School plugs into iPods

Date: June 20, 2007
By: Charles E. Ramirez
Source: The Detroit News

STERLING HEIGHTS -- Molly Zapinski will get the chance to do more than listen to her favorite tunes on an MP3 player next year -- she'll also be able to curl up with a good audio book from school.

Under a new program scheduled to start next fall, Molly and the other 439 students at Harvey Elementary will get the chance to go to the school's library and check out iPods that have children's audio books loaded on them.

The popular MP3 players are made by Apple Computer Inc. They allow users to store and listen to digitized music and some store photos and video.

"It's going to be pretty cool to have books on iPods," the 10-year-old fifth-grader from Sterling Heights said.

The goal of the program is to use technology to promote literacy, said Jacki Zawierucha, Harvey Elementary's media center specialist.

The program will enable students to check out one of 15 iPod nanos in the school's media center for about a week to listen to audio books, Zawierucha said.

The iPods have about two gigabytes of memory. The units cost about $149 each and can hold up to 500 songs, according to Apple.

Students will write book reports or take quizzes about the stories they've heard.

Every student will have the chance to use one at least once during the school year, she said. Students at Harvey, which is part of Utica Community Schools, attend class in the media center once a week for an hour.

The iPod project is being funded by a $1,500 grant from technology giant EDS. The company is based in Plano, Texas, but is one of Michigan's largest high-tech employers.

Zawierucha applied for the grant at the prompting of Molly's father, who works for EDS. She had to submit a five-page application that explained what she would like to do with the grant.

Launching the program also required nominal funding from the school, Zawierucha said.

Dave Ellis, a spokesman for EDS in Detroit, said the company has awarded more than $2 million in educational grants like this one worldwide. Zawierucha's grant was one of five EDS awarded in Michigan.

The goal of the grants is to encourage the use of technology in the classroom, he said.

You can reach Charles E. Ramirez at (586) 468-2905 or cramirez@detnews.com.

Teacher merit pay may improve student learning

Date: Wednesday, June 20, 2007
By: Editorial
Source: The Detroit News

Teacher unions have long resisted merit pay. But it is increasingly considered to be part of an effective strategy for improving student achievement. Michigan needs to embrace this idea for the sake of its students.

For years, merit pay has been fought by unions, which argue that multiple pay tiers undermine teacher solidarity. But now, the idea is gaining support among some school districts and local unions nationwide.

In Minneapolis, the education union is working with the state's Republican governor on a plan through which teachers in some schools work with mentors to improve their instruction and get bonuses for raising student achievement.

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded 18 federal grants worth more than $38 million to provide financial incentives for educators in more than 18 states. Even the American Federation of Teachers, the national union, is encouraging efforts to raise teacher quality through merit-based pay initiatives.

Merit pay, in part, is gaining support because of its potential to attract the best teachers to the poorest-performing schools -- the very students who need good teachers most. Hiring bonuses can help close the country's urban-suburban, minority-white achievement gap, experts say.

There's a growing consensus among both Democrats and Republicans that rewarding teachers with bonuses or raises for improved student achievement, working in low-income schools or teaching the toughest subjects can energize veteran teachers and attract bright rookies.

"So many more people now say that the teacher pay system doesn't send the signal that we really do want students to learn more and more. The pay system should be focused on teachers' instructional skills, which are linked to learning gains," notes University of Wisconsin Professor Allan R. Odden.

In Michigan, the largest state teacher union, the Michigan Education Association (MEA), has opposed merit pay largely because of its concerns about the link between a student's socioeconomic status and his or her academic performance.

It's unfair to hold teachers accountable for low-performing students in lower-income areas, the union argues.

The unions also worry about cronyism, or principals rewarding their friends, rather than the best-performing teachers.

However, other school districts are creating new models to address the problem that merit pay may simply reward educators for teaching students already primed for academic success.

As Odden says, "today, we have much more testing of students. You can do sophisticated value-added analyses, so you can be crisp about figuring out which teachers to give bonuses."

In isolated cases at the local level, such as in Fennville and Byron Center in western Michigan, unions and school districts are already exploring and integrating elements of merit pay.

But at the state level, the MEA has not taken a lead on the issue. Nor has Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Michigan was once a leader in innovative educational policy. It needs to open its mind to creative new strategies to bring up student performance levels.

Neither fear nor inertia should prevent the state from experimenting with merit pay initiatives.

BITTERSWEET: Historic school is celebrated as it closes

Date: June 20, 2007
By: BY CHASTITY PRATT, FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
Source: The Detroit Free Press

Graduates of Detroit's old Miller High slowly walked the building's halls Monday, calling out the names and accomplishments of classmates staring out from faded black-and-white photos.

Just about anybody who became a somebody after living in or near the African-American community known as Black Bottom is on the school's walls.

Former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, a student but not a graduate, smiled down from a signed photo. Olympic gold medalist Lorenzo Wright cleared a hurdle in another picture along the school's Wall of Fame.

Despite its rich history and its designation as a registered Michigan historic site, Miller is closing for good Thursday. It's one of 33 Detroit schools scheduled to be boarded up by fall in a nationally unprecedented school closure plan. A ceremony is scheduled for 5-8 p.m. tonight there.

Miller High was the first African-American high school created by forced segregation in Detroit and was, as one author put it, an academic and athletic powerhouse that outperformed many white schools during its existence from 1933 to 1957.

But that was then.

Now it's an academically struggling middle school in disrepair, save the green and gold historic marker erected in 2005. Teachers are packing up, but no one is sure what will happen to the photos -- or the legacy.

"I'm mad about it. I'm very disappointed," said Charlie Primus, former Harlem Globetrotter, educator and president of Miller High Alumni Inc. He is still hoping something is in the works to save the school.

Students and supporters of some of the other closing schools -- such as Northern and Murray-Wright high schools -- protested and staged walkouts this spring to try to save their schools. Not so with Miller.

School Board President Jimmy Womack, who graduated from Miller in 1967 after it became a middle school, said that almost every dignitary in the city called to ask to keep it open, but there was no public outcry and no financial savior has surfaced.

"Maybe we should've fought a little bit harder to keep this school open," said Richard Kelly, 72, class of 1952. "I think with all this expertise we have here, it should've never closed."

Pride and acceptance

The 88-year-old building on the city's east side was all but ignored during the state takeover of Detroit Public Schools, even as then-Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Burnley's administration spent much of a $1.5-billion capital improvement bond.

"We know how we got here, but how do we get out of here?" Womack said of the pending closure.

If ever there was a time that Detroit needed to remember and embrace Miller's legacy, it's now, said Kelly, who helped arrange the Wall of Fame at Miller. He said Detroit students need the kind of love Miller High's mostly white staff invested.

Primus agreed.

"When blacks could go to the other schools, they were just tolerated because their parents had moved out of Black Bottom," he said. "Miller accepted us."

Cynthia Davis, president of the parent group for four years, said the school has retained its family feel. She and her three children attended the school. "I'm going to miss the teachers and dedication of the administrators."

Jazz Banks, 14, an eighth-grader who graduated this week, can recite info on some of the people on the Wall of Fame. She said the school is a family.

"These teachers have been like parents to everybody," she said. "It's sad. ... I wanted my kids to go to the school I went to."

Succeeding against the odds

Miller gave the city more African-American professionals than any other during its time, according to "The Historify of Sydney D. Miller High..." a doctoral dissertation Miller graduate Cloyzelle Jones submitted to Wayne State University in 1971.

But it only became a high school by force. During the Depression, parents protested the rising population of black students attending Eastern High. The school board bowed to the pressure and decided in 1933 that Miller Intermediate School would become a small high school. Most students came from or near the Black Bottom area.

A transfer policy allowed whites in the area to go to Eastern, according to "The Rise and Fall of an Urban School System: Detroit, 1907-1981." "It was one of the clearest examples of racial segregation," said University of Michigan professor Jeffrey Mirel, the book's author.

Miller was never expected to succeed, alumni say. It never had the classrooms, athletic fields or resources to be a high school, Mirel and Jones said.

But black leaders and the community rallied around the school, and it became one of the city's preeminent high schools. The Trojans won several city basketball titles, though the school had no full-size basketball court and had to play games at the recreation center in the Brewster projects.

Those were the days when teachers instructed teens on how to dress, speak and raise a family, Thomas Sledge, class of 1948, remembered Monday.

Those were the days when boys and girls -- separately -- swam naked and unashamed in swim class. And when the school was surrounded by black-owned businesses ranging from dry cleaners to confectioners. Lunch cost 23 cents.

"If you went to school in the South, that's what Miller was like," said Samuel Pickens, 72, class of 1953. "You got a teacher and she taught you everything -- how to dress, hygiene, manners -- in addition to reading, writing and arithmetic."

'There's some value in history'

Principal Sharon Dennis said news of the Miller closure has drawn out local historians and alumni scrambling to put together footage and photos. A program about the school recently ran on Comcast cable.

Last Wednesday, Dennis opened the nonfunctioning pool to show it to two alumni who are recording the school's history.

She still can't believe Miller will be boarded up, she said walking through the musty locker room.

"We've got to realize there's some value in history," she said.

The annual Miller High picnic during the second Sunday in August will likely continue, Primus said. It draws about 5,000 people a year, some of whom park their mobile homes in the field across from the school.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the last Miller High School graduation.

"It's a powerful legacy. It's an important legacy -- one that shouldn't be forgotten," Mirel said. "It's a model for the kinds of things we want in Detroit. If we can find the magic that Miller had, we'd get the Nobel Prize."

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

"We didn't have math today."

This is what my “little” told me today at our bi-weekly lunch, sponsored by Big Brothers/ Big Sisters. Lunch Buddies is program that matches professionals and elementary students for lunch at school. Today, we did math worksheets while eating our school lunch of… you guessed it... salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, peaches, and milk!

Anyway- the point to this blog.

My little is in the 5th grade and uses her fingers and a hand scrawled number line to do simple math. i.e. 9-1 or 7+2. I stopped this practice and gave her crayons to use instead- kinesthetic and tactile learners need to be active when doing their work. Holding six crayons, adding four crayons, and realizing that now you hold ten crayons is more effective for a kinesthetic or tactile learner than a number line. I told my little that using fingers in the 5th grade is no longer allowed. (I might add that after she “held” the answer, she had it committed to memory- she now can do some, simple, mental math.)

Now, I didn’t blog today to rant about inadequate differentiation in schools or to toot my own teaching horn. I’m blogging about something my little told me after I said I was going to go tell her math teacher how well she was doing.

“We didn’t have math today.”

“WHAT!!!!????”

I learned that math is not an everyday subject at this Detroit elementary school. Today was computer day, and they sometimes do math on the computers. Unfortunately, the computers weren’t working today, so they sat in the auditorium and watched a movie. My little laughed as she told me this, as she knew how I was going to react.

How we have elementary schools that do not have Math everyday appalls me. In light of this, I find it ironic, that conversations about academic standards and the way to measure students against these standards often brings up reasons why we CAN NOT be held accountable for students' achievement levels.

Well, I want to start holding people accountable. Right now! WE NEED TO HAVE MATH EVERYDAY IN SCHOOL. I’m holding parents accountable. I’m holding teachers, principals, and school administrators accountable. I’m holding the teachers’ union accountable. I’m holding community leaders accountable. I’m holding students accountable. Everyone is responsible!

This is no one person or one group’s problem. This is an EVERYONE problem and we all need to find out why we’ve let educational standards and practices slip, and how we’re going to get back on track.

All I can say is that I bet in Birmingham, they have Math everyday. Why is Detroit different? Is it economic? Is it race? Is it expectations of the community? Why have we disenfranchised an entire part of our community- putting them at a disadvantage that is pretty darn insurmountable. How is this, ‘ok?’

Julie Updyke
Campaign Associate
Resource Development
United Way for Southeastern Michigan

Connecting the World

I don't know why, but one of the best memories of (elementary) school I have is playing a computer game called the Lemonade Stand. It was a game that allowed you to buy lemons, sugar, etc. in certain quantities and then sell them to customers. It was teaching us economics -- costs, supplies, demand. I loved it. Couldn't get enough of it. At that age, it was one of the first times that I was given control over things and able to make my own decisions.

Wow, have times changed! Technology, decisionmaking and self-expression are still being incorporated into the classroom, and beyond. TakingITGlobal is on online forum that allows teachers and students to work on global issues that involves students from around the world.

It has the ability to change the way we think about learning and the way in which we see others in the world. Pretty powerful. But I still would love another chance to play the Lemonade Stand!

Reasons Why I Didn't Attend MIT

Are you kidding me?! I couldn't wait until I didn't have to take any more math classes! But imagine if that was my dream -- to attend MIT -- but I couldn't get in because too many others wanted to go there too or the tuition/cost of living was just too high. Well, MIT has started to eliminate those barriers. Go to MIT's OpenCourseWare and you have free access to MIT's content, from aeronautics to zoology. Now, I could download the readings and assignments for courses. I could share my experiences on community forums with other "students" from around the world. I could become part of the MIT family! That is, if I liked math.

Nearly 8,000 Unaccounted For

Nearly 8,000 students in metro Detroit were unaccounted for and deemed dropouts in 2004/05.

What if UWSEM mobilized 8,000 coaches for those students? Georgia Employs High School 'Graduation Coaches'

5,000+ Are Failing

More than 5,000 3rd grade students did not meeting reading standards in 2006. How do we improve these rates? Who do we turn to? Parents? Policymakers? Teachers? How about...doctors!

Pediatricians around the country are promoting literacy during wellness visits. Check the child's lungs...read a book..listen to his heart...tell the parent how to read aloud to her child every day...give the child a shot. So simple! And research shows that it's working.

Metro Detroit has nine pediatrician sites promoting literacy. We should have more, don't you think?

Oprah Has One

A mentor. A caring adult. Someone who influences your life, makes it rich, shapes your values, helps you to pursue your dreams. Mine is my mom. Maybe cliche, maybe easy, but true. I am who I am today because of the love and nurturing that my mom has given me (and still does).

Oprah's caring adult was one of her grade school teachers. And look where that took her!

Imagine if the State of Michigan generated 10,000 mentors to be caring adults in our children's lives. Where could that take us as a community? Dan Mulhern, Michigan's First Gentleman, has some thoughts on that.

Who was your mentor? How did that person affect you?

Want to mentor? Call 2-1-1 or go to www.uwsem.org

It Affects Everything

"Whole Foods Markets, when I sat down with them, said, 'What is the education achievement level in the 3-mile radius around where you want us to locate?' We said , 'What? You don't want to know tax incentives?' They said they need a certain education level to get the kind of shoppers that come to their stores. It affects everything." So said the Mayor of Detroit recently.

Education...it affects everything. But don't just take a politician's word for it. Economists such as Art Rolnick from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis will tell you (and they have studies to back them up) that companies locate and invest in communities with a high-quality workforce, which includes workers with formal education as well as experienced workers receiving on the job training.

If you believe that education is key to a strong economy and vibrant community, then what do we as a community do about it? Do we invest our resources in early childhood development? Do we replicate Kalamazoo's Promise? Do we continue to foster good schools?

Education...it affects everything. What do you believe?

Share your childhood memories of reading

As UWSEM focuses its fundraising, public relations, volunteer and programming energies on early learning, it's triggered all sorts of memories and feelings about my early reading days. The one that sticks out the most is when I was in grade school. I think I was in 5th or 6th grade. In my school's library, there were a series of biographies on our early American leaders. I couldn't get enough of them. From Abigail Adams to George Washington, I read them all. The biography of Abigail Adams I remember most. She was an inspirational leader, with such strength and intelligence. She didn't have a traditional leadership role, but was influential nonetheless (maybe even more so than her husband? Talk amongst yourselves.).

The problem with my reading passion was that I wasn't very good at returning the books to the library. One day, Mrs. Solomon (one of our teachers) walked me to my locker and, lo and behold, I had about 12 of those biographies stacked high! She was not pleased. But that didn't stop me from continuing to read them. To this day, I wish I knew the publishing company of that series. I would buy them all and share them with my daughter (who just happens to be named Abigail). Then again, I might just keep them for myself and read them all again!

What are your memories of reading?

A Better Future ... Together

Our Regional Aspiration:

All People Across Southeastern Michigan have the Educational and Economic Opportunities Needed to Succeed and Thrive.

Think about those words.

What do you see? Do you see yourself gearing up some Saturday morning to go volunteer to make your community better? Do you see your children having fresh opportunities to meet their goals? Do you see yourself in that aspiration?

Can you see all of us working together to do something great as a region?

We can.

The true consensus that emerged from everyone that shared their voice was overwhelming. We are moving forward by focusing in on the vital few issues we can make progress on across Southeast Michigan.

We know it will not be easy. We know it will take time. But now we know that we have the region behind us, ready to make it work.

Please, join us & get involved today.

A Community Voice

African American woman
Living on the east side of Detroit
Ten children
Have you reached your conclusions yet? I did.
7 of her children are in or have graduated from college.
Doctor, lawyer, police officer
Thinking differently? I am.
She hopes for all of her children to go to college.
She'd like her community to get rid the prostitutes off the street.
Think we can make this happen?

What are the hopes for your children?
What role should our community play in realizing your goals?

I was in the presence of greatness

OK, maybe that's a stretch. It wasn't like I was talking to the Pope or the President of the United States. But if you're involved in early childhood development work, then you might describe it just that way. Dr. Lawrence Schweinhart, President and CEO of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, has a lot to say about the role of high-quality early childhood education in our society, and I, for one, wanted to hear it. Do you? Don't get me wrong, for awhile, I thought he was talking German, or maybe Japanese. He's a researcher by nature. But what impresses me about the man is that he can think about research and how it applies to public policy, quality programming, etc. That makes him approachable, in my view. And an important part of the team.

But he's not the only member. We're all experts in some way. We've been children, are raising children, or know families/friends that are trying to do so successfully. And we need your input. If you listen to the podcast, you'll hear that I asked Dr. Schweinhardt the question: what role does literacy play in our broader early childhood agenda?

What do you think of his answer? Do you agree?

Staying Focused on Youth

"What we need is a culture of achievement."

"Youth should be involved with organizations that keep them off the streets and into meaningful life habits and learning....Don't spread funding so thin that it does little good."

Those are just a couple of the 1,400 plus comments people shared about "Youth complete school prepared to succeed in the workforce and higher education" from United Way's Community Action Survey.

It's no surprise really; children are our future. For them, we want greater opportunities, safer communities, solid role models ... the list goes on and on.

Much of the question is how?

At United Way, we're focusing in on the issues that the people in the region care most about. We're confident that process will include discussions on what strategies will help youth be better prepared for life in today's world. One current example is the Virgil H. Carr Society's work on truancy.

What strategies would you use?

Email us at impact.strategy@LiveUnitedSEM.org

Early Childhood is Important

“We need you to analyze 50+ pages of responses and give us a summary in two weeks.” Anyone else envy my position? Didn’t think so. I guess because these days I’m all about early childhood, they thought I’d jump at the opportunity. I wouldn’t exactly say I jumped, but I certainly did it.

My assignment was to cull through thousands of responses to the action statement: “Children are safe, healthy, nurtured and ready to succeed in school by age 6.” (I wasn’t the only one with this type of assignment by the way, mine just happened to be around children entering school ready to succeed.) While it was certainly a time-consuming endeavor, I must thank those that asked me to take it on. It was an idea-generating and affirming experience.

When you’re part of a team of staff asked to develop and implement UWSEM’s early childhood initiatives (What initiatives you say? How about Success by 6, Born Learning and Women’s Initiative), the most ineffective thing you can do is come up with ideas and solutions while sitting in your cubicle (let me save you some time and heartache – it doesn’t work). So where do you go for stories, input and partners? You go to the community, asking for voices to share.

And here’s what you said:

We need…“adequate funding for early education; adequate number of high quality service providers; adequate networks for parents to access information about their young children’s needs; parents who have education and parenting skills.”

Of the 1,200 responses received, two things rose to the top (for me) as priorities:
We need greater awareness and knowledge in the community of the importance of the early year’s in a child’s life; and

More parents need to know what they can do during those first years to ensure healthy development through parent education.

A portion of one response: “Public awareness of the importance of early childhood experiences on the long term success of each child. Spirit of unity, cooperation and true collaboration to provide ALL families with opportunities to access safe places for their children, access to quality health services for the entire family, and access to educational environment from birth along with the support systems to support those goals.”

There was also a clear statement that the lack of basic needs (shelter, food, clothing, etc.) impedes a parents’ progress to ensuring the healthy development of their children. To successfully address early childhood education of our children, we need to also ensure they have access to everyday, basic needs.

Regionalism and the support of businesses are key: “We don’t have a true regional perspective across these three counties and recognition that there is need in each community. Also, the business community doesn’t understand that if you focus on early childhood, you are in essence hitting all of the other topics listed above including making sure people have living wages.”

Community Conversations

With a video recorder, a pile of release forms and a bunch of 211 brochures, I ventured out yesterday, along with several of my colleagues, to various spots in Detroit – Capitol Park and Campus Martius Park – for the sole purpose of capturing community voices. Why would we do that? Didn’t United Way for Southeastern Michigan just collect substantial information through its community action survey, focus groups and one-on-one interviews? Well, yes. But we still wanted to hear from individuals – mothers, fathers, grandparents, single parents and others about their hopes for their children and what the community could do to support them. Just to capture conversations, pure and simple.

Needless to say, we were amateurs at this! The three of us knew very little about optimally operating a video camera and had no training on interviewing techniques. But we pushed through our comfort zone and engaged in conversations. It was a powerful experience for me. I learned so much about my fellow community members. One woman was a single mom with 10 children, ages 4 through 27 (and she herself looked to be 35 years old)! Seven of her children went or are in college, quite an accomplishment for a parent who didn’t go to college herself. She was so proud to talk about her children, and she should be. I was honored to have heard her story.

Another single mom we met had two teenage daughters who are doing extremely well in school, despite the fact that they have limited transportation options and must walk 16 blocks to school. Like the other woman we spoke with, she was also proud of her daughters and also that she has been sober for 6 years now.

Finally, we talked with another woman who also left me with pride and hope for our community. She was spending the afternoon with her 5-year-old daughter while her other 12-year-old daughter was in a summer music program at the Detroit Opera House. She lives in Southfield and said she loves to come down to the city and take advantage of all the activities that Detroit has to offer. (Visit Model D for other great Detroit spots.)

Members of this region have so many positive, hopeful things to share. I thank those of you who took the time to talk with us on a lovely summer morning in Detroit. It’s motivated us to continue to capture these voices and stories – so be on the look out for United Way folks with a video camera at Belle Isle, the Detroit Zoo and your local malls!