Nearly 500 people convened in Lansing Tuesday to listen to and question education leaders and experts about the findings in the Center for Michigan’s new report, “The Public’s Agenda for Public Education.” While audience members had plenty of information to chew on from the three panels – on early childhood, teacher preparation and accountability and current […]
Who said what at the ‘Future of Education’ summit
Posted inBusiness Watch
Traverse City’s growth draws attention
In 2007, when Michigan was in the throes of the recession, a young entrepreneur named Chris Treter opened a coffee shop and cafe in Traverse City. The Ohio native could have launched his Higher Grounds Coffee Trading Co. in any number of places. But Treter, who spent many summer vacations at a family cabin on […]
Posted inSuccess
Leader of Grand Rapids homeless shelter keeps the focus on accountability
NO FREEBIES: Stuart Ray’s philosophy in leading the Guiding Light Mission in Grand Rapids is that giving a homeless people food and shelter without requiring work or effort in exchange is self-destructive to the men he’s trying to help. (Bridge photo/Lance Wynn) GRAND RAPIDS — A decade back, Stuart Ray was immersed in the business […]
Posted inPeter Luke: Eye on the Capitol
Politicians talk about school funding, but numbers show failure of effort
Just how broken education spending in Michigan is will once again be on display when Gov. Rick Snyder next week unveils his budget for the 2014 fiscal year on Feb. 7. The school aid budget has for years now illustrated the failure — either through neglect or design — to maintain what once was an […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
* The emerald ash borer has devastated the ash forest in Michigan. And the bug may be felling Michigan’s human residents, too: “Something else, less readily apparent, may have happened as well. When the U.S. Forest Service looked at mortality rates in counties affected by the emerald ash borer, they found increased mortality rates. Specifically, more […]
Posted inGuest Commentary
Guest column: New thinking needed on schools
By Peter B. Ruddell/Wiener Associates The recent series of articles and the report “The Public’s Agenda for Public Education” confirm the policy direction being advanced by the Michigan Public Education Finance Project (“the Project”). Contrary to simplistic analysis portrayed in the article “Online ed expansion, school choice plan murky in 2013”, the Project has far […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
* The expiration of the payroll tax cut did not get nearly enough attention during all the “fiscal cliff” coverage out of D.C. (Could it be that the Beltway TV types live in an econ bracket where payroll taxes are an inconsequential thing?) Well, as reported by Lester Graham over at Michigan Radio, the payroll tax […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Report details surge in child poverty in Detroit
The majority of children in Detroit now live in poverty, says a new report from the demographic firm Data Driven Detroit. The child poverty rate was 57.3 percent in 2011, D3 found in “2012 State of the Detroit Child”, after a decade of huge increases in economic struggles for children in Michigan’s largest city. “The […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Preschool expansion popular with public
Nobody needs to convince Kelly Hart of the importance of early childhood education. The Flushing woman is the mother of five children who’ve gone through the Great Start Readiness Program, the state-funded preschool for 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families. “I’ve always loved the program,” Hart said. “We’ve been lucky to have our kids in […]
Posted inTalent & Education
On parents, better to coax or coerce?
Ask Sally Wiggins to describe her role in her daughters’ education, and she starts at the beginning. “My pregnancies were intentional,” she said, embarked upon after her marriage had proven stable over a period of years. Her prenatal care was top-notch; Wiggins, a nurse by profession, took pains to make sure her nutrition, exercise, rest […]
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