Posted: Monday, 05 May 2008 3:41PM
'Creative Economy' Firms Can Now Get State Tax Credits
Michigan's creative business community will get a boost as a result of Gov. Jennifer Granholm's signature on a series of bills that would make creative businesses eligible for state MEGA tax credits.
State officials say the bill, sponsored by State Sen. Jud Gilbert (R-Algonac), will have a significant impact on Southeast Michigan's efforts to develop creative economy jobs by broadening the definition of businesses eligible for MEGA credits to include those in the creative sector.
State Sens. Jason Allen (R-Traverse City) and Hansen Clarke (D-Detroit) played a vital role in the success of this legislation and lead the advocacy to include the creative businesses for the MEGA eligibility.
Creative businesses have been defined as:
*Architecture and design including architectural design, graphic design, interior design, fashion design, and industrial design
* Digital media including Internet publishing and broadcasting, video gaming, Web development, entertainment technology
* Advertising and marketing firms including advertising and marketing agencies,public relations agencies, and display advertising* Music production including record production and development, soundrecording studios, and integrated high-tech record production and distribution
* Film and video including motion picture and video production and distribution, postproduction services, and teleproduction and production services
Businesses meeting these criteria will be eligible for high-tech or high-wage MEGA credits which are credits against the Michigan Business Tax. A high-wage business is a business that has an average wage of 300 percent or more of the federal minimum wage.
The bills take immediate effect.
"In this new economy based on innovation and globalization, progressive leaders recognize that creativity now drives global competitiveness," said Doug Rothwell, president of Detroit Renaissance, lead advocates for amending the bill to include the creative sector.
"Those communities that can develop and sustain an environment in which its creative talent can thrive will be able to most effectively drive economic development success -- both because of job growth in specific creative industries and because communities with a dynamic, creative soul attracthigh impact employers and talented, skilled employees."
Added James C. Epolito, president and CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corp.: "These incentives will encourage creative business enterprises to consider Michigan and bring new opportunities to attract new media and advertising companies to locate in our state. We now can promise our most talented writers, film-makers and artists new job opportunities that were previously only available elsewhere."
Rothwell noted that globally, creative industries are estimated to account for more than 7 percent of world GDP and the annual growth of the creative industries is twice that of the service industries and four times that of the manufacturing industries.
Developing Detroit's creative economy is one of the main recommendations of Detroit Renaissance's Road to Renaissance, a plan to transform Southeast Michigan's economy.
More at http://www.detroitrenaissance.com/.
© MMVIII WWJ Radio, All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Saturday, May 03, 2008
AIM to DOUBLE-DOWN on our STEM ITEST Grant Work!
Fri, May 02, 2008
Summit: Save STEM or watch America fail
At current rates of investment in STEM research and education, America is losing its competitive edge, panelists warn
By Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor, eSchool News
Panelists say awareness is not enough and that the U.S. needs to take action.
Two years after a report called "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" warned that the United States is falling behind in math and science education, endangering America's competitiveness in the global economy, education leaders, lawmakers, and cabinet members met for a national summit in Washington, D.C., to discuss what progress--if any--has been made in closing the gap. Their verdict: The U.S. needs to make a greater investment in critical math, science, and research programs for these efforts to succeed.
In the two years since the National Academies issued its "Gathering Storm" report, Congress passed a bill called the America COMPETES Act, which outlined measures to improve math and science research and education. The legislation called for expanding science research by doubling the basic research budgets for the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, and the Department of Defense. It also created programs to hire and train more highly qualified math and science teachers and increase the number of Advanced Placement (AP) classes in underprivileged schools.
But the bill was only an authorization, not an appropriation, and lawmakers failed to fund many of these programs in the 2008 federal budget. (See "Final 2008 budget a mixed bag for schools.")
Though Congress passed many of the measures recommended by the "Gathering Storm" report, "we're [just] now in the process of passing appropriations to support those actions," acknowledged Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology.
"Authorizations are not enough," agreed Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. "We won't get anywhere without funding."
Private-sector funding from Exxon Mobil, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation has supported the creation of a project called the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI). In its first year, NMSI rolled out grants to launch AP Training and Incentive programs in seven states, as well as replicate a math and science teacher-training program called UTeach at 13 universities. (See "Schools aim to solve huge math problem.") But summit panelists said the federal government needs to step up its support for these kinds of initiatives, too.
Panelists cited many examples of success, such as the largest initial public offering in history and the launch of a new research university with a day-one endowment of $10 billion (equal to what it took MIT 142 years to accumulate).
Trouble is, these accomplishments are happening in China and Saudi Arabia, respectively--not in the United States. In fact, in spite of bipartisan agreement on the need to improve student achievement in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] disciplines, little has been done in the U.S.
In a recent op-ed piece published in advance of the summit, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, had this to say: "We are starting to see the consequences of our neglect in STEM. China has surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest exporter of information-technology products--and the U.S. has become a net importer of those products. We must redouble our efforts to ensure that America is the world's technological leader in the 21st century."
Even so, federal funding has not increased, according to reports from Tapping America's Potential and the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation. Basic research funding at federal agencies has not increased, and some programs have been cut. The research and development tax credit has not been made permanent and has been allowed to expire.
In addition, policy makers have not been able to agree on visa and permanent resident green-card reform for highly educated professionals.
G. Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said nothing has really happened in the last two years to advance the goals of the "Gathering Storm" report. Declared Clough: "Our momentum has not only slowed--it's reversed."
Craig Barrett, chairman of the board at Intel Corp., condemned the shortsightedness of politicians and elected officials. "Unless you're a short-term program during an election [season], you won't get funding," he said. "We're not investing in the future; we're not looking forward, because we have this sense of entitlement."
"Churchill said that you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else," said Norman Augustine, CEO emeritus of Lockheed Martin. "Our nation's leaders need to follow through on their bipartisan effort in the America COMPETES Act and fund improvements to math and science education. Otherwise, our nation's greatest export is likely to be our jobs and our standard of living."
Sally Ride, chief executive officer of Sally Ride Science and the nation's first female astronaut, said it takes a long time to build a new foundation. "It reminds me of that Road Runner cartoon where the coyote keeps chasing after the road runner, and he keeps running and running until he realizes he's off the cliff and loses his footing. That's us right now," she explained.
Ride said she believes not enough people, especially parents and students, understand how important it is to take an interest in science. She cited a report from Public Agenda, titled "Important, But Not for Me: Parents and Students in Kansas and Missouri Talk About Math, Science, and Technology Education," which found that even though parents and students say they understand the importance of STEM education, they don't see how it applies to them personally.
Charles Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering and former president of MIT, believes Americans are simply too comfortable and are riding out the momentum gained by the rise of STEM education in the 1950s and 60s.
"The enemy I fear most is complacency," said Vest. "The science and engineering talent, tools, and research required to prosper and be a world leader in this century do not grow on trees. We urgently need to invest in people and knowledge and create well-paying jobs. We must again be the ‘can do' nation--building a strong, competitive economy and meeting the challenges of energy, security, healthcare, and global change."
Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., said he believes the U.S. is falling behind in STEM education because Americans "value the fruits of science, but they don't know where they come from. That's why we're currently under-investing in R&D in every sector. It's a result of the 1950s, where we had a bimodal population. We basically told people: ‘If you're not going to be a scientist, then don't bother studying science.'"
Wolf attributed the lack of appropriations to the state of the country's fiscal health. Because of the nation's $54 trillion debt, and with the dollar decreasing in value every day, America simply doesn't have the funds needed to support STEM programs or provide more for the National Science Foundation and NASA, he said.
"Every science program is under discretionary spending," said Wolf. "This needs to change; but how? Should the U.S. declare bankruptcy?"
For many panelists, boosting the federal investment in STEM-related research and education begins with creating a greater sense of urgency.
"The initial [Gathering Storm] report helped to start and maintain public focus," said Vest, "but now we must establish a sense of urgency, not just awareness."
Tom Luce, CEO of the National Math and Science Initiative, said the summit's goal is to help move the report from the playing field to the goal line.
"We're here to help implement strategies, not just talk about what the report says. It's more than just a report--it's an action plan that needs to be developed," said Luce.
According to Clough, Congress and the general population need to understand the link between this report and the economy. He said Americans need to care about the COMPETES Act and many other calls to action delivered by the report, because without STEM education, America won't be able to compete globally--causing a stagnation of median income and a lower standard of living.
"People at the state level get what's going on. We're just lacking the will at the national level," he said.
Concluded Vest: "Tell your representatives and senators--as well as your favorite presidential candidate--that funding math and science education, investing in basic research and development, and welcoming the best and brightest from around the world is the only way to guarantee that their children and grandchildren will enjoy the continuously rising standard of living that Americans have come to expect.
"America can't afford to wait while the rest of the world surges forward. The Cold War is over. Globalization and modernization are racing ahead, there are billions of new competitors in the economic race with the United States--and we are falling behind."
National Academies http://www.nationalacademies.org
Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/index.jhtml
National Math and Science Initiative http://www.nationalmathandscience.org
UTeach http://uteach.utexas.edu
Tapping America's Potential http://tap2015.org
Task Force on the Future of American Innovation http://www.futureofinnovation.org
Sally Ride on TechWatch http://www.eschoolnews.com/video-center/esn-techwatch/?i=53391;_hbguid=0f29fd65-c137-45d2-8967-f0ad7e1ee463
Summit: Save STEM or watch America fail
At current rates of investment in STEM research and education, America is losing its competitive edge, panelists warn
By Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor, eSchool News
Panelists say awareness is not enough and that the U.S. needs to take action.
Two years after a report called "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" warned that the United States is falling behind in math and science education, endangering America's competitiveness in the global economy, education leaders, lawmakers, and cabinet members met for a national summit in Washington, D.C., to discuss what progress--if any--has been made in closing the gap. Their verdict: The U.S. needs to make a greater investment in critical math, science, and research programs for these efforts to succeed.
In the two years since the National Academies issued its "Gathering Storm" report, Congress passed a bill called the America COMPETES Act, which outlined measures to improve math and science research and education. The legislation called for expanding science research by doubling the basic research budgets for the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, and the Department of Defense. It also created programs to hire and train more highly qualified math and science teachers and increase the number of Advanced Placement (AP) classes in underprivileged schools.
But the bill was only an authorization, not an appropriation, and lawmakers failed to fund many of these programs in the 2008 federal budget. (See "Final 2008 budget a mixed bag for schools.")
Though Congress passed many of the measures recommended by the "Gathering Storm" report, "we're [just] now in the process of passing appropriations to support those actions," acknowledged Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology.
"Authorizations are not enough," agreed Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. "We won't get anywhere without funding."
Private-sector funding from Exxon Mobil, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation has supported the creation of a project called the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI). In its first year, NMSI rolled out grants to launch AP Training and Incentive programs in seven states, as well as replicate a math and science teacher-training program called UTeach at 13 universities. (See "Schools aim to solve huge math problem.") But summit panelists said the federal government needs to step up its support for these kinds of initiatives, too.
Panelists cited many examples of success, such as the largest initial public offering in history and the launch of a new research university with a day-one endowment of $10 billion (equal to what it took MIT 142 years to accumulate).
Trouble is, these accomplishments are happening in China and Saudi Arabia, respectively--not in the United States. In fact, in spite of bipartisan agreement on the need to improve student achievement in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] disciplines, little has been done in the U.S.
In a recent op-ed piece published in advance of the summit, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, had this to say: "We are starting to see the consequences of our neglect in STEM. China has surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest exporter of information-technology products--and the U.S. has become a net importer of those products. We must redouble our efforts to ensure that America is the world's technological leader in the 21st century."
Even so, federal funding has not increased, according to reports from Tapping America's Potential and the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation. Basic research funding at federal agencies has not increased, and some programs have been cut. The research and development tax credit has not been made permanent and has been allowed to expire.
In addition, policy makers have not been able to agree on visa and permanent resident green-card reform for highly educated professionals.
G. Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said nothing has really happened in the last two years to advance the goals of the "Gathering Storm" report. Declared Clough: "Our momentum has not only slowed--it's reversed."
Craig Barrett, chairman of the board at Intel Corp., condemned the shortsightedness of politicians and elected officials. "Unless you're a short-term program during an election [season], you won't get funding," he said. "We're not investing in the future; we're not looking forward, because we have this sense of entitlement."
"Churchill said that you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else," said Norman Augustine, CEO emeritus of Lockheed Martin. "Our nation's leaders need to follow through on their bipartisan effort in the America COMPETES Act and fund improvements to math and science education. Otherwise, our nation's greatest export is likely to be our jobs and our standard of living."
Sally Ride, chief executive officer of Sally Ride Science and the nation's first female astronaut, said it takes a long time to build a new foundation. "It reminds me of that Road Runner cartoon where the coyote keeps chasing after the road runner, and he keeps running and running until he realizes he's off the cliff and loses his footing. That's us right now," she explained.
Ride said she believes not enough people, especially parents and students, understand how important it is to take an interest in science. She cited a report from Public Agenda, titled "Important, But Not for Me: Parents and Students in Kansas and Missouri Talk About Math, Science, and Technology Education," which found that even though parents and students say they understand the importance of STEM education, they don't see how it applies to them personally.
Charles Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering and former president of MIT, believes Americans are simply too comfortable and are riding out the momentum gained by the rise of STEM education in the 1950s and 60s.
"The enemy I fear most is complacency," said Vest. "The science and engineering talent, tools, and research required to prosper and be a world leader in this century do not grow on trees. We urgently need to invest in people and knowledge and create well-paying jobs. We must again be the ‘can do' nation--building a strong, competitive economy and meeting the challenges of energy, security, healthcare, and global change."
Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., said he believes the U.S. is falling behind in STEM education because Americans "value the fruits of science, but they don't know where they come from. That's why we're currently under-investing in R&D in every sector. It's a result of the 1950s, where we had a bimodal population. We basically told people: ‘If you're not going to be a scientist, then don't bother studying science.'"
Wolf attributed the lack of appropriations to the state of the country's fiscal health. Because of the nation's $54 trillion debt, and with the dollar decreasing in value every day, America simply doesn't have the funds needed to support STEM programs or provide more for the National Science Foundation and NASA, he said.
"Every science program is under discretionary spending," said Wolf. "This needs to change; but how? Should the U.S. declare bankruptcy?"
For many panelists, boosting the federal investment in STEM-related research and education begins with creating a greater sense of urgency.
"The initial [Gathering Storm] report helped to start and maintain public focus," said Vest, "but now we must establish a sense of urgency, not just awareness."
Tom Luce, CEO of the National Math and Science Initiative, said the summit's goal is to help move the report from the playing field to the goal line.
"We're here to help implement strategies, not just talk about what the report says. It's more than just a report--it's an action plan that needs to be developed," said Luce.
According to Clough, Congress and the general population need to understand the link between this report and the economy. He said Americans need to care about the COMPETES Act and many other calls to action delivered by the report, because without STEM education, America won't be able to compete globally--causing a stagnation of median income and a lower standard of living.
"People at the state level get what's going on. We're just lacking the will at the national level," he said.
Concluded Vest: "Tell your representatives and senators--as well as your favorite presidential candidate--that funding math and science education, investing in basic research and development, and welcoming the best and brightest from around the world is the only way to guarantee that their children and grandchildren will enjoy the continuously rising standard of living that Americans have come to expect.
"America can't afford to wait while the rest of the world surges forward. The Cold War is over. Globalization and modernization are racing ahead, there are billions of new competitors in the economic race with the United States--and we are falling behind."
National Academies http://www.nationalacademies.org
Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/index.jhtml
National Math and Science Initiative http://www.nationalmathandscience.org
UTeach http://uteach.utexas.edu
Tapping America's Potential http://tap2015.org
Task Force on the Future of American Innovation http://www.futureofinnovation.org
Sally Ride on TechWatch http://www.eschoolnews.com/video-center/esn-techwatch/?i=53391;_hbguid=0f29fd65-c137-45d2-8967-f0ad7e1ee463
Friday, May 02, 2008
Cognitive Educational Competitiveness Differentiator
May 2, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Cognitive Age
By DAVID BROOKS
If you go into a good library, you will find thousands of books on globalization. Some will laud it. Some will warn about its dangers. But they’ll agree that globalization is the chief process driving our age. Our lives are being transformed by the increasing movement of goods, people and capital across borders.
The globalization paradigm has led, in the political arena, to a certain historical narrative: There were once nation-states like the U.S. and the European powers, whose economies could be secured within borders. But now capital flows freely. Technology has leveled the playing field. Competition is global and fierce.
New dynamos like India and China threaten American dominance thanks to their cheap labor and manipulated currencies. Now, everything is made abroad. American manufacturing is in decline. The rest of the economy is threatened.
Hillary Clinton summarized the narrative this week: “They came for the steel companies and nobody said anything. They came for the auto companies and nobody said anything. They came for the office companies, people who did white-collar service jobs, and no one said anything. And they came for the professional jobs that could be outsourced, and nobody said anything.”
The globalization paradigm has turned out to be very convenient for politicians. It allows them to blame foreigners for economic woes. It allows them to pretend that by rewriting trade deals, they can assuage economic anxiety. It allows them to treat economic and social change as a great mercantilist competition, with various teams competing for global supremacy, and with politicians starring as the commanding generals.
But there’s a problem with the way the globalization paradigm has evolved. It doesn’t really explain most of what is happening in the world.
Globalization is real and important. It’s just not the central force driving economic change. Some Americans have seen their jobs shipped overseas, but global competition has accounted for a small share of job creation and destruction over the past few decades. Capital does indeed flow around the world. But as Pankaj Ghemawat of the Harvard Business School has observed, 90 percent of fixed investment around the world is domestic. Companies open plants overseas, but that’s mainly so their production facilities can be close to local markets.
Nor is the globalization paradigm even accurate when applied to manufacturing. Instead of fleeing to Asia, U.S. manufacturing output is up over recent decades. As Thomas Duesterberg of Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, a research firm, has pointed out, the U.S.’s share of global manufacturing output has actually increased slightly since 1980.
The chief force reshaping manufacturing is technological change (hastened by competition with other companies in Canada, Germany or down the street). Thanks to innovation, manufacturing productivity has doubled over two decades. Employers now require fewer but more highly skilled workers. Technological change affects China just as it does the America. William Overholt of the RAND Corporation has noted that between 1994 and 2004 the Chinese shed 25 million manufacturing jobs, 10 times more than the U.S.
The central process driving this is not globalization. It’s the skills revolution. We’re moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combining information. This is happening in localized and globalized sectors, and it would be happening even if you tore up every free trade deal ever inked.
The globalization paradigm emphasizes the fact that information can now travel 15,000 miles in an instant. But the most important part of information’s journey is the last few inches — the space between a person’s eyes or ears and the various regions of the brain. Does the individual have the capacity to understand the information? Does he or she have the training to exploit it? Are there cultural assumptions that distort the way it is perceived?
The globalization paradigm leads people to see economic development as a form of foreign policy, as a grand competition between nations and civilizations. These abstractions, called “the Chinese” or “the Indians,” are doing this or that. But the cognitive age paradigm emphasizes psychology, culture and pedagogy — the specific processes that foster learning. It emphasizes that different societies are being stressed in similar ways by increased demands on human capital. If you understand that you are living at the beginning of a cognitive age, you’re focusing on the real source of prosperity and understand that your anxiety is not being caused by a foreigner.
It’s not that globalization and the skills revolution are contradictory processes. But which paradigm you embrace determines which facts and remedies you emphasize. Politicians, especially Democratic ones, have fallen in love with the globalization paradigm. It’s time to move beyond it.
Op-Ed Columnist
The Cognitive Age
By DAVID BROOKS
If you go into a good library, you will find thousands of books on globalization. Some will laud it. Some will warn about its dangers. But they’ll agree that globalization is the chief process driving our age. Our lives are being transformed by the increasing movement of goods, people and capital across borders.
The globalization paradigm has led, in the political arena, to a certain historical narrative: There were once nation-states like the U.S. and the European powers, whose economies could be secured within borders. But now capital flows freely. Technology has leveled the playing field. Competition is global and fierce.
New dynamos like India and China threaten American dominance thanks to their cheap labor and manipulated currencies. Now, everything is made abroad. American manufacturing is in decline. The rest of the economy is threatened.
Hillary Clinton summarized the narrative this week: “They came for the steel companies and nobody said anything. They came for the auto companies and nobody said anything. They came for the office companies, people who did white-collar service jobs, and no one said anything. And they came for the professional jobs that could be outsourced, and nobody said anything.”
The globalization paradigm has turned out to be very convenient for politicians. It allows them to blame foreigners for economic woes. It allows them to pretend that by rewriting trade deals, they can assuage economic anxiety. It allows them to treat economic and social change as a great mercantilist competition, with various teams competing for global supremacy, and with politicians starring as the commanding generals.
But there’s a problem with the way the globalization paradigm has evolved. It doesn’t really explain most of what is happening in the world.
Globalization is real and important. It’s just not the central force driving economic change. Some Americans have seen their jobs shipped overseas, but global competition has accounted for a small share of job creation and destruction over the past few decades. Capital does indeed flow around the world. But as Pankaj Ghemawat of the Harvard Business School has observed, 90 percent of fixed investment around the world is domestic. Companies open plants overseas, but that’s mainly so their production facilities can be close to local markets.
Nor is the globalization paradigm even accurate when applied to manufacturing. Instead of fleeing to Asia, U.S. manufacturing output is up over recent decades. As Thomas Duesterberg of Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, a research firm, has pointed out, the U.S.’s share of global manufacturing output has actually increased slightly since 1980.
The chief force reshaping manufacturing is technological change (hastened by competition with other companies in Canada, Germany or down the street). Thanks to innovation, manufacturing productivity has doubled over two decades. Employers now require fewer but more highly skilled workers. Technological change affects China just as it does the America. William Overholt of the RAND Corporation has noted that between 1994 and 2004 the Chinese shed 25 million manufacturing jobs, 10 times more than the U.S.
The central process driving this is not globalization. It’s the skills revolution. We’re moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combining information. This is happening in localized and globalized sectors, and it would be happening even if you tore up every free trade deal ever inked.
The globalization paradigm emphasizes the fact that information can now travel 15,000 miles in an instant. But the most important part of information’s journey is the last few inches — the space between a person’s eyes or ears and the various regions of the brain. Does the individual have the capacity to understand the information? Does he or she have the training to exploit it? Are there cultural assumptions that distort the way it is perceived?
The globalization paradigm leads people to see economic development as a form of foreign policy, as a grand competition between nations and civilizations. These abstractions, called “the Chinese” or “the Indians,” are doing this or that. But the cognitive age paradigm emphasizes psychology, culture and pedagogy — the specific processes that foster learning. It emphasizes that different societies are being stressed in similar ways by increased demands on human capital. If you understand that you are living at the beginning of a cognitive age, you’re focusing on the real source of prosperity and understand that your anxiety is not being caused by a foreigner.
It’s not that globalization and the skills revolution are contradictory processes. But which paradigm you embrace determines which facts and remedies you emphasize. Politicians, especially Democratic ones, have fallen in love with the globalization paradigm. It’s time to move beyond it.
Reading First Initiative
An Initiative on Reading Is Rated Ineffective
President Bush’s $1 billion a year initiative to teach reading to low-income children has not helped improve their reading comprehension, according to a Department of Education report released on Thursday.
The program, known as Reading First, drew on some of Mr. Bush’s educational experiences as Texas governor, and at his insistence Congress included it in the federal No Child Left Behind legislation that passed by bipartisan majorities in 2001. It has been a subject of dispute almost ever since, however, with the Bush administration and some state officials characterizing the program as beneficial for young students, and Congressional Democrats and federal investigators criticizing conflict of interest among its top advisers.
“Reading First did not improve students’ reading comprehension,” concluded the report, which was mandated by Congress and carried out by the Department of Education’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences. “The program did not increase the percentages of students in grades one, two or three whose reading comprehension scores were at or above grade level.”
The study, “Reading First Impact Study: Interim Report,” analyzes the performance of students in 12 states who were in grades one to three during the 2004-5 and 2005-6 school years. It is to be followed early in 2009 with a final report that will analyze additional follow-up data, the institute’s director, Grover J. Whitehurst said.
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and President Bush have consistently extolled Reading First as a highly effective program. But last year, Congressional Democrats reduced financing for the program for this year by about 60 percent, to about $400 million from the $1 billion it had received in several previous years.
On Thursday, Ms. Spellings had no comment on the study. Amanda Farris, a deputy assistant secretary of education, said in a statement that Ms. Spellings planned to look at the study “to inform our efforts,” and would “look forward to reviewing the final report.”
Ms. Farris said that one of the consistent messages Ms. Spellings has heard from educators, principals and state administrators “is about the effectiveness of the Reading First program in their schools and their disappointment with Congress” for cutting its financing.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the education committee, and who has long criticized the program, said, “The Bush administration has put cronyism first and the reading skills of our children last, and this report shows the disturbing consequences.”
In 2006, John Higgins, the department’s inspector general, reported that federal officials and private contractors with ties to publishers had advised educators in several states to buy reading materials for the Reading First program from those publishers.
The Reading First director, Chris Doherty, resigned in 2006, days before the release of Mr. Higgins’s report, which disclosed a number of e-mail messages in which Mr. Doherty referred to contractors or educators who favored alternative curriculums seen as competitors to the Reading First approach as “dirtbags” who he said were “trying to crash our party.”
Thursday, May 01, 2008
AIM for STEM Center
Wednesday, 30 April 2008 7:47PM
Detroit Science Center Breaks Ground On School Addition
The Detroit Science Center, in collaboration with the Thompson Educational Foundation, broke ground Wednesday on an 80,000 square-foot addition to the museum that will house University Prep Science & Math Middle School, a public charter school that will serve 486 students.
Also included in the addition will be a new museum lobby, cafe, gift shop and group welcome center.
The partnership between the Detroit Science Center and University Prep Science & Math will provide a unique opportunity for students and teachers to combine classroom learning with hands-on exhibits, dynamic theater shows and in-depth museum programs on a daily basis.
UPSM plans to open a high school at another location in 2010.
The Thompson Foundation is funding the $15 million middle school construction project and will lease the building to UPSM for $1 per year under an agreement that requires the charter school system to graduate no fewer than 90 percent of its students and send no fewer than 90 percent on to college.
"Our goal at the Detroit Science Center is to inspire children to get excited about engineering, technology and science and to encourage them to pursue careers in those fields," said Kevin F. Prihod, president and CEO of the Detroit Science Center.
"It's a natural step in the evolution of the Detroit Science Center to be affiliated with a school where we can not only inspire these children on a daily basis, but see them apply that inspiration back in the classroom. We look forward to collaborating with the school's teachers and administration to create innovative learning opportunities for its students utilizing our hands-on exhibits, programs and theater shows."
Margaret Trimer-Hartley, superintendent of UPSM, said the partnership is giving families in Detroit and across the metropolitan area a one-of-a-kind opportunity to prepare youth for the science, technology, engineering and math careers of the knowledge economy.
"UPSM's mission is to prepare students to pursue STEM careers at highly selective colleges and universities," Trimer-Hartley said. "Our rigorous and exciting program has already proven to be a regional magnet, drawing a diverse group of families from the city as well as the surrounding suburbs."
Construction on the new addition is starting this month with a spring 2009 opening. It will be located on the north side of the Science Center building in an area formerly used for parking. The architect is Gunn Levine. The general contractor is DeMaria. Both companies are based in Detroit.
More at www.detroitsciencecenter.org.
UPSM is a public charter school affiliated with the highly successful University Prep Academy system of schools. University Prep schools are small and focused on providing rigor, relevance and strong relationships through personalized learning, small classes and community partnerships.
© MMVIII WWJ Radio, All Rights Reserved.
Detroit Science Center Breaks Ground On School Addition
The Detroit Science Center, in collaboration with the Thompson Educational Foundation, broke ground Wednesday on an 80,000 square-foot addition to the museum that will house University Prep Science & Math Middle School, a public charter school that will serve 486 students.
Also included in the addition will be a new museum lobby, cafe, gift shop and group welcome center.
The partnership between the Detroit Science Center and University Prep Science & Math will provide a unique opportunity for students and teachers to combine classroom learning with hands-on exhibits, dynamic theater shows and in-depth museum programs on a daily basis.
UPSM plans to open a high school at another location in 2010.
The Thompson Foundation is funding the $15 million middle school construction project and will lease the building to UPSM for $1 per year under an agreement that requires the charter school system to graduate no fewer than 90 percent of its students and send no fewer than 90 percent on to college.
"Our goal at the Detroit Science Center is to inspire children to get excited about engineering, technology and science and to encourage them to pursue careers in those fields," said Kevin F. Prihod, president and CEO of the Detroit Science Center.
"It's a natural step in the evolution of the Detroit Science Center to be affiliated with a school where we can not only inspire these children on a daily basis, but see them apply that inspiration back in the classroom. We look forward to collaborating with the school's teachers and administration to create innovative learning opportunities for its students utilizing our hands-on exhibits, programs and theater shows."
Margaret Trimer-Hartley, superintendent of UPSM, said the partnership is giving families in Detroit and across the metropolitan area a one-of-a-kind opportunity to prepare youth for the science, technology, engineering and math careers of the knowledge economy.
"UPSM's mission is to prepare students to pursue STEM careers at highly selective colleges and universities," Trimer-Hartley said. "Our rigorous and exciting program has already proven to be a regional magnet, drawing a diverse group of families from the city as well as the surrounding suburbs."
Construction on the new addition is starting this month with a spring 2009 opening. It will be located on the north side of the Science Center building in an area formerly used for parking. The architect is Gunn Levine. The general contractor is DeMaria. Both companies are based in Detroit.
More at www.detroitsciencecenter.org.
UPSM is a public charter school affiliated with the highly successful University Prep Academy system of schools. University Prep schools are small and focused on providing rigor, relevance and strong relationships through personalized learning, small classes and community partnerships.
© MMVIII WWJ Radio, All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Truth, Trust, Deeds!
Editorial
Honest Data on High School Dropouts
Published: April 28, 2008
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 was supposed to create clear, reliable data that told parents how local schools stacked up against schools elsewhere in the nation. It has not worked that way, thanks in part to timidity at the Department of Education, which initially allowed states to phony up even the most basic data on graduation rates. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings took a welcome step in the right direction by issuing new rules for how those rates are calculated.
By the 2012-13 school year, states will have to use the generally accepted way of computing their dropout rate. That means tracking students from the day they enter high school until the day they receive regular diplomas, counting as nongraduates those who leave without the diploma. This method was endorsed three years ago by the National Governors Association, which realized that accurate graduation rates were a vital indicator of how well the schools were doing.
Had the federal government led the way on this issue instead of waiting to see how the wind was blowing the country would already have built a sound data collection system.
Instead, we went through a period during which some states wrote off students who dropped out in grade 9, 10 or 11, which allowed them to report a bogus graduation rate based on the number of graduates who began the year in the senior class. Other states brightened a grim picture by including G.E.D. recipients, who were actually dropouts and should have been counted as such. Not surprisingly, the state-reported rates were nearly always higher than the estimates derived from the cumulative method.
It’s a relief to know that honest graduation rates are on the way.
Honest Data on High School Dropouts
Published: April 28, 2008
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 was supposed to create clear, reliable data that told parents how local schools stacked up against schools elsewhere in the nation. It has not worked that way, thanks in part to timidity at the Department of Education, which initially allowed states to phony up even the most basic data on graduation rates. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings took a welcome step in the right direction by issuing new rules for how those rates are calculated.
By the 2012-13 school year, states will have to use the generally accepted way of computing their dropout rate. That means tracking students from the day they enter high school until the day they receive regular diplomas, counting as nongraduates those who leave without the diploma. This method was endorsed three years ago by the National Governors Association, which realized that accurate graduation rates were a vital indicator of how well the schools were doing.
Had the federal government led the way on this issue instead of waiting to see how the wind was blowing the country would already have built a sound data collection system.
Instead, we went through a period during which some states wrote off students who dropped out in grade 9, 10 or 11, which allowed them to report a bogus graduation rate based on the number of graduates who began the year in the senior class. Other states brightened a grim picture by including G.E.D. recipients, who were actually dropouts and should have been counted as such. Not surprisingly, the state-reported rates were nearly always higher than the estimates derived from the cumulative method.
It’s a relief to know that honest graduation rates are on the way.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
District sees tech study as dire need
PUBLISHED: Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Pontiac school district sees tech study as dire need
By DIANA DILLABER MURRAY
Of The Oakland Press
Herrington Elementary students Candace Johnson (center) and Adonnis Loving use laptop computers on Tuesday, with guidance from teacher Michael Mickens.
The Oakland Press/DOUG BAUMANPONTIAC - Up-to-date technology is critical to the success of the Pontiac school district's five-year strategic plan to improve schools, district officials say.
That is why Interim Superintendent Calvin Cupidore called on the Oakland Schools intermediate district to do an assessment of the school district's existing technology. A report is expect- ed in the next few weeks.
"Technology is one of the linchpins of the whole plan," said Cupidore. "You are only as good as the technology support. It affects the whole aspect of our district."
Oakland Schools' review is designed to give a road map of enhancements that could benefit and enhance the technology department and delivery of services throughout the district, he said. "It is something that has been embraced by the board of education and the administration has initiated this for overall strategic planning," Cupidore said.
This is one of several projects Oakland Schools has initiated as part of what has become an ongoing partnership with the struggling Pontiac schools.
The technology assessment, like some other projects by intermediate district consultants, is being done at the expense of Oakland Schools. In other situations, the Pontiac school district has hired some Oakland Schools consultants on a temporary basis to help improve the district's services to students.
Additionally, Oakland Schools Superintendent Vickie Markavitch and her staff have been giving workshops to board members to help them improve governance, something Trustee Christopher Northcross said he appreciates.
"I'm excited about this particular operational review," Cupidore said. "And it will be even more exciting when we begin to implement more technology in our operations."
Cupidore said updating technology in the district would not only be good for students in the classroom, but would allow assessment data gathering to provide better instruction. Personnel development, accounting and financial reporting also would also be enhanced.
With new equipment and programs, all students will have the opportunity to learn to apply technology so they are prepared for a career when they complete school. It could also open up more communication between schools and parents, Cupidore added.
The goal for technology should be the same as the goal of the new curriculum - "The same from site to site and grade to grade," Cupidore said.
"Technology helps the teachers deliver effective curriculum and helps children learn a variety of subjects as well as how to use the technology and its real-world applications," Cupidore said.
"Look around and see what technology is used in career fields. It is all over. Everywhere you look, its application is felt.
"You've got to compete in a global world and it should be part of your development. You have to have it," Cupidore said.
Markavitch said the intermediate district serves all the county school districts.
"We have had other districts ask us to do an assessment of their technology systems. We've done human resource reviews and business office reviews and sometimes curriculum reviews," Markavitch said.
"We do this when a local district wants an outside view of how things are working. Sometimes we come in with our own people or we contract it out," sometime to retirees who are experts in those fields, she said.
"I believe our people started earlier this month and are working under the direction of Tammy Evans, director of Oakland Schools technology.
"It is a very comprehensive review," Markavitch said. "We will look at all the systems, infrastructure, equipment, training needs of personnel, business systems and whether they are integrated so they can speak to one another."
The team is also evaluating whether programs need upgrades or replacing.
Cupidore said the report will be part of the administration's strategy for the goal of technology development.
Coming up with funding to support development may not be easy. But Cupidore said under the plan, funds are going to be redirected to where they most help students in the classroom.
There are funds that district administrators can apply for to help with technology and officials hope to form some partnerships to get more computers in the classroom as well, said Cupidore.
He pointed to state Rep. Tim Melton's efforts to provide computers throughout the community where students can take advantage of them.
The district also plans to continue to apply for matching funds under a special program called E-Rate, which has helped the district pay for hard wiring and technical equipment.
According to the Web site www.schoolloop.com, the E-Rate program (Education Rate) was created under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which required telecommunications providers to give discounted services to schools and libraries.
The program has provided such discounts for telecommunication, Internet access and internal connections amounting to about $2.5 million nationwide annually. Cupidore said the district matches 15 percent of the cost.
Contact staff writer Diana Dillaber Murray at (248) 745-4638 or diana.dillaber@oakpress.com.
Pontiac school district sees tech study as dire need
By DIANA DILLABER MURRAY
Of The Oakland Press
Herrington Elementary students Candace Johnson (center) and Adonnis Loving use laptop computers on Tuesday, with guidance from teacher Michael Mickens.
The Oakland Press/DOUG BAUMANPONTIAC - Up-to-date technology is critical to the success of the Pontiac school district's five-year strategic plan to improve schools, district officials say.
That is why Interim Superintendent Calvin Cupidore called on the Oakland Schools intermediate district to do an assessment of the school district's existing technology. A report is expect- ed in the next few weeks.
"Technology is one of the linchpins of the whole plan," said Cupidore. "You are only as good as the technology support. It affects the whole aspect of our district."
Oakland Schools' review is designed to give a road map of enhancements that could benefit and enhance the technology department and delivery of services throughout the district, he said. "It is something that has been embraced by the board of education and the administration has initiated this for overall strategic planning," Cupidore said.
This is one of several projects Oakland Schools has initiated as part of what has become an ongoing partnership with the struggling Pontiac schools.
The technology assessment, like some other projects by intermediate district consultants, is being done at the expense of Oakland Schools. In other situations, the Pontiac school district has hired some Oakland Schools consultants on a temporary basis to help improve the district's services to students.
Additionally, Oakland Schools Superintendent Vickie Markavitch and her staff have been giving workshops to board members to help them improve governance, something Trustee Christopher Northcross said he appreciates.
"I'm excited about this particular operational review," Cupidore said. "And it will be even more exciting when we begin to implement more technology in our operations."
Cupidore said updating technology in the district would not only be good for students in the classroom, but would allow assessment data gathering to provide better instruction. Personnel development, accounting and financial reporting also would also be enhanced.
With new equipment and programs, all students will have the opportunity to learn to apply technology so they are prepared for a career when they complete school. It could also open up more communication between schools and parents, Cupidore added.
The goal for technology should be the same as the goal of the new curriculum - "The same from site to site and grade to grade," Cupidore said.
"Technology helps the teachers deliver effective curriculum and helps children learn a variety of subjects as well as how to use the technology and its real-world applications," Cupidore said.
"Look around and see what technology is used in career fields. It is all over. Everywhere you look, its application is felt.
"You've got to compete in a global world and it should be part of your development. You have to have it," Cupidore said.
Markavitch said the intermediate district serves all the county school districts.
"We have had other districts ask us to do an assessment of their technology systems. We've done human resource reviews and business office reviews and sometimes curriculum reviews," Markavitch said.
"We do this when a local district wants an outside view of how things are working. Sometimes we come in with our own people or we contract it out," sometime to retirees who are experts in those fields, she said.
"I believe our people started earlier this month and are working under the direction of Tammy Evans, director of Oakland Schools technology.
"It is a very comprehensive review," Markavitch said. "We will look at all the systems, infrastructure, equipment, training needs of personnel, business systems and whether they are integrated so they can speak to one another."
The team is also evaluating whether programs need upgrades or replacing.
Cupidore said the report will be part of the administration's strategy for the goal of technology development.
Coming up with funding to support development may not be easy. But Cupidore said under the plan, funds are going to be redirected to where they most help students in the classroom.
There are funds that district administrators can apply for to help with technology and officials hope to form some partnerships to get more computers in the classroom as well, said Cupidore.
He pointed to state Rep. Tim Melton's efforts to provide computers throughout the community where students can take advantage of them.
The district also plans to continue to apply for matching funds under a special program called E-Rate, which has helped the district pay for hard wiring and technical equipment.
According to the Web site www.schoolloop.com, the E-Rate program (Education Rate) was created under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which required telecommunications providers to give discounted services to schools and libraries.
The program has provided such discounts for telecommunication, Internet access and internal connections amounting to about $2.5 million nationwide annually. Cupidore said the district matches 15 percent of the cost.
Contact staff writer Diana Dillaber Murray at (248) 745-4638 or diana.dillaber@oakpress.com.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Living the Milestone! (Millstone?)
The New York Times
_____
April 25, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
A Nation at a Loss
By EDWARD B. FISKE
Durham, N.C.
TOMORROW is the 25th anniversary of “A Nation at Risk,” a remarkable document that became a milestone in the history of American education — albeit in ways that its creators neither planned, anticipated or even wanted.
In August 1981, Education Secretary T. H. Bell created a National Commission on Excellence in Education to examine, in the report’s words, “the widespread public perception that something is seriously remiss in our educational system.” Secretary Bell’s expectation, he later said, was that the report would paint a rosy picture of American education and correct all those widespread negative perceptions.
Instead, on April 26, 1983, the commission released a sweeping 65-page indictment of the quality of teaching and learning in American primary and secondary schools couched in a style of apocalyptic rhetoric rarely found in blue-ribbon commission reports.
“The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people,” it warned. “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
To his credit, Secretary Bell, a moderate Republican who had been hoping for some political relief from critics on his right, stood by these unexpected words from his commission — and thereby became the unwitting father of the modern school reform movement.
Secretary Bell’s boss, President Ronald Reagan, was also taken aback by “A Nation at Risk,” although for different reasons. He took office in 1981 with a three-fold agenda for education: abolishing the Department of Education, promoting tuition tax credits and vouchers and restoring voluntary prayer in the schools. Using the bully pulpit and purse of the federal government to promote “excellence” in teaching and learning was not on the list.
When members of the White House staff saw an early copy of “A Nation at Risk,” they were distressed to find no mention of their political agenda and threatened to cancel the ceremony in which the president would receive the first copy. Secretary Bell and commission members replied that such topics were at best tangential to their assigned topic of excellence in teaching and learning.
Eventually a compromise was reached. The president agreed to receive the commission and accept the first copy of “A Nation at Risk” at a White House ceremony, and he used his remarks to reaffirm his political objectives — none of which were mentioned in the report. Several members of the commission later confided that they left Washington that day in a depressed mood, convinced that they had been “used” and were destined to be ignored.
Then came the biggest twist of all. “A Nation at Risk” resonated with Americans, who seemingly agreed that there was indeed something “seriously remiss” in their schools. White House pollsters picked this up. The president began visiting schools all over the country, usually in the company of Secretary Bell, who until then, as head of a department scheduled for elimination, had never seen the inside of Air Force One.
The most important legacy of “A Nation at Risk” was to put the quality of education on the national political agenda — where it has remained ever since. The last 25 years have seen a succession of projects and movements aimed at increasing the quality of American primary and secondary schools: standards-based reform, the 1989 “education summit” that set six “national goals” for education, the push for school choice and, most recently, the No Child Left Behind legislation. Proponents of each have taken pains to portray themselves as the heirs of “A Nation at Risk.”
The apocalyptic rhetoric of the opening section of “A Nation at Risk” isn’t the only element of the report that has had a lasting impact. One of the main ideas enshrined in the document — that quality of schooling is directly linked to economic competitiveness — has also shaped the way Americans think about education. This particular theory, however, hasn’t been borne out by history.
In 1983, the causal connection between education and the economy seemed obvious. Americans were living in awe of the Japanese “economic miracle” and assumed that it was made possible by a school system whose students consistently routed ours on all those comparative international achievement tests. But then the Japanese economy soured — even though it still had the same education system — and we began asking ourselves another question: If American schools are so bad, why is our economy doing so well?
With the wisdom of hindsight, it is clear that the link between educational excellence and economic security is not as simple as “A Nation at Risk” made it seem. By the mid-1980s, policymakers in Japan, South Korea and Singapore were already beginning to complain that their educational systems focused too much on rote learning and memorization. They continue to envy American schools because they teach creativity and the problem-solving skills critical to prospering in the global economy.
Indeed, a consensus seems to be emerging among educational experts around the world that American schools operate within the context of an enabling environment — an open economy, strong legal and banking systems, an entrepreneurial culture — conducive to economic progress.
To put it bluntly, American students may not know as much as their counterparts around the Pacific Rim, but our society allows them to make better use of what they do know. The question now is whether this historic advantage will suffice at a time when knowledge of math, science and technology is becoming increasingly critical. Maybe we need both the enabling environment and more rigor in these areas.
But while the theory behind “A Nation at Risk” may no longer hold (mediocre education inevitably leads to a weak economy), the report’s desperate language may be more justified than ever, for American education is in turmoil.
Most troubling now are the numbers on educational attainment. One reason that the American economy was so dominant throughout the 20th century is that we provided more education to more citizens than other industrialized countries. “A Nation at Risk” noted with pride that American schools “now graduate 75 percent of our young people from high school.”
That figure has now dropped to less than 70 percent, and the United States, which used to lead the world in sending high school graduates on to higher education, has declined to fifth in the proportion of young adults who participate in higher education and is 16th out of 27 industrialized countries in the proportion who complete college, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
The striking thing about the performance of American students on international comparisons is not that, on average, they are in the middle of the pack — which was also true in 1983 — but that we have a disproportionate share of low-performing students. We are failing to provide nearly one-third of our young people with even the minimal education required to be functioning citizens and workers in a global economy.
This is particularly distressing news at a time when the baby boomers are aging and a growing proportion of the future work force comes from groups — members of ethnic and racial minorities, students from low-income families, recent immigrants — that have been ill served by our education system. The challenge today is to build access as well as excellence. That’s the new definition of “a nation a risk” — and ample reason for a new commission to awaken the nation to the need to educate all our young people.
Edward B. Fiske, a former Times education editor, is the author of the Fiske Guide to Colleges.
_____
April 25, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
A Nation at a Loss
By EDWARD B. FISKE
Durham, N.C.
TOMORROW is the 25th anniversary of “A Nation at Risk,” a remarkable document that became a milestone in the history of American education — albeit in ways that its creators neither planned, anticipated or even wanted.
In August 1981, Education Secretary T. H. Bell created a National Commission on Excellence in Education to examine, in the report’s words, “the widespread public perception that something is seriously remiss in our educational system.” Secretary Bell’s expectation, he later said, was that the report would paint a rosy picture of American education and correct all those widespread negative perceptions.
Instead, on April 26, 1983, the commission released a sweeping 65-page indictment of the quality of teaching and learning in American primary and secondary schools couched in a style of apocalyptic rhetoric rarely found in blue-ribbon commission reports.
“The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people,” it warned. “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
To his credit, Secretary Bell, a moderate Republican who had been hoping for some political relief from critics on his right, stood by these unexpected words from his commission — and thereby became the unwitting father of the modern school reform movement.
Secretary Bell’s boss, President Ronald Reagan, was also taken aback by “A Nation at Risk,” although for different reasons. He took office in 1981 with a three-fold agenda for education: abolishing the Department of Education, promoting tuition tax credits and vouchers and restoring voluntary prayer in the schools. Using the bully pulpit and purse of the federal government to promote “excellence” in teaching and learning was not on the list.
When members of the White House staff saw an early copy of “A Nation at Risk,” they were distressed to find no mention of their political agenda and threatened to cancel the ceremony in which the president would receive the first copy. Secretary Bell and commission members replied that such topics were at best tangential to their assigned topic of excellence in teaching and learning.
Eventually a compromise was reached. The president agreed to receive the commission and accept the first copy of “A Nation at Risk” at a White House ceremony, and he used his remarks to reaffirm his political objectives — none of which were mentioned in the report. Several members of the commission later confided that they left Washington that day in a depressed mood, convinced that they had been “used” and were destined to be ignored.
Then came the biggest twist of all. “A Nation at Risk” resonated with Americans, who seemingly agreed that there was indeed something “seriously remiss” in their schools. White House pollsters picked this up. The president began visiting schools all over the country, usually in the company of Secretary Bell, who until then, as head of a department scheduled for elimination, had never seen the inside of Air Force One.
The most important legacy of “A Nation at Risk” was to put the quality of education on the national political agenda — where it has remained ever since. The last 25 years have seen a succession of projects and movements aimed at increasing the quality of American primary and secondary schools: standards-based reform, the 1989 “education summit” that set six “national goals” for education, the push for school choice and, most recently, the No Child Left Behind legislation. Proponents of each have taken pains to portray themselves as the heirs of “A Nation at Risk.”
The apocalyptic rhetoric of the opening section of “A Nation at Risk” isn’t the only element of the report that has had a lasting impact. One of the main ideas enshrined in the document — that quality of schooling is directly linked to economic competitiveness — has also shaped the way Americans think about education. This particular theory, however, hasn’t been borne out by history.
In 1983, the causal connection between education and the economy seemed obvious. Americans were living in awe of the Japanese “economic miracle” and assumed that it was made possible by a school system whose students consistently routed ours on all those comparative international achievement tests. But then the Japanese economy soured — even though it still had the same education system — and we began asking ourselves another question: If American schools are so bad, why is our economy doing so well?
With the wisdom of hindsight, it is clear that the link between educational excellence and economic security is not as simple as “A Nation at Risk” made it seem. By the mid-1980s, policymakers in Japan, South Korea and Singapore were already beginning to complain that their educational systems focused too much on rote learning and memorization. They continue to envy American schools because they teach creativity and the problem-solving skills critical to prospering in the global economy.
Indeed, a consensus seems to be emerging among educational experts around the world that American schools operate within the context of an enabling environment — an open economy, strong legal and banking systems, an entrepreneurial culture — conducive to economic progress.
To put it bluntly, American students may not know as much as their counterparts around the Pacific Rim, but our society allows them to make better use of what they do know. The question now is whether this historic advantage will suffice at a time when knowledge of math, science and technology is becoming increasingly critical. Maybe we need both the enabling environment and more rigor in these areas.
But while the theory behind “A Nation at Risk” may no longer hold (mediocre education inevitably leads to a weak economy), the report’s desperate language may be more justified than ever, for American education is in turmoil.
Most troubling now are the numbers on educational attainment. One reason that the American economy was so dominant throughout the 20th century is that we provided more education to more citizens than other industrialized countries. “A Nation at Risk” noted with pride that American schools “now graduate 75 percent of our young people from high school.”
That figure has now dropped to less than 70 percent, and the United States, which used to lead the world in sending high school graduates on to higher education, has declined to fifth in the proportion of young adults who participate in higher education and is 16th out of 27 industrialized countries in the proportion who complete college, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
The striking thing about the performance of American students on international comparisons is not that, on average, they are in the middle of the pack — which was also true in 1983 — but that we have a disproportionate share of low-performing students. We are failing to provide nearly one-third of our young people with even the minimal education required to be functioning citizens and workers in a global economy.
This is particularly distressing news at a time when the baby boomers are aging and a growing proportion of the future work force comes from groups — members of ethnic and racial minorities, students from low-income families, recent immigrants — that have been ill served by our education system. The challenge today is to build access as well as excellence. That’s the new definition of “a nation a risk” — and ample reason for a new commission to awaken the nation to the need to educate all our young people.
Edward B. Fiske, a former Times education editor, is the author of the Fiske Guide to Colleges.
Summited!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
2-day summit tackles dropout prevention
Governor, state and business leaders discuss ways to get more kids to finish high school.
Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News
SOUTHFIELD -- Dashawn Parks, 14, was an excellent student until he hit middle school.
Depressed by the deaths of nearly a dozen family members in a year and a half, including two who were murdered, he started hanging with the wrong kind of kids. Before long, he was expelled from eighth grade at Detroit's Brenda Scott Middle School. Now, he's trying to get back in school.
Shaniqua Madison, 17, made the honor roll until she got to high school. She dropped out, and now she's pregnant. But she re-enrolled at Osborn High and hopes to graduate.
Parks and Madison told their stories to several hundred educators, state officials and business leaders Friday during a Dropout Prevention Summit at Lawrence Technical University in Southfield. The two-day summit kicked off Thursday with remarks from Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
"It's not acceptable to have a dropout rate where we're losing talent like a sieve out the bottom," Granholm said, noting that Michigan has lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000. "It's a moral imperative, but it's an economic imperative as well.
"We've got to fill that gap with jobs that we know aren't going to be outsourced. (Employers) aren't going to come if we don't have the talent."
The summit was hosted by United Way of Southeastern Michigan, the Skillman Foundation, the Detroit Parent Network and other nonprofits and businesses. It was funded by America's Promise Alliance, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that hopes to hold 50 such events nationwide, in urban areas with low graduation rates.
Studies peg Detroit Public Schools' graduation rate at from 25 percent to 32 percent, the lowest in the nation. A recent report by America's Promise Alliance found that fewer than half of the students graduate in 17 of the nation's large urban school districts, and 1.2 million drop out annually.
"This is the social justice issue of our day," said Mike Flanagan, state superintendent of public instruction. He says the students will be doomed "if we can't get them through high school and give them a meaningful diploma."
Edsel Ford III said the business community is behind efforts to improve the region's schools.
"I know in my heart that we are going to get a handle on this dropout problem," Ford said. "We have to, because the stakes are too high."
Pershing High School geometry teacher Sidney Lee said Parks and Madison are typical children in the Detroit Public Schools district.
"You have the pregnant girls," Lee said. "And the young men who all have had different degrees of tragedy that has had an impact on their behavior."
You can reach Karen Bouffard at (734) 462-2206 or kbouffard@detnews.com.
2-day summit tackles dropout prevention
Governor, state and business leaders discuss ways to get more kids to finish high school.
Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News
SOUTHFIELD -- Dashawn Parks, 14, was an excellent student until he hit middle school.
Depressed by the deaths of nearly a dozen family members in a year and a half, including two who were murdered, he started hanging with the wrong kind of kids. Before long, he was expelled from eighth grade at Detroit's Brenda Scott Middle School. Now, he's trying to get back in school.
Shaniqua Madison, 17, made the honor roll until she got to high school. She dropped out, and now she's pregnant. But she re-enrolled at Osborn High and hopes to graduate.
Parks and Madison told their stories to several hundred educators, state officials and business leaders Friday during a Dropout Prevention Summit at Lawrence Technical University in Southfield. The two-day summit kicked off Thursday with remarks from Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
"It's not acceptable to have a dropout rate where we're losing talent like a sieve out the bottom," Granholm said, noting that Michigan has lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000. "It's a moral imperative, but it's an economic imperative as well.
"We've got to fill that gap with jobs that we know aren't going to be outsourced. (Employers) aren't going to come if we don't have the talent."
The summit was hosted by United Way of Southeastern Michigan, the Skillman Foundation, the Detroit Parent Network and other nonprofits and businesses. It was funded by America's Promise Alliance, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that hopes to hold 50 such events nationwide, in urban areas with low graduation rates.
Studies peg Detroit Public Schools' graduation rate at from 25 percent to 32 percent, the lowest in the nation. A recent report by America's Promise Alliance found that fewer than half of the students graduate in 17 of the nation's large urban school districts, and 1.2 million drop out annually.
"This is the social justice issue of our day," said Mike Flanagan, state superintendent of public instruction. He says the students will be doomed "if we can't get them through high school and give them a meaningful diploma."
Edsel Ford III said the business community is behind efforts to improve the region's schools.
"I know in my heart that we are going to get a handle on this dropout problem," Ford said. "We have to, because the stakes are too high."
Pershing High School geometry teacher Sidney Lee said Parks and Madison are typical children in the Detroit Public Schools district.
"You have the pregnant girls," Lee said. "And the young men who all have had different degrees of tragedy that has had an impact on their behavior."
You can reach Karen Bouffard at (734) 462-2206 or kbouffard@detnews.com
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The Future of Children AND Digital Media and Learning
Children and Electronic Media
Volume 18 Number 1 Spring 2008
executive summary
CONTENTS
Introducing the Issue
view HTML version download PDF version
Trends in Media Use
view HTML version download PDF version
Media and Young Children's Learning
view HTML version download PDF version
Media and Attention, Cognition, and School Achievement
view HTML version download PDF version
Media and Children's Aggression, Fear, and Altruism
view HTML version download PDF version
Online Communication and Adolescent Relationships
view HTML version download PDF version
Media and Risky Behaviors
view HTML version download PDF version
Social Marketing Campaigns and Children's Media Use
view HTML version download PDF version
Children as Consumers: Advertising and Marketing
view HTML version download PDF version
Children's Media Policy
view HTML version download PDF version
Volume 18 Number 1 Spring 2008
executive summary
Download a full version of this journal issue
 | Volume 18 Number 1 Spring 2008 (1946K) [download] |
| | Policy Brief (306K) [download] |
| | Executive Summary (114K) [download] |
CONTENTS
Introducing the Issue
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn is the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development and Education at Teachers College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. Elisabeth Hirschhorn Donahue is associate editor of The Future of Children and a lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Trends in Media Use
Donald F. Roberts, the Thomas More Storke Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication at Stanford University, has spent more than thirty years conducting research and writing about youth and media. Ulla G. Foehr is a media research consultant specializing in children and media use behaviors.
Media and Young Children's Learning
Heather Kirkorian is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. Ellen Wartella is a professor, executive vice chancellor, and provost at the University of California–Riverside. Daniel Anderson is a professor at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst.
Media and Attention, Cognition, and School Achievement
Marie Evans Schmidt is a research associate at the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston. Elizabeth A. Vandewater is an associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas–Austin.
Media and Children's Aggression, Fear, and Altruism
Barbara J. Wilson is the Paul C. Friedland Professorial Scholar and head of the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is grateful to Kristin Drogos for her research assistance and to Craig Anderson and other participants at the Future of Children conference for their insightful comments.
Online Communication and Adolescent Relationships
Kaveri Subrahmanyam is a professor of psychology at California State University–Los Angeles, and associate director of the Children's Digital Media Center, UCLA/CSULA. Patricia Greenfield is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California–Los Angeles and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, UCLA/CSULA.
Media and Risky Behaviors
Soledad Liliana Escobar-Chaves is assistant professor of health promotion and behavioral sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Craig A. Anderson is director of the Center for the Study of Violence and distinguished professor of liberal arts and sciences in the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University.
Social Marketing Campaigns and Children's Media Use
W. Douglas Evans is vice president for public health and environment at RTI International.
Children as Consumers: Advertising and Marketing
Sandra L. Calvert is a professor and the chair of the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University. She is also the director of the Children's Digital Media Center.
Children's Media Policy
Amy B. Jordan is director of the Media and the Developing Child sector of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. She thanks Jordan Grossman and Katlin Esposito for research assistance, Angela Campbell for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript, and the participants at the Future of Children conference for their input and ideas.
AIM to GAME!
Students Want More Use of Gaming Technology in Schools
Results from annual survey reveal disconnect between students', adults' views on technology in schools
By News Report
Project Tomorrow's fifth annual Speak Up Survey -- which addresses the attitudes and opinions of K-12 students, teachers, parents and school administrators toward the use of technology in education -- reveals this year that online or electronic gaming is one of the technologies that students use most frequently, and that educational gaming is one of the emerging technologies that students would most like to see implemented in their schools. Yet, only one in 10 teachers has adopted gaming as an instructional tool.
Project Tomorrow collected the data through online surveys conducted last fall and verified the results through a series of focus groups and interviews with representative groups of students, educators and parents.
Project Tomorrow collected the data through online surveys conducted last fall and verified the results through a series of focus groups and interviews with representative groups of students, educators and parents.
During the past four years of the survey, the technology that students most wanted to see in their classrooms was a personal laptop for each student. For the first time this year, laptops for students also topped the list of teachers' and school leaders' most desired technologies.
However, this year's survey also reports that gaming is now listed by students as a classroom must-have.
In fact, 64 percent of students in grades K-12 say they play online or electronic-based games regularly. On average across all grade levels, students are playing electronic games about eight to 10 hours a week. More than 50 percent of students in grades three through 12 would like to see more educational gaming in their schools -- yet only 19 percent of parents and 15 percent of administrators favor the idea.
"What was really interesting to see in this year's survey is how the pervasiveness of gaming has really taken a stronghold," said Julie Evans, Project Tomorrow's chief executive. "Students are really articulating their interest in gaming, as well as the many benefits educational gaming can provide, such as helping them to learn difficult math concepts. Even the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics recognizes the huge potential for gaming technologies (in education)."
Just over half of the students surveyed (51 percent) said they're interested in educational gaming because games make it easier to understand difficult concepts. Fifty percent said gaming would make them more engaged in the subject, 46 percent said they would learn more about the subject, and 44 percent said it would be more interesting to use gaming when practicing math and science problems.
Yet, while more than 50 percent of teachers said they would be interested in learning more about integrating gaming technologies into their teaching and 46 percent would be interested in professional development on this topic, only 11 percent said they are currently incorporating some gaming into their instruction.
What's more, there seems to be a disconnect between what students want from their own education and what the adults in charge think is best.
According to the survey, students' frustration with school filters and firewalls has grown since 2003, with 45 percent of middle and high school students now saying that these tools designed to protect them inhibit their learning. And 40 percent of students in grades six through 12 cite their teacher as an obstacle to their use of technology in school.
As one high school student in a recent focus group told Project Tomorrow, his vision for the ultimate school is one where the teachers and the principal actively seek and regularly include the ideas of students in discussions and planning for all aspects of education -- not just technology.
"This is our future, after all," said the student. "Our ideas should count, too."
Click here for more of the latest news in education technology.
TECH TOWN JOB FAIR!
Posted: Wednesday, 23 April 2008 4:46AM TechTown Hosts Job Fair TODAY | ||
| Detroit (WWJ) -- WISH Detroit, a promotional and marketing campaign supporting people to Work Invest, and SHop in Detroit, is hosting the Second Annual Technology & Emerging Sectors Career Fair on April 23, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. "Today Michigan is working hard to attract new industries to the state in order to reduce our dependence on the automotive industry and TechTown epitomizes the new Michigan culture of diversified economy." said William Kaafarani, president of WISH Detroit, in a press release. | ||
| © MMVIII WWJ Radio, All Rights Reserved. |
URGENCY FACTOR? LARGE! AND CORRESPONDINGLY SO IS THE OPPORTUNTIY!
| Report: Michigan Leads Nation In Tech Job Loss |
| Michigan lost the largest number of tech jobs in the country in 2006, but still remained in the 10th spot having the most high-tech positions, according to a recently released survey.
Source: AeA |
| © MMVIII WWJ Radio, All Rights Reserved. |
ONE-D Dropout Prevention Summit
DETROIT
Changes to No Child unveiled
Education chief: Reforms aimed at boosting nation's graduation rates
BY LORI HIGGINS and CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITERS
April 23, 2008
Saying the U.S. can't afford to "waste so much human potential," the nation's top educator on Tuesday proposed requiring every state in the nation use the same formula to calculate high school graduation rates -- an action she said is necessary to grasp the seriousness of the dropout problem.
"We can't solve a problem until we diagnose what's wrong," U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said in a speech before the Detroit Economic Club at the Masonic Temple.
It was one of many policy changes to the federal No Child Left Behind law that Spellings announced -- changes that wouldn't go into effect until November, the waning days of President George W. Bush's administration.
Spellings also wants states and schools to be more transparent about free tutoring and the option of attending better schools for those attending failing schools. She also wants to require schools to use more federal funds to reach out to parents and for states to come up with stronger interventions for chronically failing schools.
The policy changes, which would be open for public comment for 60 days, "will give families lifelines and empower educators to create dramatic improvement," Spellings said.
But they also could penalize schools with graduation rates that are too low. In Michigan, for instance, schools with rates lower than 90% face sanctions that range in severity the longer they don't meet the goal.
Under her proposal, states would adopt a graduation rate formula proposed by the National Governors Association in 2005 and one which most states, including Michigan, then agreed to adopt. The formula looks at the number of students who enter high school in ninth grade compared with those who graduate four years later, but with adjustments made for transfers in and out of the school or district.
Schools would have until the 2012-13 school year to adopt the uniform formula. To date, only a handful of states have fully adopted the formula proposed by the governor's group. In August, Michigan will report graduation rate data for the Class of 2007 using the new formula, said Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Education.
Part of the delay is that states need a data system that would be able to track students from the time they enter high school until they leave.
"It's a more honest way of getting the information about the success rate of students in our schools," said David Maile, director of instructional services for Huron Valley Schools.
What makes some uncomfortable, Maile said, is that rates under this formula will likely be lower than what educators and parents in most schools are used to seeing.
"People are going to be discouraged," Maile said. But he said if the same formula had been used for decades, it would show the same lower rates.
Bill Zolkowski, principal at Thurston High School in the South Redford School District, said he's not sure a formula exists that would be accurate and useful, particularly for urban districts that see greater mobility among students.
"I don't know how any of us who teach poor children can find a graduation rate formula that will be instructive or informative, just because of the mobility," Zolkowski said.
Zolkowski said that while the new formula takes mobility into account, it doesn't factor in situations when a student leaves the state without informing the district and the new school doesn't request records. It's a situation that happens frequently and could have that student being counted as a dropout.
Schools were already required to meet graduation rate goals, but under the new rules would have to demonstrate substantial improvement in increasing their graduation rate. In addition, for the first time, the federal government would include the graduation rates of subgroups of students -- including minority and special education students -- in determining whether schools meet No Child Left Behind goals.
Currently, there is no uniform way of determining how many students graduate from high school. Each state uses a different formula. And national reports on graduation rates report strikingly different rates. Detroit Public Schools, for instance, reports a graduation rate of less than 70%. However, just two weeks ago, a national report put that rate at 25%, the lowest among the nation's big cities.
Spellings referenced that dismal rate in her speech, saying it's happening at a time when "we should be sending more students to college." She noted that 2 out of every 3 girls and 3 out of every 4 boys in Detroit will not graduate on time.
Spellings said she supports changes that Detroit Superintendent Connie Calloway has planned for five low-performing schools.
She said some of the changes are "going to make a lot of people uncomfortable." However she said, "Your schools are in urgent need of reform, change and improvement."
Calloway, who was in the audience for Spellings' speech, said the proposed new regulations are on target to improve achievement.
"Everything I heard is encouraging," said Calloway, who is among the regional leaders expected to participate in a two-day conference on dropout prevention this week in Southfield.
During a question-and-answer session later in the day, Travis Parks, a senior at Cesar Chavez High School, asked Spellings whether she thought urban students have to work harder than nonurban students to meet federal standards.
Spellings said yes, because of a lack of sufficient resources and opportunities at some inner-city schools.
Afterward, Travis said he wished Spellings had expanded on that sentiment. He said he "was really looking to know how we could acquire those resources."
Contact LORI HIGGINS at 248-351-3694 or lhiggins@freepress.com.
Dear Jim Ross
This is your confirmation to attend the 2008 One D Dropout Prevention Summit and Retreat. This confirmation serves as your ticket to enter this event.
One D Dropout Prevention Summit and Retreat
April 24 & 25, 2008
8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Lawrence Technological University
Wayne H. Buell Management Building
21000 West Ten Mile Road
Southfield, Michigan
You must have this confirmation for entrance into the event. Due to the overwhelming response, this confirmation is non-transferrable and can only be used by Jim Ross.
You have committed to attend both days of the conference. Information presented on the first day of the conference is critical to the discussion on the second day. Your participation on the second day is very important to our success.
If you are unable to attend, please contact Annette Grays at 313-226-9419 or annette.grays@uwsem.org
**Please note: Portions of this conference will be recorded**
Changes to No Child unveiled
Education chief: Reforms aimed at boosting nation's graduation rates
BY LORI HIGGINS and CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITERS
April 23, 2008
Saying the U.S. can't afford to "waste so much human potential," the nation's top educator on Tuesday proposed requiring every state in the nation use the same formula to calculate high school graduation rates -- an action she said is necessary to grasp the seriousness of the dropout problem.
"We can't solve a problem until we diagnose what's wrong," U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said in a speech before the Detroit Economic Club at the Masonic Temple.
It was one of many policy changes to the federal No Child Left Behind law that Spellings announced -- changes that wouldn't go into effect until November, the waning days of President George W. Bush's administration.
Spellings also wants states and schools to be more transparent about free tutoring and the option of attending better schools for those attending failing schools. She also wants to require schools to use more federal funds to reach out to parents and for states to come up with stronger interventions for chronically failing schools.
The policy changes, which would be open for public comment for 60 days, "will give families lifelines and empower educators to create dramatic improvement," Spellings said.
But they also could penalize schools with graduation rates that are too low. In Michigan, for instance, schools with rates lower than 90% face sanctions that range in severity the longer they don't meet the goal.
Under her proposal, states would adopt a graduation rate formula proposed by the National Governors Association in 2005 and one which most states, including Michigan, then agreed to adopt. The formula looks at the number of students who enter high school in ninth grade compared with those who graduate four years later, but with adjustments made for transfers in and out of the school or district.
Schools would have until the 2012-13 school year to adopt the uniform formula. To date, only a handful of states have fully adopted the formula proposed by the governor's group. In August, Michigan will report graduation rate data for the Class of 2007 using the new formula, said Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Education.
Part of the delay is that states need a data system that would be able to track students from the time they enter high school until they leave.
"It's a more honest way of getting the information about the success rate of students in our schools," said David Maile, director of instructional services for Huron Valley Schools.
What makes some uncomfortable, Maile said, is that rates under this formula will likely be lower than what educators and parents in most schools are used to seeing.
"People are going to be discouraged," Maile said. But he said if the same formula had been used for decades, it would show the same lower rates.
Bill Zolkowski, principal at Thurston High School in the South Redford School District, said he's not sure a formula exists that would be accurate and useful, particularly for urban districts that see greater mobility among students.
"I don't know how any of us who teach poor children can find a graduation rate formula that will be instructive or informative, just because of the mobility," Zolkowski said.
Zolkowski said that while the new formula takes mobility into account, it doesn't factor in situations when a student leaves the state without informing the district and the new school doesn't request records. It's a situation that happens frequently and could have that student being counted as a dropout.
Schools were already required to meet graduation rate goals, but under the new rules would have to demonstrate substantial improvement in increasing their graduation rate. In addition, for the first time, the federal government would include the graduation rates of subgroups of students -- including minority and special education students -- in determining whether schools meet No Child Left Behind goals.
Currently, there is no uniform way of determining how many students graduate from high school. Each state uses a different formula. And national reports on graduation rates report strikingly different rates. Detroit Public Schools, for instance, reports a graduation rate of less than 70%. However, just two weeks ago, a national report put that rate at 25%, the lowest among the nation's big cities.
Spellings referenced that dismal rate in her speech, saying it's happening at a time when "we should be sending more students to college." She noted that 2 out of every 3 girls and 3 out of every 4 boys in Detroit will not graduate on time.
Spellings said she supports changes that Detroit Superintendent Connie Calloway has planned for five low-performing schools.
She said some of the changes are "going to make a lot of people uncomfortable." However she said, "Your schools are in urgent need of reform, change and improvement."
Calloway, who was in the audience for Spellings' speech, said the proposed new regulations are on target to improve achievement.
"Everything I heard is encouraging," said Calloway, who is among the regional leaders expected to participate in a two-day conference on dropout prevention this week in Southfield.
During a question-and-answer session later in the day, Travis Parks, a senior at Cesar Chavez High School, asked Spellings whether she thought urban students have to work harder than nonurban students to meet federal standards.
Spellings said yes, because of a lack of sufficient resources and opportunities at some inner-city schools.
Afterward, Travis said he wished Spellings had expanded on that sentiment. He said he "was really looking to know how we could acquire those resources."
Contact LORI HIGGINS at 248-351-3694 or lhiggins@freepress.com.
Dear Jim Ross
This is your confirmation to attend the 2008 One D Dropout Prevention Summit and Retreat. This confirmation serves as your ticket to enter this event.
One D Dropout Prevention Summit and Retreat
April 24 & 25, 2008
8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Lawrence Technological University
Wayne H. Buell Management Building
21000 West Ten Mile Road
Southfield, Michigan
You must have this confirmation for entrance into the event. Due to the overwhelming response, this confirmation is non-transferrable and can only be used by Jim Ross.
You have committed to attend both days of the conference. Information presented on the first day of the conference is critical to the discussion on the second day. Your participation on the second day is very important to our success.
If you are unable to attend, please contact Annette Grays at 313-226-9419 or annette.grays@uwsem.org
**Please note: Portions of this conference will be recorded**
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
FIXING the PUBLIC SCHOOLS and another perspective!
April 22, 2008
Quote of the Day New York Times
"He who is able to fix the public utilities holds the keys to the kingdom in terms of winning the support of the Iraqi people and ultimately ending this conflict."
SGT. ALEX J. PLITSAS, of the Army, on conditions in the Sadr City section of Baghdad.
Quote of the Day New York Times
"He who is able to fix the public utilities holds the keys to the kingdom in terms of winning the support of the Iraqi people and ultimately ending this conflict."
SGT. ALEX J. PLITSAS, of the Army, on conditions in the Sadr City section of Baghdad.
Students 2.0 |
Posted: 21 Apr 2008 03:51 PM CDT
As a student at an international school, I’m used to seeing technology proliferate everywhere it can within the classroom. Every day I use computer labs, SmartBoards, online classrooms, and a plethora of other high-tech applications. It’s hard not to take the miracle of technology for granted; after all, we are in the Information Age, aren’t we?
True. But who exactly are “we”? As it turns out, not everyone is as lucky.
This past Thursday, I brought a few other members of my school’s tech club to a local school on the outskirts of Shanghai. Our school had assigned us the task of buying, building, and setting up a network of basic desktop computers for the local school. However, when we walked into their computer lab, we decided that this wasn’t going to be easy. The school already had several decade-old computers, but only five still worked. A couple of them had been opened for the students to take a look at its innards; one computer lay, smashed, in the corner of the room. Even a few of the power outlets were clogged with dirt. On the walls, above the blackboards, were written two sentences in Chinese: “Computers help us learn” and “The Internet makes the world a smaller place.”
I was told by the parents who organized the project that the students here learned about computers from mere drawings on the chalkboard, and the occasional use of one of the functional desktops. The local teachers we talked with refused to accept laptops, which was what we planned to buy. They said that laptops would very likely be stolen by students—they couldn’t blame them, they said; these children are in a desperate situation, and the money they could make from selling a stolen laptop would be like a fortune.
The visit to the local school was a shocking removal from our wireless networks and Facebook conversations and live streams of soccer matches. The stark contrast between a school filled with technology in every corner and a classroom with 2-dimensional chalk computers made me wonder: Why do we use so much technology in our classrooms? Where did it all come from?
Though we’re high school students now, we’ve probably been in contact with all sorts of digital technology since we were toddlers. I remember the first time I used a computer. I was only 4 years old, and a couple days later I double clicked the “Internet Explorer” sign and discovered the astonishing (but also, undoubtedly, dangerous) Internet. True, it may have simply been Pokemon websites and Magic School Bus games at first, but there are cases even where children learn MS-DOS at the age of 5. There is no denying it—we have been in touch with computers for our whole lives, and the only idea we have of life before the PC is from our parents’ dated anecdotes.
But stop and think for a moment: Why? Why does technology progress and proliferate so quickly? Why are we so dependent on it? What is the reason behind its profound ubiquity? The answer is short, but sweet. You could find it in a dictionary.
[Technology is] the specific methods, materials, and devices used to solve practical problems.
There it is. We use technology because we need it. We need Facebook and MSN Messenger because they help us communicate; we need SmartBoards because whiteboards can’t display information at the speed we demand; we need online classrooms because one hour lessons just don’t cut it anymore.
A million years ago, cavemen would probably have been pondering the same question (although “technology” would have been replaced with “the wheel”), and come to the same conclusion on their cave-blogs. Two hundred years ago, the same question would have been asked of the Industrial Revolution.
No matter from what angle you look at technology, whether it comes in the form of the Internet or the steam engine, the old adage comes to mind: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” And in the case of the local school, their necessity is about to “give birth,” courtesy of our school’s tech club.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
URGENCY! AIM Program a 21st Century Skill(man)
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Charting Detroit's educational future
Detroit schools running out of survival options
Sometime in the next year or so, barring a miracle no one expects, enrollment in the Detroit Public Schools will fall below 100,000, triggering a chain reaction that will have a major impact on the district's funding and future.
In the past five years, Detroit Public Schools has lost more than 50,000 students, according. Meanwhile, charter school enrollment in the city climbed 50 percent, now standing at about 45,000.
The shift is an indictment of Detroit's failure to educate its students. The failure is driving families to seek out other choices, a trend that is exacerbating the district's financial woes. Parents are giving up on the Detroit school system.
But most aren't giving up on the city itself. Two-thirds of the families who have pulled their children from the public schools remain in Detroit, but are turning to charter schools, according to a new Michigan State University Education Policy Center report.
What the shift should tell school officials and the teachers' union is that DPS is out of time. The only option remaining is to reform or die.
DPS must embrace systemic changes, particularly strategies to recruit and retain high-quality teachers. Poor schools often have low-quality teachers, and yet low-income children need top educators to help them overcome barriers such as their parents' lack of literacy skills, academic knowledge and confidence.
Compounding Detroit's woes is a recent national report that found DPS has the lowest high school graduation rate of any American big city district, graduating 25 percent of its students.
Families who have a choice are choosing to get out rather than entrust their children to a system steeped in failure.
Detroit school Superintendent Connie Calloway's recently announced reforms that are a start at a turnaround. She hopes to dismantle five schools -- including three of the worst high schools -- and replace them with smaller, more responsive schools tailored to meet the special needs of urban students. Her proposal calls for getting rid of the current administrators and creating staffs committed to reform.
Powerful factions of the Detroit Federation of Teachers responded in typical fashion, by condemning the reforms as an assault on teacher rights and vowing to block them.
Calloway must forge ahead despite the outcry from the union and from that segment of the community that has not always put the interests of school children first when making decisions about the schools.
No idea should be off the table. The reform schools should adopt teacher merit pay, signing bonuses, more flexible contracts and rewards for rising student achievement. They should be given every chance to succeed.
In addition, Calloway must at last right-size the district. Too many half-empty schools are draining district resources. She should close them and shift the funds into making the remaining schools better.
The top priority must be holding on to middle-class students. Unfortunately, the middle class has led the abandonment of Detroit Public Schools, leaving behind a much poorer student population. In the fall of 2003, the percentage of students on free or reduced cost lunch was 68.4 percent. By the 2006-07 school year, that percentage had risen to almost 80 percent.
"It is a fact that DPS is serving poorer and poorer students as a proportion of its population," says Sharif Shakrani, co-author of the MSU report. "As charter schools expand, we will see more of that poverty intensification."
Rising poverty rates in the district mean a student body made up of higher numbers of learning disabled children, non-English speakers and emotionally impaired students.
"It's a huge, huge issue for the district and the city," says Carol Goss, president of the Detroit-based Skillman Foundation. "There is more burden on schools. Hunger, family stability, high rates of mobility and parent illiteracy challenge the schools of poor children."
DPS is at a critical point. Once enrollment falls below 100,000, state appropriations bills written specifically to aid Detroit become inactive. And so do many of the laws designed to limit the growth of charters, which are alternative public schools.
That will accelerate the enrollment drop. If trends continue, the district will have less than 40,000 students in the 2014-15 school year. The remaining students will likely be the ones with the most needs and fewest resources.
Too much time and money have already been wasted. Detroit Public Schools and its employees must recognize that their survival is at stake.
"The district and board ought to see this situation as urgent," says Goss. "I'm not convinced they do. ... Often they're still operating under the premise that the district is still healthy."
It's so obviously not. And returning Detroit Public Schools to health will require everyone associated with the district to set aside their personal interests and do what's right for the children.
Charting Detroit's educational future
Detroit schools running out of survival options
Sometime in the next year or so, barring a miracle no one expects, enrollment in the Detroit Public Schools will fall below 100,000, triggering a chain reaction that will have a major impact on the district's funding and future.
In the past five years, Detroit Public Schools has lost more than 50,000 students, according. Meanwhile, charter school enrollment in the city climbed 50 percent, now standing at about 45,000.
The shift is an indictment of Detroit's failure to educate its students. The failure is driving families to seek out other choices, a trend that is exacerbating the district's financial woes. Parents are giving up on the Detroit school system.
But most aren't giving up on the city itself. Two-thirds of the families who have pulled their children from the public schools remain in Detroit, but are turning to charter schools, according to a new Michigan State University Education Policy Center report.
What the shift should tell school officials and the teachers' union is that DPS is out of time. The only option remaining is to reform or die.
DPS must embrace systemic changes, particularly strategies to recruit and retain high-quality teachers. Poor schools often have low-quality teachers, and yet low-income children need top educators to help them overcome barriers such as their parents' lack of literacy skills, academic knowledge and confidence.
Compounding Detroit's woes is a recent national report that found DPS has the lowest high school graduation rate of any American big city district, graduating 25 percent of its students.
Families who have a choice are choosing to get out rather than entrust their children to a system steeped in failure.
Detroit school Superintendent Connie Calloway's recently announced reforms that are a start at a turnaround. She hopes to dismantle five schools -- including three of the worst high schools -- and replace them with smaller, more responsive schools tailored to meet the special needs of urban students. Her proposal calls for getting rid of the current administrators and creating staffs committed to reform.
Powerful factions of the Detroit Federation of Teachers responded in typical fashion, by condemning the reforms as an assault on teacher rights and vowing to block them.
Calloway must forge ahead despite the outcry from the union and from that segment of the community that has not always put the interests of school children first when making decisions about the schools.
No idea should be off the table. The reform schools should adopt teacher merit pay, signing bonuses, more flexible contracts and rewards for rising student achievement. They should be given every chance to succeed.
In addition, Calloway must at last right-size the district. Too many half-empty schools are draining district resources. She should close them and shift the funds into making the remaining schools better.
The top priority must be holding on to middle-class students. Unfortunately, the middle class has led the abandonment of Detroit Public Schools, leaving behind a much poorer student population. In the fall of 2003, the percentage of students on free or reduced cost lunch was 68.4 percent. By the 2006-07 school year, that percentage had risen to almost 80 percent.
"It is a fact that DPS is serving poorer and poorer students as a proportion of its population," says Sharif Shakrani, co-author of the MSU report. "As charter schools expand, we will see more of that poverty intensification."
Rising poverty rates in the district mean a student body made up of higher numbers of learning disabled children, non-English speakers and emotionally impaired students.
"It's a huge, huge issue for the district and the city," says Carol Goss, president of the Detroit-based Skillman Foundation. "There is more burden on schools. Hunger, family stability, high rates of mobility and parent illiteracy challenge the schools of poor children."
DPS is at a critical point. Once enrollment falls below 100,000, state appropriations bills written specifically to aid Detroit become inactive. And so do many of the laws designed to limit the growth of charters, which are alternative public schools.
That will accelerate the enrollment drop. If trends continue, the district will have less than 40,000 students in the 2014-15 school year. The remaining students will likely be the ones with the most needs and fewest resources.
Too much time and money have already been wasted. Detroit Public Schools and its employees must recognize that their survival is at stake.
"The district and board ought to see this situation as urgent," says Goss. "I'm not convinced they do. ... Often they're still operating under the premise that the district is still healthy."
It's so obviously not. And returning Detroit Public Schools to health will require everyone associated with the district to set aside their personal interests and do what's right for the children.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Sharpen our AIM and our URGENCY!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Rev. Edgar Vann: Faith and policy
Stop dropouts, save students with smaller Detroit schools
Amid an ever chaotic state of affairs, we Detroiters often become anesthetized to just how critical things are. In Detroit, the drama of the body politic and crisis often frustrate transformative change in areas that really need attention, such as getting an education.
Instead, Detroit is a place where the entitlement mentality trumps wisdom and common sense.
A place where masters of deflection spin reality into self-aggrandizement. A place where the loyalists get played, and the opportunists get paid. A place where more steps seem to be taken backward than forward.
Though scandal-ridden and hope depleted, somehow we must invest heavily in the generations coming after us.
Let us never lose sight of our children and their fundamental right to receive an education that empowers them for eventual leadership and engagement in this city.
America's Promise Alliance, a group organized by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, has joined a long list of groups and studies that documented that the Detroit Public Schools is a virtual dropout factory. The new study shows the graduation rate in Detroit is less than one in four.
These rates were abysmal for years. District officials loudly disputed the rates but never could agree on their own number. Now, we are the worst in the nation.
As a parent, I am blessed to have had children who graduated from a system where more 75 percent of the students don't.
Schools that fail must be fixed or allowed to close. The stakes are too high, and failure is not an option.
A new initiative for the creation of smaller high schools needs to be embraced. It comes out of the Governor's Office and has been embraced by Detroit Superintendent Connie Calloway.
Calloway's plan for Detroit seeks to establish new high schools of about 450 students -- in line with every piece of national data available showing the size of effective schools.
We all knew this back in the days of Detroit Compact, Schools of the 21st Century, the Annenberg grant and the New Detroit educational audit.
Can we get this one right? The governor, House Democrats, Senate Republicans, Detroit school leaders, teachers and the community must move now.
How many young people will we allow to fall through the cracks because we have failed them?
The Rev. Edgar Vann is pastor of Second Ebenezer Church in Detroit.
Please e-mail comments to letters@detnews.com.
Rev. Edgar Vann: Faith and policy
Stop dropouts, save students with smaller Detroit schools
Amid an ever chaotic state of affairs, we Detroiters often become anesthetized to just how critical things are. In Detroit, the drama of the body politic and crisis often frustrate transformative change in areas that really need attention, such as getting an education.
Instead, Detroit is a place where the entitlement mentality trumps wisdom and common sense.
A place where masters of deflection spin reality into self-aggrandizement. A place where the loyalists get played, and the opportunists get paid. A place where more steps seem to be taken backward than forward.
Though scandal-ridden and hope depleted, somehow we must invest heavily in the generations coming after us.
Let us never lose sight of our children and their fundamental right to receive an education that empowers them for eventual leadership and engagement in this city.
America's Promise Alliance, a group organized by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, has joined a long list of groups and studies that documented that the Detroit Public Schools is a virtual dropout factory. The new study shows the graduation rate in Detroit is less than one in four.
These rates were abysmal for years. District officials loudly disputed the rates but never could agree on their own number. Now, we are the worst in the nation.
As a parent, I am blessed to have had children who graduated from a system where more 75 percent of the students don't.
Schools that fail must be fixed or allowed to close. The stakes are too high, and failure is not an option.
A new initiative for the creation of smaller high schools needs to be embraced. It comes out of the Governor's Office and has been embraced by Detroit Superintendent Connie Calloway.
Calloway's plan for Detroit seeks to establish new high schools of about 450 students -- in line with every piece of national data available showing the size of effective schools.
We all knew this back in the days of Detroit Compact, Schools of the 21st Century, the Annenberg grant and the New Detroit educational audit.
Can we get this one right? The governor, House Democrats, Senate Republicans, Detroit school leaders, teachers and the community must move now.
How many young people will we allow to fall through the cracks because we have failed them?
The Rev. Edgar Vann is pastor of Second Ebenezer Church in Detroit.
Please e-mail comments to letters@detnews.com.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
AIM for Support!
Granholm plan for smaller schools deserves support
April 3, 2008
The state Senate's Republican majority is being both predictable and wrong in dismissing Gov. Jennifer Granholm's plan to put a dent in Michigan's dropout rates by starting smaller high schools in failing districts.
The GOP's contention that Michigan doesn't have the purse to pay for every well-meaning idea is essentially true. But nor can Michigan afford to pass up a promising investment in its future, a plan that offers more remedy than anyone has proposed to date for the costly problem of school dropouts.
The Senate GOP's reluctance looks all the more irresponsible in light of data out this week showing Michigan's largest school district is essentially an incubator for dropouts.
America's Promise Alliance, a group founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, declared Detroit the national leader in this sadly telling statistic. The graduation rate for Detroit Public Schools has plummeted to just 24.9%, according to their report. To let such a miserable statistic grow any worse when something can be done is unconscionable.
The Granholm plan calls for granting zero-interest loans to help 27 districts build new and smaller high schools of no more than 500 students. The loans would target districts with high dropout rates and patterns of low test scores. Each could borrow up to $15 million from a $180-million pool. Districts would have five years to begin repaying the loans, either through millages or from their general funds.
An abundance of data shows why large traditional and impersonal high schools don't work in reaching disinterested learners, the highest dropout risks. How many young people is Michigan going to sacrifice before it gets the courage to change, as so many other states have done, to offer smaller schools as options?
There is still time for the Legislature to revive this measure and let Michigan schools try something different before even more students walk away from them and into a very limited future.
April 3, 2008
The state Senate's Republican majority is being both predictable and wrong in dismissing Gov. Jennifer Granholm's plan to put a dent in Michigan's dropout rates by starting smaller high schools in failing districts.
The GOP's contention that Michigan doesn't have the purse to pay for every well-meaning idea is essentially true. But nor can Michigan afford to pass up a promising investment in its future, a plan that offers more remedy than anyone has proposed to date for the costly problem of school dropouts.
The Senate GOP's reluctance looks all the more irresponsible in light of data out this week showing Michigan's largest school district is essentially an incubator for dropouts.
America's Promise Alliance, a group founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, declared Detroit the national leader in this sadly telling statistic. The graduation rate for Detroit Public Schools has plummeted to just 24.9%, according to their report. To let such a miserable statistic grow any worse when something can be done is unconscionable.
The Granholm plan calls for granting zero-interest loans to help 27 districts build new and smaller high schools of no more than 500 students. The loans would target districts with high dropout rates and patterns of low test scores. Each could borrow up to $15 million from a $180-million pool. Districts would have five years to begin repaying the loans, either through millages or from their general funds.
An abundance of data shows why large traditional and impersonal high schools don't work in reaching disinterested learners, the highest dropout risks. How many young people is Michigan going to sacrifice before it gets the courage to change, as so many other states have done, to offer smaller schools as options?
There is still time for the Legislature to revive this measure and let Michigan schools try something different before even more students walk away from them and into a very limited future.
AIM PROGRAM "BEGINS with the END in MIND!"
Fix failing schools
Calloway's Detroit plan aims to serve students better
April 3, 2008
When Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway took the job, she said she'd be a leader driven by sound data, not by tradition or community pressure.
Calloway's decision to remove all the teachers and administrators from five larger schools that will be broken up into smaller independent schools honors that early promise. Frankly, she'd be irresponsible to continue DPS' defensive stand against reams of national data showing why smaller schools work and why many Detroit schools lead more students away from education than into college.
Calloway's call is a solid one that would be made stronger by collaborating with the Detroit Federation of Teachers, whose members, like it or not, remain the foot soldiers of any plan for change. The potential of this plan ought not be spoiled or overshadowed by turf battles or tense labor stands. Detroit school board members should ensure that DPS is transparent in its obligation to find spots for displaced staff members, but, more important, develop a fair process to ensure that the new schools get visionary teaching talent.
Critics who say Calloway's plan tars teachers with the schools' failure ignore the urgency facing DPS. Each of the schools in question lagged behind both state and federal graduation averages. The knee-jerk reaction would have been to just shut 'em down. The better choice is to try a trend that seems to be working elsewhere.
The schools will each be broken down into three to four smaller schools, reopened with no more than 450 students each, and specialize in areas such as technology or engineering.
The real stunner in Calloway's decision isn't the unanswered questions about what happens to the teachers and administrators at those old schools. It's this: Why has DPS settled for these failures for so long? Hasn't anyone in the district ever heard Einstein's definition of insanity -- "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result"?
Calloway's Detroit plan aims to serve students better
April 3, 2008
When Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway took the job, she said she'd be a leader driven by sound data, not by tradition or community pressure.
Calloway's decision to remove all the teachers and administrators from five larger schools that will be broken up into smaller independent schools honors that early promise. Frankly, she'd be irresponsible to continue DPS' defensive stand against reams of national data showing why smaller schools work and why many Detroit schools lead more students away from education than into college.
Calloway's call is a solid one that would be made stronger by collaborating with the Detroit Federation of Teachers, whose members, like it or not, remain the foot soldiers of any plan for change. The potential of this plan ought not be spoiled or overshadowed by turf battles or tense labor stands. Detroit school board members should ensure that DPS is transparent in its obligation to find spots for displaced staff members, but, more important, develop a fair process to ensure that the new schools get visionary teaching talent.
Critics who say Calloway's plan tars teachers with the schools' failure ignore the urgency facing DPS. Each of the schools in question lagged behind both state and federal graduation averages. The knee-jerk reaction would have been to just shut 'em down. The better choice is to try a trend that seems to be working elsewhere.
The schools will each be broken down into three to four smaller schools, reopened with no more than 450 students each, and specialize in areas such as technology or engineering.
The real stunner in Calloway's decision isn't the unanswered questions about what happens to the teachers and administrators at those old schools. It's this: Why has DPS settled for these failures for so long? Hasn't anyone in the district ever heard Einstein's definition of insanity -- "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result"?
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
AIM for Small Schools
Drastic changes planned at 5 schools
Staff ousters, smaller sizes expected
BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY and PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITERS • April 1, 2008
A day before Detroit Public Schools was found to once again have the worst high school graduation rate of U.S. big cities, district officials announced plans to drastically reconfigure five schools and remove all teachers, administrators and staff there.
The changes were greeted Monday with surprise and some tears at the schools. The reforms, a precursor to more changes in the district, are the first phase of what is being called the Turn Around School plan.
The high school campuses -- Osborn, Henry Ford and Cody, as well as the Cody ninth grade academy -- will each be split into three to four new, independent specialized schools. Each new school of 450 students will have its own focus, such as technology or engineering, a new staff and administration and, possibly, sports teams.
The dramatic changes are legal under federal law, but rarely undertaken. Vetal Elementary will also be restructured in the same way.
Superintendent Connie Calloway said educators, parents and stakeholders are invited to a community meeting Monday at Cody to give ideas for the restructuring. There is no time line for implementing the new programs and the plan is still preliminary, but Calloway said she hopes to have one of the new campuses operating by fall.
"National studies show that students perform better in smaller, more personalized settings," Calloway said. "Models in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Providence and elsewhere are working and give hope for this initiative."
Each of the high schools in the plan has graduation rates below state and national averages. America's Promise Alliance was to release a report today in Washington that cited DPS's graduation rate at 24.9%, the worst among the nation's largest 50 cities.
It marked the third year in a row that researchers have given Detroit the dubious distinction.
The suburbs of Detroit had a graduation rate of 75%, according to the report.
The report, compiled by Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, estimated the 2007 graduation rate based upon the number of students who were in ninth grade in 2003-04.
"The sad thing is that a young person born in a large city today has about a 50-50 chance of graduating. In Detroit, that's more like a 25% chance," said Marguerite Kondracke, president and chief executive officer of America's Promise.
The report's findings didn't surprise Kimberly Bishop, whose two daughters are in the ninth and 12th grades at Detroit's Henry Ford High School.
"I think there's not enough support from the staff," Bishop said. "And if we had more parent involvement, I think that has a lot to do with it as well."
School board President Carla Scott said the district expects teachers in the targeted schools to land at other schools in the district, but the principals could lose their jobs.
Teachers learned of the plan Monday. At Cody High School, seventh hour was canceled Monday, and teachers instead attended a meeting with Assistant Superintendent Sharon Appling.
They were told they must form committees, and develop a plan for a new school within the school. In order to stay at the school, they will have to sell themselves and their plan to the new administrators.
Current administrators will be reassigned to different buildings -- they will not return to their current school. Teachers being transferred away from the schools will have the opportunity to reapply to return.
Principals' contracts end at the end of the school year. If the district wants to keep them, then officials will offer them another contract.
The Turn Around School plan coincides with the governor's small schools initiative. Gov. Jennifer Granholm has asked the Legislature to endorse a plan to create the 21st Century Schools Fund, which would allow schools that enroll more than 800 students and miss federal standards for two years or more to create small high schools of about 400 students.
The schools to be restructured are, for now, being called: the New Schools at Cody, the New Schools at Cody 9, the New Schools at Henry Ford, the New Schools at Osborn and the New Schools at Vetal.
The No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2001 allows districts to restructure schools that fail to meet standards for six or more years, including replacing staff. After four years of failure, a school must come up with restructuring plans. Most of the city's high schools have failed to meet federal annual yearly progress standards since the law's inception.
Calloway said these schools were selected because they are in areas densely populated with school-age children. Some educators and parents said they believed the plan is an attempt to create schools that will attract more students to the shrinking district. DPS enrollment could fall below 100,000 this fall, which would open the door for the creation of more charter schools, a major competitor for students.
Demographer Kurt Metzger, research director for United Way of Southeast Michigan, was baffled that DPS targeted the population around Ford and Vetal on the west side.
"I'm not sure what their current student body is, but in terms of the neighborhood itself, no it doesn't wash," Metzger said. "The northeast section ... the southwestern part of the city or along the Dearborn borders, those areas are growing in terms of kids."
Detroit is not the only district seeking to reboot failing high schools, the Michigan Department of Education said.
"Today's large, impersonal high schools were designed for a different era and a different economy and are leaving far too many young people behind," MDE spokeswoman Jan Ellis said.
"Smaller high schools like those just proposed by both the Detroit and Lansing Public School districts have been shown to keep more students engaged, interested and attending school."
Contact CHASTITY PRATT at 313-223-4537 or cpratt@freepress.com.
Staff ousters, smaller sizes expected
BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY and PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITERS • April 1, 2008
A day before Detroit Public Schools was found to once again have the worst high school graduation rate of U.S. big cities, district officials announced plans to drastically reconfigure five schools and remove all teachers, administrators and staff there.
The changes were greeted Monday with surprise and some tears at the schools. The reforms, a precursor to more changes in the district, are the first phase of what is being called the Turn Around School plan.
The high school campuses -- Osborn, Henry Ford and Cody, as well as the Cody ninth grade academy -- will each be split into three to four new, independent specialized schools. Each new school of 450 students will have its own focus, such as technology or engineering, a new staff and administration and, possibly, sports teams.
The dramatic changes are legal under federal law, but rarely undertaken. Vetal Elementary will also be restructured in the same way.
Superintendent Connie Calloway said educators, parents and stakeholders are invited to a community meeting Monday at Cody to give ideas for the restructuring. There is no time line for implementing the new programs and the plan is still preliminary, but Calloway said she hopes to have one of the new campuses operating by fall.
"National studies show that students perform better in smaller, more personalized settings," Calloway said. "Models in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Providence and elsewhere are working and give hope for this initiative."
Each of the high schools in the plan has graduation rates below state and national averages. America's Promise Alliance was to release a report today in Washington that cited DPS's graduation rate at 24.9%, the worst among the nation's largest 50 cities.
It marked the third year in a row that researchers have given Detroit the dubious distinction.
The suburbs of Detroit had a graduation rate of 75%, according to the report.
The report, compiled by Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, estimated the 2007 graduation rate based upon the number of students who were in ninth grade in 2003-04.
"The sad thing is that a young person born in a large city today has about a 50-50 chance of graduating. In Detroit, that's more like a 25% chance," said Marguerite Kondracke, president and chief executive officer of America's Promise.
The report's findings didn't surprise Kimberly Bishop, whose two daughters are in the ninth and 12th grades at Detroit's Henry Ford High School.
"I think there's not enough support from the staff," Bishop said. "And if we had more parent involvement, I think that has a lot to do with it as well."
School board President Carla Scott said the district expects teachers in the targeted schools to land at other schools in the district, but the principals could lose their jobs.
Teachers learned of the plan Monday. At Cody High School, seventh hour was canceled Monday, and teachers instead attended a meeting with Assistant Superintendent Sharon Appling.
They were told they must form committees, and develop a plan for a new school within the school. In order to stay at the school, they will have to sell themselves and their plan to the new administrators.
Current administrators will be reassigned to different buildings -- they will not return to their current school. Teachers being transferred away from the schools will have the opportunity to reapply to return.
Principals' contracts end at the end of the school year. If the district wants to keep them, then officials will offer them another contract.
The Turn Around School plan coincides with the governor's small schools initiative. Gov. Jennifer Granholm has asked the Legislature to endorse a plan to create the 21st Century Schools Fund, which would allow schools that enroll more than 800 students and miss federal standards for two years or more to create small high schools of about 400 students.
The schools to be restructured are, for now, being called: the New Schools at Cody, the New Schools at Cody 9, the New Schools at Henry Ford, the New Schools at Osborn and the New Schools at Vetal.
The No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2001 allows districts to restructure schools that fail to meet standards for six or more years, including replacing staff. After four years of failure, a school must come up with restructuring plans. Most of the city's high schools have failed to meet federal annual yearly progress standards since the law's inception.
Calloway said these schools were selected because they are in areas densely populated with school-age children. Some educators and parents said they believed the plan is an attempt to create schools that will attract more students to the shrinking district. DPS enrollment could fall below 100,000 this fall, which would open the door for the creation of more charter schools, a major competitor for students.
Demographer Kurt Metzger, research director for United Way of Southeast Michigan, was baffled that DPS targeted the population around Ford and Vetal on the west side.
"I'm not sure what their current student body is, but in terms of the neighborhood itself, no it doesn't wash," Metzger said. "The northeast section ... the southwestern part of the city or along the Dearborn borders, those areas are growing in terms of kids."
Detroit is not the only district seeking to reboot failing high schools, the Michigan Department of Education said.
"Today's large, impersonal high schools were designed for a different era and a different economy and are leaving far too many young people behind," MDE spokeswoman Jan Ellis said.
"Smaller high schools like those just proposed by both the Detroit and Lansing Public School districts have been shown to keep more students engaged, interested and attending school."
Contact CHASTITY PRATT at 313-223-4537 or cpratt@freepress.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)