NEW MATH!

Granholm's call for school aid cut raises the stakes

Districts express alarm; GOP says governor is overreacting

April 27, 2007

BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF and PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

LANSING -- An irate Gov. Jennifer Granholm put the heat on Republican lawmakers Thursday, announcing she would cut money to public schools by $125 per pupil unless the GOP agrees to a tax increase to make up for falling tax revenues.

School officials said the cut would force them to tap emergency reserves or borrow money to balance their budgets -- difficult options with just six weeks left in most districts' school year. If money isn't restored in the new budget year, they said, layoffs and program cuts loom.

"I'm assuming most districts are going to be able to at least keep open their classrooms," said Mike Flanagan, state superintendent of public instruction. But he said some may cut transportation or lay off administrators for the rest of the school year.

Granholm said Michigan's continued weak economy, which translated to lower-than-expected tax revenues, forced her decision. New data, she said, show that the state fell $136 million short of March sales tax projections. She plans to officially notify school districts Monday of the aid cut. The Legislature will have one month to find cash to avoid the reduction.

Granholm's announcement fueled partisan discord over a state budget crisis whose solution has eluded Granholm and lawmakers since she announced in January that reduced tax collections had put the state $900 million in the hole.

Republicans accused Granholm of using alarmist tactics to force a tax increase and insisted the immediate budget problems could be solved through spending cuts.

Granholm also said she would notify physicians and hospitals of reduced state payments for treating Medicaid patients because of a general fund deficit she said has grown to $500 million.

Granholm implored several hundred school officials at a Lansing conference to urge their state senators to raise taxes and avert the cutbacks. She said she has cut state spending so much that further cuts will harm education, public safety and health care.

Senate Republicans have opposed tax hikes for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, although they hinted they would consider new or higher taxes for 2007-08 along with more cost-cutting. Many House Democrats also have shunned a tax increase unless significant numbers of Republicans agree to one.

Granholm, visibly angry, told reporters that Republicans are stonewalling budget negotiations with extremist views against taxes.

"We need revenues to be able to save our schools," she said. "I'm angry at Senate Republicans for having purely an extremist ideology of never, no way ever, regardless of how it impacts Michigan, will they ever consider revenues. That philosophy is damaging to Michigan."

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, dismissed Granholm's label as unproductive name-calling. Bishop, in a statement, said the House and Senate have cooperated to erase part of the budget deficit.

"The governor seems intent on derailing the bipartisan progress via her obsession with a massive tax increase on Michigan families," Bishop said. "Republicans and Democrats have both demonstrated in legislation that the current-year deficit can be balanced with cuts."

Warren Consolidated Schools Superintendent James Clor said a $125-per-pupil cut would cost his district of more than 15,000 students about $1.9 million. He said the district's $13-million reserve would last three months.

"This is a shock, that it has to happen instantly," Clor said. "I hope it's a move that Granholm has to do to have these senators and legislators wake up."

He added, "What happens to districts that have no savings? Do they just close on that date? What do you do if you have no money?"

Avondale Schools Superintendent George Heitsch said a $125-per-pupil cut would cost his Auburn Hills district more than $400,000, which he said would be lumped onto next year's deficit.

Asked whether it would force an early end to the school year, he said, "We would not want that to happen."

This week, the Senate sent to Granholm a House bill that lops $300 million from the School Aid Fund deficit, mostly through accounting maneuvers. The bill still left a $62-million school budget hole. Granholm said she plans to sign it.

Combined with the March revenue shortfall, the School Aid Fund will remain $198 million in the hole when state economists meet in May to officially announce new revenue projections.

Earlier this month, Granholm and the Legislature cut $344 million from the current year's budget.

Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees tax issues, said Granholm hasn't done enough to trim such growing costs as health insurance and pensions for Michigan school employees. She said the governor's criticism of Republicans makes it more difficult to reach a budget compromise.

Cassis said a tax increase might be considered as a last resort for the 2007-08 fiscal year, adding that school funding may have to be scaled back, though not as much as Granholm's $125-per-pupil cut.

Contact CHRIS CHRISTOFF at 517-372-8660 or christoff@freepress.com.

Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.

OLD MATH!

This is a printer friendly version of an article from The Detroit News
To print this article open the file menu and choose Print.

---

April 27, 2007

Daniel Howes

Daniel Howes: Jig is up on fat school funding

You'd be irritated, too, if you'd been re-elected governor in a landslide last November

And your party, in control of the state House for the first time in a decade, dissed your plan for a 2-percent tax on services in about as much time it took you to propose it.

And your speaker, a private equity shark-turned-Democrat, didn't buy it either. Then he and the guys heading the tax policy committee recast a replacement to the Single Business Tax that Republicans, automakers, key chambers of commerce and other business leaders greeted with the kind of respect and qualified consideration that made you look, well, like an outsider.

And your tactic of whipsawing more revenue from the Senate GOP so you can plow it back into the entitlement maw that is Michigan's public schools didn't work. So the answer, just months after magically coming up with $220 more in (pre-election) per-pupil funding, is to take more than half of it back, call the Republicans "extremists" who "won't consider revenues" and bank that the public buys the charade.

But here's the bipartisan problem facing Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester: The cash burn consuming Michigan public-school funding won't stop unless something changes fundamentally.

Almost every penny of the cash Granholm found last fall, minus the $125 per head she's promising to pull back, wasn't headed to "the kids" anyway. It was destined for negotiated health care benefits and retirement fund payments whose rates are dictated by state bureaucrats.

Here's an example that should be familiar to Bishop. In the current year, according to estimates prepared for the Rochester school board, the 14,800-student system has an estimated payroll of $57.95 million for 847 teachers. The district pays pay an additional 17.74 percent, or another $10.3 million, into the state teacher retirement system.

By the 2008-09 fiscal year, estimates show, Rochester schools expect to be paying 21 percent of payroll (up from 14.87 percent in '04-05) into the system. That's $13.2 million on top of an estimated $62.9 million in payroll for a total of $80.9 million (including payroll taxes), or easily more than $100,000 per teacher.

The point here is not an emotional one, although it will surely be made that, or that teachers are "the problem." It's that the system, absent either massive revenue expansions through growth (unlikely near-term) or annual tax grabs (more likely), is financially unsustainable -- even in comparatively wealthy Rochester.

Rochester's payments into the state retirement system are expected to be 28.1 percent higher by the 2008-09 year than today, while salaries are expected to increase 8.5 percent over the same period.

Compare that to your 401(k) at work, where employers typically contribute 4 percent or 6 percent of salary as a "match" to employee contributions. As salaries grow through raises and promotions, the contributions grow even if the percentage doesn't because to increase wages and, at the same time, increase the percentage match would outrun the ability of almost any business to keep up.

But that's exactly what's going on in many school districts across the state. It's not the only challenge among countless others facing Granholm and the Legislature, but it's a major one pressuring state and local budgets every year -- and it needs to change.

Daniel Howes can be reached at (313) 222-2106, dchowes@detnews.com or http://info.detnews.com/danielhowesblog. Catch him Fridays with Paul W. Smith on NewsTalk 760-WJR.

On Education and the DIGITAL FUTURE!

MIKE FLANAGAN: RETHINK EDUCATION FOR FUTURE

While the policymakers in Lansing wrangle about how much education Michigan can afford, State School Superintendent Mike Flanagan wants to make one thing clear: our state cannot afford to settle for the level of education we have provided in the past.

Flanagan says that does not necessarily mean spending a lot more money. To a large degree, it comes down to raising the bar and expecting more from kids, teachers and parents.

"It's not corny to say that if you expect more, you will get more," Flanagan said.

It's also time to re-think the way teachers are trained, Flanagan said. Techniques that might work with college-bound kids, for example, might not be adequate to give others the math they now need to get jobs in fields like home building. He said educators also need to find ways to weave technology into their teaching methods.

Podcast: WWJ Newsradio 950's Greg Bowman talked with Mike Flanagan as part of WWJ's Our Michigan, Our Future project. To listen, click here.

On Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurialism in Michigan

Monday, April 16, 2007 Updated Study Says Michigan Still Struggles to Grow Entrepreneurs

LANSING - The latest Small Business Foundation of Michigan's Entrepreneurship Score Card, released Monday, finds that Michigan last year lost ground in developing new, high growth job-creating entrepreneurial small businesses. The Score Card gives Michigan a 2006 grade of "D-minus" for entrepreneurial dynamism, down from the 2005 "D" grade and edging closer to the failing "F" grade that Michigan received for 2004. The Score Card project is a collaborative project of the Small Business Foundation of Michigan (SBFM) and GrowthEconomics, Inc. Financial sponsors are Automation Alley, Central Michigan University, the Edward Lowe Foundation, Lawrence Technological University, MERRA, the Michigan Entrepreneurial Education Network, Michigan State Housing Development Authority, Michigan Technological University, MiBiz, Next Energy, Schoolcraft College, Saginaw Valley State University and the Small Business Association of Michigan. The SBFM defines entrepreneurial dynamism as a composite measure of Michigan’s performance in entrepreneurial change, entrepreneurial vitality and entrepreneurial climate. “While Michigan has not achieved its full entrepreneurial dynamism potential, there are some things it does right – it is still making tremendous progress in areas critical to robust entrepreneurship, such as private lending to small businesses, university spinout businesses and entrepreneurial education,” said SBFM executive director Mark Clevey. “However, the economic impacts of factors like globalization and restructuring of old-line industries will continue to have negative effects on entrepreneurship. Michigan needs to do even more if it is to accelerate entrepreneurial dynamism and create more jobs for our struggling economy.” Here’s how Michigan ranks compared to other states: Entrepreneurial Change (the amount of recent entrepreneurial growth or decline in an economy): 46th Entrepreneurial Vitality (the absolute level of entrepreneurial activity): 38th Entrepreneurial Climate (the capability of an economy to foster entrepreneurship): 38th Business Costs and Productivity: 41st Quality of Life: 37th Government Efficiency and Regulatory Environment: 26th Infrastructure: 24th University Spinout Businesses: 16th Workforce Preparedness: 10th Education and Workforce: 8th Broadband Coverage: 4th Private Lending to Small Businesses: 3rd Although the Foundation does not advocate policy positions, Clevey says Michigan can improve its entrepreneurial dynamism by paying greater attention to entrepreneurial education, economic development strategy, access to capital, technology commercialization and developing a business climate that nurtures entrepreneurs. Promotion sponsors are Ann Arbor SPARK, Creating Entrepreneurial Communities (CEC), Michigan State University; Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, Great Lakes Angels, Inc., Great Lakes Entrepreneur Quest, Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance, Michigan Homeland Security Consortium, Michigan Interfaith Power and Light, Michigan Ross School of Business, Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity Finance, Michigan Center for Innovation and Economic Prosperity, James Madison College, Michigan State University; Midland Tomorrow, Michigan Venture Capital Association, Prima Civitas Foundation and Vision Tri-County.

Author: Staff Writer Source: MITechNews.Com

Technology's ability to personalize instruction

By Dennis Pierce, Managing Editor, eSchool News, March 29, 2007
Technology's 'greatest potential' for education: Personalizing instruction By Dennis Pierce, Managing Editor, eSchool News March 29, 2007
Calling technology's greatest potential for education its ability to personalize instruction, Katie Lovett, chair of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), kicked off the group's 12th annual K-12 School Networking Conference in San Francisco March 28.
The conference brought together school district chief information officers and other educational technology leaders from around the globe to discuss key ed-tech challenges and solutions. One of these challenges, Lovett noted in setting the stage for the meeting's opening general session, is the need to break out of the mold of the one-size-fits-all approach to instruction.
Lovett, who is the CIO of Georgia's Fulton County Schools, introduced Chris Dede, the Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Learning Technologies at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Dede moderated an opening general session that explored two creative yet very different approaches to personalizing instruction with the help of technology.
One of these approaches is Notschool.net, a United Kingdom-based international virtual learning community. Notschool.net offers an alternative to traditional education for students who, for a variety of reasons, can't cope with school.
"We're the absolute antithesis of what school is," said Jean Johnson, project director.
Johnson explained that Notschool allows students to take ownership of the curriculum and shape their own education. They can choose their areas of study, and because instruction is asynchronous and online, they can choose when they'll participate. "Teenagers don't want to learn at 8 o'clock in the morning," she said--but, given a choice over the direction of their education, they do want to learn.
Operating within the confines of the traditional school system, Virginia's Fairfax County Public Schools--the nation's 12th largest school district--is working to create an Individual Learning Plan for each of its 163,000 students. "It's time to craft our vision for the future, instead of dwelling on the past," Superintendent Jack D. Dale told conference attendees.
After Johnson and Dale described their respective projects, Dede moderated a discussion about the challenges each faces. He concluded the session by noting that, while it's clear technology allows educators to personalize instruction "in ways we never could before," school leaders often must confront significant political and cultural hurdles to make this happen.
(Note: For highlights of this opening general session, see the nine-minute video clip titled "Personalized learning.")
Re-engaging students
A key idea to emerge from this opening general session was the need for schools to re-engage today's youth.
"Why are kids on MySpace?" Johnson asked conference attendees. "They're there because they want to be there." But, too often, the same can't be said about school. Today's students are growing up immersed in a world of video games, cell phones, and instant messaging--but when they get to school, they're often forced to leave these technologies at the door.
In an international symposium held March 27, the day before the conference officially began, CoSN brought together education leaders from several nations to discuss how computer games and simulations--interactive media that today's students embrace and understand--can be used as serious learning tools.
The symposium included an address from Lord David Puttnam, a widely respected British filmmaker and education official. Puttnam, whose films include The Mission, The Killing Fields, and Chariots of Fire, is the only non-American to lead a major Hollywood studio, having run Columbia Pictures in the 1980s. After retiring from the film industry, he went to work for the United Kingdom's Education Department, where he has sought to spread the message that today's schools must change if they are to reach a new generation of learners.
In an interview with eSchool News, Puttnam said education can learn a lot from the entertainment industry. The primary lesson? "Know your audience," he said.
(Note: For highlights of the interview with Lord Puttnam, see the five-minute video clip titled "Know your audience.")
The exploration of computer gaming as a serious approach to instruction continued on the conference's first day, with a session examining a project in Japan, called the Instructional Activities Game (AIG), that is using games in teacher education, and another session that looked at existing research on the effectiveness of using games to teach core curricular content.
Links:
Consortium for School Networkinghttp://www.cosn.org/
Notschools.nethttp://www.notschools.net/
Fairfax County Public Schoolshttp://www.fcps.k12.va.us/



http://www.eschoolnews.com/ info@eschoolnews.com 7920 Norfolk Ave., Suite 900 Bethesda, MD 20814 (800) 394-0115 - Fax (301) 913-0119 Privacy Policy Manage your FREE eSchool News eMail subscriptions here Contents Copyright 2007 eSchool News. All rights reserved.

On INNOVATION STATIONS and "Shade Tree Mechanics"

An Evolutionary Approach to Innovation

by Richard Watson

Can biology teach us anything about innovation? The essence of Darwinism is that progress is created by adaptation to changed conditions. What starts as a random mutation can also spread to become the norm through a process of natural selection.

The same is surely true with innovation. New ideas are mutations created when two or more old ideas combine. For instance, Virgin Atlantic Airways is what happens when you cross an entertainment company with an airline business.

Virgin itself is also a good example of mutation and adaptation. The music retail business was created when a postal strike threatened to shut down the fledgling mail order record company. Virgin Atlantic was the result of an unsolicited approach from outside the company. Virgin Blue (a low-cost airline in Australia) is a similar story.

In my experience, what makes Virgin innovative is a strong sense of self, an ability to experiment, the skill to cross-fertilize ideas, and a willingness to change. The company has largely grown, not through the unfolding of some master plan, but through an accumulation of learning and ideas caused by threats, accidents and luck.

So, if external events and adaptation are the driving forces of biological evolution, is it possible to develop an innovation process that seeks out accidents and mutations?

This is an idea being developed by companies like Brand Genetics in the UK and Dr. Ron Alexander in Australia.

The list of things created by accident is certainly impressive; Aspirin, Band-Aids, Diners Club, DNA finger printing, dynamite, inoculation, Jell-O, Lamborghini, microwave ovens, nylon, penicillin, velcro and Vodafone to name just a few.

However, one of the defining characteristics of business is a preoccupation with orderly process ("If you can't measure it, you can't manage it."). So it's hard to imagine corporate cultures embracing randomness -- or agreeing with John Lennon, who said, "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans."

Accidents are born of experimentation, but the automotive and fashion industries are almost the only industries that publicly experiment with radical mutations. What, for example, is the soft drink industry equivalent of a concept car at the Detroit Motor Show?

Zara, the Spanish clothing retailer, is a classic example of experimentation and adaptation. Store managers send customer feedback and observations to in-house design teams via PDAs. This helps the company to spot fashion trends and adapt merchandise to local tastes.

Just-in-time production (an idea transferred from the automotive industry), then gives the company an edge in terms of speed and flexibility. The result is a three-week turnaround time for new products (the industry average is nine months), and 10,000 new designs every year -- none of which stay in store for more than four weeks.

The analogy of biology also leads to an interesting idea about whether companies are best thought of in mechanical or biological terms. Traditionally, we have likened companies to machines. Organisations are mechanical devices (engines if you like) that can be tuned by experts to deliver optimum performance.

For companies that are looking to fine tune what they already do, this is probably correct. A product like the Porsche 911 evolves due to a process of continuous improvement and slowly changing environmental factors. The focus is on repetition. Development is logical and linear.

However, if you're seeking to revolutionize a product or market, the biological model is an interesting thinking tool. In this context, biology reminds us that random events and non-linear thinking cause developmental jumps. Unlike machines, living things have the ability to identify and translate opportunities and threats into strategies for survival. A good example is Mercedes-Benz working with Swatch watches to create the Smart car.

Creative leaps are usually the result of accidental cross-fertilization (variation) or rapid adaptation caused by the threat of change. Hence the importance of identifying an enemy, setting unrealistic deadlines and using diverse teams to create paradigm shifts.

The latter is a route employed by MIT who mix different disciplines together. As Nicholas Negroponte puts it, "New ideas do not necessarily live within the borders of existing intellectual domains. In fact they are most often at the edges and in curious intersections."

This is a thought echoed by Edward de Bono, who talks about the need for provocation and discontinuity. In order to come up with a new solution you must first jump laterally to a different start or end point.

For example, if you want to revolutionise the hotel industry you need to identify the assumptions upon which the industry operates and then create a divergent strategy. This could lead you to invent Formule 1 Hotels (keep prices low by focusing on beds, hygiene, and privacy), or another value innovator, easyHotel (keep rooms cheap by making guests hire their own bed linen and clean their own rooms).

What else can you do to create these jumps? A good place to start is to look at the edge (fringe) of existing markets. Here you'll find the misfits and the rebels. Companies that see things differently. People young enough not to realise that new ideas are impossible, or old enough not to care.

How else can you use a Darwinian approach to innovation? Here are five ideas:

• Look at the big evolutionary picture -- what are the driving forces?
• Create mutations -- unusual combinations of people and ideas.
• Look for new ideas and conditions that could disrupt your market.
• Treat accidents as opportunities for divergence and adaptation.
• Cooperate with other companies (create mutually beneficial eco-systems)

Finally, remember the words of Charles Darwin, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Garage Shop Innovation

by Richard Watson

Too much experience, too much familiarity, or too much money can kill innovation fast. That's why game changing ideas tend to come from a lone inventor or two in a cramped garage.

A while ago I wrote a piece for Fast Company called "An Evolutionary Approach to Innovation." The central idea was that Darwinism teaches us quite a bit about innovation. In particular, random mutations and adaptations caused by a particular local context or by rapidly changing conditions can spread to become the norm through a process of natural selection. Innovations are generally mutations created when one or more old idea is cross-fertilized by another.

The same is true with trends. New trends emerge when someone starts to think or behave differently -- or starts to create or customize something because existing offers do not fit with their needs or circumstances. If conditions are right a trend will become widely accepted, eventually moving from the fringe to the mass-market and from early adopters and trendsetters to laggards. Trends that occur at an intersection of other trends may also turn into megatrends, which are the key disrupters and drivers of innovation and change across all industries.

Creative leaps also tend to emerge when someone with a differing perspective tries something new -- either through bravery or sheer naivety. If that person is young or comes from another place (i.e. a different discipline or perhaps a different country) things sometime start to happen. Put two or move differing people together and the sparks can really fly.

But why is this so? In my experience it's because older people have usually invested too much under the current system and therefore have too much to lose if a new idea displaces an older one. Equally, people that don't move around or come from the same department or discipline sometimes fail to see what is hidden under their own noses, whereas people from ‘somewhere else' often see it.

For these reasons game changing ideas and radical innovations tend to come, not from well-funded industry incumbents (i.e. large organizations), but from lone inventors or a couple of individuals in a cramped garage. In other words, too much experience, too much familiarity or too much money can kill innovation faster than phrases like "I like it but" and "We tried that once."

Perhaps this explains why, for instance, 25% of Silicon Valley startups are created by either Indian or Chinese entrepreneurs. They see things differently. Another example of outsider thinking and mutation is Virgin Atlantic Airways. Richard Branson managed to shake up the airline industry precisely because he did not have an airline industry background. So when other airlines were worrying about legroom, routes and punctuality, Branson was cross-fertilising his experience from the entertainment industry and worrying about why flying wasn't more fun.

Not all new ideas and innovations make it of course. It's a case of survival of the fittest (or luckiest). Eventually, however, the sheer number of new ideas that are hatched means that a few emerge and make it into the mainstream where they do battle with deeply set vested interests. Then it's usually youth and energy versus experience and money. Organizations are like this too in a sense. They start of hungry, agile and curious and end up bloated, lazy and stiff.

So my question is this. If external events and adaptation are the driving forces of innovation, is it possible to develop an innovative culture and process that seeks out change and mutation? Moreover, if evolution is the result of genetic accidents is it possible to replicate such accidents through experimentation? An imminent threat of extinction would certainly explain why it often takes a crisis to spur a lazy and bureaucratic organization to adapt and embrace change.

My answer is that generally speaking it's not. This may be a heretical statement, especially coming from someone that makes a living advising companies how to create innovation systems, but I think it's true. Some large companies are excellent at innovation. It's their reason for being and is imprinted in their DNA.

However, for most large organizations innovation is an inconvenience. Organizational cultures develop a kind of corporate immune system that subconsciously suppresses or rejects any new idea that could threaten the existing business. Quite right too. The primary aim of established organizations is to extract revenue and profit from legacy businesses and not to do anything that would upset the apple cart.

This primarily means executing flawlessly in the present and requires tight control and strict hierarchies. Small companies, in contrast, have less to lose and are not encumbered by their history. Their mental models about 'what works' are less fixed and they are more open to picking up weak signals about change.

So here's my idea. If your organization is the kind that does innovation well, then great. Equally, if you're halfway decent at innovation, keep with the program and perhaps play around with some of these thoughts about using trends as a framework for innovation and scenario planning. If you're lucky you may give birth to a strange mutation. If this happens recognize it as a gift and run with it as far as it goes.

If, however, you are the type of organization that's not very good at innovation then give up. That's right. Throw in the towel and get into hunting instead of agriculture. In other words stop trying to grow your own through research & development and go out hunting with mergers and acquisitions instead. Seek out small innovative companies and buy them.

Big organizations, even ones that are really bad at innovation, are very good at scaling up an idea and dealing with everything from intellectual property and sales to marketing and finance. This is handy because these things are precisely what startups and small companies are often very bad at.

NOT for the Timid or Faint of Heart!

TEAM RUSH! Rush's to the TOP!

Hi all -

Dennis, Troy and I will be with Team RUSH, in Atlanta for the World Championships this week. Since most of you cannot join us in the fun, we are sending you the following websites to "webcast" our event and follow how we are doing.

We will update OUR website with our match schedule, so you know better when we will be on the fields. Our site is: www.teamrush27.net

Go to our site to see WHEN we will play, then go to the following sites to watch the webcast!


The following are the webcast addresses:

Team RUSH will be at the following fields:
Einstein (for Opening Ceremonies at 8:30 Friday morning - Kyle may be on stage for this one) Archimedes (Friday 9:00 - 6:00pm; Saturday until early afternoon) Einstein (for Finals and closing ceremonies - and awards - supposedly from 3-6pm) The webcasts for these fields are at:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/robotics/


Thank you so much for all the support!

Go Team RUSH!
Kyle

NSF ITEST Grant 2007: Submission

Information Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST)

Program Solicitation
NSF 07-514

Replaces Document(s):
NSF 05-621

National Science Foundation Directorate for Education & Human Resources Division of Elementary Secondary & Informal Education

Preliminary Proposal Due Date(s) (required):

January 05, 2007

January 04, 2008

and the first Friday in January thereafter

Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p.m. proposer's local time):

May 10, 2007

May 08, 2008

and the second Thursday in May thereafter

*March 22, 2007

I wanted to share with you that we are invited to submit a full proposal to NSF-ITEST program. I would appreciate it for your time for a meeting at your convenience. We would definitely happy to have your input in this proposal.

Sincerely,
Mesut Duran
SoE, UM-D

School Begins "Long-Slog" into Digital Irrelevance!

Parents back school's MySpace ban

March 24, 2007

BY FRANK WITSIL

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

On the first day of a strict policy banning students at St. Hugo of the Hills Catholic School from using social networking Web sites, administrators and parents were online ferreting out those who had yet to comply.

"You get to know their code names," Judy Martinek, the school's office manager, said Friday.

Sister Margaret Van Velzen, principal of the Bloomfield Hills school, said the policy took effect Friday in response to concerns about students posting "nasty things on the Internet," and as an attempt to keep the children safe.

Van Velzen said Friday she does not know of any other school with such a policy, nor had she received complaints about it.

"I have not had one parent who is opposed to this," she said.

Still, as technology becomes more accessible, St. Hugo's new policy raises questions for educators. How, for example, will schools control Internet access when free wireless access becomes available through all of Oakland County in 2008? Or, as prices drop for handheld phones that connect to the Web and more students get them, what then?

"There are so many changes in technology," said Marcia Wilkinson, director of community relations for the Birmingham public schools. "A lot of issues are coming up that people were not dealing with even a year ago."

Social networking sites, such as MySpace, market themselves as places in cyberspace for people to meet and communicate, often connecting using clever aliases. But, law enforcement officials say, children who join these sites may be putting themselves in harm's way -- especially from sexual predators.

St. Hugo, which runs from kindergarten through eighth grade, also enacted the policy because it wanted to eliminate unhealthy competition among young students who were comparing the number of people in their network, Van Velzen said. One student, she said, bragged of linking with as many as 800 others.

The school's policy also raises the question: How much control can a school exert beyond the classroom?

Officials in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne County public schools -- and University Liggett School, a private pre-kindergarten through 12th grade school in Grosse Pointe Woods -- said they leave it up to parents to decide whether students can use MySpace, or other similar sites, at home.

"Schools have to be responsible for students when they're at school, but with the blurring of the lines of virtual and real-world education, where are the lines?" said Linda Wacky, director of communications for the Michigan Association of School Administrators in Lansing. Melodye Bush, a researcher with the Education Commission of the States, said she has never heard of another school enacting such a policy and has doubts about whether it is constitutional. The commission is a Denver-based think-tank that tracks education trends nationwide.

St. Hugo has had a policy prohibiting its 773 students from posting offensive or inappropriate comments and pictures on the Web for years, Van Velzen said. But the new policy went a step further by banning students from using MySpace and other similar sites all together. Under the policy, students who refuse to delete their accounts will be suspended.

"People know the difference between using social networking for a good reason and for things that would be hurtful," Van Velzen said.

Under MySpace rules, children 14 years and younger should not have a presence on the site anyway, but, Van Velzen said, the company does not adequately enforce that, and many students simply lie about their age. St. Hugo students with sites who were caught Friday were told to dismantle them.

Contact FRANK WITSIL at 248-351-3690 or witsil@freepress.com.

Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.

Detroit AIM Program Rises to Prominence!

AIM "Makes it's Indelible Mark" for Educational Excellence!
HEAR IT FOR YOURSELF!
http://www.wwj.com

Kilpatrick tells Detroit: Let's tackle crime, grime together

'Nobody's coming to save us'

March 14, 2007

BY MARISOL BELLO

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Saying it's time for Detroiters to stop blaming outsiders for the city's ills, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick called on residents Tuesday to take personal responsibility and promised a more focused government that would reduce crime by adding 200 police officers, establish job centers and restore six neighborhoods with an aggressive, five-year plan.

He said he wants to do that and more without raising taxes. In fact, the mayor said he'll cut both property and income taxes, though he would not say how the city, already facing a $96-million deficit, would make up the money.

Kilpatrick made the comments in his sixth State of the City speech at Orchestra Hall with much of his administration and City Council in attendance.

Residents besieged by crime in some of the city's forgotten neighborhoods hope the mayor can make good on his promises.

Mary Abner, 49, who lives on the east side near Davison and 6 Mile, wants to take the mayor's message to heart and hopes her neighbors will, too.

"If he holds up to all that he's talking about, we're rolling," Abner said. "I liked everything about it, especially the part on the neighborhoods and the crime and the kids."

Touching on a tried-and-true mayoral theme hit hard during the administration of Dennis Archer, the mayor strongly took Detroiters to task for the crime ravaging the city. He called on parents to become active in their children's lives, pastors to engage in the neighborhoods where they preach and residents to clean their sidewalks, fix up their homes and reclaim their streets.

"My beloved community, I truly understand the history of African-American people in this country," he said. "But we have come to a point in our community where this is no outside conspiracy doing this to us. This is us killing us. ... And we, as a community, have to stop it now. Nobody's coming to save us."

The more than 2,000 people, including state Sen. Hansen Clarke, D-Detroit, and U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, a Detroit Democrat; city appointees, community activists, residents, pastors and business leaders who packed the hall for the invitation-only event cheered the loudest when he called for personal action and laid out his plan to fight crime. They gave him several standing ovations.

Citing that 70% of homicides are narcotics-related, Kilpatrick called on parents to warn their children about the dangers of the thug life.

"We need to help them understand that the so-called glamorous life that they see in some of these videos is not reality," he said.

"We need to help our children understand that, when you get involved in drugs and sitting in a drug house, there's no high-priced champagne, there's no dancing pretty girls, no nice clothes. There's no bling bling. You can get killed."

The number of homicides in the city increased by almost 10% from 2005 and 2006, according to the Police Executive Research Forum, which tracks crime trends in the country.

A significant portion of the mayor's speech focused on an anticrime strategy that calls for hiring 200 police officers to complement the city's 3,100-member force. The mayor said he will augment the force by deploying a SWAT team to patrol areas where there is significant drug dealing or high incidence of robberies and shootings, as well as creating rapid-response units for priority 911 calls.

Patrol officers will be joined by desk officers and commanders, including Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings, who will be deployed during weekend nights to hot-spot areas, such as nightclubs, party stores and all-night restaurants.

Thomas Wilson Jr., a west-side resident who is president of the Northwestern District Police Community Relations Organization, said the mayor's crime fighting plan did not go far enough to beef up a police department that at its height had more than 5,000 members.

"He's saying he's going to put 200 officers on the street, but you have so many police officers retiring or leaving," Wilson said. "You've got people leaving out the back door of the house and people walking in the front. Does the house ever get full? No.

"It's one thing to tell the chief to take the streets back. It's another to have the manpower to do it," he said.

For all the rhetoric in the mayor's speech, it was still light on the specifics of how he plans to accomplish many of his promises. He has said he will unveil more specifics on funding in coming weeks.

The money issue is critical. Last week, the mayor mentioned a bond initiative he said would fund some of his ideas.

Kilpatrick also announced Tuesday some financial assistance for his Next Detroit Neighborhood Initiative from several foundations and agencies, including the Knight and Skillman foundations.

The mayor said he would address the deficit and the city's fiscal state when he presents his budget plan to the City Council on April 12. He said the current year would end in the black, but he has made that pledge before, and the year-end deficits have always been higher than the mayor estimates.

The mayor also pledged to make workforce development a critical component of his administration, creating programs to help Detroiters in all aspects of job hunting, from preparing resumes and developing employable skills to finding jobs with growth potential.

He said, by year's end, the city's Workforce Development Center will create career centers to help people find jobs in such high-demand industries as health, information technology, construction and retail.

"The only thing this process requires of each participant is personal commitment to be ready to learn and to prepare themselves to work," Kilpatrick said. "That means going to class. That means developing the skills that will make you employable. That means good work habits. And, yes, it means passing the drug test."

He also outlined his plan to transform six city neighborhoods but offered few specifics since announcing the initiative in December.

Meanwhile, he said, the city is working with the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, to develop a strategy over the next three years to assess the buying power in Detroit's neighborhoods in order to attract more businesses.

"They have been very successful in convincing retailers who once said no to a community to actually change their decision and locate in the that community," Kilpatrick said.

"We know Detroiters can shop with the best of them," he said. "And we deserve and have the right to have the best retail in our communities."

At least one mayoral critic, Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins, liked what she heard about revitalizing the neighborhoods and even pledged to help him find the funding.

"I thought he was right on target," she said. "I'll do my part to help him find the money."

Contact MARISOL BELLO at 313- 222-6678 or bello@freepress.com. Staff writers Kathleen Gray and Suzette Hackney contributed.

Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.

COURAGE: "The Breakfast of Champions!"

THE BIG PICTURE: "SECRET SAUCE" (Nothing Else Will Get the Job Done)

"THE URGENCY OF OUR DIGITAL EMERGENCY!"

Being HERE! (In the Moment) The ART of PRESENCING

Being Here

Making big changes in a business is always difficult. Can managers make it easier by mastering the art of ''presence''?

Edward Teach, CFO Magazine
March 01, 2007

The pace of work is accelerating. Competitive pressures come from all over the globe; investors grow ever more demanding; cell phones and the Internet keep everyone connected and on alert, 24/7. People are constantly busy and anxious about the future; they have little time to think. No wonder more and more Americans are looking for relief: witness the rising interest in disciplines that promote calm and reflection, such as yoga, meditation, and certain martial arts.

No wonder, too, that more and more people are promoting such practices in the workplace.

Increasingly, consultants and executive coaches stress the benefits of slowing down — of turning off anxious, analytic habits of thinking and tuning in to a contemplative, creative frame of mind. But it isn't easy to slow down. Says Robert Gunn, a founding partner of Accompli, a Princeton, New Jersey–based consultancy: "It's very hard for a leader or executive to drop into what we call presence — or awareness, being, quiet-mindedness, in the moment, whatever term you want."

But it's in that state of presence that a leader's best qualities come out, adds Gunn. Indeed, his ability to help executives be more "in the moment," hence open to new insight, is at the core of his business. Gunn's firm typically helps companies achieve some transformational agenda — a reorganization, for example, or streamlining a function. The ends of an engagement are spelled out, whether it's cost reduction, increased market share, revenue growth, and so on. But helping clients find the means to those ends is a little more intangible.

"Our assumption is that clients always discover the answer within themselves, as opposed to getting an answer externally," says Gunn. "This is not to say you don't need analytic work, and sometimes hiring a strategy firm makes a lot of sense. But the change agenda — where you're going, why you need to get there, what it is you're going to do, and how you're going to do it — those four questions clients have to ask, and answer, for themselves."

What's more, Gunn insists that leaders must be willing to change themselves as well. "They have to be the change they want to see in the institution," he says, echoing Gandhi's famous admonition: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

Sandra Waddock, a professor of management at Boston College's Carroll School of Management, says that practicing mindfulness can produce substantial payoffs. "When leaders begin to understand that leadership is really about being in the moment — about getting people to become aware of their own deepest meaning and what the meaning of the organization is in the world — then you get a very different sense of loyalty, belonging, commitment, and willingness to work hard from people." Waddock, who recently taught a course called "Leadership and Mindfulness," says that awareness practices can help leaders cope with the ever-increasing complexity of the decisions they face.

The Proper State of Mind

If all this sounds a little mystical, Gunn's résumé is reassuringly conventional. During much of the 1980s and 1990s, first at A.T. Kearney and then his own firm, Gunn Partners, he helped Fortune 500 companies improve the efficiency of their finance and other staff functions. An expert on shared services, Gunn once helped CFO conduct its annual cost-management survey.

In the mid-1990s, Gunn started to focus on change leadership (there is a significant change-leadership component to SG&A improvement, he points out). At the same time, he was taking lessons from an executive coach. Gunn has also long been interested in Tibetan Buddhism, which emphasizes mindfulness and is "pragmatic and practical," he says.

Since its founding in 2004, Gunn's new firm has guided leadership teams in about a dozen large companies. He's selective about the clients he will take on: "Leading takes a tremendous amount of energy, and that energy comes from willpower. The question is, what's the fuel for that willpower? What's your deep, driving purpose? We have to resonate with that purpose." Accompli looks for executives who are not driven by ego, but talk instead about developing teamwork, cohesiveness, and leaders.

Gunn begins an engagement by helping members of the leadership team clarify their thinking and examine their assumptions. The goal is to get everyone "crystal clear" on the improvement agenda and how they will drive that agenda. That's not a fast process; at a large company it can take months for an action plan to evolve. "Every client is nervous at the front end of this," acknowledges Gunn. "Everybody has been down the path of false starts."

The right start for Gunn is from a state of presence. At the beginning of a meeting, Gunn may simply ask the managers seated around the table to voice "anything that would prevent them from being right here in the moment with us." And they do, whether it's family matters or business concerns or "this guy cut me off in the parking lot this morning." Another technique he uses to help people reach the proper state of mind is to ask them to acknowledge each other — to give a thank-you, say, for something someone did.

At first, clients rely on Gunn's long-practiced ability to be in the here and now. "If one person in a meeting is quiet-minded, it's a little infectious," he says. What does it feel like to be in that state? "It's actually accessing what it feels like when you're on vacation, but doing it in the work world. Everybody in the course of a day finds themselves in that state of mind for a moment. All we're trying to do is help them access that more easily and more routinely."

When everyone drops into a state of presence, says Gunn, the meeting can take off. "People get lighthearted. They feel more hopeful, less urgent. There's a lot of humor and laughter. They notice the clarity of their thinking. The biggest thing you see is an incredible pickup of the pace. An issue that would normally have taken a study, a presentation, and offline meetings can be tossed in the room and resolved in 20 minutes."

Back in the World

When a meeting adjourns and people return to their desks, they may be "stunned" at how noisy and disruptive everything is, admits Gunn. "It feels like chaos, and you lose faith sometimes — [the faith] that just by maintaining your own presence, you'll draw people toward you. But that's in fact what happens." The discipline of quieting down and staying in the present is a lifelong journey, he notes, "but you can get people over the hump of getting back into the rest of the environment almost immediately."

What are the hallmarks of leaders who are fully in the present? "Speed of action," says Gunn. "Boldness of action. Effectiveness of action. Releasing the energy of people in the organization who see their leaders and say, 'Holy cow, these people really have their act together!'"

And what about the results of such action? Consider Cardinal Health, the giant health-care products and services distributor. In 2004, Cardinal began to change from a holding company with multiple stand-alone businesses to an integrated operating company with three segments. Cardinal's strategic sourcing team, led by executive vice president Mark Hartman and vice president Bob Wagner, took a lead role in this change. Under Gunn's guidance, the 25 people on the team learned to access a state of presence, which in turn helped them develop a rapport with purchasing people and earn kudos for "connecting and listening."

"I was skeptical" of the approach at first, admits Hartman, but he soon became a convert. Gunn, he says, "clearly helped me unleash some creativity." Thanks in part to an innovative internal marketing effort, Hartman's sourcing team quickly won wide compliance with its negotiated deals. Eventually, the team produced savings in excess of $28 million, its year-one target, and it's well on its way to the $100 million mark.

Edward Teach is articles editor of CFO.

CHECK Your Plug (Intention)!

NOW BOARDING!

WOW, SOMEONE Who is not GOING DIGITAL! Bush League?

Presidents Cuts Ed Tech Funds — Again

On Feb 5, President Bush submitted his FY 2008 budget request to Congress, asking for $56 billion in discretionary appropriations for the Department of Education, a $1.6 billion increase over his original 2007 request. And once again, for the fourth time in as many years, the President has zeroed out funding for the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program.

The administration notes that, "Schools today offer a greater level of technology infrastructure than just a few years ago, and there is no longer a significant need for a State formula grant program targeted specifically on (and limited to) the effective integration of technology into schools and classrooms.

Districts seeking funds to integrate technology into teaching and learning can use other Federal program funds such as Improving Teacher Quality State Grants and Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies."

Technology advocates question how the administration can justify such cuts while supporting the goal of ensuring that students can compete globally and effectively in math and science.

Authorized as Title II-D of the No Child Left Behind Act, EETT received appropriations of approximately $700 million for Fiscal Years 2002–2004, but sustained major cuts in FY05 and 06. While the House of Representatives originally went along wit the program's elimination in the FY 07 budget, the Senate restored funding. In last week's budget agreement, Congress approved level funding ($272 million) for EETT for the remainder of this fiscal year.

Changing Michigan's Schools / Detroit News Editorials

Changing Michigan's Schools
Sunday 2-11-2007

Local school districts balk at education reform

Michigan is already stepping back from its new commitment to education reform, just as it is trying to catch up with other states and the world.

Less than a year after Michigan passed much-heralded statewide curriculum reform for high schools, school districts are balking at fully implementing it, saying they will teach it through trimesters rather than semesters, allowing them to keep more elective courses as well as teachers who aren't qualified for the tougher classes.

In doing so, they are sabotaging students' access to the content they most need to prepare for college and the work world.

"It makes a mockery out of these high school graduation requirements," says Sharif Shakrani, co-director of Michigan State University's Education Policy Center and one of the country's foremost experts in student achievement. "Unless the legislators do something about this, it will be really hard to correct later on. Otherwise, it's a sham."

Today, The Detroit News kicks off a weeklong series on Michigan education, exploring how the state can dramatically improve students' K-16 success if it is willing to stand up to the special interests controlling the schools.

Never before has education mattered so much to our future well-being.

Yet at the school and district level, many administrators, teachers and union leaders are proving reluctant to follow state leadership on the high school curriculum reform passed last spring.

At the state level, both Democrats and Republicans resist or do not initiate reforms, using the respective excuses of union rights and local control to protect their core supporters.

These so-called traditions are holding the state back from educational and economic progress.

"I really am a local control guy," says Mike Reno, a Republican member of the Rochester Community Schools Board of Education. "But at this point, local control is out of control."

The problem is not ignorance. We know what to do. Other states have shown us.

Nor is the problem simply funding. Money helps, but it has not driven successful reforms elsewhere.

Texas, Virginia and North Carolina and other states have undertaken bold state-level reforms to effectively boost their students' academic success. As a result, they are increasingly closing their socioeconomic achievement gap.

By contrast, Michigan did not pass a statewide assessment until April 2006. The state has not improved its college attendance rate significantly, and its student achievement is continuing to fall behind compared with other states' performance growth.

"We need another approach," Shakrani says. "Other states have taken another approach, and it is bearing fruit."

This week, we'll look at how Michigan can -- and must -- take another approach to K-12 education.

If Michigan is to regain its educational edge, both political parties must put children before their partisan supporters and embrace a more open-minded, 21st century interpretation of their core beliefs.

_____

About the series
How Michigan must reform the state's K-12 education system to catch up with the rest of the world.
Today: Opponents use excuses of union rights and local control to frustrate school change.
Monday: Why Michigan's student achievement is falling behind, and what we can do about it.
Tuesday: We explore the special interests that fight reforms to turn around the state's dismal dropout rate.
Wednesday: How other states have overhauled teacher management to improve student performance.
Thursday: Michigan must cut its skyrocketing administrative costs to save money for the classroom.



Changing Michigan's schools
Monday 2-12-2007

State must play stronger role in education reform

Just 10 years ago, Michigan students significantly out-performed the national average on achievement. Today, their performance is barely average compared with other states -- and fails miserably compared to other countries.

Michigan students didn't grow worse; they just didn't grow at all. While our state's performance stagnated, other states' students blossomed under careful cultivation.

Years after other states launched dramatic changes to improve their schools, Michigan is just trying out overdue education reform.

Last year, Michigan implemented a sorely needed statewide curriculum reform. While we applaud this new mandate, we realize that schools need further state leadership to guide instruction, textbook policy, teacher management and other issues to ensure the educational system leads the country once gain, and the world.

Other states have embraced bold statewide reforms. They are seeing real results. Yet Michigan clings to outdated, rigid traditions of local control and union rights that need to be modernized.

We have always believed that government works best when it is closest to the people. But Michigan's local school boards have proven incapable of breaking the stranglehold of education unions and implementing common sense reforms. We cannot deny what is working in other states.

Experts and activists agree the state must take the lead on improving student performance by providing more guidance on instructional methods, and addressing school structures and educators who resist reforms.

Michigan can wipe out its education deficit if the state:

Provides more guidance on instruction. Many school districts are struggling to figure out how to implement the new state curriculum.

Overhauls middle school instruction and structures to better prepare students for high school.

Recommends textbooks, if not mandate them, to reflect the needs of the new global economy. Michigan instruction is based on textbooks. If the books change, the teaching will follow.

Michigan's rigid teacher bargaining agreements and interpretation of local control has continued to thwart reform.

"This is a state that has prided itself for many, many, many years that the decisions of education are made at the local, local, local level," says Sharif Shakrani, co-director of Michigan State University's Education Policy Center and one of the country's foremost experts in student achievement.

Mike Reno, a businessman and Rochester school board member, adds, "With local control comes responsibility to make sound decisions. Look at most school boards: I don't think they make bad decisions; they just don't make any decisions. If they had done their jobs, we would not have needed the state to lead reform. But we do."

Michigan's cultural attitude must also change. North Carolina upended its old belief that "not everyone is meant to go to college" and mandated that middle schools eliminate tracking. Now, every middle school student is taking rigorous college preparatory classes and they are closing their socio-economic achievement gap.

Michigan needs a similar comprehensive reform of education that starts with taking the schools back from special interests.

DIGITAL Goes WIRELESS!

Microsoft joins Wireless Oakland team: Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson announced that Microsoft Corp. had signed up as a member of the corporate team behind Wireless Oakland, the effort to offer free basic wireless Internet service everywhere in Oakland County. During his State of the County speech, Patterson announced that Microsoft will "develop and maintain all content and advertising on the Wireless Oakland portal," the home page for the system that will come up first on users' computer screens. WWJ Newsradio 950's Web site is offering a podcast of Patterson's remarks, at this link. There's also a podcast of an interview on the speech with Oakland County CIO Phil Bertolini, who is leading the Wireless Oakland effort. Installation of the system began in Troy Jan. 19. Other pilot areas in Birmingham, Royal Oak, Madison Heights, Oak Park, Wixom and Pontiac will be live with service available by April 30. At that time, Bertolini said, the county will release a schedule for rolling out service in the rest of the county. All areas of the county should see service by early 2008, Bertolini said. The system will offer Wi-Fi service free at 128 kilobits per second, at no cash cost to the county. The companies financing the system will make money selling faster service tiers. More at www.wirelessoakland.com.

NEED for FATTER DIGITAL PIPES! Progress is Relentless!

Google and cable firms warn of risks from Web TV


AMSTERDAM (Reuters) — New Internet TV services such as Joost and YouTube may bring the global network to its knees, Internet companies said on Wednesday, adding they are already investing heavily just to keep data flowing.

Google, which acquired online video sharing site YouTube last year, said the Internet was not designed for TV.

It even issued a warning to companies that think they can start distributing mainstream TV shows and movies on a global scale at broadcast quality over the public Internet.

"The Web infrastructure, and even Google's (infrastructure) doesn't scale. It's not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect," Vincent Dureau, Google's head of TV technology, said at the Cable Europe Congress.

Google instead offered to work together with cable operators to combine its technology for searching for video and TV footage and its tailored advertising with the cable networks' high-quality delivery of shows.

One cable chief executive, Duco Sickinghe from Belgian operator Telenet, said it was "the best news of the day" to hear that Google could not scale for video.

Mixed blessing

Google was welcomed with a mix of fear and awe by the cable TV companies, which are concerned that Web companies will try to steal their lucrative TV business. The Internet on the whole is a mixed blessing, cable carriers said.

Broadband Internet delivery to homes and small businesses is one of the most lucrative segments for cable TV operators, but heavy investments in infrastructure are needed to meet the rapid rise of Internet file-swapping and video downloads.

The data involved in one hour of video can equal the total in one year's worth of e-mails.

"Most of the IP (Internet protocol or data) traffic is peer-to-peer (file swapping), and most of that is video. Every year we have to invest substantially just to maintain the user experience. In fact it has actually decreased," said Spanish cable operator ONO Chief Executive Richard Alden.

"People (Internet service providers) don't like to talk about (the fact) that just to stand still, they have to invest. But you cannot keep investing at the same clip," he added.

Research group Gartner estimates that 60% of the Internet traffic that is uploaded from computers is peer-to-peer traffic, mostly from consumers swapping films and TV shows through select user groups and BitTorrent.

Financial advisers praised the cable TV industry because, unlike the large telecoms operators, it has been expanding and has been more efficient with capital and more profitable.

Shares of cable operators trade at around nine times forecast 2007 earnings before interest, tax amortisation and depreciation (EBITDA), while telecoms operators trade at around six times, said Charles Manby, Goldman Sachs' global co-head for the telecoms, media and technology industries.

Cable operators are set to return to capital investments of a modest 10 to 12% of revenues, but they can be forced to spend much more due to outside pressures from increased Internet consumption and from rival telecoms operators that upgrade their broadband Internet packages to fibre optic super speeds.

"Then, the world becomes cloudy," Manby said.

DIGITAL GOES GLOBAL 2007!

AIM for the DIGITAL BHAG!

A New Story + a BHAG

David Warlick has blogged often about our need to tell a new story. A story about the technological shifts that are occurring in our society. A story about the impacts that digital technologies are having on our lives, the workplace, and, indeed, our very economies. A story about the future of eduation and what our kids need to know and be able to do in the New Economy. A story that helps people make the move from an education system designed for yesteryear to a system that is designed for tomorrow. This story needs to be told in a compelling way so that it resonates with listeners.

I agree with David. We do need a new story. We probably need multiple new stories, told in different ways to different people at different times in different settings. We need to tailor the new story for different audiences to ensure maximum reception. But I’m also thinking that a new story is not enough. A new story alone will not get us to where we need to be.

I think we also need a BHAG: a big, hairy, audacious goal. A tangible, concrete target that lets us know when we’ve reached some crucial point. A new story (or three or four…) is a necessary component, but I don’t think it will be sufficient in and of itself. I think we need a new story and a BHAG, because the BHAG will help drive action and allocation of resources. A new story tells us what the issues are but it doesn’t necessarily help people know what to do. The BHAG helps people understand where we might go and how to get there. Together a new story and a BHAG will help educators, and parents, and community members, and politicans create the will and the action to move us forward.

I think we’re starting to wrap our heads around what a new story might look like. For example, I know that the presentation set I’ve been delivering lately, which combines diifferent resources and quotes and materials from the blogosphere and elsewhere, is resonating well with folks here in Minnesota. But we still need a BHAG.

So what might a BHAG be? What might be a big, hairy, audacious goal, a target that makes us gulp a little bit but also is focused and achievable? What might be something that would help us accomplish our goal of moving schools, students, teachers, and classroom pedagogy into the 21st century? What might be a goal that is tangible and yet energizing, a goal that grabs people in the gut and serves as a unifying focal point of effort?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I can’t come up with anything better than this:

1. ubiqitous nationwide high-speed wireless Internet access, and
2. a wireless-capable laptop for every student and educator.

I’ve previously blogged about variations of the first component (both here and here), and I think we’re starting to see the revolutionary impacts of giving every kid and teacher a computer, even when those impacts weren’t foreseen or desired at the outset. I think these two in coordination (and you need them both, I believe) are a BHAG worth rallying around. Now of course the question is… what do you think?

AMERICA'S "Perfect Storm!"

Press Releases

ETS Report: Converging Forces Threaten America’s Future

Contact:

Tom Ewing (609) 683-2803 tewing@ets.org

Princeton, N.J. (February 5, 2007) —

Three powerful forces — inadequate literacy skills among large segments of the population, the continuing evolution of the economy and the nation’s job structure, and an ongoing shift in the demographic profile of the nation, powered by the highest immigration rates in almost a century — are creating a “perfect storm” that could have dire consequences for our nation, according to a report ETS released today in a National Press Club Newsmaker press conference in Washington, D.C.

“America’s Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation’s Future,” a report by ETS’s Policy Information Center, warns that America is in the midst of a perfect storm that, if unaddressed, will continue to feed on itself, further dividing us socially and economically, jeopardizing American competitiveness and threatening our democratic institutions. In the report, authors Irwin Kirsch and Kentaro Yamamoto of ETS, Henry Braun of Boston College and Andrew Sum of Northeastern University contend that the convergence of the three forces has serious implications for future generations and could turn the American dream into an American tragedy.

“America’s Perfect Storm is a wake-up call with implications for education, business, policymakers and every parent and child,” says ETS President and CEO Kurt Landgraf. “It describes forces at play in society that will affect all of us in the near future. The American dream is the idea that everyone has the opportunity to make a living, provide for a family, and raise children who will be better educated and better off. If we fail to act now on the warnings sounded in this report, the next generation of children will be
worse off than their parents for the first time in our country’s history. The American dream could turn into an American tragedy for many.”

The report also offers hope that if we act now and develop new policies that will increase literacy skills across the population, we can reduce the impact of the storm, help our nation grow together, and retain our leading role in the world.

“America’s Perfect Storm describes brilliantly the major challenges facing American workers and our economy as the result of an education system that fails to educate our young people, an increasingly technological global economy, and major demographic shifts in our population,” says Arthur J. Rothkopf, Senior Vice President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Unless we act aggressively and promptly to reform our public education system, the standard of living of U.S. workers will decline, and the U.S. economy will become far less competitive.”

One of the major forces contributing to America’s perfect storm is inadequate literacy skills among large segments of the population. “Individuals are expected to take more responsibility for managing various aspects of their own lives, such as planning for retirement, navigating the health care system, and managing their careers,” Kirsch says. “Yet half of adults lack the reading and math skills to use these systems effectively and, therefore, will face challenges fulfilling their roles as parents, citizens and workers. Perhaps of greater concern is the fact that this problem is not limited to adults. Our high school graduation rate, at 70 percent, is far behind that of other countries, and our students lag behind many of our trading partners in reading, math and science.”

The second force is a dramatically changing economy, driven by technological innovation and globalization. “The economy itself is experiencing seismic changes, resulting in new sources of wealth, new patterns of international trade, and a shift in the balance of capital over labor,” Braun says. “These changes are causing a profound restructuring of the U.S. workplace, with a larger proportion of job growth occurring in higher-level occupations that require a college education, such as management, professional, technical, and executive-level sales. The wage gap is widening between the most- and least-skilled workers; men with bachelor’s degrees can expect to earn almost twice as much over their lifetimes as those without.”

The third force contributing to America’s “perfect storm” is sweeping demographic changes. “Half of the U.S. population growth into the next decade is expected to come from new immigrants, which will have a dramatic impact on the composition of the workforce, as well as on the general population,” Kirsch says. “While immigrants come from diverse backgrounds with varying levels of education, we should recognize that 34 percent of new immigrants arrive without a high school diploma, and of those, 80 percent cannot speak English well, if at all.”

Although each of these forces is powerful in its own right, it is their interaction over time that can have momentous consequences. “Our nation has a choice to make,” Sum says. “If we continue on our present course, we will gradually lose ground to other countries and, in the process, become more divided socially and economically. Or we can invest in policies that will help us to grow together, policies that will result in better opportunities for all Americans.”

Download the full report, “America’s Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation’s Future,” for free at www.ets.org/stormreport. Purchase copies for $15 (prepaid) by writing to the Policy Information Center, ETS, MS 19-R, Rosedale Road, Princeton, NJ 08541-0001; by calling (609) 734-5949; or by sending an e-mail to pic@ets.org.

ABOUT ETS http://www.ets.org

ETS is a nonprofit institution with the mission to advance quality and equity in education by providing fair and valid assessments, research and related services for all people worldwide. In serving individuals, educational institutions and government agencies around the world, ETS customizes solutions to meet the need for teacher professional development products and services, classroom and end-of-course assessments, and research-based teaching and learning tools. Founded in 1947, ETS today develops, administers and scores more than 24 million tests annually in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide.