investments under the federal government’s 21-year-old EB5 visa program.

   Investment rewards

   An EB5 is an employment-based visa. Basically, the EB5 program offers permanent U.S. residency to foreign nationals and their immediate family members for an investment of at least $500,000 in a federally approved project that will create or retain 10 American jobs. The investor need not take an active role in managing the project. There are regional centers established as investment targets, generally areas of high unemployment. Michigan has five of them.

   Although the program seems a bit mercenary, it is attracting overseas capital to the U.S. — which still offers a standard of living with which most of the world cannot compete. And it’s a way of getting some Chinese money into the U.S. economy, although hardly enough to offset all the dollars we send their way for cheaply made consumer goods.

   “China’s economic boom has created a lot of high-net-worth individuals,” Redford said. “The people who are generally most interested in the EB5 have families that they want to get into the American education system. A lot of investors will do this program for their kids. The children don’t have to attend school in the state where the investment is made. The visa holder doesn’t even have to live there.”

   So, Redford says, while he’s trying to line up investments for Wisconsin, he hopes to be talking up Michigan, too, as a place to live and learn.

   But he has no timetable for coming back to Michigan himself. For an educated young man who prides himself on thinking “glocally” — that is, forging relationships with people from around the world to effect change in any community you care about, anywhere on Earth — Michigan is simply not the frontier.

   New horizons

   Redford is not entirely at ease in China.

   “I’ll never be Chinese,” he said. “I’m a 6-foot-5 white guy from Michigan. I was out for a run there once and even this little dog was staring at me as I went past. He knew I was different.

   “But I enjoy the adventure of China,” he said. “There is something new going on all the time. It’s an exciting place to be.”

   So Redford exemplifies a conundrum for Michigan.

   We support a university system that, as it should, encourages a world view and educates our young people to find their place in it.

   But we don’t yet have a world-class state that offers them an opportunity to use their newfound awareness at home. As a result, they leave — sometimes for China, but more often for any place that needs what they know and, as Redford put it, “is an exciting place to be.”

   If Michigan ever again becomes that kind of place — a bustling ball of energy where new ideas sprout like sunflowers and people embrace adventure — we can only hope our Dan Redfords find their way back.

   • RON DZWONKOWSKI IS ASSOCIATE EDITOR OF THE FREE PRESS. CONTACT HIM AT 313-222-6635 ORRDZWONKOWSKI   @FREEPRESS.COM  .

RON DZWONKOWSKI SAYS IT MUST DO MORE TO KEEP YOUNG MINDS FROM MOVING

G. L. KOHUTH

   Dan Redford is a Michigan State University grad working in China to lure investments to the U.S.