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

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

Money troubles doom DPS leader Calloway

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Text of Calloway's e-mail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have a quarterly newsletter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Respectfully,Your Superintendent,
Connie Calloway

Drum Roll Please!

Board to decide fate of DPS leader Calloway during vote

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You tube Challenge

School of the Future World Summit 2008

Evan Arthur - The Australian Digital Education Revolution

Martin Bean - What Technology Makes Possible

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

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

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

Julio Fontan - Country Spotlight: Colombia

James Grant & Lee Burley - Building Schools for the Future

Bill Hill - The Digital Renaissance Age

Michael Horn - Disrupting Class

Allyson Knox - Career Forward

Victor McNair - Teacher E-Portfolios

Katrina Reynen - Innovation that Drives Transformation Across School Systems

Don Richardson - Innovation Management

Ratnasingam Selvarani & Angeline Fern - Transformational Learning - Part 1

Ratnasingam Selvarani & Angeline Fern - Transformational Learning - Part 2

Yasutaka Shimizu - NEXT Project - Part 1

Yasutaka Shimizu - NEXT Project - Part 2

Jaeshin Song - e-Learning of Korea

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

Tony Wagner - The Global Achievement Gap

Open OUR Minds to NEW Possibilities!

Edison Elementary on the Art Road

LEVERAGE!

Something LARGER then themselves

Washington Post

Applicants Flock to Teacher Corps for Needy Areas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WINDSPIRE INSPIRES! (GREAT LAKES IT REPORT)

An example of a Windspire installation

Posted: Monday, 17 November 2008 9:35PM

Warren Schools To Consider Renewable Energy Curriculum

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

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

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

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

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

TRUST: Creativity, Risk, Playful Explorations by DESIGN!

Disruption Seeks/Creates Cracks in the SILO!

Published Online: October 28, 2008

Published in Print: November 5, 2008

Scholars Discuss 'Disruptive Innovation' in K-12 Education

By Andrew Trotter

Washington

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

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

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

See Also

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

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

'No Stupidity'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Customization'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONE-D Grant Announcement

INNOVATION CONSTANT: IRRESPECTIVE of Space and Time!

Unboxed

It’s No Time to Forget About Innovation

James Yang

By JANET RAE-DUPREE

Published: November 1, 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Create the right skill sets through professional co-op

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GOVERNOR CALLS for EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTIONARIES (EDULUTIONARIES)

Summit deals with 20,000 dropouts a year in Michigan

Goal: Ways to keep students in school

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Support is key," Robert said.

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

AIM FIT!

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

Michigan Drop-Out Summit

Summit shows push to keep Michigan kids in school

Programs see success with fresh approaches

BY LORI HIGGINS • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • October 18, 2008

For a couple of hundred students in Michigan each year, the only path to a diploma runs through a residential military-style school in Battle Creek run by the Michigan National Guard.

For dozens in Westwood Community Schools in Dearborn Heights, the key to graduating last year was an alternative program that let them make up lost credits in exchange for signing pledges that they would get the work done.

These turnarounds don't happen enough in a state where more than 20,000 students -- enough to fill 20 average-size high schools -- abandon their education every year.

Some critics say too little attention had been paid to the crisis. But schools have become more aggressive than ever in finding solutions, and one of the largest efforts to address it culminates in a summit Monday in Lansing, where more than 500 people are to share ideas on keeping kids in school.

The summit builds on the findings of 11 hearings held over the past six months. Organizers of those hearings -- including the Michigan Education Association, Michigan's Children and Michigan's Charter Schools -- found common themes in the testimony: Adults need to build better relationships with teens; schools must intervene before kids reach high school; schools need a variety of approaches to helping kids, and community groups must be more involved.

The conversations about the crisis couldn't be happening at a more important time. Michigan is suffering economically and counting on public schools to produce graduates who will be ready to take on the jobs of the future.

"The schools that should be addressing this issue seriously are not," said Sharif Shakrani, codirector of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University. "And the schools that do not have a problem with graduation rates and dropout rates are paying more attention."

James Heffelbower, 17, a senior at Belleville High School, could have been one of the statistics. He failed nearly every class he took as a high school freshman. But the adults in his life believed in his potential, enough to keep him from spiraling toward life as a dropout.

"Without that motivation, I wouldn't be where I am," said James, who now expects to graduate on time.

"Kids need positive role models. They need to feel worthwhile and that they are cared about," said Erin Radtka, a guidance counselor at Belleville High whom James credits with getting him on track academically and helping him find a stable home after bouncing through the foster care system.


Students held accountable


In just about every hearing held in advance of Monday's summit, organizers heard from previously frustrated parents who had nearly given up on their teens until they heard about the Michigan Youth Challenge Academy.

Since 1999, the program in Battle Creek has succeeded by using a strict military-type approach in which students wear uniforms, take a demanding course load and receive a heavy dose of discipline, structure and routine -- things sorely lacking in many of their lives.

Vicki Lashuay of Ash Township in Monroe County was a frustrated parent. After her daughter found success in the program, she made it her mission to educate other parents about the option.

"The kids we have now ... they need a chance. One less dropout is one less person that will turn to crime," Lashuay said.

The academy, one of 30 operating nationwide, puts youths ages 16 to 19 through a 22-week residential program during which they earn 4.5 academic credits and some college credit. Some of the students leave the program and return to their traditional high schools. Most receive general equivalency diplomas.

The academy monitors the students for a year after they graduate from the program, and the statistics show that after that year, nine out of 10 are either working, in school or in the military.

Retired Army Col. John Wemlinger, commandant of cadets, said the program works for two reasons: Students volunteer to enroll, and it's so disciplined.

"Our students are held to a strict standard of accountability," Wemlinger said.


Fund hoped to boost graduation


One of the more ambitious plans to turn around metro Detroit schools with low graduation rates is to gain momentum this month when up to a half dozen schools are selected to receive planning grants from the Greater Detroit Venture Fund.

The months-old campaign, created by the United Way of Southeast Michigan, the Skillman Foundation and AT&T, aims to raise $10 million a year to fund the improvement of low-performing schools during a 5-year period, said Michael Tenbusch, vice president of educational preparedness at the United Way. The plans would be focused on improving graduation rates from 60% and below to at least 80%.

The money would help the schools hire a so-called turnaround specialist -- an organization with a successful track record -- to help transform the schools. And while the selected schools can choose any method to make the transformation, the goal is for them to break into smaller chunks to create a more personalized environment, Tenbusch said. Students who feel connected, experts say, are more likely to stay in school.

Van Dyke Public Schools in Warren is banking on those kinds of connections. The district's Lincoln High School officially has a 71% graduation rate but is one of 30 in metro Detroit eligible for the Venture Fund grant based on a Johns Hopkins study last year that put its graduation rate at 39%. The district applied for the grant, went through an interview process earlier this month and is now awaiting an announcement.

The goal, said Donn Tignanelli, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, is to create smaller environments at Lincoln.

"We know that we have some challenges. And we want to tackle them firsthand," Tignanelli said.


Flexible schooling gets attention


There is evidence that new twists on traditional alternative programs can work. A relatively new effort in Westwood Community Schools, for example, has succeeded primarily on the strength of agreements signed by students and their parents that say the kids promise to come to class, complete their work and follow the rules.

It operates similar to most alternative programs, yet in its first year, it graduated 37 students who had been far behind in credits and not expected to get a diploma.

The district contracted with a national organization, Educational Services of America, to run the program. It is computer-based, with students working independently with assistance from teachers. Students are required to be in school for four hours and 15 minutes daily, though the times are flexible, with the school open as early as 7 a.m. and as late as 8:30 p.m.

"These are kids who ... would have been out on the streets," Westwood Superintendent Ernie Minghine said. "Now I have 37 people who are going to be members of this community and will be outstanding individuals."

The results have officials with the Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency, the intermediate school district that serves Wayne County, looking for ways to replicate it county-wide. The program had a waiting list going into the beginning of this school year.

Minghine said the program is working in ways other attempts to provide alternative programs have not. Key to the success, he said, is the buy-in it gets from both students and parents.


Rigorous requirements criticized


But even with the renewed efforts, there is still concern that students grappling with the state's tough new graduation requirements will make the dropout crisis more acute.

Nicole Laubert feared her son, a sophomore at Dakota High School in Macomb Township, was on track to drop out. He had excelled through elementary and middle school, but as a freshman he was among the first students to face the new mandates, which include a heavier dose of more rigorous math courses.

Laubert's son struggled in algebra, eventually failed and was forced to retake a portion of the class in summer school. Math had never been a strong subject for him, and the additional time spent on algebra hurt his other classes.

"He was just losing interest. He didn't want to do anything," said Laubert of St. Clair Shores.

Laubert, who hired private tutors and bought supplemental materials to help her son, said the best way to prevent dropouts is for the state to rethink what she considers to be unrealistic requirements for students. Barring that, she said, schools must provide more tutoring for students like her son during and after the school day.

James, the 17-year-old from Belleville High, has had every reason to give up over the years. A foster child since age 5, he has lived in more than a dozen homes and attributes his freshman struggles to having been removed from a home he wanted to be in just weeks before the beginning of the school year.

Just about every time James moved, he'd find himself in a new school. The transitions were always difficult, and each time it got a little easier to want to give up, he said.

Support from adults has been crucial.

Radtka, the school counselor, worked hard to find a home that would help James stay in the district because she feared what would happen if he had to leave the high school.

"I was adamant ... that he not have to move again," she said.

She also helped him get connected with a national program that would allow him to take classes online to rebuild the credit he had lost. But it wasn't just her. James said all of his teachers have reached out in ways that he hopes other students experience.

"They saw me as an individual, not just 'Oh, he's just one of my students.' They saw me as James."

James is planning to go to college and is considering a career as a teacher or social worker.

"I would be passionate about my job. I would remember how tough it was for me and remember that other kids go through the same thing. I would definitely do everything in my power to help them succeed."

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

Summary View-Point on Creative Cities Summit

Creative Cities Summit 2.0 Recap by Arnold Weinfeld
Director of Public Policy & Federal Affairs for the League

Monday

October 13, 2008

This week, the second-ever Creative Cities Summit will be taking place in Detroit at the Renaissance Center. The League has been working with event founder Peter Kageyama and a host of other organizations over the last several months on putting together an event that will feature speakers from around the world with knowledge and experience in creating vibrant communities. I'm looking forward to hearing from people such as Richard Florida, Charles Landry, John Howkins, Doug Farr, Bill Strickand and a host of others. Session content covers a wide array of topics from cities and universities; attracting and retaining talent (this one features League CEO Dan Gilmartin); design; marketing and media; transportation; music and creativity; and sustainability, just to mention a few. It all starts today and runs through Wednesday. I'll be reporting highlights throughout the week. For a full agenda check out www.creativecitiessummit.com.

Tuesday

October 14, 2008

As the Creative Cities Summit opened on Monday in Detroit, Karen Gagnon, Cool Cities director and CCS2 (Creative Cities Summit 2) co-producer, asked people to take away one big idea. Yet the first day speakers revealed several concepts that when woven together bring to mind the big idea that cities hold the key to creating the environment necessary for creativity.

As Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, author of The Municipal Mind noted, creativity is impossible without the civil encounter, for the city is the place where one discovers his/her destiny through others. Di Cicco also spoke about how risk taking is essential to creative economies as much as good urban citizenship is a key to knowledge economy. He was followed by John Howkins, one of the first to publish ideas on creativity and innovation in the 2001 work, The Creative Economy, and a consultant who has worked in over 30 countries—most recently in China. He began by noting how China will achieve in 30 years, the kind of urbanization it took Europe nearly 2,000 years. Howkins said the creative economy sees more failures than the service or manufacturing economies and that global competition in the 21st century is minds vs minds and copyright vs copyright, or minds working with other minds. He set forth his principles of 'creative ecology' whereby everyone is considered to be creative; creativity needs freedom and freedom needs markets. Howkins said creativity is not simply art or innovation but imagination, dreams, new concepts, design, culture, style, and meaning.

Freedom is dialogue, collaboration, education, training, learning, and acceptance by family/friends/society. The market is the marketplace of ideas as evidenced through information content and the internet. The creative ecology is one where diverse individuals express themselves in a systematic and adaptive way using ideas to produce new ideas. According to Howkins, the six indicators of the creative ecology are systems, diversity, change, learning, adaptation, and sustainability. The next billion of those looking for work will go to creative cities to join the creative ecology.

Bill Strickland concluded with his inspirational story of the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and Bidwell Training Center in Pittsburgh, PA. Strickland's story and his vision are built around the premise that provided the right environment, people will go into the world as assets, not liabilities. To say the least, the first day of the summit was a day for listening and learning. Tuesday we'll hear more thoughts on the creative economy, creative city, and creative design from thinkers such as Richard Florida and Charles Landry, sustainable urbanist Doug Farr, as well as Ben Hecht of Living Cities and Tom Wujec of Autodesk, with breakout session topics covering LEED neighborhood development, transportation, and a discussion on the Midwest as a mega-region. Something tells me that it will be another day of big ideas. Stay tuned to more from the 'D' on these and other goings on at the CCS2!

Wednesday

October 15, 2008

You'll recall that I mentioned yesterday that if Monday's sessions were any indication then those speaking Tuesday would also have some big ideas for us to consider. Well I and those in attendance were not disappointed! The day began with Tom Wujec of Autodesk. Autodesk is the Oscar-winning industry leader in 3D computer animation technology. Tom discussed how teams foster their creativity, that innovation is the capacity to encourage imagination. He was followed by Ben Hecht, President and CEO of Living Cities. Living Cities is a national community redevelopment initiative that looks to improve the built environment in under-developed neighborhoods. Ben sees cities as the solution for solving America's problems—leading us into the green economy and building a new urban ecosystem through strong neighborhoods. He noted that venture capitalists are funding 'clean technology' initiatives right behind information technology and bio tech.

We then heard from Doug Farr, a Detroit native and an architect, planner, and author of the book Sustainable Urbanism. Doug spoke about the foundations of sustainable urbanism—smart growth, green buildings, and new urbanism. He said that we need to change our culture and our systems when it comes to thinking about efficiency and sustainability, including fixing codes and reversing regulations. He noted that a part of the 2030 Communities Campaign is to reduce vehicle miles traveled; it is wrong to think we can all buy fuel efficient vehicles and drive more or build larger buildings simply because they’re 'green'.

Richard Florida was the lunch keynote speaker, and although he made the circuit a few times a number of years ago after penning the book The Rise of the Creative Class, it was the first time this writer had seen him speak. He has a new book out now titled Who's Your City? and his speech ran the gamut of topics from the current financial crisis to the role cities must play in providing the means for creativity. Florida opined that we are in the midst of a fundamental economic transformation and that the current worldwide financial crisis is not analogous to 1929, but rather to the late 1800s—the last time the world saw great economic system change. The change taking place now according to Florida is the move to a creative economy where the only real capital left is human capital or creativity. The old models of recovery are bankrupt and the only way out is through our communities. He noted that at the turn of the 20th century only five percent of the US was in creative economy; even in 1980 it was only 15-20 percent...now it is 33 percent. Creativity doesn't respect social boundaries...it has nothing to do with race, disabilities; etc. Rather than a “melting pot” he said we are now a “mosaic society” where an individual can keep their culture, their identity, and enjoy the culture and identity of others. Arts, culture, and entertainment are as important today as business, finance, and technology. In order to provide the means for fostering creativity, cities must provide 1) physical and economic security; 2) economic and civic opportunity; 3) leadership to activate the creativity; 4) open mindedness and being welcoming to all; and 5) quality of place including integration with the natural environment. And this just got us through lunch! I'll continue with more tomorrow including thoughts from Charles Landry and a historic roundtable discussion.

Thursday

October 16, 2008

Day 2- Part 2

When I left off yesterday, Richard Florida had just given his manifesto of the way things are now and the way they should be. And, whether you’re a Richard Florida fan or not he definitely gives one something to think about.

Which takes us to after lunch on Tuesday and Charles Landry. Landry is known for his work on creativity and its uses and how city futures are shaped by paying attention to the culture of a place. He too has written books, his most recent, The Art of City Making focuses on how cities can be more "creative for the world." His comments reflected that belief as he noted that the art of city making in the 21st century is the art of living together. He said that there are many ways to look at a city but that first and foremost is its history and creativity. Having a strong arts and cultural heritage is synonymous with the creative economy. He noted that one of the challenges facing us is what to do with smaller 2nd-6th level cities. What is the emerging advantage when every city is chasing talent and being creative—it is values driven development connecting to a bigger picture. Cities need to learn to keep the best and reinvent the rest through capital assessments.

Landry also dug down into city organization providing a means by which cities must be open through a "creative bureaucracy" or one which is strategically principled but tactically flexible. One that is open to collaboration and partnership with its citizens and greater community.

Following Landry was a roundtable discussion which, for the first time, brought together the three people—Landry, John Howkins and Richard Florida—who for the past decade have spent their time writing and speaking about the creative economy, creative class, and creative city. The discussion was moderated by CEOs for Cities director Carol Coletta and a lively discussion ensued weaving together the thoughts of these thinkers. Some of the comments included Florida saying that the most basic right of any person is to be able to fully explore your talent through self expression and that cities must stop doing dumb things. They need to conserve resources, empower community groups. Reflecting on the current worldwide situation he noted that "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” John Howkins noted that creativity needs freedom and that we need to be investing in people. Landry noted that we have to shift the rule system away from the plantation mentality of the industrial system.

As full as the morning and afternoon session were, there was a after-dinner session with representatives from Google, MSU, U-M and WSU as well as private business and Lansing Mayor and MML Board member Virg Bernero to discuss cities, universities, and talent. Nearly everyone agreed that all need to work better together at retaining talent in Michigan.

Tuesday CCS2 sessions were about as full as they get with concepts and ideas on how we need to move forward to secure a better future. And after hearing speakers for the first two days, one thing is indeed clear... the world economic platform has changed to one in which brains are the new capital, not brawn. Those cities, states, regions, and countries that understand this and put in place systems that will encourage creative activity and growth in their communities will grow themselves.

Friday

October 17, 2008

After two days of speakers and presenters giving us more than one "big idea," the last day of the CCS2 was drill down day as many session speakers were from organizations working on the ground implementing those very ideas that help to create vibrant cities. In the opening plenary session, Doug Rothwell (president of Detroit Renaissance) and Kelly Lee (executive vice president of Innovation Philadelphia) spoke to their respective efforts at working to create places that will attract young, talented people. That was followed by breakout sessions involving such topics as music and economic development, planning for the creative city, and race and the creative city. This last topic explored the challenges, triumphs, and lessons learned from urban, creative professionals as they worked through racial barriers to spur social and economic innovation. The luncheon speaker was Diana Lind, editor of the magazine Next American City which seeks to link young, urban organizations around the country in an effort to engage that constituency in a quest for more livable cities. The afternoon sessions included discussions on storytelling or how to relate the authenticity of a place; the future of creative expression for cities; creative industry incubators; and a session on the city's role in attracting and retaining talent, featuring League CEO Dan Gilmartin.

The final keynote speaker of the conference was Majora Carter. A life-long resident of the South Bronx, Majora spoke of her belief that one should not have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one, and acted upon that belief by founding the non-profit environmental justice solutions corporation, Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx). Her first project was obtaining a federal planning grant for the South Bronx Greenway Project which led to the first new South Bronx water front park in over 60 years. She has continued to work on projects to improve her neighborhood, one of the poorest in New York City. Since starting the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training Program in 2003, an urban green-collar job training and placement system, she has since partnered with Van Jones on a national green-collar job agenda. Majora is a inspiration to anyone working to make their corner of the world a better place.

For me, this three-day conference re-affirmed my belief that communities hold the key economic prosperity. It helped to coalesce those ideas and strategies that will help me in my work with communities in Michigan. One thing is clear, public and private sector leaders and citizens must understand that a new economic platform is upon us—one that is based around knowledge and creativity, where human capital is the most important element. Those that do and who work together to put in place systems that will encourage creative activity and growth; these are the places that will grow themselves.

I'm glad to be part of an organization that is working with communities in Michigan to help them move forward. Join us.

AT OUR CORE: A Quantum Jump or Leap of Faith

ASCERTAINMENT!

ON the ACT and ART of "FREELY REVEALING"
http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/evhippel-voluntaryinfospillover.pdf

Meeting: Governor Granholm on Alternative Wind Energy!

Who, What, Where, When, Why?

EVER MINDFUL!

Urban Districts and National Foundations: Making the Marriage Work

By Paul Goren & Judy Wurtzel

Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.

A couple meets, marries, and has children. Then common goals and values turn to finger-pointing and divorce. Sadly, this too-common story is an apt metaphor for relationships between urban school districts and major national foundations that support public education. Early enthusiasm often turns to disappointment. In fact, several major foundations have stopped funding K-12 public education, disappointed with their grantmaking’s limited impact.

Believing a healthy partnership between urban districts and national foundations is critical, the Aspen Institute Education and Society Program and the Spencer Foundation convened approximately 20 urban superintendents and senior foundation program officers to talk about how they might better collaborate. Participants identified five major challenges to such partnerships and offered some suggestions about how to address them. No district or foundation (including the Spencer Foundation, where one of the authors works) is immune from the following:

It’s hard to be honest. Honesty is the first challenge. Foundations validate and fund superintendents’ agendas, giving district leaders credibility and leverage with important constituencies. Not surprisingly, few superintendents will push back or raise warning signs. In addition, district leaders are often skeptical about national foundations’ steadfastness during transition or turmoil, which are virtually inevitable in urban school districts. Adding to this, foundation program officers can come and go. Each new program officer has new questions and requirements and often limited understanding of the history of the work.

In foundations, there is similar concern about districts’ staying the course, especially when superintendents and school boards turn over constantly. Moreover, while foundations provide the only truly discretionary dollars available for urban schools, they generally do not fund an initiative forever, seeking instead a serious effort to transfer the work to district resources over time.

These factors often produce a fundamental lack of trust that makes honest conversation about the design and progress of reforms difficult. In general, both sides bite their tongues.

Ownership is unclear and contested. A second challenge is the tension over who owns the reforms. National foundations often arrive with their own agendas and need to “brand” their multidistrict initiatives. To secure funding, districts may surrender their own aspirations to the foundations’. Or, lacking a strong agenda, they adopt the foundation’s to get the funding. Either way, the initiative can remain the foundation’s and never gain traction in the district.

On the other hand, districts may not be open to agendas introduced by foundations, expressing a parochial sense that any initiative must be produced in the district, solely by district staff members, with all credit going to district leaders. The challenge of ownership is intensified by the fact that large districts must often balance and reconcile the goals and frameworks of multiple foundations that rarely speak to one another or coordinate their work.

Generally, the primary relationship is between the foundation and the district superintendent, who is often a roving leader. Thus, ensuring ownership by the central-office staff, the school board, and the community is an additional challenge. Looking specifically at community ownership, it’s notable that foundations tend to support districts more than community capacity for change, even though community leaders are likely to remain long after the superintendent and the school board turn over.

Culture, race, class—unspoken but not unnoticed. Differences in culture, race, class, and experience between foundation personnel, central-office staff members, and students and their families are an often-unacknowledged challenge to effective partnerships. Foundations are largely funded, run, and staffed by elites who do not reflect the demographics of the schools they are trying to reform. Often lacking practical and cultural experience in local communities and operating with workplace cultures very different from school districts’, foundation staff members and their designated intermediaries may be seen as out-of touch interlopers.

Limited capacity. Districts and foundations often agree to highly ambitious reforms, promising to improve student outcomes in a manner or at a scale rarely before accomplished in urban schools. Too often, however, both partners have limited capacity to implement—or even to determine the appropriateness of—the chosen reforms.

When a new superintendent arrives, for example, funders support the foundations’ areas of interest. But success is unlikely if the new superintendent says yes before he or she is able to realistically assess the fit between the district’s and the foundation’s agenda, implementation capacity, and timelines. Moreover, while foundations are often thought to have significant capacity, program officers typically manage multiple initiatives in numerous locations simultaneously, limiting time and attention in any one setting.

No long-term learning agenda. A fifth challenge is the paucity of systematic efforts to learn from mistakes. No district or foundation has all the necessary knowledge, yet the typical norms oppose making learning central and reciprocal. Foundations, often concerned with self-preservation, brand identification, and leverage, can be risk-averse and ambivalent about learning from mistakes. Districts likewise have little interest or ability to flag implementation weaknesses or examine failures. Grant modifications based on implementation experience are often considered failures rather than continuous learning. Moreover, once an initiative has run its course and new leaders arrive on the scene, they may label prior initiatives “failures” even if they had very successful aspects that should be studied and shared. As a result, there is little learning from what did and did not work to inform the next effort.

---

Given these five challenges, how might we strengthen foundation-district partnerships? A few lessons emerge.

First, the initial engagement period, in which the foundation and the district determine whether there is a match, is critical. At these early stages, both sides must be frank about their goals, their readiness and capacity, their predictions of achievable progress, and the potential risks ahead. Both should be prepared to push, and push back, to construct together an agreed-upon agenda—or to decide that the match is not to be.

Second, long-term sustainability depends on district ownership of reforms. Reforms must meet real district needs, be central to the district’s goals and strategies, and be integrated concretely into district operations, rather than simply being an add-on. Importantly, here the term “district” is not defined solely as “superintendent,” but also includes school board, district staff, families, and the community. Local foundations and intermediaries often can play an important bridging role to anchor reforms in the community’s concerns and values.

Third, race, class, and experience are often the “elephant in the room.” These attributes of the people who govern, lead, and staff foundations, districts, and other partners might go unspoken, but they do not go unnoticed. Foundations can make a difference by consistently posing questions that make possible open conversations about these issues and their impact on the work. They also can work to diversify the experience and backgrounds of their boards and staffs, and fund more organizations that are run and staffed by people who represent the communities being served.

Finally, effective reform requires organized and systematic methods for foundations and districts to learn from doing. Deliberate and public efforts to analyze failures can both tease out lessons and embolden others to critically assess their work and avert mistakes in the making. Similarly, ongoing initiatives can be designed to incorporate formative evaluations and midcourse reviews to be used explicitly for continuous improvement, rather than as exercises in “gotcha.”

This work will require a willingness on the part of both foundation and district to recognize that attaining the desired results will take a long-term commitment to traversing a rocky pathway, and with an ability to adapt over time.

Paul Goren is the senior vice president of the Spencer Foundation, in Chicago. Judy Wurtzel is the co-director of the Aspen Institute Education and Society Program, in New York City.