With 171 students, Northport Public Schools has fewer kids in kindergarten through 12th grade than Okemos High School has in its marching band alone. Mackinaw City has 187 students; Alba, 174; Stanton Township, 138. All are tiny. All are poor — as judged by the percentage of students receiving federal free lunch assistance. And all […]
Small schools dominate championships
Posted inSuccess
Library investment pays off for Lakeshore
Lakeshore’s state academic championship for 8th grade reading began long before the MEAP tests were placed on rows of desks in the Stevensville school. For years, the district, along the Lake Michigan shore in Southwest Michigan, has resisted a statewide cost-cutting trend to eliminate librarians. When the winning eighth-graders were in seventh grade, Lakeshore created […]
Posted inSuccess
Southfield wins graduation 'game'
Football is full of statistics: rushing yards per game; total offense; turnovers; yards after catch; passing efficiency. In the end, though, the only numbers that matter are on the scoreboard. Did you win or did you lose? Southfield Public Schools doesn’t have the best 8th-grade or 4th-grade MEAP scores. And its juniors score below average […]
Posted inSuccess
And the winners are …
Sixty Michigan public school districts claimed at least a tie for a championship in one of eight academic categories in Bridge Magazine’s Academic State Championships. Champion districts are listed in alphabetical order, regardless of division. (BRIDGE DATABASE: See how your district is doing) (BRIDGE GALLERY: Images of success) The champions Adams Township School District (8th […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about” — Oscar Wilde, British playwright and writer. * As a lover of Thanksgiving since, oh, the early 1970s, I’m confident I share culpability in this trend. For the record, I prefer a mix of breast and leg meat from the Turkey, […]
Posted inSuccess
Three cheers for academic success
It’s a crisp autumn Friday night in Michigan. Children jostle at a ticket booth, waiting impatiently for the chance to claim a spot in the bleachers. A father buys a hot dog, while a mother carries a stadium blanket and a camera. A high school marching band finishes its pre-game show and high-steps off the […]
Posted inSuccess
Walkerville's success is stuff of movies
If this were football, they’d make a movie. Then again, tiny Walkerville doesn’t have a football team. Pulling perhaps the biggest upset in Bridge Magazine’s Academic State Championships, Walkerville Public Schools, with 314 students and one of the highest rates of poverty among Michigan school districts, is the State Champion of 8th Grade Math. Not […]
Posted inSuccess
Haslett builds readers, 20 minutes at a time
Twenty minutes a night. That number is drilled into Haslett kids in this mid-Michigan suburb by teachers in classrooms and parents at kitchen tables. Read for 20 minutes a night. Read Tolstoy. Read a comic book. Read the New York Times. Read the back of a cereal box, if you have to. “It’s like sports,” […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Political physics pulls us back to the center
It wasn’t a revolution — but it just might signify a sea change. I’m referring to the results of the Nov. 8 off-year elections, which were anxiously scrutinized for possible indicators of public mood. Would that message be a continuation of 2010’s sharp tilt to the Tea Party-driven right — or a cautionary tale about […]
Posted inTalent & Education
State Champs: See how your district is doing
Sixty Michigan public school districts claimed at least a tie for a championship in one of eight academic categories in Bridge Magazine’s Academic State Championships for the 2010-11 school year. These winners were drawn from a database created by Public Sector Consultants, a Lansing-based research firm, and the nonpartisan, nonprofit Citizens Research Council. Statewide average […]
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