tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940730698373715852024-03-05T02:21:56.011-05:00EDUSOLUTIONARIESUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-34313494725492185032009-12-30T12:59:00.001-05:002009-12-30T12:59:39.360-05:00CATCH the WAVE 2010!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglmbaUj09tUo9fSoFbAK0EiL8qaAee4NSXb7oMKH4AuOguf-lHR8BpxiOF00Il0rVauqr7Hg7rKof_tFDQfiHm0zGdb874RJiALomjjnXdc2tasRiy_n__yz5nTXElNNLOdZBQe1bGiMU/s1600-h/The+Digital+Learning+Swarm+Google+Wave+11-13-2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglmbaUj09tUo9fSoFbAK0EiL8qaAee4NSXb7oMKH4AuOguf-lHR8BpxiOF00Il0rVauqr7Hg7rKof_tFDQfiHm0zGdb874RJiALomjjnXdc2tasRiy_n__yz5nTXElNNLOdZBQe1bGiMU/s400/The+Digital+Learning+Swarm+Google+Wave+11-13-2009.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-22649127731405151852009-12-29T06:00:00.002-05:002009-12-29T06:00:46.738-05:00METAPHOR for EDUCATION: From Intentionally DESIGNED for OBSOLESCENCE to TRANSFORMATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY!Story of Stuff <a href="http://www.storyofstuff.com/">http://www.storyofstuff.com</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/multimedia/yes-film/the-story-of-stuff-chapter-1-introduction">http://www.yesmagazine.org/multimedia/yes-film/the-story-of-stuff-chapter-1-introduction</a><br />
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Videos<br />
Introduction<br />
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OqZMTY4V7Ts&rel=0&color1=0xd6d6d6&color2=0xf0f0f0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OqZMTY4V7Ts&rel=0&color1=0xd6d6d6&color2=0xf0f0f0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
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Extraction<br />
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QYbSaBH0_1M&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QYbSaBH0_1M&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
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Production<br />
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HoJDDiJohKY&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HoJDDiJohKY&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
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Distribution<br />
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/swtYy80B-LE&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/swtYy80B-LE&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
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Consumption<br />
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EUeMVt3stAo&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EUeMVt3stAo&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
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Disposal<br />
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FdyV5W-9M_w&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FdyV5W-9M_w&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
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Another Way<br />
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zam9DZ43Cl0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zam9DZ43Cl0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-7752715307410120822009-12-27T03:59:00.002-05:002009-12-28T06:27:29.763-05:00A PERFECT STORM: A Stretch Indeed! (NOW if WE Could Just Stretch Those DOLLARS Into the CLASSROOM!)<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><img height="430.12048192771084" src="http://detroitfreepress.mi.newsmemory.com/newsmemvol2/michigan/detroitfreepress/20091227/f22a_27_.pdf.0/img/Image_2.jpg" width="350" /></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"></span>Editorial</b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Michigan schools at the starting line</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">The whole idea of the federal Race to the Top program, which could bring hundreds of millions in new education funding to Michigan, was to get states to stretch.<br />
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Stretch the conventional restrictions on charter schools. Stretch the typical ideas about who can be a teacher, or how teachers can be evaluated. Stretch the notions of who should be able to call it quits on school.<br />
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The good news is that Michigan will stretch with other states, thanks to recent, last-minute legislative action. Michigan lawmak ers may have spent most of the year frittering away their chances to reform the state’s finances, but their quick, collaborative work on Race to the Top showed how much can be accomplished when they’re properly motivated.<br />
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Now school districts themselves have to embrace the new legislation and stretch themselves to meet the challenge.<br />
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That could be toughest with regard to collective bargaining agreements, which must reflect new attitudes toward nontradition al teachers and historically taboo subjects such as merit pay and peer review.<br />
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Districts must make the changes just to apply, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll get any of the federal money even if they do.<br />
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But local administrators need to sell teachers, in particular, on the idea that these changes are good for Michigan’s schools and, especially, for its kids. That’s what makes them a good idea. Not the money.<br />
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Teachers will perform better if their contracts reward merit and indulge intervention for those who are struggling. They’ll do more for children if their reviews are aligned with student outcomes.<br />
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Michigan has lagged behind other states in this regard and has some catching up to do if districts here want to really compete for Race to the Top dollars. Union recalcitrance here has been stron ger than in other parts of the country.<br />
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But the Michigan Education Association ought to turn its con cerns about change into vigilance in the name of making the state as competitive as it can be. The only thing accomplished by resis tance now would be a loss for the state — both in terms of the federal cash being made available and the great possibilities opened up by the Legislature’s actions.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #404040; font-family: arial, 'helvetica neue', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div class="header" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 9px;"><h1 style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 36px;"><span style="color: red;">EDITORIAL: Local districts should back school reforms</span></h1><h2 style="font-size: 16px;"></h2><div style="margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Saturday, December 26, 2009</span><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">By THE OAKLAND PRESS</span><br />
</div></div><div class="storybody" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; color: black; margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 9px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Oxford is the first school district in Oakland County to indicate to state Superintendent Mike Flanagan that it wants to support the state’s application for some of the $4.6 billion in Federal Race to the Top stimulus funds.<br />
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That’s wonderful. We urge other county school districts to quickly follow suit.<br />
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Certainly the federal funding is needed and the recently passed state education reforms actually should help improve the system.<br />
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We supported them in an editorial earlier this month and are glad to see the Legislature acting on them.<br />
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The federal Race to the Top initiative is a $4.35 billion competitive grant program for states to enact comprehensive and innovative education reforms. If selected, Michigan would receive about $400 million for its schools to implement the education reform plan.<br />
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The regulations are geared to helping students learn and to improve the quality of the educational system. The motives are admirable and the reforms seem workable.<br />
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Under the broad legislation, the state could add more charter schools and poor-performing schools could be taken over by the state. It also raises the state’s dropout age from 16 to 18, ties teacher evaluation to student test scores and provides for more flexibility for schools instituting innovative improvement plans.<br />
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Oxford officials signed a memorandum supporting the reforms and then the Board of Education approved it with a vote of 7-0. The deadline for local districts to get their memorandums to their intermediate school district is Jan. 7. The intermediate districts must have all memorandums sent to the Michigan Department of Education by Jan. 8.<br />
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Oxford is one of 14 districts in the state, and the only one in Oakland County, that is a Project Reimagine Recipient Demonstration District and is undergoing major change.<br />
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However, as noted by Superintendent William Skilling, the education reforms are a positive step for the state, even if we don’t get any federal funds.<br />
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Skilling said the legislation will provide flexibility for districts such as Oxford that are providing or want to provide programs that are not traditional. For example, as part of Oxford’s initiatives, the district will be offering a 24-7 year-round school.<br />
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Rep. Tim Melton, D-Auburn Hills, spearheaded the effort to draft and pass the school reforms. We commend him and we’re glad our leaders in Lansing finally were able to work together in a bipartisan fashion to pass this needed legislation. That hasn’t happened very often this past year.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #404040; font-family: arial, 'helvetica neue', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div class="header" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 9px;"><h1 style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 36px;"><span style="color: red;">Black students held back by politics, union teachers</span></h1><h2 style="font-size: 16px;"></h2><div style="margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Saturday, December 26, 2009</span><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">By WALTER E. WILLIAMS</span><br />
</div></div><div class="storybody" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; color: black; margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 9px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Detroit’s (predominantly black) public schools are the worst in the nation and it takes some doing to be worse than Washington, D.C.<br />
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Only 3 percent of Detroit’s fourth-graders scored proficient on the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, sometimes called “The Nation’s Report Card.” Twenty-eight percent scored basic and 69 percent below basic. “Below basic” is the NAEP category when students are unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade level. It’s the same story for Detroit’s eighth-graders. Four percent scored proficient, 18 percent basic and 77 percent below basic.<br />
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The academic performance of black students in other large cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles is not much better than Detroit and Washington.<br />
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The education establishment and politicians tell us that we need to spend more for higher teacher pay and smaller class size. The fact of business is higher teacher salaries and smaller class sizes mean little or nothing in terms of academic achievement. Washington, D.C., for example spends over $15,000 per student, has class sizes smaller than the nation’s average, and with an average annual salary of $61,195, its teachers are the most highly paid in the nation.<br />
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What about role models? Standard psychobabble asserts a positive relationship between the race of teachers and administrators and student performance. That’s nonsense. Black academic performance is the worst in the very cities where large percentages of teachers and administrators are black, and often the school superintendent is black, the mayor is black, most of the city council is black and very often the chief of police is black.<br />
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Black people have accepted hare-brained ideas that have made large percentages of black youngsters virtually useless in an increasingly technological economy. This destruction will continue until the day comes when black people are willing to turn their backs on liberals and the education establishment’s agenda and confront issues that are both embarrassing and uncomfortable.<br />
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Many black students are alien and hostile to the education process. They have parents with little interest in their education. These students not only sabotage the education process, but make schools unsafe as well. These students should not be permitted to destroy the education chances of others. They should be removed or those students who want to learn should be provided with a mechanism to go to another school.<br />
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Another issue deemed too delicate to discuss is the overall quality of people teaching our children. Students who have chosen education as their major have the lowest SAT scores of any other major. Students who have an education degree earn lower scores than any other major on graduate school admission tests such as the GRE, MCAT or LSAT. Schools of education, either graduate or undergraduate, represent the academic slums of most any university. They are home to the least able students and professors. Schools of education should be shut down.<br />
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Yet another issue is the academic fraud committed by teachers and administrators. After all, what is it when a student is granted a diploma certifying a 12th grade level of achievement when, in fact, he can’t perform at the sixth- or seventh-grade level?<br />
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Prospects for improvement in black education are not likely given the cozy relationship between black politicians, civil rights organizations and teacher unions.</span></span><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-60657833061014092612009-12-20T08:35:00.001-05:002009-12-20T08:35:37.876-05:00Phoenix Rising or Mirage? (WE'LL make the DIFFERENCE)<img height="478.36185819070903" src="http://detroitfreepress.mi.newsmemory.com/newsmemvol2/michigan/detroitfreepress/20091220/f25a_20_.pdf.0/img/Image_1.jpg" width="350" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">RISING FROM THE WRECKAGE:</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> REVVING UP MICHIGAN</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;">Free Press editorial</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: blue;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Lessons of a near-fatal crash</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Rx for recovery: A new commitment to education</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">E</span></span></b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">ducation first, last and always.<br />
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That maxim practically leaps out of “Rising from the Wreckage,” the Free Press series ending today on the downfall of the American auto industry, and what happened across Michigan as a result.<br />
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Somehow, even in its budget struggles, this state has to find a way to invest in improving education or risk prolonging this ugly chapter in Michigan history.<br />
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That means changing the culture, too, to emphasize the value of schooling beyond the 12th grade and of continuous learning. The days of taking a high school diplo ma to the local factory and getting a tick et to the middle class are over. They were great while they lasted, but they left Michigan ill-equipped to adjust to the 21st-Century global economy.<br />
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The future belongs to the smart states — and Michigan had better be among those states if it expects a better one.<br />
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People who learn are also people who change, challenge, adapt and innovate, the very things the auto industry has struggled to do for a decade. Complacency is born from a lack of appreciation for learning and stretching. And that complacency, as much as anything else, brought Detroit’s auto industry to the brink of extinction.<br />
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You can see proof of that among nearly all the key characters in “Rising from the Wreckage.” They clung to what they had and disinvested in what they would need for the future.<br />
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That was also the grim assessment of the outsiders who were sent to help clean up the mess in Michigan. Steve Rattner, the private equity banker who became President Barack Obama’s car czar, couldn’t have been more blunt in summing up what was wrong in the board rooms at GM and Chrysler.<br />
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“They were delusional … just more of the same,” he said of the turnaround plans submitted by the car companies and ultimately rejected by the government.<br />
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For Michigan, the way forward begins with a commitment to creating a populace that’s better schooled, better trained, more adaptable and nimble. It has to start with a reinvestment in education.<br />
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Reinvestment is the right word, too, because for at least the past decade (colleges and universities would say even longer) this state has been slipping steadily away from its once-formidable commitments.<br />
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The 1990s could appropriately be called the gravy years of K-12 funding in Michigan, after Proposal A’s passage in 1994 leveraged statewide resources, rather than local millage rates, for school districts’ operating costs.<br />
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But as sales tax revenues have declined over the past decade, K-12 funding has</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> lagged badly, increasing at an average rate of just 1.8% each year — well below inflation over that period and, just as important, less than many built-in cost increases for services and benefits.<br />
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The retreat from Michigan’s historical support for higher education has been just as glaring. A recent study shows Michigan dead last among all states in terms of increases in higher education appropriations over the last five years and the only state whose outlay is lower in real numbers, by more than 5%.<br />
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At the same time, an ever-increasing proportion of the funds allocated to education have gone to support a benefits structure that threatens, as in the auto industry, to bankrupt the entire enter prise.<br />
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Waning financial support is just one barometer of Michigan’s growing complacency about education. Recall how quickly the Legislature acquiesced to the idea of a watered-down Michigan Educational Assessment Program (where scoring 60% on the tests is “proficient” and a cheaper to-grade multiple choice exam has replaced one that focused more on writing) and how little resistance was put up by Gov. Jennifer Granholm.<br />
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Look at how quickly legislators backed away from tough high school graduation standards when parents and teachers complained about students’ struggles with it. Algebra II? Never mind that it includes skills that kids will need to compete in the workforce. It’s too hard, so not everyone will need to take it.<br />
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In higher education, Michigan also has not done enough to strengthen community colleges — so critical to sustaining lifelong learning both for college graduates and those seeking certification for technical jobs. Shouldn’t they be growing programs and partnerships with industry, rather than retrenching under severe financial strain?<br />
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Michigan must embrace the idea that rigor breeds greatness, and recognize that the jobs of the future will require more mental dexterity than physical brawn.<br />
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That’s especially true of the auto industry, which, even if it comes back to pre-recession levels, will never again be able to support tens of thousands of uneducated </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">workers.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> A better educated Michigan will be a more stable, and more prosperous, state.<br />
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It’s no accident that the correlation be tween a state’s per capita income and the percentage of college graduates who live in that state is very strong. Mississippi, with a per capita income below $30,000, has a population in which fewer than 25% have earned a bachelor’s degree. In Connecticut, where per capita income is highest,</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> the rate of college-educated citizens is above 35%. Michigan is in the middle of the pack, with less than $35,000 in per capita income and less than 30% of its citizens boasting 4-year degrees.<br />
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Michigan will need money to reclaim a competitive advantage. A revamped tax structure that halts the erosion of funding for K-12 and higher education has to be a priority. <span style="color: red;">So does a plan to spend money on the things that matter in education — instruction, curriculum, connections with real-world workplaces — rather than administrative costs and overly generous benefits and pensions for employees.</span><br />
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Michigan will also need leadership focused intently on defining and maintaining standards, and dedicated to making the political sacrifices to keep funding</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> healthy. The governor and the Legislature must work together to build a work force that won’t be as susceptible to single industry</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> collapses.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> And Michiganders themselves must commit to the value of primary and secondary education, as well as lifelong learning.<br />
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Lorenzo Byrd, the former Ford worker in “Rising from the Wreckage,” had the right idea. When he lost work because of the economic downturn, he turned to more education as the way forward.<br />
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When things bounce back, he’ll be better positioned than others to take advantage.<br />
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Michigan has to become a state of Byrds, dedicated to a life whose only guarantees are predicated on a simple motto: Education first, last and always.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Jobs shake-up slams black middle class</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But many say change is a chance to fix schools</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">F</span></span></b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">rom 1910 into the 1930s, the black population of Detroit rose more than 600% — double the rate of nearby Cleveland and four times faster than the in crease</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> in Chicago. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">Nobody was moving here for the weather. The influx of people to Detroit — the city tripled in size during the same period to a population of about 1.5 million— was about jobs, mainly in the auto industry, after Henry Ford made his famous offer of $5 a day.<br />
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Among the many side effects of the assembly line was the rise of the American middle class and, in Detroit more than anywhere else, the creation of a black middle class. While segregation and racism were obstacles, Detroit became a place where good factory wages enabled African Americans to afford homes and cars; where black businesses could start up with ready customers and where succeeding generations had a measure of upward mobility.<br />
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Hundreds of African-American professionals, businesspeople and academics owe their start to parents or grandparents who were able to make a decent living in Michigan’s auto plants.<br />
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That avenue to the proverbial American dream has now been largely closed off by the disap pearance</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> of job opportunities at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and the many industry supplier firms.<br />
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“What is happening now to the black middle class is absolutely devastating,” said Dr. Curtis Iv ery, chancellor of Wayne County Community College District. “But it is also much needed. We needed to come out of our comfort zone, that sense of entitlement to those jobs.”<br />
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<span style="color: red;">Ivery and others said this massive</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"> economic shake-up should be</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="color: red;"> a wake-up call for Detroit and indeed all Michigan to fix its schools and redirect young people toward higher education.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red;">“The old paradigm was graduate from high school and get a good job,” said Daniel Baxter, director of elections for the City of Detroit and the son of an assembly line worker. “Now, it’s totally different. We have to shift</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="color: red;"> the thought process, recognize the new dynamic.”</span><br />
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Juliette Okotie-Eboh, senior vice president of public affairs for MGM Grand Detroit and the daughter of a Ford worker, recalled a time in the 1960s when the best-dressed among her class mates at Detroit Northern High School were the young men who had second-shift auto jobs.<br />
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“They had the cars, they had the clothes,” she said. “The point is, I guess, they didn’t need the education at that time to make the good money. But those doors have been closed for a while. Are blacks disproportionately affected? We’re always disproportionately affected. … But the lack of opportunity is more acute now.”<br />
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Michael Porter, vice president for corporate communications at DTE Energy, is the son of an auto worker. His mother started out as a stenographer but worked her way up to computer systems analyst at the Army’s Tank Automotive Command plant.<br />
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“I was exceedingly fortunate,” Porter said. “My parents placed a high premium on education and sacrificed — sending us to parochial schools to help prepare for college. … But for those who couldn’t or didn’t want to go to college, the plants were a viable option.<br />
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<span style="color: red;">“Today, those manufacturing</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="color: red;"> jobs are gone. … And even if the auto companies had the market share they enjoyed in the 1960s, the jobs our parents held would be gone. … Today, computers and robots do many of the things that were formerly done by men and women with air wrenches and paint spray guns.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: red;">Hence the critical need, said Porter, Ivery and others, to address the ills of predominantly African-American school districts and the widespread applause for Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager of the Detroit Public Schools, who’s becoming a local folk hero as he reshapes the</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="color: red;"> district with an emphasis on accountability. Bobb’s trying to make changes that are at least a generation beyond overdue.</span><br />
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“The school systems have got to do a much better job now of meeting the needs of these stu dents,” said Bart Landry, a pro fessor of sociology at the University of Maryland and author of a 1987 book, “The New Black Middle Class,” plus a 2006 follow-up, “Black Working Wives.”<br />
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<span style="color: red;">“But first, students have to understand, the good dollars-for hours jobs are gone. ‘If I’m going to make it, I must go to college’ … and if they don’t get into precollege work, that road is extremely difficult.”</span><br />
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At WCCCD, which now has upward of 80,000 people taking credit and noncredit courses, Chancellor Ivery is more blunt about the impact of all the closed factories in southeast Michigan.<br />
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<span style="color: red;">“Unfortunately, we’re exactly where we need to be, and it’s a painful thing,”</span> he said. “But we’ve got to get something out of this.<br />
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There’s an opportunity if we take it over the next one or two years.<br />
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And if we get it right here, we can get it right for the whole country.<br />
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<span style="color: red;">“We have a chance,” Ivery said, “to … turn this around.”</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;">RISING FROM THE WRECKAGE:</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"> REVVING UP MICHIGAN</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Back to the beginning: Innovate</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">W</span></span></b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">e have lost sight of where it began. It is not about jobs, wages and benefits. It is all about productivity and a culture of innovation.</span></span><br />
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</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How can you compete against a Chinese worker making 50 cents an hour? You beat him with machines, automation and robotics. One man running multiple machines can produce more parts faster and of higher quality than any cheap labor can. By using more robotic and automated systems, the overseas shipping costs would be eliminated and the time to delivery would be faster. We have focused too long on attempting to save jobs and benefits rather than increasing productivity, which would expand sales through lower prices and thus create more jobs.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Once, Detroit and Michigan were the epicenter of innovation. We knew how to build and improve on every process of automotive manufacturing and all its components. The culture of innovation and inspiration needs to be restored and rewarded to awaken the deep manufacturing capabilities that Michigan still has.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Look back at the late ’70s, in the midst of a recession similar to today’s, and no one would have believed that a giant computer industry was about to be born. But there were precursors in the form of microprocessors that the innovative entrepreneurs could see. Those precursors today are in the form of sensors, tiny microcontrollers, software and advanced machining that Michigan possesses. All together they will build a new robotics industry. Michigan can lead it.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Ronald Horner</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Clinton Township</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Spend in Michigan</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We all are responsible (“Rising from the wreckage: A story of survival,” Dec. 13-20)</span></span>. <span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Instead of finding people to blame, this is what we all can do: Go to a car dealer and ask them what cars they sell that are manufactured in Michigan. Drive them.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">Go to</span></span> <a href="http://buymichigannow.com/" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">buymichigannow.com</a> <span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">and search products that are made in Michigan.</span></span> <span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Stop buying items that are made in foreign countries — food, clothing and transportation. We can’t do any thing about what our predeces sors have done, but we can do something about what we buy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh, and all those Christmas items you bought online? Write a check to the State of Michigan for the sales tax.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Jim Dundas</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Bloomfield Township</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">More wrecks ahead</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What happened to the U.S. auto industry, which the Free Press calls “creator of the middle class and home of labor victories that set a standard for generations of American workers”? Just look at the standard of lifetime pensions and health care, promised when health care costs were low, which is now suffocating American automotive companies. Now, how can any company with hundreds of thousands of paid retirees with “Cadillac benefits” survive? Unfortunately, what has happened to GM, Ford and Chrysler is now suffocating cities and states and the country.<br />
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Then tell me who believes that the new “health care reforms” of the Congress will actually reduce health care costs of companies, their workers, or their retirees?<br />
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Tragically, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of this wreckage.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Arnie Goldman</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Farmington Hills</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">State can tough it out</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I left Michigan four years ago, not for economic reasons, but just to try something new.<br />
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I don’t think that this crisis is the end for Michigan’s staple industry. Just look at the layout of America. It’s still fairly spread out. However, the type of car that Americans are looking for has changed drastically. Gone are the excessive days of the late ’90s when SUVs were all the rage.<br />
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The rise and fall of oil prices was quick and sharp, far too fast for auto producers to adequately respond. Then, there was the financial crash in September 2008, which made everything more complicated. But at the end of the day, the majority of Americans are still commuting to work by car.<br />
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The uncertainty of change is undoubtedly scary, but there are so many talented professionals (especially in engineering) in Michigan that I trust that creative solutions will be found for the auto industry and in the de velopment of other new businesses in the state. Michiganders are just too practical and hard working a people to give up in the face of crisis.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Megan Cottrell</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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New York City</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Where to start</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We have to be mindful that Michigan’s leadership as the reigning capital of the automotive industry, once the driving force of this country and the world, is indeed “gone with the wind.”</span></span> <span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is especially difficult since Michigan was the cradle of its beginning and will probably never rise to this leadership status again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In this technical age, in order to compete with the world’s changes, we must prepare ourselves to meet and understand this challenge in order to sustain meaningful jobs and a living. It must start with the education of both children and adults, where we have fallen short.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As far as the basic need of jobs for our future success, we must continue to support entrepreneurs and serious development of our wonderful water’s potential for greatness. It will not be easy, but I hope that — with God’s help and understanding — we can develop and maintain the belief and tolerance in one another’s self worth. That would be a wonderful</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"> start!</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">Rosetta Brooks</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Detroit</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A new business</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After retiring from more than 40 years in the film and media business in the Detroit area, the rash of media stories about the growth of a vibrant “new” industry, employing hundreds if not thousands of unemployed workers has been viewed by me with a certain amount of amusement.<br />
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But after reading your article about Vanir Entertainment, I feel a sense of hope for the future (“Former autoworker is going green,” Dec. 16). It appears that Lewis Smith and Alex Greene have a realistic grasp on what it takes to make a successful busi ness as well as a new industry.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Starting small with a lot of dedication and hard work, as well as taking a gamble financially, will probably make them successful entrepreneurs</span></span>. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">At least I hope so, and I wish them well.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Keith Clark</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Troy</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Diversify — and learn</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The lesson for Michigan and the Detroit area in particular, is to diversify.</span></span> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">Never again must we rely on one industry to sustain us. I think that the introduction of the movie industry to Michigan is a good step. There will always be a need for motion pictures, and the jobs that come with it</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">.<br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We must also step back into the past. Technological and green jobs might be the new momentum, but we have a population that is heavy in blue-collar experience. There will soon be an acute demand for plumbers, carpenters, electricians and welders. Apprenticeships in what were once restricted guilds must open up.<br />
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Illiteracy is not just a problem in Detroit Public Schools. People who grew up during the 1980s up until now, especially males, preferred video games to reading a good book, or — as you know too</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> well — a daily newspaper</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">. <span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We must bring back the desire to read and learn.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We must also make Michigan more appealing for businesses to move here. We must change the negative images of Detroit.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We can do it. We can come back, but only if there is a will to do so and the willingness on be half of everyone to sacrifice.</span></span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Naomi Susan Solomons</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Oak Park</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Dealership woes</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I realize that the abysmal rhetoric about dealers you printed, while terribly inaccu rate, is most likely from dealers themselves. Unfortunately, the dealers who have survived have turned into pirates, wooing em ployees and working behind the scenes to sabotage any dealer rights legislation.<br />
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My husband, a GM dealer who got a “surprise” wind-down letter on June 2 — two weeks after the massive cut — has had his fellow dealers call employees at home, offering them signing bonuses and assuring them that life will be better at their new place of employment. Other dealers were privy to the lists of dealers being cut and shared that with their employees. We first heard about our dealership’s cut when an employee from another dealership told one of our salespeople.<br />
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As the industry declines, so does human decency. As much as I hate what GM and Chrysler did, they were doing their jobs. The surviving dealers, who prey on those who are losing, are greed riddled vultures.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Emily Tennyson</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Grosse Pointe Farms</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Maintain direction</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Being a GM retiree of 31 years from the Hydromatic plant, I can assure you the ups and downs I experienced over my years as an employee are something I’ll nev er forget, from the oil embargo times in the early ’70s to now. I still lose sleep worrying about my future and if the company I gave my life to is going to stand behind</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">its promises.<br />
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It’s hard to show loyalty to a company that has no clear bearing, and seeing the face of the skipper change almost monthly doesn’t make me warm and cozy in any way. I know I’m a lot bet ter off than most people nowadays, and, believe me, I’m grateful for that.<br />
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But I think it’s time for Gener al Motors to point in one direction and keep on that path, if not for the workers that make it a strong company now, then for the people who gave years to make them profitable and respected.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Robert Denstedt</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Canton</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Henry Ford’s lesson</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It has been the policy of many state governments to provide our foreign competition what can be considered tax welfare to locate assembly plants mainly in the anti-union South. These tax breaks, along with the inherent cost advantages of having no significant legacy expenses, have created huge capital advantages for the foreign companies. What did we expect from 100-year-old companies such as Ford and GM, but to eventually mortgage the farm or go bankrupt in the face of such an unlevel playing field?<br />
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Secondly, the American consumer needs to be educated on the importance of buying domestic automobiles.<br />
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To illustrate the lack of appreciation for the domestic industry, all one has to do is to drive around the country. Other than the Midwest, it appears the American consumer prefers foreign cars over domestic cars.<br />
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This shift to foreign cars has eliminated over 50% of the manufacturing infrastructure in the Midwest. Because the auto sector has an extremely large economic multiplier, affecting direct, in direct and spin-off employment, the unintended consequences of this shift has resulted in huge unemployment numbers, decline in property values and taxes at every level.<br />
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Government should level the field for fair competition and</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">keep in mind our national interest.<br />
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</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">Educated consumers will ultimately do what is in their own</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> best interest.<br />
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The car companies should remember that Henry Ford changed the world in two unforgettable ways. He built an affordable car efficiently and he paid a wage that enabled his workers to buy their own products right here in America!</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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James Sturgill</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Flat Rock</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;">Get a license</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have wanted an electric car since I had the opportunity during the ’40s to drive electric milk delivery trucks, which were as quiet as elevators. So I bought a 2001 Prius, then a 2005, and I already have a deposit on a 2011 plug-in model.<br />
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During 2001, I immediately recognized the Prius technology as transformative and essential to our U.S. product mix. In my judgment, all of our auto compa nies should have licensed this technology immediately. If the Japanese balked, we would have been justified in excluding their vehicles from the U.S. market.<br />
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Did anyone at our auto companies ever explore such licensing?<br />
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It would have been a steal even if we had paid Toyota $1,000 per vehicle.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Richard Rosenbaum</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Bloomfield Hills</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Future is electric</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Whether you are opposed to fighting global warming because of your religious beliefs, your political hatred of anything tagged as “progressive,” or because you are not willing to accept the science, there is still a large benefit to Michigan should federal climate change legislation be signed into law. Electric cars are the future of automotive manufacturing, and nobody builds them better than us — even if you don’t think they are necessary.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Tina Moore</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><i><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Warren</span></i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-82081373057298718782009-12-20T08:14:00.001-05:002009-12-20T08:14:40.114-05:00WITHOUT (much) FANFARE: Alignment "Tent-Poles" for SWEEPING CHANGE Achieved! (NOW to the WORK of CRAFTING the INTENTIONAL-FABRIC for Same)<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">School reforms finally get through Legislature</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">State positioned to compete for $400 million in U.S. aid</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">By CHRIS CHRISTOFF</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"> CHIEF</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">LANSING — With $400 million in federal money at stake, lawmakers finally approved sweeping reforms Saturday to reward good teachers, turn bad schools over to the state and allow more charter schools. But the reforms won’t give Detroit Public Schools emergency financial manager Robert Bobb control over the academically challenged district’s curriculum. Instead, a state reform manager will be named, with authority to intervene in the academically worst 5% of schools.<br />
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The legislation also allows two cyber schools — at-home, online curriculums — aimed at dropouts. And the minimum drop out</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> age increases to 18 from</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> 16.<br />
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The five-bill package will allow Michigan to compete for up to $400 million from President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top initiative, in cluding as much as $70 million in Detroit. The reforms have been sought for years by some but opposed by teachers</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> unions.<br />
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Even if the state doesn’t win all the money, reforms were needed, said proponents. “Today’s action is all about helping kids get a first-class education in a world that demands nothing less,” said Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who spent Saturday urging legislators</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> to pass the bills.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="abody" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"><b>OUR EDITORIAL</b></span></span><span class="maintitle" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Better than expected</span></span></b></span><span class="subtitle" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><i><b><span style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Race to Top legislation doesn’t accomplish everything, but it’s a good start to reforming state schools</span></span></b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">G</span></span></b><span style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">etting there wasn’t pretty, and some of it was pure nonsense. But finally, the Legislature finished the job of preparing Michigan schools for a leap in quality and accountability.</span></span></span><span class="abody" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Michigan’s Race to the Top legislation, months overdue and needed so the state can compete for more than $400 million in federal dollars, came to fruition on Saturday— nothing less than a holiday miracle for a bitterly divided Lansing.<br />
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It is a good package that will bring reform to Michigan classrooms. But whether it goes far enough to win the grants — other states seem to have done more — will be up to the Obama administration.<br />
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The Legislature took a measured approach to charter school expansion that is expected to open dozens of slots under the state cap of 150 charter schools.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Under the new law, existing charter schools could convert into</span></span> </span><span class="abody" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: red;">“schools of excellence”</span></i></span><span class="abody" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;">—</span></span><span class="abody" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"> <span style="color: orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">and not be counted against the cap — if their students score well on tests.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The existing alternative public schools would either have to exhibit 90 percent proficiency in math and science or 75 percent proficiency if at least half of the students come from low-income households. High schools with 80 percent proficiency in student learn ing and high rates of graduation and college attendance also would qualify for</span></span> </span><span class="abody" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"><i>“schools of excellence”</i></span></span><span class="abody" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="abody" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">status.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">Opening more alternative public schools will help push traditional schools and existing charter schools through competition for stu dents and their state school aid dollars.<br />
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Overcoming fierce resistance from the state’s largest teacher and school employee union, the Michigan Education Association, Michigan will use student achievement data to measure teacher performance for the first time. This is essential to meeting the White House’s call to move toward a more perform ance-</span></span></span><span class="abody" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;"> based education system.</span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">The legislation says student progress must be weighed in teacher evaluations, pay, bonuses and tenure. This is not a state requirement for merit pay for teachers, but it certainly gives districts ammunition to demand the practice in their contracts if student achieve ment is stagnant or dismal.<br />
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In addition, the Race to the Top reforms imply that teachers with poor performance should not be protected by the tenure law.<br />
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Although this is not the straightforward reform of the tenure system that is needed, it is an important legislative admission that the rigid tenure system lets bad teachers hold schools and their students hostage.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">There are some disappointments. The Detroit Public Schools’ elected school board and its legislative allies effectively squashed giving the district’s Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb the official legal authority to reform academics, and not just finances.<br />
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The need to give Bobb academic control is obvious. This month, Detroit set a new national low in student test scores on a national assessment. House leaders promise to hold a public hearing on the matter in January.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But the legislation tries to make up for this by giving the state more power to take over the state’s worst academically failing schools.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Two cyber schools were also created — in part to meet federal preferences. While such experiments are worth trying, taxpayers de serve to know much more about these schools and how they will be held accountable.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Race to the Top legislative package is a good start to making Michigan schools better for all children. But the work — on merit pay, tenure and charters — must continue.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Reforms hailed, but issues linger</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Bobb doesn’t get control; teachers fear losing input</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"> By CHRIS CHRISTOFF and GINA DAMRON</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><br />
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FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">LANSING — Even if Michi gan doesn’t win a piece of the $4.3 billion the Obama administration will dole out to states for at-risk schools, reforms approved by the Legislature on Saturday are worth it, said lawmakers who led the way.<br />
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The reform plan had to be in place for the state to apply next month for as much as $400 million in federal grants under the Obama administra tion’s Race to the Top initiative to improve at-risk public schools.<br />
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But it’s not a victory for the Detroit Public Schools emer gency financial manager, Robert Bobb, an appointee of Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The legislation does not grant him the power he wanted to control the district’s academic programs.<br />
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Instead, a state reform manager will have authority to shake up or close down specific schools based on their students’ achievement.<br />
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“The community and ev eryone involved really was looking for the single line of accountability with academ ics that they now have with fi nances,” said Steve Wasko, spokesman for Bobb.<br />
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Wasko said the legislation “threatens to dismantle the school district as we know it.” The question of giving Bobb academic authority over Detroit schools will be aired before the House Education Committee on Jan. 14, said committee Chairman Tim</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Melton, D-Auburn Hills. Mel ton, who led House Democrats in negotiating the reform package with Senate Republicans, successfully argued for a state-level school reform manager to tackle failing schools or clusters of schools. Senate Republicans and Granholm preferred appoint ing individual crisis managers who could take over districts’ entire operations — as Gran holm wanted for Bobb.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Opening way for charters</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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One thing Detroit could see under the reform plan is more charter schools. In fact, Michigan could have a few dozen new charter schools within 10 years under the guidelines.<br />
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Currently, state law limits to 150 the number of charter schools established by universities. Michigan has 240 char ter schools in all.<br />
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The new law sets high standards for charter schools that cater to large numbers of low income, at-risk students. If the charters meet those standards, the authority that created them can open more schools.<br />
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“This bill allows for modest growth of charter schools based on quality,” said Gary Naeyaert, spokesman for Michigan’s Charter Schools. “The state is saying, ‘You have to have excellent academic achievement among an at-risk student population. If you figure out how to do that, we want to do more of that.’ ” Even if the state wins federal grants, it won’t solve what Granholm and others call a</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> funding crisis for public schools.<br />
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Public school funding was cut $350 million in the 2009-10 budget and faces a $212-million hit next month.<br />
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“This is just incentive money that gave us the impetus to get some reforms done that would not have gotten done in another 20 or 30 years,” Melton</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> said.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Results will take time</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R Holland, said the full impact of the reforms won’t be felt for 10 years, as more charter schools open, bad schools are shored up or closed and good teachers are rewarded with money. The legislation will allow school districts to judge teachers in part by academic achievement of their students. It doesn’t eliminate teacher tenure laws, but it could affect merit pay and promotions.<br />
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“We took big steps toward rewarding high-performing teachers,” said Kuipers, who</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> led negotiations for the Sen ate Republican majority. “But at the same time, you’ve got to get rid of bad ones. We didn’t get there with this package.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Teachers have concerns</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Still, teachers unions were upset with a bill that gives the state reform manager broad powers to take control of individual schools, fire people and</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> impose work rules apart from negotiated contracts.<br />
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“This strips employees of their voice in helping students in these struggling schools,” said Doug Pratt, spokesman for the Michigan Education Association. “It is completely inappropriate.”<br />
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He said the MEA and AFT Michigan, the state affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, went along with other reforms they have resisted in the past, such as alternative certification for teachers and merit pay.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Reform highlights</span></span></b></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">■</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Expands the number of high quality charter schools (at least 10 over five years), including two online schools.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Gives state greater authority to take over up to 5% of schools with worst academic perfor mance.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Increases the dropout age from 16 to 18.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Allows some professionals to teach in public schools without a four-year teaching degree (example: engineers teaching math).</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Permits schools to give merit pay to teachers based in part on the academic performance of their students.</span></span><br />
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</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Next steps in the Race to the Top</span></span></b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">■</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Governor signs the bills.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> State identifies underper forming schools.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> State officials develop federal Race to the Top application by Jan. 19.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Feds announce first-round winners in April.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Feds announce second round of grants in September.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
<br />
EXAMPLES OF WHAT’ S AVAILABLE</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Detroit Public Schools: $70.6 million</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Flint Community Schools: $6.3 million</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Southfield Public Schools: $724,197</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Warren Consolidated Schools: $938,853</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Ecorse Public Schools: $519,020</span></span><span style="color: orange;"> </span><br />
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</span><br />
</div></span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-48097587803395082742009-12-19T07:22:00.001-05:002009-12-19T07:22:29.378-05:00Our RULE of LAW reaffirms JUSTICE can indeed sometimes BE BLIND!<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;"></span><br />
</div><h4 class="update_time" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, 'ms sans serif'; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">POSTED: 9:48 P.M. DEC. 18, 2009 | UPDATED: 10:08 P.M. DEC. 18, 2009</h4><h1 style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: red;">Judge rules for Detroit school board</span></h1><h2 style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: red;">Bobb told to stop DPS academic policy-making</span></h2><div id="byline-aff" style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY<br />
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER<br />
</div></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;">Wayne County Circuit Judge Wendy Baxter ruled Friday that Robert Bobb, the Detroit Public Schools' emergency <a class="iAs" classname="iAs" href="http://freep.com/article/20091218/NEWS01/312180003/1318/#" itxtdid="11427171" style="background-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 100, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-width: 0.075em !important; color: rgb(0, 100, 0) !important; cursor: pointer; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal !important; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline !important;" target="_blank">financial</a> manager, must cease making academic policy decisions.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;">The ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by the Detroit school board, which has been rendered nearly powerless since state-appointee Bobb took control of the district's $1.2-billion budget in March.<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span>While saying that there are gray areas involved in Bobb's duties because <a class="iAs" classname="iAs" href="http://freep.com/article/20091218/NEWS01/312180003/1318/#" itxtdid="11427170" style="background-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 100, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-width: 0.075em !important; color: rgb(0, 100, 0) !important; cursor: pointer; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal !important; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline !important;" target="_blank">finances</a> overlap with academics, Baxter said nothing in state law allows an emergency financial manager to make academic policy or curriculum decisions.<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span>She also acknowledged that this case, filed in August, has dragged on and that the Legislature was debating this week whether to allow the state to grant academic control over failing schools to an appointee.<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span>"Waiting for the Legislature to act is ridiculous to me, because it's not within our control," Baxter said.<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span>In its lawsuit, the board asked the court to demand that Bobb stop making academic policy decisions, powers that belong to the board. The board also claimed that Bobb failed to consult it on finances as required by law and that he should reinstate its budget for attorney's fees. Bobb countersued, demanding that the board cease attempts to make hiring decisions, powers that fall under his authority.<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span>Baxter denied the request to force Bobb to reinstate the board's attorney's fees and ruled against Bobb's request to dismiss the case.<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span>John Clark, a special assistant state <a class="iAs" classname="iAs" href="http://freep.com/article/20091218/NEWS01/312180003/1318/#" itxtdid="15182118" style="background-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 100, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: dotted !important; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; color: rgb(0, 100, 0) !important; cursor: pointer; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal !important; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank">attorney <nobr id="itxt_nobr_7_0" style="color: darkgreen; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">general<img name="itxt-icon-77" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; height: 10px; left: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; top: 1px; width: 10px;" /></nobr></a> who is representing Bobb, said "DPS needs to lay out where they think there's been an encroachment on academic powers."<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span>He declined to comment on whether Bobb has made decisions on curriculum development.<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span>To address that issue, Baxter told both parties to return to court every Friday in January for evidentiary hearings to determine whether Bobb has actually made academic decisions and whether he has consulted with the board on finances.<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span>Board members said Friday they plan to immediately exercise their academic policy-making powers by aligning the curriculum with the National Assessment of Educational Progress test.<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span><i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Contact CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY: 313-223-4537 or <a href="mailto:cpratt@freepress.com" style="color: #29466d; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">cpratt@freepress.com</a></i><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-85420121518178121992009-12-19T07:04:00.001-05:002009-12-19T07:04:54.353-05:00Yin and Yan, Tit for Tat, All in a Lifetime<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;"></span><br />
</div><h4 class="update_time" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, 'ms sans serif'; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="color: orange;">POSTED: 11:24 P.M. DEC. 18, 2009 | UPDATED: 4:45 A.M. TODAY</span></h4><h4 style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="color: orange;">VOTE RESULTS</span></h4><h1 style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: red;">Detroit teachers union OKs contract deal with school district</span></h1><div id="byline-aff" style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="color: orange;">BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY AND GINA DAMRON</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS</span><br />
</div></div><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">The Detroit Federation of Teachers approved a controversial contract agreement with the Detroit Public Schools that requires most union members to defer $10,000 in pay.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">The vote results -- 3,578 to 2,031 -- were released early today.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">The contract promises to repay the $10,000 to the employees upon their departure from the district. The $10,000 concession will be deducted from paychecks over the next two years – but some hourly workers, such as substitute teachers, are exempt.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">“This is the fairest contract we could’ve gotten in troubled times,” said Lenore Ellery, special education teacher at the Jerry L. White Center.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">The contract also calls for a wide-range of school reforms including selecting a team of veteran teachers to evaluate teachers; the option to vote - by building - for shared decision-making with administrators; and an incentive program for staffs that reach agreed-upon goals.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager released a statement via e-mail just before 1:30 a.m. saying the contract recognizes how important teachers are to improving performance in the schools.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">"This is a new day for Detroit's school children," Bobb wrote. "We can now move forward together to implement in Detroit the educational reforms that have been beneficial elsewhere in ensuring student success. ... I applaud the teachers for taking the time to carefully review all of the details of the package, especially in an environment when so many parties sought to foster misinformation."</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">High-priority schools will be created, allowing the option for extended school hours for those struggling schools. The union members also will pay more in healthcare premiums and co-pays. They will receive a 1% pay raise in the third contract year, 2011-12.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">The financially-struggling school district will be able to use the deferred wages to pay bills while the 3-year contract will save the district an estimated $62.8 million.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">The contract passed after two weeks of controversy and in-fighting. Union members had responded to the deal with vehement, angry outcries when it was presented at a meeting at Cobo Hall on Dec. 6. Dissatisfaction with the contract offer sparked an effort to recall the DFT president Keith Johnson who called the agreement “the best” anyone could negotiate considering the district’s deficit is at least $219 million.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">Steve Conn, a math teacher at Cass Technical High, said the recall effort has collected 800 of 1,000 needed signatures to force re-vote on Johnson’s presidency.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">“We are going to fight tooth and nail, continue to fight for public education,” said Conn, a vocal opponent of the contract. “They will not be able to implement this anywhere in a real way.”</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">Some members accused Johnson of voting irregularities including wrongly placing information on the ballot about the dangers of a no vote.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">At least two schools received ballots delivered late, some ballots were sent to closed schools and some rosters needed to be updated, all problems that Johnson said were resolved before the Dec. 18 voting deadline.</span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">Some ballots were thrown out because they were defaced with extraneous writing, for example, scrawled with words such as “hell no.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">“These are veteran teachers and they’re professionals so they should have known not to deface a ballot,” Johnson said.</span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">Johnson said Thursday he would accept the union’s decision if members decide to recall him. But he maintained that those who objected to the contract offer did not understand that the alternative was worse - an outright pay cut.</span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">He said there is precedence for the $10,000 “loan” to the district – in the 1980s each teacher loaned the district 10 days’ pay that was repaid one day a year over the course of 10 years, he said.</span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">Johnson said members passed the contract despite the “lies and rhetoric” of the dissidents.</span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">“We as a school district have to move forward now,” he said.</span><br />
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<i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Contact </span><b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY</span></b><span style="color: orange;"> at 313-223-4537 or </span><a href="mailto:cpratt@freepress.com" style="cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: orange;">cpratt@freepress.com</span></a></i><br />
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<div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Teachers threaten injunction over vote</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"> By LORI HIGGINS and CHASTITY PRATT DA</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITERS</span><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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</span> <span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;"> Some members of the De troit Federation of Teachers were threatening Thursday to file a court injunction to halt voting that is to end today on the Detroit teachers contract.<br />
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“This is not a fair vote,” said George Washington, a Detroit attorney who said he repre sents several members of the union’s election committee and some other union mem bers.<br />
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In a letter Washington sent to Keith Johnson, the union president, Washington cited a failure by Johnson to consult anyone before writing the bal lot and called the ballot biased because it details what will happen if members vote no. The letter also raises questions about the accuracy of the vote because of problems with vot ing lists.<br />
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Johnson said the argu ments were not grounds for suspending the ratification process. He denied the re quest, though he admitted there have been problems dur ing the voting. Two schools didn’t get ballots, but they eventually were delivered.<br />
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“Most of the teachers have already voted. Whatever hap pens tomorrow happens,” he said Thursday night, referring to the counting of the ballots today.<br />
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Johnson said putting that language on the ballot was not illegal. “I put that on there be cause … I wanted people to have a clear understanding,” he said.<br />
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Mark O’ Keefe, executive vice president of the DFT, said past ballot language has al ways spelled out that a “no” vote on a contract would mean members would withhold their services. The only difference this time is what the “no” vote will mean.<br />
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“It’s informative language, not coercive,” O’ Keefe said. “It’s the least coercive lan guage we’ve ever had.”<br />
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But Washington said telling voters that voting no means they will stop working is differ ent from telling them all the ramifications that the current ballot spells out.<br />
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“It lets one side use the bal lot for a propaganda tool, and that’s never been done before,” Washington said.<br />
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Meanwhile, union members are circulating petitions to re call Johnson, citing dissatis faction with the tentative agreement he negotiated.</span> </span><span style="color: orange;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-47199246902870587352009-12-19T06:53:00.001-05:002009-12-19T06:53:07.145-05:00Hold the Drumroll.......and prepare for the Cymbal Crescendo! (These guy's are even bad-actors at theater-Film at Noon)<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;"></span><br />
<h4 class="update_time" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, 'ms sans serif'; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">POSTED: 6:50 P.M. DEC. 18, 2009 | UPDATED: 4:29 A.M. TODAY</span></span></h4><h1 style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: red;">Legislature works past midnight, but no decision</span></h1><div id="byline-aff" style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="color: orange;">BY DAWSON BELL</span><br />
<span style="color: orange;">FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU</span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">The Michigan Legislation departed the Capitol after midnight for the second straight day early Saturday, unable to complete work on school reforms aimed at qualifying Michigan for up to $400 million in federal stimulus funds.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Leaders from both the </span><a class="iAs" classname="iAs" href="http://freep.com/article/20091218/NEWS15/91218065/1319/Legislature-works-past-midnight-but-no-decision-#" itxtdid="15180974" style="background-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 100, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: dotted !important; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; cursor: pointer; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal !important; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">House and </span><nobr id="itxt_nobr_1_0" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Senate</span><span style="color: orange;"><img name="itxt-icon-77" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; height: 10px; left: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; top: 1px; width: 10px;" /></span></nobr></a><span style="color: orange;">pledged to be back at their desks this morning. But tempers flared near the end of Friday's session as Senate leaders accused House negotiators of trying to insert last minute changes into an agreement reached 24 hours earlier.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">"They're starting to ask for changes," said</span><a class="iAs" classname="iAs" href="http://freep.com/article/20091218/NEWS15/91218065/1319/Legislature-works-past-midnight-but-no-decision-#" itxtdid="15184746" style="background-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 100, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: dotted !important; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; cursor: pointer; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal !important; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">Senate Majority </span><nobr id="itxt_nobr_2_0" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Leader</span><span style="color: orange;"><img name="itxt-icon-77" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; height: 10px; left: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; top: 1px; width: 10px;" /></span></nobr></a><span style="color: orange;"> Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, "We're not going to re-negotiate the whole deal."</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Rep. Tim Melton, D-Auburn Hills, denied those charges, describing modifications being made to the legislation as "tweaks."</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">"We still have a deal," he said.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Lawmakers arrived at the Capitol Friday evening, after having departed about 1 a.m., ostensibly to begin voting on so-called Race to the Top bills. Instead, they spent their time listlessly waiting, chatting and sleeping, in part because the actual legislation had yet to be printed.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">The content of the bills - to expand charter schools, address chronically struggling schools and inject greater accountability for teachers and staff - had been agreed to in concept by House and Senate negotiators early Friday.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">In theory, it would allow for the creation of about 30 new charters in areas where existing schools have under-performed, tie teacher evaluations, pay and job security to </span><a class="iAs" classname="iAs" href="http://freep.com/article/20091218/NEWS15/91218065/1319/Legislature-works-past-midnight-but-no-decision-#" itxtdid="14742261" style="background-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 100, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-width: 0.075em !important; cursor: pointer; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal !important; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline !important;" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">student</span></a><span style="color: orange;"> performance and create the framework for state-appointed officials to takeover management of failing schools.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Gov. </span><a class="iAs" classname="iAs" href="http://freep.com/article/20091218/NEWS15/91218065/1319/Legislature-works-past-midnight-but-no-decision-#" itxtdid="7898238" style="background-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: black !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; cursor: pointer; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal !important; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">Jennifer </span><nobr id="itxt_nobr_8_0" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Granholm</span><span style="color: orange;"><img name="itxt-icon-0" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/mag-glass_10x10.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; height: 10px; left: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; top: 1px; width: 10px;" /></span></nobr></a><span style="color: orange;"> said Friday afternoon that she endorsed the conceptual agreement and would sign it if it reached her desk.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">That remained an open question early Saturday.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">The complexity of the legislation, coupled with a myriad of side issues (such as raising the high school dropout age to 18 from 16 without parental consent), kept a small army of lobbyists at work along with the lawmakers and their staffs.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Bishop said Democratic House leaders "just got to tell us. Do you want to do it or not? We don't want to blow it up."</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Melton, who said he had had three hours of sleep in the last 48, said not to worry. "We're going to get it done. This is about 20 years of reform packed into one year. But we're going to get there."</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px;"><i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Contact </span><b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">DAWSON BELL: </span></b><span style="color: orange;">517-372-8661 or dbell@freepress.com</span></i><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-71539636464857774842009-12-18T11:10:00.003-05:002009-12-18T11:10:43.205-05:00Turning the Page (From the Money Conversation to a Fresh, Insighful, Introspective Message of Hope by merely DOING the RIGHT THING) A SEA CHANGE to SEE CHANGE!<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: 800;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br />
<img height="248" src="http://detroitfreepress.mi.newsmemory.com/newsmemvol2/michigan/detroitfreepress/20091218/f02a_18_.pdf.0/img/Image_14.jpg" width="271" /></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">HAVE A LITTLE FAITH IN DETROIT’ S KIDS</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">O</span></span></b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">ne of the biggest problems facing the Detroit Public Schools is the lack of faith that some of its employees have in the children.<br />
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That is the word from Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the district’s chief academic and accountability auditor, who has spent months completing an extensive and not-yet-released analysis of how the district educates students.<br />
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There is nothing wrong with the city’s children or parents that cannot be remediated, she said. But there must be a sea change in the way district employees</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> — from top to bottom —</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> deal with their clients.<br />
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“Sometimes people revel in the despair,” she said in an interview</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> where she gave a sneak</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> preview of her findings. They include:</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Children in the same grade with vastly different and defi cient</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> curricula.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> A lack of progress reports to parents.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> A total failure to evaluate and improve the performance of struggling teachers.<br />
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But the saddest thing Byrd Bennett discovered in conversa tions with hundreds of students, teachers, parents and principals? Some people just don’t believe in the kids.<br />
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“There has got to be a suspension of their disbelief that children can achieve,” she said.</span></span><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">What kids need: A dream and a chance</span></span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">B</span></span></b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">arbara Byrd-Bennett recalls being a 19-year-old volunteer teaching reading to inmates with life sentences at the prison on Alcatraz off the coast of California.<br />
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“They were in there for life, and I could still see the hunger in their eyes,” she said. “They wanted to learn.”<br />
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Byrd-Bennett, chief academic and accountability auditor for the Detroit Public Schools, said she has seen that same hunger in the eyes of some DPS students. She also heard directly from ded icated teachers, heroes who work their butts off and still want to be even better, to reach kids more.<br />
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“You can’t move a district until you … change the culture of a district, and the culture doesn’t change until people begin to change,” she said.<br />
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For months, Byrd-Bennett has quietly guided the finan cial decisions of DPS emer gency financial manager Rob ert Bobb while examining all aspects of academics and teaching across the district.<br />
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Her extensive, not-yet-re leased audit shows that decades of poor administration, little communication with parents and inattention to students have left standing a</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> district that is a monument to chaos, a district that will take years of innovation and a sea change in attitude to fix.<br />
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“There has got to be a suspension of their disbelief” in these children. “If you can get a group of people to believe in the children and their parents, you can change things.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Where are the standards?</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Among the problems Byrd Bennett outlines in her audit:</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> The district does not use the uniform, core curriculum system that was designed to keep all students on the same pace.<br />
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Students at one school learn more — and more effectively — than kids in the same grade at another school.<br />
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“As a parent, as a kid, I should know that in ninth grade, here are the core requirements. In order to move</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> from freshman to sophomore, I need to complete this num ber of classes. And there’s something deeply wrong when you think foreign lan guage is an add-on.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> There is little regular communication between teachers and parents, and few progress reports on how students are doing.<br />
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</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> There are no standard, uniform evaluation tools for teachers or principals.<br />
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“I don’t know any job that where you’re never evaluated, assessed or helped and supported,” she said. “That is obscene.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Many teaching methods used in the district are out dated, some from the 1970s.<br />
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The good news, Byrd-Bennett said, is that “as I went into schools and talked with teachers, I found that people are hungry for the support.<br />
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People want to know how to do a good job. People want to know how to get out of the frozen ’60s and ’70s teaching methods.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> There is a belief among many employees that DPS children are inferior students. Rampant social promotion, a statewide problem, places students in classes where they are ill-equipped to learn and mainly mark time until they drop out. Teachers must deal with students who are years behind in reading and math, who have behavioral problems or, in the case of a teacher I recently reported about, had a class of 28 stu dents who were on 10 different reading levels. And I get heartbreaking e-mails from teachers who have to adapt</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> their teaching plans to the arrival of students at different academic levels all through out the year.<br />
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<span style="color: red;">“What I’ve learned is that the academics have been subordinate to finances here for longer than anyone could have imagined,” Byrd-Bennett said.</span><br />
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There is nothing wrong with the children or their parents that cannot be remediated, she said. But there must be a sea change in the way district employees — top to bottom — deal with their clients.<br />
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“Sometimes people revel in the despair,” she said in an exclusive interview. “I’ve said this over and over. There has got to be a suspension of their disbelief that children can achieve.”<br />
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Core course requirements should be the same at every high school, but students should have the chance to try different career paths without affecting their college prep.<br />
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“But people push back and say these kids won’t do that.<br />
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They don’t believe in these kids.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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The gift of a dream</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Byrd-Bennett has found what’s wrong. When she releases the final academic audit, we better pay attention. This time.<br />
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“Sometimes a superintendent, an associate sup has to stand for the kids. All the adults have their representation. We are the union for the kids. I’m the union rep,” she said. “Every kid I’ve met wants to learn. I’m the kid from the low-income projects of Harlem. The difference was: There was a group of significant adults who believed that I could be some thing better. … “Nobody has suspended their disbelief.”<br />
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I remember those dreams.<br />
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Every adult on my street in Tarboro, N.C., had that dream for me. They lived it.<br />
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They made me live it. I always saw beyond that street.<br />
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Now we must give that gift to Detroit kids.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> CONTACT ROCHELLE RILEY:</span></span> <a class="email" href="mailto:RRILEY99@FREEPRESS.COM" style="font-size: 20px; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blanks">RRILEY99@FREEPRESS.COM</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"> <b><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“IF YOU CAN GET A GROUP OF PEOPLE TO BELIEVE IN THE CHILDREN AND THEIR PARENTS, YOU CAN CHANGE THINGS.”</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><br />
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</span><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">BARBARA BYRD-BENNETT,</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> chief academic and accountability auditor for the Detroit Public Schools</span></span></span><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-87277545886308373022009-12-18T09:06:00.001-05:002009-12-18T09:06:47.841-05:00Drumroll Please! Political Grandstanding 101 (Cue-up "Hail to the Victors" Film at 11)<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;">Statewide</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">School reform talks to resume this afternoon</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Gov. Jennifer Granholm and legislative leaders will resume negotiations this afternoon on school reform measures aimed at qualifying Michigan schools for up to $400 million in federal stimulus funding.<br />
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Progress on some issues, which negotiators for all sides declined to identify, was announced just after midnight. Still at issue are what kind of limits to place on the creation of new charter schools, differences over teacher tenure protection and how to deal with schools or districts in crisis, such as Detroit.<br />
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The Legislature had been scheduled to adjourn for the year Thursday night.</span></span></span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-19367691050014712152009-12-18T07:17:00.001-05:002009-12-18T07:17:39.764-05:00He said, She said: "A Case for the Criminally Inane"<div><img alt="detnews.com" border="0" src="http://detnews.com/graphics/detnews_printart.jpg" /><br />
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<tr><td align="left"><span style="font-family: verdana, arial; font-size: xx-small;">December 17, 2009</span><br />
</td><td align="right"><span style="font-family: verdana, arial; font-size: xx-small;">http://detnews.com/article/20091217/POLITICS02/912170439</span><br />
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</tbody></table></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Education talks resume after showy press conference in Lansing</span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><br />
KAREN BOUFFARD<br />
Detroit News Lansing Bureau</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: medium;">Lansing</span></i><span style="font-size: medium;"> --Finger-pointing gave way to theatrics this afternoon in the turbulent battles under way in Lansing over education reforms needed to qualify for $400 million or more in federal Race to the Top funding.<br />
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About 40 House Democrats flanked Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, and Education Committee Chair Tim Melton, D-Auburn Hills, at a lunchtime press conference called to shame Republicans back to the negotiating table. Republicans stormed out of talks about 8 p.m. Wednesday night, led by Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, after negotiation stumbled over the issue of charter schools.<br />
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Asked if the Democrats had picked up a phone to ask Kuipers back to the table, Melton said, "As far as they know, we're still down in the conference room. We didn't walk out on them; they walked out on us."<br />
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After further prodding from reporters, Dillon whipped out his cell and dialed Kuipers directly: "We want you to come back to the table and negotiate," Dillon said. "I'll be in my office right now."<br />
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Dillon announced about an hour later that talks had resumed. "We're back in business," Dillon said.<br />
Kuipers, in an interview with The Detroit News this morning, charged that the House and Gov. Jennifer Granholm's administration aren't fully committed to winning the money -- and presented as evidence problems Michigan had meeting last week's deadline to file an optional letter of intent to apply for Race to the Top funding.<br />
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Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the problems were not on the state's end. When they tried to send the letter to Washington expressing their intent to apply for the money, the computers were down at the U.S. Department of Education, so the letter never was sent.<br />
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Melton said Kuipers' criticism of the Department of Education is meant to divert attention from Republicans' lack of cooperation.<br />
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"The department is fully engaged in this -- (State School Superintendent) Mike Flanagan has had his staff working around the clock on this," Melton said. "The real (issue) is the Senate walking away from negotiations.<br />
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"It's an optional letter, and the House and the governor are fully committed to this."<br />
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The letter was optional and won't jeopardize Michigan's chances of winning the money, Ellis said.<br />
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She said the purpose of the form was help the U.S. Department of Education prepare for an onslaught of state applications expected by the Jan. 19 deadline for the first wave of funding.<br />
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"This was not an application -- it was a letter of intent that was optional, and that we tried to file at least three times, and their system was down," Ellis said, referring to the U.S. Department of Education's computer system.<br />
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"There was no requirement and they know we are going to apply" for the money.<br />
Ellis said the department has since sent in the letter.<br />
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Because Michigan's notice was not received by the U.S. Department of Education by the deadline, the state was not listed among states planning to apply for the first round of funding. Applications for Phase I funding are due by Jan. 19; states not ready to apply by then will have another opportunity later in 2010.<br />
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Senate Republicans walked out on negotiations on education reform legislation late Wednesday, bringing a halt -- for the moment -- to talks about education reforms linking teacher pay to student test scores, opening more charter schools and other measure the Obama administration has outlined as requirement for Race to the Top cash.<br />
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Conference committee meetings slated for 9 a.m. this morning were swiftly recessed since there were no deals for members to debate.<br />
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Melton said this morning that Republicans, led by Kuipers, walked out after House Democrats wouldn't budge on the Senate's plan to open 100 or more additional charter schools in the state.<br />
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"The Senate just wants to get a wish list to do as many charters as they want, and that's not what Race to the Top is all about," Melton said.<br />
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Kuipers said talks failed over a number of issues, not just charter schools.<br />
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"We have a number of outstanding issues, and we weren't making progress on any of them," Kuipers said. "I just said, 'We've been talking for six hours. We're not making progress. When you're willing to get serious, let us know.' "</span> <br />
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-56389235519525634902009-12-18T06:53:00.001-05:002009-12-18T06:53:59.562-05:00Criminal Insanity: Something we know Something about (Dysfunctional Knee-Knocking to Head-Knocking)<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;">Editorial</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Detroiters can set a new DPS path</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Two bills are sitting in conference between the House and Senate in Lansing that would stop a near-criminal insanity: the fact that Detroit Public Schools emergency financial manager Robert Bobb is not formally in control of the district’s academics.<br />
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The bills are stuck, even as legislators gather today, perhaps for the last time this year, apparently because the old saws about Lansing’s interference in Detroit business have been raised. Legislators have reportedly gotten cold feet about giving Bobb more con trol, for fear that it will inspire a backlash from Detroiters who’ll see it as a move to strip them of power over their schools.<br />
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So non-Detroit legislators — including bill sponsors Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, and Rep. Tim Melton, D-Au burn Hills — can’t get the votes to work out the differences between their two bills. And the Detroit delegation has yet to step forward to demand the changes that would help Bobb get control of the district’s mismanaged academics, much as he is working to rein in its financial problems.<br />
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Detroiters themselves can help resolve this knee-knocking trepidation. By contacting their legislators (whose phone numbers appear here) they can make it clear what they want. Should the school board remain in control of academics? Or should Bobb get a chance?<br />
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Here’s a bet on what they might say: Go for it with Bobb. Bobb’s work has been popular, as at least partially evidenced by the backing voters gave his bond proposal (a fairly risky financial proposition) in November. His arrival was greeted with cheers, not the anger that you still see direct ed at the school board during meetings. And his swift action has won him many allies among parents and other stakeholders.<br />
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This also isn’t just about De troit. The legislation at issue would give the state superintendent</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> more power to inter vene in every struggling dis trict. And, by the way, that’s a key component of what the federal government will be looking for when it awards Race to the Top money (which could mean hundreds of mil lions to Michigan). How silly to let an old argument over “control” of Detroit’s schools interfere.<br />
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Moreover, conceding that Bobb needs emergency power over all the district’s activities doesn’t preclude the more se rious and much needed de bate over the district’s long term governance structure. This isn’t a takeover; it’s an in tervention to fix a serious problem.<br />
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What a shame it would be if legislators let a few empty threats keep them from delivering</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> urgent help to the city’s</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> children.</span></span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-51290708357826062162009-12-18T06:39:00.001-05:002009-12-18T06:39:39.256-05:00Great Advice for Successful Reading Corps!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;">Editorials</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">How to make the most of Reading Corps volunteers</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">In the three days since Detroit Public Schools CEO Robert Bobb appealed for volunteers to help boost the reading skills of DPS students, nearly 900 would-be tutors from every corner of south east Michigan have responded.<br />
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So much for the cynical lament that Michigan’s largest school district is doomed by adult apa thy.<br />
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</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">But making effective use of this volunteer army poses a critical challenge to Bobb and his subordinates. Other big city school districts have used volunteer tutors to move the literacy needle, and their successes illuminate some best practices DPS would be wise to embrace:</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;">Establish clear goals:</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Bobb has asked De troiters to commit to assuring that every third grader is reading at grade-level or better by 2015. His school district’s task is to translate that ambitious objective into individualized plans for thousands of aspiring readers. Teach ers and volunteers need to understand each student’s capabilities and adopt realistic timeta bles for expanding them.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;">Train the trainers:</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Teachers and reading specialists must help volunteers acquire the skills needed to be effective tutors. Mike Casser ly, the executive director of the Council of Great City Schools, suggests that school administra tors begin by visualizing the volunteer’s experi ence from arriving at the school to checking out, then provide the training and materials neces sary to support each step.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;">Train the staff:</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Employees from principals to building custodians must learn how to recognize volunteers, make them welcome, and direct them to staff responsible for coordinating volun teer efforts. Each participating school should have designated coordinators (and backup coor dinators) to support volunteers and make sure</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> that teachers and volunteers are sharing in formation about each student’s progress and needs.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;">Measure results:</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Atlanta Public Schools Su perintendent Beverly Hall, whose district’s vol unteer tutoring program has significantly boost ed reading scores there, says one corporate sponsor, Georgia-Pacific, assesses students at the beginning of the year and checks periodical ly to make sure students assigned to Georgia Pacific employees are making steady progress.<br />
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“That’s the gold standard of accountability,” Hall says. But everyone who invests in DPS’s Reading Corps — students, teachers, volunteers and sponsoring employers — deserves a means of measuring the return on their investment.<br />
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DPS will have to consider the practical needs of volunteers in making other decisions, such as when and where tutoring sessions should occur.<br />
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But most literacy experts favor making use of school facilities after schools hours and even on weekends to maximize the number of hours students can read with the support of trained adults.<br />
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There is abundant evidence that a volunteer campaign like the Reading Corps can help stu dents make dramatic strides in literacy. If man aged wisely, the time invested by volunteers can have an impact greater than any money-raising effort.<br />
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That must be the focus for Bobb and his staff, who are fully engaged in making Reading Corps the structured, coordinated program it needs to be.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;"> </span></b></span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-73695788497462490152009-12-18T06:16:00.003-05:002009-12-18T06:16:34.465-05:00GAMBLING with our Student's Futures (Unwise at Any Odd's and a Fool's Game)<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;">Editorials</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Governor’s reprieve for schools likely to be short</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">Certainly it’s embarrassing for Gov. Jennifer Granholm that she announced an emergency school aid cut in October and then rescinded it before it took effect. Critics got plenty of am munition to say she was gaming the numbers solely to press for a tax increase that lawmakers would not entertain.<br />
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So, yes, her timing was and is suspect. The overall trend — dwindling tax support for schools — is not.<br />
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Even if Michigan manages to limp by with only its already enacted cuts for the current school year, districts will almost surely take a bigger hit next year than the one Granholm backed away from last week. Smart districts, if they found any palatable cuts while under the gun, may want to proceed with them anyway.<br />
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The numbers look like this: Gran holm had called for an emergency cut of $127 per pupil, starting with this month’s state aid payment, because of continuing tax shortfalls. Meanwhile, the most optimistic pro jection for next year’s budget starts with a $200-per-pupil cut. That comes on top of the $165-per-pupil cut made by the Legislature for the current year.<br />
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Where has the improvement come since Oct. 22? There is a bit more money than expected left over from last year in the school aid fund, for one thing. More significant is the smaller than- expected decline in taxes due on non homestead property — generally businesses and vacation homes. State forecasters aren’t certain why commercial property tax rolls</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> remain relatively healthy, but the likeliest ex planation is simply that they have yet to show the full impact of the recession. So policymak ers would be wise to regard this as a short re prieve, rather than a rebound.<br />
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The fiscal outlook for the next school year is not pretty: Besides de clining taxes, federal stimulus money will taper off and job losses are expect ed to continue until at least late 2011.<br />
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But just as school districts would be smart to start making deeper cuts now, legislators could mitigate the damage by making urgently needed changes in Michigan’s tax structure sooner rather than later. Unfortunate ly, Granholm’s decision to postpone cuts relieves some immediate pres sure for reform.<br />
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The governor did not play her cards well. But her clumsiness should not become an excuse to ignore the bigger problem: Without more funding, the education that Michigan offers its children will inevitably deteriorate. And those students, in turn, will be even less well prepared to deal with the chal lenges that await Michigan in the decades to come.</span></span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-66419734393587102522009-12-18T05:58:00.002-05:002009-12-18T05:58:15.984-05:00JUST DO the RIGHT THING!<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: 800;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><img height="169" src="http://detroitfreepress.mi.newsmemory.com/newsmemvol2/michigan/detroitfreepress/20091215/f03a_15_.pdf.0/img/Image_3.jpg" width="278" /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Kids can’t read? Hundreds want to help</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 1.1em;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><br />
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Metro residents ready to aid DPS</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
<br />
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
<br />
Detroit Public Schools put out a call to the region Sunday to recruit volunteers to do 100,000 service hours to help teach children to read and re tired mechanic Mark Durfee, 55, of Detroit didn’t hesitate.<br />
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The self-published poet read an article about the new DPS Reading Corps online at 2 a.m. He clicked on the link and became the first of more than 700 people to volunteer within 36 hours. An additional 140 people signed up by phone.<br />
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The volunteers include men and women from throughout the tri-county area from com munities such as Grosse Pointe</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> and Grosse Ile to Southfield and Sterling Heights.<br />
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“I have to have faith that the coming generation can make Detroit, Michigan, the nation and the world a better place than the one we are leaving be hind,” Durfee said. “If the com ing generation of kids cannot read, they will fail in bringing that change. That is why I vol unteered.”<br />
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The DPS Reading Corps is being organized in the wake of last week’s release of the Na tional Assessment of Educa tional Progress math test. De troit’s fourth- and eighth-grad ers scored worse than any U.S. city in the 40-year history of the test.<br />
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Educators said students who had problems with read ing had trouble with the test. The math test is full of story</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> problems and about 40% of it can include open-ended ques tions, according to the Nation al Center for Education Statis tics, which administers the</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> test.<br />
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“Literacy is the fundamen tal key to all content areas,” Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the chief academic and account ability</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> auditor for DPS, said at Monday’s news conference to kick off the Reading Corps.<br />
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Volunteers must get a back ground check, attend an orien tation and four to six hours of training on the district’s read ing recovery program that will be used in the tutoring ses sions.<br />
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Training for tutors is ex pected to begin in January. Tu tors will be asked to help a min imum of two students for 30 minutes a week each.<br />
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Durfee, author of “Stink: Poetry and Prose of Detroit 2005-2009,” said he wants the children of Detroit “know they are not forgotten, and they are thought about and cared for.”<br />
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To volunteer, go to</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> <b><a href="http://www.detroitk12.org/" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">www.detroitk12.org</a>.</b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> </span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-30520732102012478812009-12-18T05:34:00.001-05:002009-12-18T05:34:08.097-05:00WHY it is NOT ABOUT the MONEY!<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;">School grants spur state lawmakers to action</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 1.1em;"><b><span style="color: red;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">Big changes needed to secure millions</span></b></span><br />
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<br />
<span style="color: orange;">By DAWSON BELL</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
<br />
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
<br />
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has called the Obama administration’s Race to the Top initiative “education reform’s moon shot,” the larg est pot of discretionary school funding — $4 billion or so — in the nation’s history.<br />
<br />
But the scramble set off to qualify for the federal govern ment’s competitive grants has been very much Earth-bound.<br />
<br />
In Michigan and other states, legislators and educa tion officials have engaged in a frenzy of deal-making to win Race to the Top funding.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">Whether the end result is real classroom change — especially in the chronically troubled schools that are the main target for reform — won’t be known for years</span>.</i></b></span><br />
<br />
In the meantime, the enor mous, green federal carrot is generating movement on long stalled measures aimed at at tracting better teachers, open ing more good schools, reward ing</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> results and punishing fail ure. Detroit Public Schools, for instance, would qualify for as much as $70.5 million of a pool of cash up to $400 million.<br />
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Final action on Race to the Top could come this week on legislation in three major areas:</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;">Expanding the teacher pool.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> So-called alternative cer tification for teachers, permit ting those trained in areas such as engineering or math to teach without formal training in edu cation, has been a top agenda item for would-be education re formers for decades.<br />
<br />
In some states, the pipeline for teachers has been expanded significantly to include mid-ca reer professionals and college graduates with little or no edu cation experience. Michigan hasn’t changed but will have to in order to qualify for Race to the Top money.<br />
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State Rep. Tim Melton, D Auburn Hills, a key negotiator, said he expects a deal that would allow college grads with a grade point average of at least 3.0 to work in middle and high schools without a teaching cer tificate. The legislation would require non-traditionally</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> trained teachers to work to ward formal certification after they are hired.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;">Teacher and principal eval uation.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Race to the Top re quires schools to collect data that will allow them to track students’ performance under specific teachers and princi pals. In theory, doing so will al low schools to reward educa tors whose students make mea surable progress and address the shortcomings of others.<br />
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Ariela Rozman, chief execu tive of the New Teacher Project in Brooklyn, said efforts to im prove teacher effectiveness are a high priority in Race to the Top and an important factor in snaring the grants. But there are no precise ways to achieve that goal, she said.<br />
<br />
Rozman’s group scored Michigan as being only some what competitive overall for Race to the Top funding in an initial assessment this summer and found the state’s data sys tem and methods for identify ing successful teachers and leaders seriously lacking.<br />
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The state House and Senate have approved merit-pay legis lation. But significant sticking points remain, including a fun damental disagreement over whether ineffective teachers</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> should be protected from firing by the state’s teacher tenure law. The House version would keep that protection for ten ured teachers. The Senate ver sion</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> wouldn’t.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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■</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;">Failing or struggling schools.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> States are required to have clear guidelines to deal with the worst performing 5% of schools to qualify for Race to the Top funding. Options in clude replacing staff, hiring a management company or clos ing.<br />
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Again, the devil is in the de tails. And they are endless.<br />
<br />
In Michigan, lawmakers ha ven’t agreed on whether the takeover of a failing school or district should be handled by the state superintendent or a local manager — someone like Robert Bobb, the Detroit schools’ emergency financial manager. Last week, he asked for authority over academics, as well.<br />
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Relaxing the cap on more charter schools — often cited as a key objective of Race to the Top — also is unfinished busi ness for the Legislature. Teach ers unions and local school offi cials have long opposed efforts to permit more charters.<br />
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Jeanne Allen, at the Center for Education Reform, based in Washington, D.C., said both the federal program and the states likely will fall short of what is needed to address failing schools — a way to quickly shut one down and provide students with a good alternative.<br />
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Allen said initial promises from Duncan that schools</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> would be encouraged to re move barriers to charter schools were a smaller part of the final standards than prom ised.<br />
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“A lot of these reforms are good and nice; they’re not path breaking,” Allen said.<br />
<br />
Making bigger change re quires taking on too many insti tutional interests, especially unions, she said.<br />
<br />
Teachers unions, which have traditionally opposed charters, have been less ada mant in the Race to the Top de bate, in part because they say the new rules will create more oversight of charter schools, as well as of traditional schools.<br />
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Still, Michigan’s lawmakers and school leaders are eager to land the possible $400-million prize to ease the pain from de clining state revenue and local property tax collections.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-22422809960718140652009-12-18T05:18:00.002-05:002009-12-18T05:18:33.935-05:00Narrows the Focus (From One of Money to Academic Performance)<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Low scores not just a Detroit problem</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">L</span></b><span style="color: orange;">ost in the furor over some Detroit public schools making the lowest scores in history on a nationally recog nized math assessment was the fact that Michigan didn’t do so well either.<br />
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Fourth-graders in 30 states scored higher than Michigan fourth-graders on the Nation al Assessment of Educational Progress exam, and only eight states and the District of Columbia scored lower, ac cording to Arnold Goldstein, program director for design analysis and reporting in the assessment division at the National Center for Education Statistics. Twelve states scored at the same level as Michigan.<br />
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Eighth-graders in 32 states scored above Michigan in the 2009 test. Eight states and the District of Columbia ranked lower, while students in 10 states scored at the same level as Michigan.<br />
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It is Michigan’s academic crisis that should have the undivided attention of state leaders, including Gov. Jenni fer Granholm. They have to treat education as the equal right of every Michigan child.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Look at the whole state</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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For years, the governor and Legislature, regardless of party lines, have treated the state and its largest city like neighboring countries, setting separate laws and standards</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> for each. Relations between the state and Detroit have been at best contentious, at worst outright hostile.<br />
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But the entire state of Michigan is facing an educa tion, reading and jobs crisis that might force it to work as a unit, instead of making sep arate laws for its largest school district.<br />
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Robert Bobb, emergency financial manager of Detroit Public Schools, urged law makers last week to give him authority over DPS’s academ ics, as well as its finances, because the district also is in an academic crisis.<br />
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But since all Michigan is in an academic crisis, Lansing should consider some type of academic oversight of every failing school.<br />
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That means ending social promotion so that districts will stop graduating students who cannot read, and thus forcing colleges to spend enormous amounts of money on remedial learning.<br />
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That means raising the minimum dropout age to 18,</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> so that 16-year-olds can stop making decisions that are costly to all taxpayers.<br />
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That means developing a plan to equalize education in 550 school districts so that no matter where a child goes to class, the level of learning is mandated.<br />
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That means creating a core curriculum and a core stan dard for every district so some students aren’t attend ing blue-ribbon, college prep schools while others go to schools without chemistry labs, gymnasiums or toilet paper.<br />
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It means, said state Rep.<br />
<br />
Tim Melton, D-Auburn Hills, “basing teacher evaluation on student growth and perfor mance.<br />
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“If teachers aren’t rated on</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> how the kids are learning or if the kids are learning, there’s no end game,” said Melton, sponsor of a bill that includes a provision requiring teacher evaluations to be based in part on student growth and achievement.<br />
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Imagine that.<br />
<br />
“Now, you have some schools with 5% proficiency in something and all the teach ers rated exemplary. If I’m gong to be judged on kids learning, I’ve got a stake in these kids learning,” Melton said.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Guard kids’ rights</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Melton and Rep. Bert Johnson, D-Detroit, who have been working through a series of bills to reform Michigan education, want to place all</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;">failing schools into a single district that could receive part of the $1 billion available in Race to the Top stimulus funds. This would mean assigning one academic czar to save all those schools and all those children. It has been done in Louisiana and Chica go. It might work in Michigan. Legislators are meeting around the clock to pass the bills to create such a district before the holidays, because the stimulus money applica tion is due before they are back in session.<br />
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If successful, Detroit could have a superintendent with educational expertise over seeing academics the way Bobb, as financial manager, is cleaning up finances.<br />
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No, Bobb has done nothing wrong. In fact, DPS is on the right track for the first time in a long time because of the job he has done.<br />
<br />
But he himself will tell you he is a financial manager, not an academician. DPS needs an academic leader with as much authority as Bobb.<br />
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As caring people across the state figure out how to help children, there should be one job for all leaders: ending violations of the civil, human and educational rights of children, no matter where they live.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> </span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-1229693752052814832009-12-18T04:51:00.001-05:002009-12-18T04:51:20.888-05:00Race On to Get the Money (How about the Race to Capture the Student's Imagination, Creativity and Innovation?)<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;">Rules on teachers, schools could change to snare aid</span></b></span><br />
<div align="justify"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: orange;">By DAWSON BELL</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
<br />
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: orange;">Determined not to leave up to $400 million in federal funds on the table, state lawmakers appear determined this week to resolve differences in House and Senate bills that mandate significant changes in public schools.<br />
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To qualify for the Race to the Top federal stimulus mon ey, Michigan would have to make changes to allow merit pay for teachers, lessen restrictions on opening charter schools, plan for sanctions for underperforming schools and make it easier for people to be come teachers. Teachers unions and local school offi cials have fought the ideas in</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> the past.<br />
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Rep. Tim Melton, D-Auburn Hills, said state and federal ini tiatives will produce “a sea change” in the way troubled schools operate and kids learn. “It’s a huge deal,” he said.<br />
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And it’s a lot of money for a state with big money prob lems. The Democrat-con trolled House and Republican controlled Senate have ap proved different versions of legislation that must be re solved before Gov. Jennifer Granholm can sign it.<br />
<br />
Michigan’s Race to the Top application is due Jan. 19, with the first round of funding to be announced in April.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-44938875164814464472009-12-14T15:02:00.001-05:002009-12-14T15:02:16.041-05:00LOCK the Barn Door (The Cows are in the Lower Forty)<span style="color: #404040; font-family: arial, 'helvetica neue', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<div class="header" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 9px;"><h1 style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 36px;"><span style="color: blue;">Oakland Press</span></h1><h1 style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 36px;"><span style="color: red;">Fix public schools or else</span></h1><h2 style="font-size: 16px;"></h2><div style="margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">Sunday, December 13, 2009</span><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: orange;">By TOM WATKINS<br />
Special to The Oakland Press</span><br />
</div></div><div class="storybody" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; color: black; margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 9px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 9px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 9px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">Will Democrats and the state’s most powerful teachers union inadvertently bring school vouchers to Michigan? Could these historic protectors of Michigan public education ultimately drag it under?<br />
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Watching what is taking place in school districts across Oakland County and the state make the question quite relevant. How ironic and tragic would it be if the Michigan Education Association, Democratic lawmakers, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a dozen or so Republicans (backed by the MEA) and a busload of complacent school superintendents and school boards ultimately helped bring vouchers to Michigan’s public schools?<br />
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How could that happen? The answer is simple. Taxpayers are fed up. Michigan residents, who are experiencing the pain of disruptive and transformational change, expect high-quality education and sensible action by our governor and legislators to put teaching, learning and children ahead of power, control and politics. They also are quite aware how change is impacting them and how the system is protecting the status quo.<br />
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When I served as state superintendent of schools, I sounded the alarm in 2004 that our current system of funding schools was unsustainable in the face of the sharply rising costs of health care, pensions and the large number of small school districts.<br />
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Shortly thereafter, I was forced out of the position by Granholm, assisted by a major shove from the MEA. If action had been taken when I recommended change, Michigan schools could have saved an estimated $4.5 billion to be invested in 21st century education initiatives by now.<br />
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Now fast forward to 2009 and house Speaker Andy Dillon’s ambitious proposal to bundle all public employee health care plans into one, with the potential to save up to $1 billion per year. His bold plan prompted MEA officials to immediately “declare war” on his efforts.<br />
<br />
Even if Dillon’s savings estimates are off by 50 percent, we are still talking about significant money that could and should be redirected to the classroom. There is a desperate need for sensible reforms in government at all levels and specifically in our schools.<br />
<br />
The foundation on which our public infrastructure was built (the auto industry) has been eroding for two decades and has imploded in the last year.<br />
<br />
What we once had is now gone. We have a new reality of less revenue to support what we have had in the past. Changes need to be made, and have been denied for too long, to adjust to this new reality. Our public schools cannot be, and are not, immune to these new realities.<br />
<br />
We must control rising health care benefits and pensions, and share services and consolidate local districts.<br />
<br />
The actions by the MEA, standing in the way of sensible reforms and browbeating and cajoling legislators, local school boards and superintendents in light of Michigan’s new economic realities, ultimately will be self defeating.<br />
<br />
The MEA might win the battle — but it is at great risk of losing the war.<br />
<br />
Michigan’s constitution prohibits using government tax support for private or religious schools. In 2000, a voucher initiative was put on the statewide ballot. Opponents, led by the MEA and local school boards and using the public school establishment as foot soldiers, defeated this assault by a margin of 69 to 31 percent. It was a sharp setback to pro-voucher forces, and many thought it was the final nail in its coffin. Not necessarily so.<br />
<br />
In November 2010, Michigan voters will be asked if they wish to hold a constitutional convention and rewrite the existing state constitution. Polls show there is massive dissatisfaction and anger toward Lansing, and voters just might take the opportunity to force change.<br />
<br />
A metro newspaper quoted Lt. Gov. John Cherry as saying, “People are not happy with the capacity of state government to solve problems right now. … I don’t think the votes are there” to enact reforms. Sadly, the lieutenant governor is right, and the taxpayers might take matters into their own hands — and that ought to concern all the special interests in the halls of the Capitol.<br />
<br />
When the “I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore” crowd gets rolling, major change might be in store for Lansing. The public understands that education matters and is willing to invest in results.<br />
<br />
However, when they see data from the national ACT college admission test that shows Michigan ranks 42nd among the 50 states on the composite score (49th on English, 44th on math, 49th on reading, 41st on science), they question whether the current system is taking us where we need to go to be competitive in the global economy. This, coupled with the resistance to sensible change, is a prescription for a revised voucher initiative or some other massive assault on public education.<br />
<br />
The status quo is quickly disappearing as a sensible option.<br />
<br />
Michigan is in stiff competition to receive an estimated $600 million from President Obama’s “Race to the Top” federal education funding initiative. It is one of the new president’s most innovative tools to spur states to overhaul the change-resistant school culture and prepare our children for a hypercompetitive economy.<br />
<br />
Without serious structural changes that push more of Michigan’s existing resources to the classroom, our state will be hard pressed to demonstrate that it is committed to change and deserving of these new, targeted stimulus investments. Michigan has until the end of this year to submit its application to the feds. How do we stand out among the states when we are content to muddle along?<br />
<br />
When other states are raising their innovative sails high, it appears, once again, that Michigan is content to drop anchor in the past.<br />
<br />
Our students will confront a changing, disruptive, information-and-technologically driven global economy that requires innovation, creativity and talent. Are we investing our limited state resources in ways that will ensure that they are prepared for this future? The answer, under the current power structure in Michigan, is a resounding no!<br />
<br />
The rest of the world is not sitting idly by waiting for us to get our act together. At a time when ideas and work can, and do, effortlessly move around the globe, the states and nations that get their system of education right will prosper in the 21st century. We are on the wrong track in Michigan.<br />
<br />
Death spiral<br />
<br />
Michigan is caught up in a perfect storm of losing people, businesses and the taxes they pay. Michigan gets less populated, less educated and poorer because of people and business fleeing our state. Since 2001, out-migration has cost Michigan 465,000 people, the equivalent of half the population of Detroit. The rate of exodus, one of the worst in the nation, is accelerating. Nearly 109,000 more people left Michigan last year than moved in. It is reported that our state loses a family every 12 minutes, and the families who are leaving are the people the state desperately needs to kick-start our economic rebound — young, well-educated, high-income earners. It is change-or-die time for Michigan schools.<br />
<br />
Many school boards and administrators have been conspirators with the MEA to avoid change. As long as money could be extracted from taxpayers via local millage votes before Proposal A in 1994, and from the governor and state Legislature ever since, everyone has been content to maintain a virtual state of homeostasis.<br />
<br />
Our state continues to lose jobs in roaring tsunamis and replace them in teardrops. Even if our economy improves dramatically, we simply cannot afford the cost structure under our current system of public education. Covering the rising cost of pensions and health care for our schools would require up to a half-billion-dollar investment per year ($300 per student times 1.7 million students) for the foreseeable future. This leaves no money for schools to invest in programs and services that will prepare our students for the future. Schools have not seen an increase of this magnitude for years; hence, superintendents and school boards have become “Pac-Man,” gobbling up or cutting other school functions to pay for escalating health care and pension costs. This is unsustainable.<br />
<br />
The governor and Legislature should either have the political courage to adequately fund the status quo or make the necessary changes.<br />
<br />
There have been countless studies and recommendations from distinguished organizations to address the structural funding crisis facing our schools, including: The Center For Michigan (www.thecenterformichigan.net); Business Leaders for Michigan (formerly Detroit Renaissance) (www.businessleadersformichigan.com); Citizens Research Council of Michigan (www.crcmich.org) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (www.mackinac.org).<br />
<br />
In addition, Granholm appointed a bipartisan Emergency Financial Advisory Panel, co-chaired by former Govs. William Milliken and James Blanchard and stacked with knowledgeable Lansing insiders, that offered recommendations on how best to avoid ongoing budget crises like Michigan is experiencing now. Granholm never acted on her panel’s recommendations.<br />
<br />
Each of these groups spells out ways for Michigan to make sensible changes while fairly supporting its teachers and public schools that are vital to our economic rebound and prosperity. The time for studies, delays, debates and talking is over. We need the governor and legislators to act.<br />
<br />
The MEA has considerable clout in Lansing. It underwrites Democrats and Republicans alike and is calling in its chips to prevent change. As an example, newly elected state senator and former state Rep. Mike Nofs has been a longtime supporter of the MEA and was endorsed by the union in his recent successful special election Senate bid.<br />
<br />
At a time when Michigan and the schools the taxpayers support demand adaptability, creativity, flexibility, innovation, problem-solving and versatility, what we have from the MEA and the politicians they have supported is rigidity, conformity, protectionism and standing pat for the status quo.<br />
<br />
Those who profess to support public education should take notice: If you give people a choice … they may take it.<br />
<br />
New three Rs<br />
<br />
Historically, we spoke about the three Rs of education: Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic. We need the new three Rs in Michigan education: Reform, Restructure and Reinvent. There should be no agreement on the fourth new R — Revenue/taxes — until these structural changes are well under way.<br />
<br />
Suggesting such ideas has brought the wrath of the MEA down on my head, Dillon’s and others who dare to speak truth to power. Many public schools across the state are financially wobbly today due to the strain of inadequate state funding that has not, and cannot keep pace with rising health care and pension costs, especially when combined with limited or declining enrollment coupled with the inaction to consolidate school districts.<br />
<br />
To make matters worse, the state continues to take in less sales tax revenue than projected, so dollars for the school aid fund will be hundreds of millions short as the new year begins. To add insult to injury, the current Democratic plan to slap a Band-Aid on the current school-funding crisis by tapping the federal stimulus money set aside for next fiscal year is simply postponing the day of reckoning.<br />
<br />
In addition, Granholm’s plan to further tax tobacco, tax bottled water and close tax loopholes is anemic, at best, and will not raise enough revenue to stop the bleeding. It is the equivalent of plugging the hole in the Titanic with a wine cork. Even if these “revenue enhancements” are enacted, school funding will remain in crisis.<br />
<br />
While some might doubt that our system of public education could topple, it is increasingly unstable, unbalanced and ultimately unsustainable unless bold structural changes are made to alter its present course. This will require the type of real change and leadership from the governor, Legislature and state school board that has been lacking to date.<br />
<br />
The MEA is intent on not altering course and will attack change advocates as anti-Democrat, anti-teacher and anti-labor. I am none of the above. In fact, I was a youth advocate long before becoming a Democrat. I support these changes because doing nothing will bankrupt our schools and state, and drag our children under in the process.<br />
<br />
As the health care, pension and school district consolidation (and other) reform issues are debated in the coming months, lawmakers need to ask themselves — and be asked by taxpayers — whose side are you on? Will they stand up for the teachers’ union and the status quo or take a stand for our children and the collective future of our state?<br />
<br />
It would be sad as well as ironic if those professing to support our public schools and children ended up destroying both. Inaction has consequences, too. If backed into a corner, voters will choose change.<br />
<br />
Tom Watkins of Northville served as Michigan superintendent of schools from 2001 to ‘05. Read other Watkins works at </span></span><a href="http://www.domemagazine.com/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(223, 224, 220); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">www.domemagazine.com</span></span></a><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">.</span></span><br />
</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-15103002678441743692009-12-13T13:08:00.003-05:002009-12-13T13:08:52.610-05:00Read, Write and SCREENED All-OVER! (A 21st Century "Transformative Green" Scenario)<div class="headline" style="color: lime;"><h2><span style="font-size: x-large;">Auto supplier turns trouble to triumph by venturing into turbines</span></h2></div><div class="article-tools" id="sharelinks"><ul><script>
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<div class="main-photo"><img alt=""We knew the downturn was coming. ... we knew we were going to run out of work by the end of the first quarter of 2009." John Holcomb, general manager of MasTech's Manistee facility, who had an idea to save the supplier. (ROMAIN BLANQUART/DFP)" border="0" src="http://cmsimg.freep.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=C4&Date=20091213&Category=SPECIAL04&ArtNo=312130004&Ref=AR&Profile=1318&MaxH=361&MaxW=480&Q=75" title=""We knew the downturn was coming. ... we knew we were going to run out of work by the end of the first quarter of 2009." John Holcomb, general manager of MasTech's Manistee facility, who had an idea to save the supplier. (ROMAIN BLANQUART/DFP)" /><br />
"We knew the downturn was coming. ... we knew we were going to run out of work by the end of the first quarter of 2009." John Holcomb, general manager of MasTech's Manistee facility, who had an idea to save the supplier. (ROMAIN BLANQUART/DFP)<br />
</div><div id="byline-aff"><br />
<b>BY KATHLEEN GRAY</b><br />
<br />
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER<br />
</div><br />
<i>John Holcomb felt the cold winds blowing through the auto industry as early as 2006. But it took him three years and a dream to come up with a survival plan in which wind would play a big part.</i><br />
<br />
<i>As general manager of the Manistee factory of Sterling Heights-based MasTech, Holcomb had made a good living for three years supervising the production of machines and assembly lines for auto manufacturers. But <a href="http://www.freep.com/article/20091213/SPECIAL04/312130001/1318">he saw trouble coming</a> in September 2006, when Ford announced plans to close 16 plants, cut 44,000 jobs and revamp its product lines with an eye on becoming profitable again by 2009.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Why, Holcomb wondered, weren't the other struggling auto companies embarking on similar plans?</i><br />
<br />
"I saw Ford go out and secure funding for new, more economical models, and the rest of them weren't doing that," Holcomb said. "Changes weren't being made that would make them competitive on a broad enough scale. That was my first inkling that something was going to happen to the automotive industry."<br />
<br />
His plans began to take shape a year later -- during a dream-induced conversation with his father and grandfather, both long dead, as Holcomb lay hospitalized in critical condition with a ruptured colon.<br />
<br />
"I asked my dad and grandpa if I could go fishing with them and they said, 'No, it's not your time,' " he recalled. "At that point, I decided I had to do something to make a difference in a positive way."<br />
<br />
So Holcomb hit upon alternative energy as a way to make a contribution to cleaning up the environment and keep a thriving business going in Manistee.<br />
<br />
He went to Manistee's newly formed Alliance for Economic Success and pitched his idea: It was time for the group to aggressively recruit alternative energy businesses to the Lake Michigan shoreline community as a way to stave off the devastation that would come from an implosion of the auto industry.<br />
<br />
"We knew the downturn was coming because all of the quote requests dried up, and then all the purchase orders dried up," Holcomb said. "We knew we were going to run out of work by the end of the first quarter of 2009."<br />
<br />
As the alliance was hunting for alternative energy companies that also needed the machining expertise available in Manistee, Mariah Power of Reno, Nev., was looking for a place to build Windspires, residential wind turbines that were smaller and more compact than traditional windmills.<br />
<br />
In October 2008, as auto sales were plunging and the Detroit Three were shutting plants and shedding thousands of employees, MasTech's Manistee operation began transforming from an auto industry supplier into a wind turbine factory.<br />
<br />
Last January, the plant sent out its last automotive job -- an assembly line for a BMW plant in Spartanburg, S.C.<br />
<br />
"I've been doing automotive all my life, and there's a certain sadness in getting out of that business," Holcomb said. "But it's also been refreshing to step away from the unwritten rules and regulations of the auto industry. So often, they didn't reward innovation."<br />
<br />
The joint venture between Mariah and MasTech shipped its first Windspire on April 20 and has since built hundreds. Optimistic initial estimates called for production of 75 to 100 units a week, but the overall economic downturn has forced Holcomb to scale back to 100 a month.<br />
<br />
"We're trying to continue to get the American people to spend some money. And we've had a hard time getting traction for sales because of zoning issues," Holcomb said. "Right now, I'm talking to as many zoning boards as salespeople."<br />
<br />
From a high of 43 employees, MasTech is down to 35, many of whom worked in the auto industry. That's a steady level of employment from about 40 as an auto supplier.<br />
<br />
"I worked in the automotive industry for 15 years, and now I'm doing the complete turnaround," said Sean Jacobs, 39, a machinist from Manistee.<br />
<br />
Adam Morris, 37, of Ludington had been working in an auto die stamping plant in Grand Rapids but jumped at the chance to move to MasTech.<br />
<br />
"I wanted to be in a business that was more secure," he said.<br />
<br />
The company has plans for expansion.<br />
<br />
This fall, it began producing a Windspire that is large enough to store wind-created energy in a battery for future residential or vehicle use. MasTech expects to begin construction on another production facility in mid-2010 to meet expected demand from overseas.<br />
<br />
"We have some really huge orders pending overseas. We thought we'd sell more domestically right off the bat," Holcomb said. "But it turns out there's more interest right now in Europe, Asia and north Africa than in Iowa."<br />
<br />
And, thanks in part to a dream, MasTech's Manistee plant will deliver.<br />
<i>Contact KATHLEEN GRAY: 313-223-4407 or <a href="mailto:kgray99@freepress.com">kgray99@freepress.com</a></i><br />
<br />
<br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-39577172239287323532009-12-13T11:29:00.002-05:002009-12-13T11:29:02.873-05:00Mayor Bing CHANGES the educational discussion from one of conversation to an Actualized Imperative!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: red;">COMMENTARY</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Changing Detroit schools imperative</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><br />
<br />
<span style="color: orange;">BY MAYOR DAVE BING</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">T</span></span></b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">he recent release of National Assessment of Edu cational Progress test scores revealed a long-known but largely overlooked fact: We are failing our students. Detroit public school students ranked</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> the lowest in the country, with scores equal to what they would have been had they never stepped foot in the classroom.<br />
<br />
Everyone has weighed in on</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> how terrible this is, and of the broken and antiquated system the findings reflect. But the real discussion has yet to begin.<br />
<br />
Where do we start to fix this?<br />
<br />
To continue the discussion</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> centered solely on finances is fruitless. While we know that funding is critical, it is not the only thing needed to ensure that our children are properly and adequately educated. We all share in the blame and in the responsibility to fix this catastrophic problem.<br />
<br />
I am steadfastly committed to education in this city and have worked to support positive change for as much as my role allows. Supporting the return of Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, helping to pass Proposal S and creating Safe Routes to School are a few ways I have been able to participate.<br />
<br />
Yet, the challenges of our educational system require more — from me and everyone who has a vested interest in the future of our city, its residents and students. The solution lies with</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> being able to put performance based measures in place, with a central point of accountability.<br />
<br />
Other cities have done away with outdated oversight models and ineffective practices, and are realizing their educational potential with academic success.<br />
<br />
Detroiters find ourselves at the bottom of the barrel, yet we still have two choices: We can take the path of inaction, continue to place blame, discuss, plan and meet about the problems, or move forward with the difficult but necessary changes to rebuild an educational system that works for every student.<br />
<br />
While change is never easy, it is now imperative. We cannot afford to lose another child to our ignorance, arrogance or fear of something new and better.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
<br />
Dave Bing is the mayor of Detroit.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-86297955387721444402009-12-13T10:59:00.001-05:002009-12-13T10:59:07.288-05:00READING: The Gift that Just Keeps on Giving!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Reading is a thrill, not just a skill or task</span></span></b></span><br />
<div align="justify"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><b><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I </span></span></b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">can remember the book, if not the exact year, that marked the transition from my mother reading stories to me each night to me taking over the page-turning alone, often huddled in corner of my room or planted, upside down in my bed, with my feet dangling over the headboard. It was “A Wrinkle in Time,” the first in Madeleine L’ Engle’s trilogy of sci-fi novels, which tracks the interplanetary quest of a quirky band of teenage ec centrics hunting for a miss ing parent. Their guides are Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which, who transport the teens from place to place — each strange and magical in a different way — using a supernatural process that bends time and space.<br />
<br />
I couldn’t get enough of that book. Or its characters.<br />
<br />
Or its boundless appeal to my sense of adventure or imagination.<br />
<br />
I read the sequels myself.<br />
<br />
Then it was off to dozens of other novels, each of which introduced me to concepts I hadn’t considered, or to characters I still count as fantasy chums.<br />
<br />
When I think about the thousands of Detroit children we aren’t teaching to read, as evidenced by the awful na tional test scores released last week, I think this is one of the most important things we’re stealing from them.<br />
<br />
Reading is a skill. And yes, a task.<br />
<br />
But isn’t it also a doorway to mystery and wonder, to thoughts, ideas and emotions that we wouldn’t have other wise experienced? It’s one of the first ways we learn about possibilities and differences, about the whole idea that there are lives to be lived that may be largely incompa rable to our own.<br />
<br />
Think of how important that should be to children in Detroit, especially. Many live in real-life circumstances that offer very little of that healthy mystery or wonder.<br />
<br />
The city’s deep poverty is a physical trap for so many.<br />
<br />
Stories might be the only entrée to potential or un derstanding</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> for lots of city</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> children.<br />
<br />
As a child in Detroit in the 1970s and 1980s, I found kinship with the characters in the Great Brain series, written by John Dennis Fitz gerald, about life in the small, slow fictitious Utah town of Adenville. A biography of Abraham Lincoln convinced me that, like him, I could grow up to be president without attending school</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> past the third grade. (Better story: My mother indulged it for a week.) I’m certainly not down playing the more grounded urgency in making sure every child learns to read.<br />
<br />
Those who don’t, we all know, are more likely to drop out, more likely to become trapped in lives of little or no productivity, more likely to themselves bear children who won’t learn to read, either.<br />
<br />
That was a siren that sounded last week, when test scores revealed that De troit’s children are sitting, alone, at the very bottom of a deep well of urban unde rachievement. We need to rally everyone and marshal every resource to rescue them.<br />
<br />
I’m certain we will, but I think we also need to remember why.<br />
<br />
It’s not just to produce self-sufficient cogs who’ll help make the machinery of our society go.<br />
<br />
It’s to give them a gift with so much more significance.<br />
<br />
When I was in the seventh grade at U of D Jesuit, we read “Lord of the Flies” in our reading class. (Yes, we had a distinct class, every day, focused entirely on reading novels. The Jesuits do not putter when it comes to literacy.) And how fitting was it for a class of 25 pre-teen boys in a prep school to be reading a book about a group of mostly pre-teen boys from a prep school stranded on an island after a plane crash?<br />
<br />
We couldn’t help relating the divisions William Golding played out between his char acters to our own little class.<br />
<br />
Who’d want to do work and keep order? Who’d want to indulge the freedom from adult oversight, and run wild? I remember it so viv idly.<br />
<br />
This wasn’t just work.<br />
<br />
It was fun.<br />
<br />
Kids who never learn to read get cheated out of that fun.<br />
<br />
It’s up to all of us to help end that swindle.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
<br />
| </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">STEPHEN HENDERSON IS EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR FOR THE FREE PRESS.<br />
<br />
CONTACT HIM AT </span><a class="email" href="mailto:SHENDERSON600@FREEPRESS.COM" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blanks"><span style="color: orange;">SHENDERSON600@FREE</span></a><a href="http://press.com/" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">PRESS.COM</span></a><span style="color: orange;">, OR AT 313-222-6659.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">SURE, LITERACY IS FUNDAMENTAL. BUT TEACHING KIDS TO READ ISN’ T JUST ABOUT PRODUCING SELF-SUFFICIENT COGS THAT MAKE THE MACHINERY OF OUR SOCIETY GO.</span></span></b></span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-51848398109140069972009-12-13T10:14:00.002-05:002009-12-13T10:44:01.538-05:00LITERACY URGENCY EMERGENCY! (JUST DO the RIGHT THING)<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">RAISING A READING CORPS</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">NEEDED: 100,000 HOURS OF TUTORING TO LIFT DPS STUDENTS TO LITERACY</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">I</span></span></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">n the 1960s, images of women and children being at tacked by dogs and sprayed with fire hoses spurred the nation to real action in the civil rights movement.<br />
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Detroit children’s rock-bottom scores on a national test are as shocking a reminder of the work that needs to be done fighting illiteracy, a key civil rights issue of this era.<br />
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The scores are dismal.<br />
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But from hardship grows strength for revival. From the depths of DPS’ current state, this community can help it rise up again.<br />
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Now it’s time to act, for the children.<br />
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Today the Free Press, in concert with the Detroit Public Schools, sounds an extraordinary call to this region: Build a Reading Corps of trained tutors to deploy in city schools. Give</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> 100,000 hours over the next year to ensure that city children read on grade-level by the third grade.<br />
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The school district will coordinate the effort. The Free Press, the Detroit Media Partnership, the Detroit News, Ilitch Hold ings, Miller Canfield and ABC Warehouse have signed on as charter members who’ll donate time and other resources to meet the goal.<br />
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Others must now join the cause. The Free Press will chron icle the efforts and every pledge made.<br />
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For now, we begin with a promise, and a plea.<br />
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We will do this. We need your help to make sure it’s a success</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;">EDITORIAL</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Reading Corps wants YOU</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">An appeal for tutors to help Detroit’s would-be readers</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div align="justify"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><b><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">T</span></span></b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">he crisis is clear in Detroit’s public schools. Now the challenge is, too.<br />
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To vanquish the illiteracy that produced worst-ever scores by Detroit students on a national test last week, emergency finan cial manager Robert Bobb needs an army — a Reading Corps composed of trained volunteers who’ll descend on city schools in the coming months to help young chil dren learn to read.<br />
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The goal: 100,000 hours of donated time, from all corners of this community, next year and every year going forward, so Detroit can be sure that ev ery child reads at grade-level by the time he or she reaches third grade.<br />
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This community can meet that goal, and will. It’s a high calling and a steep challenge, but this is a region with a history of licking tough problems with hard work. We’re also a people who understand the precious responsibility we all have for educating our children. And we know the connection it has to all of our success.<br />
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We know this isn’t just a city problem. The conse quences</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> of Detroit’s failure to educate its children</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> won’t be contained south of 8 Mile.<br />
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Let this 100,000-hour challenge be the rallying point for all of us to stand up, join together and beat back this threat to every part of our community.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Stepping up</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Today, the Free Press is stepping forward to help coordinate Bobb’s efforts and to pledge its support as a charter member of the Read ing Corps.<br />
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The Free Press will do nate 1,000 hours of its em ployees’ time over the next year to the Reading Corps.<br />
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The Detroit Media Part nership, which oversees op erations at the Free Press and the Detroit News, will match that donation with 1,000 hours of its employees’ time. The Detroit News will also participate.<br />
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Other charter members include Ilitch Holdings, the professional services arm of the many corporations owned by Mike and Marian Ilitch, the Miller Canfield law firm and ABC Warehouse.<br />
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Ilitch and Miller Canfield have pledged 1,000 hours of service each. ABC Ware house will donate computer equipment.<br />
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The challenge now falls to the rest of the community — corporations, civic groups, churches, nonprofits and individual citizens — to fill the rest of Bobb’s request.<br />
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This won’t be wasted time. Bobb and his team of aca demic advisers plan to train volunteers in the Reading Recovery program, a system atic and highly successful one-on-one program that’s already working on a small scale in the district.<br />
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With about four hours of training, anyone can become a tutor, qualified to work with students who are learn ing to read. It’s a more effec tive boost to classroom teaching than having volun teers simply read books to</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> children, a common, laudable way many organizations help in schools. Reading Recovery has a 30-year track record of success, in this country and around the world.<br />
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Bobb says the district should be ready to begin training tutors in January, and could begin deploying them later this winter. The tutors’ efforts will dovetail with the intense reading instruction Bobb and his academic advisers are plan ning for the district’s curriculum.<br />
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At least initially, Bobb plans to deploy Reading Corps tutors across the dis trict’s 200 pre-kindergarten classes. But eventually, with enough tutors, the program could grow to encompass grades pre-K through third</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> grade.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><b><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Setting a target</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Those are the critical years for reading instruction. After third grade, children are no longer being taught to read, but being asked to em ploy their reading skills to absorb and process other knowledge. The rate at which children fall behind with their entire education — in math, science and English — accelerates dramatically after the fourth grade if their reading skills aren’t properly developed.<br />
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This is hardly the Free Press’ first initiative to sup port K-12 education. The paper’s award-winning Newspapers in Education program provides newspa pers to 764 schools in Michi gan and publishes a mini newspaper for Detroit ele mentary students. The paper’s high school journalism</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> program helps young jour nalists publish school newspapers. The annual Gift of Reading program has provided more than 700,000 books as gifts for needy children over the past 20 years.<br />
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And, of course, many oth er corporations and organi zations have made their own substantial contributions to schools. There are dozens of reading programs at work in Detroit’s public schools right now, representing thousands of hours of donated time by dedicated organizations and individuals.<br />
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But, as Bobb points out, the Reading Corps will be different — a focused, coor dinated program to leverage community resources against a singular problem, illiteracy among the city’s young.<br />
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It’s about this entire re gion accepting some respon sibility for the state of its largest city’s public schools and for the welfare of its most desperately needy population.<br />
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That’ll be a first around here, and a welcome one.<br />
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The crisis is real. The challenge is now spelled out.<br />
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Who will join the Free Press and other charter members in building the Reading Corps?</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><b><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">LET THIS 100,000-HOUR CHALLENGE BE THE RALLYING POINT TO STAND UP, JOIN TOGETHER AND BEAT BACK THIS THREAT TO EVERY PART OF OUR COMMUNITY</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">How to volunteer</span></span></b></span></span></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Detroit Public Schools Reading Corps is ready to sign up groups and individu als to pledge time or other resources toward the goal of 100,000 hours tutoring children.<br />
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You can sign up via the Internet at</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><a href="http://www.detroitk12.org/" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">www.detroitk12.org/</span></a><span style="color: orange;"> readingcorps/.<br />
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</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">Or you can call the Read ing Corps hotline at 313-870-KNOW (313-870 5669).</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Waging a continuing crusade for literacy</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><br />
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<b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">GIFT OF READING</span></span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><b><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: orange;">For over 20 years, Detroit Free Press Charities has collected new books and money to purchase books to give to children ages 0-12 around the holidays. Since we began, we’ve given over 700,000 books to at-risk children through Head Start programs, shelters, clinics, churches … anywhere there are children in need. Books can be donated to the pro gram at our office at 615 W. Lafayette, or donations can be made by check and on line. See</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><a href="http://www.freep.com/reading" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">www.freep.com/reading</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> for more information.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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NEWSPAPERS IN EDUCATION</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Our award-winning De troit Newspapers in Educa tion program delivers Free Press print editions to 107 schools and e-Editions to 764 schools, and we deliver News print editions to 54 schools and e-editions to 240 schools across Michi gan. Related special pro grams and teacher supple ments are also provided, all aimed at improving literacy and test scores.<br />
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Third-, fourth- and fifth grade students in all Detroit public, private and charter schools receive the weekly Yaks Corner — a mini-news paper for young people focusing on local stories, people and current events — thanks to a grant from the Skillman Foundation. Digital editions of the News fea ture weekly “Breakfast Serials,” with weekly installments of two stories each school year.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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</span><a href="http://www.dnie.com/" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">WWW.DNIE.COM</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Our educational website —</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><a href="http://www.dnie.com/" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">www.dnie.com</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> — pro vides print and video fea tures to students and edu cators, including vocabulary and geography quizzes, cartoons for the classrooms, and front page talking points.<br />
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The site also invites read ers to get involved by mak ing a financial donation to the program, connecting with one of ten featured mentoring organizations, and supporting our “Reading is Fun” events.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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JOURNALISM MENTORING</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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Since 1985, the Free Press has been mentoring journal ism classes at 15 Detroit high schools. Each of the classes visits the newsroom several times throughout the school year to get one on- one help from a Free Press journalist. The pro gram is funded by Ford Motor Co., including news paper production and dis tribution costs, laptops and cameras for the students, an end-of-year banquet and a $24,000 scholarship to the best senior journalist.<br />
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The program is run by copy editor Erin Hill, a DPS graduate who got her start in the Free Press program and who won the Ford scholarship</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> in 2001.</span></span><br />
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</div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-87914108199479079502009-12-13T08:44:00.001-05:002009-12-13T08:44:32.618-05:00To Detroit Teachers: "CHANGE the CONVERSATION!" (Or Suffer the Unintended Consequences)<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Teachers warned not to strike</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb said Saturday he’s poised to impose a 10% pay cut if teachers walk off the job this week.<br />
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“To those teachers who are trying to force their members back to the table: The negotiations are over,” Bobb said out side the Detroit Parent Network breakfast, addressing ru mors of a strike Monday.<br />
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Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said he opposes the 10% cut, but does not support a work stoppage.<br />
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Thousands of DFT members railed last week against a contract proposal that defers $10,000 from each of their sal aries over the next two years. The 3-year tentative deal would save DPS $62.8 million. Voting on accepting the con tract ends next week.</span></span></span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494073069837371585.post-22431289086606699092009-12-13T08:05:00.001-05:002009-12-13T08:05:36.140-05:00Seminal Challenge! (Meet OUR Students Where THEY Are)<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Bobb to parents: Help us</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> help kids</span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">DPS needs volunteers to teach reading</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;">By TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />
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FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"><span style="color: orange;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As parents decried the De troit Public Schools’ dismal test scores Saturday, the dis trict’s emergency financial manager called on volunteers to spend 100,000 hours teach ing students to read.<br />
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“Going forward, we have to create a situation where we create a reading revolution in the city of Detroit,” DPS Emer gency Financial Manager Rob ert Bobb told about 300 par ents at a breakfast meeting</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> sponsored by a parents group. Bob talked to the parents about the district’s test results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, in which Detroit students ranked the lowest in the nation.<br />
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Detroit Parent Network Executive Director Sharlonda Buckman said parents should be irate that their tax dollars have had little effect on their children’s education.<br />
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“They can’t read; they can’t count!” she yelled to a standing ovation at the Westin Book</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> Cadillac hotel. “It would not be acceptable in any other com munity! We need to get on board with changing this!”<br />
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Bobb said his attempts to rework operations at the school system should be mir rored in the community. Some of the issues contributing to the problem include children living in unsafe neighbor hoods, parents with mental health or drug abuse issues and unemployment, he said.<br />
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Celia Huerta said four of her five children attended DPS —</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"> and two didn’t get diplomas. Her fifth, age 6, is attending a Melvindale school until she sees improvement in DPS.<br />
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“They’re so organized at this other system,” said Huer ta. “I think the Detroit system could learn something at some of these other schools.”</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;"> </span><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0