Virtual Devestation

Folks:

TOM WALSH: State at risk of economic devastation


BY TOM WALSH
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

April 7, 2005

Michigan and its neighboring Great Lakes states were America's dominant economic engine during the 20th Century.

Not anymore.

What are we going to do about it?

That question lies at the heart of two major ongoing studies about the post-industrial future of Michigan and its heartland neighbors -- one by the prestigious Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C., and another called the Michigan Roadmap project, led by former University of Michigan President James Duderstadt and funded by philanthropic grants.

Neither study is complete, but both start from the ominous premise that the Rust Belt region may soon be an economic wasteland if we don't get serious about knowledge creation and innovation.

Given the shaky state of Michigan's auto companies and suppliers, along with our dubious distinction as the state with the nation's highest unemployment rate (7.5 percent in February), that forecast looks too close for comfort.

In a concept paper prepared for a meeting at U-M in mid-March, Brookings described the Rust Belt region as an economic giant "precariously balanced, with one foot still planted in a waning industrial era and another foot striding the emerging global knowledge economy."

The paper used these dire words to describe our future if we stumble in transition from one era to the next: "hollowing cities, declining populations, closing plant doors, depopulated rural communities -- a backwater in the world economy."

Duderstadt's Michigan Roadmap project appears poised to present a bleak assessment of the state's current outlook. And it's likely to have harsh words for Michigan policymakers.

"Michigan's old manufacturing economy is dying, slowly but surely, putting at risk the welfare of millions of citizens in our state," begins a preliminary draft of the Roadmap executive summary.

"Thus far, the state has been in denial, assuming our low-skill workforce would remain competitive and our factory-based manufacturing economy would be prosperous indefinitely," the draft continues.

Meanwhile, Michigan has slashed investment in higher education at a time when we need to be doing exactly the opposite.

"Ironically," the Roadmap draft states, "at a time when the rest of the world has recognized that investing in education and knowledge creation is the key to not only prosperity but, indeed, survival, too many of Michigan's citizens and leaders ... have come to view such investments as a low priority, expendable during hard times.

"The aging baby boomer population that dominates public policy in our state demands, instead, expensive health care, ubiquitous prisons, homeland security, reduced tax burdens -- and to hell with the kids and the future."

Phew.

Feel strongly about this, do you?

Neither the Roadmap project nor the Brookings study look to assign blame to Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, former Gov. John Engler or other Great Lakes political figures. Rather, the numbers speak for themselves.

Michigan has reduced state funding to its public universities for several years running. In the 2004 fiscal year, according to data in the Roadmap report, state support per student dropped to $6,067 (versus an average of $6,735 in other Great Lakes states), ranking Michigan in the bottom one-third of the nation. One recommendation in the Roadmap draft calls for Michigan to move into the top 25 percent of states in higher education appropriations.

Duderstadt told me a final report from the Michigan Roadmap study, funded by Atlantic Philanthropies, is expected by late summer.

He said he became convinced while researching it that Michigan's economic woes can't be cured by Michigan alone. Rather, a collaborative effort by Great Lakes states -- built around the strength of the Big Ten research universities and the University of Chicago -- could help the region compete with California and other new-economy hot spots for knowledge workers.

The Brookings Institution initiative, expected to last several years, is explicitly focused on the Great Lakes region. It will aim to engage civic and business leaders in discussion, present policy papers and hold forums in Midwest states and in Washington, D.C., said John Austin, a Brookings fellow and vice president of the Michigan state board of education.

The first forum, held March 14-15 in Ann Arbor, was attended by about 30 people, ranging from Duderstadt to Federal Reserve Bank Vice President William Testa to Doug Rothwell, a General Motors Corp. real estate executive and former chief executive officer of the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

Talking points included a list of the region's economic strengths: lots of high-tech jobs, lots of patent activity, lots of college graduates in science and engineering.

Then came the daunting weaknesses: We don't commercialize enough of our research because there's too little venture capital in the region, and we have a huge brain-drain problem, losing many of our college grads to other parts of the country.

Michigan lost more than 80,000 young, single, educated workers to other states from 1995-2000, according to a Brookings summary of census data. We weren't alone: Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin lost even more.

"One major problem," Austin said, "is that the region doesn't have an entrepreneurial culture. You have an industrial culture that was organized around paternal institutions like the Big Three auto companies and big labor. For years, they delivered the goods. But they no longer deliver the goods."

It's easy to be cynical about high-minded studies, even from a think tank as respected as Brookings or a guy as smart as Duderstadt, a nuclear engineer and U-M president from 1988 to 1996.

But whatever the ultimate recommendations, the Brookings and Michigan Roadmap initiatives are exploring the right questions.

The road we've been traveling for too long will lead us straight to a swamp.

Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepress.com.

Copyright © 2005 Detroit Free Press Inc.

A VIRTUAL "ism"

Folks:

WHAT was she thinking..............NOT!

Bond issue debated
1.42-mill proposal would fund school improvements
Of The Daily Oakland Press

Addressing a group of Pontiac clergy on Tuesday, Pontiac school district Superintendent Mildred Mason attacked opponents of a $99.9 million bond issue proposal to be decided by district voters on May 3.

She argued that the same opponents support pending state legislation that would allow them to transfer their properties out of Pontiac and into neighboring school districts.

As a result, Mason said, voters outside the city of Pontiac but within school district boundaries are promoting division rather than supporting children who deserve better than attending classes in deteriorating, decades-old school buildings.

"We are fighting some battles in this community that you have fought before," Mason said, referring to local civil rights clashes of the 1960s.

She suggested that district residents who live in expensive homes and who are of a different color than Pontiac's largely minority population appear not to prefer to associate with their district neighbors.

"What they've said is that they are going to keep defeating this bond proposal until we let them out (of the district)," Mason said.

"I'm offended by that. To me, that's some kind of 'ism.' I won't say what kind it is, but you can."

Dan Aldrich, an active member of Citizens Acting for Responsive Education, rebuffed the notion that the group's bond proposal opposition has racial and socioeconomic overtones.

"They think we're living out here in the ivory towers, and we're not," he said.

"I'm so tired of this talk about a racial issue. It's not about race. It's about a failing district. That's the big key - the failing schools."

But Mason told ministers Tuesday that Pontiac is held by federal and state law to the same academic rigors as all other districts in the state and district educators are helping students move closer to achieving learning benchmarks.

Arguing that school facilities will stand in the way of the district's academic goals, the superintendent passionately beckoned local pastors not only to help fight House Bill 4085 - sponsored by Rep. Shelley Taub, R-Bloomfield Hills - but to help drum up support in their congregations for approval of the bond issue.

If passed, the proposal would allow for repair of leaking roofs, replacement of failing heating and cooling systems and a number of other projects Mason described as basic necessities.

Assistant Superintendent Terry Pruitt noted that for the owner of a home with a $100,000 market value, the 1.42-mill proposal would cost $71 per year, or about $6 a month.

Eighteen months ago, the influential ministers group opposed a $455.4 million bond issue proposal that would have renovated or reconstructed every school building in the district. The proposal failed by a nearly 2-1 margin.

The Rev. Sylvester Thompson of Messiah Missionary Baptist Church said that, while he opposed the 2003 request, the lower cost and desperately needed repairs outlined in the current proposal have helped change his position.

"I am making an appeal to all the pastors that we have a moral responsibility to invest in our children," he said.

The Rev. Lenworth Minar of New Springfield Missionary Baptist Church agreed.

"I think this time, people just have to act," he said. "We have to move beyond this room and beyond this meeting to help make a difference."

None of the roughly dozen ministers present at Tuesday's meeting voiced objections to the millage proposal. School officials - speaking on Tuesday as concerned community members off the district time clock - encouraged the pastors to take part in a door-to-door bond issue information campaign planned for April 16.

Mason told the gathering that if all district residents living outside the city voted against the proposal and just half of those living in the city voted in favor of it, the plan would win approval.

"We have the numbers," she said. "You have to help me wake up this community and get them to vote in favor of this proposal."

Bob Wachol, also active with Citizens Acting for Responsive Education, objected to the campaign strategy.

"In my mind, she's doing just what they did before, which is taking an 'us versus them' attitude," he said. "How can anybody call someone racist when you don't even know them? And they don't know us."

Wachol further argued that support for property transfers and opposition to new property taxes as result of a bond issue has more to do with long-established senses of community.

"It's not that we're moving away from Pontiac," he said. "Things change over time and the fact is that the way these communities have grown up, we've been separate for a long time."
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A Virtual THINK Global ACT Local Issue

Folks:

ACT LOCAL
Bill to allow school district transfers is reintroduced
Of The Daily Oakland Press

SYLVAN LAKE - A group of residents in neighborhoods surrounding Square Lake is pleased to see the reintroduction of state legislation that would allow parents to opt out of the Pontiac school district.

Citizens Acting for Responsive Education has initiated a fund-raising campaign to support lobbying for House Bill 4085, which is sponsored by Rep. Shelley Taub, R-Bloomfield Hills.

Taub introduced a similar bill last year, and the citizens group raised $25,000 for lobbying. The measure died in committee, however.

The current proposal would allow intermediate school district boards to decide whether to transfer a neighborhood from one local school district to another if and when proponents present a petition signed by at least two-thirds of the neighborhood's residents.

Another provision of the bill mandates that an election be conducted to decide the issue if 80 percent of residents sign a petition. Other conditions that would have to be met include:

The municipality that the neighborhood lies within must contain at least portions of more than one school district.



No more than 125 students could be drawn away from the school district slated to lose properties.



The school district to which properties would be attached would have to approve the transfer plan in part or in whole.



A simple majority of neighborhood residents would have to vote in favor of the transfer plan.



If an election were held, the district slated to lose properties would have no power to approve or disapprove the plan.

Dan Aldrich, a citizens group campaign activist, refutes claims he and other residents are supporting the measure simply because they want to enhance their property values by becoming associated with a more acclaimed school system.

"That's nonsense," the 28-year Sylvan Lake resident said. "I didn't buy my house just to sell it and move on. This is my home."

Aldrich argued, rather, that he is frustrated with high residential turnover that results when young home buyers move away to put their school-age children in districts other than Pontiac.

"The big issue to me is that, when I walk the streets, I get to know the kids and the people," Aldrich said. "Now, before you know it, they're up and gone."

Pontiac schools Superintendent Mildred Mason said the district will oppose Taub's current bill - much as it did the last one - because it creates opportunity to cripple already struggling districts.

"It's a continuing saga, but the essence of the bill is the same," she said.

"What you really need to do is make your schools the best schools in the world rather than try to disconnect from them and let them erode," she said.

Pontiac, now planning a $99.9-million bond issue to construct and improve district facilities, would benefit from Sylvan Lake property tax revenues if voters approved the request May 3.

But Aldrich said the citizens group will fight the request as vigorously as members did a $455.4 million proposal the district put before voters in September 2003. That measure was defeated by a 2-1 margin.

Defeating this year's bond proposal has became a primary goal among the citizens group members, because Taub's bill would not exempt them from property taxes established before a district transfer was complete.

"It's our main objective now, because, if it passes, we'll still be responsible for (the taxes)," Aldrich said.

Taub and proponents of HB 4085 note that very few school-age children in Sylvan Lake attend Pontiac schools, so would not benefit from the millage. Most go to private and parochial schools or attend public schools in other districts through the state's Schools of Choice program.

Mason argues that improving school facilities in Pontiac would not just benefit children, however, but the district community as a whole. This, she says, is because good schools significantly improve the quality of life in communities.
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THINK GLOBAL
Education is a national disgrace
Web-posted Apr 2, 2005

Trying to keep track of all the testing methods imposed on our public schools is a daunting task, even for educators.

As a result, it's quite possible that Gov. Jennifer Granholm's recently announced plan to create a more rigorous academic curriculum for high school students got lost in the shuffle.

Let's hope not, because one of the reasons behind Granholm's effort - she wants to align the high school curriculum more closely with college entrance exams - should concern all of us.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about one-third of the nation's college-bound high school graduates have to be placed in remedial courses in language and mathematics.

Michigan is not immune from this national disgrace. A recent study by the Mackinac Center in Midland said that approximately $600 million is spent annually by state colleges and universities to teach students what they didn't learn before graduating from high school.

And remember - these are the high school graduates who have the grades and drive to attend college. What about those whose futures don't include higher education? What kind of basic skills are they leaving high school with?

Our public schools face some monumental challenges in the immediate future, and funding certainly is at the top of the list. However, the quality of the education many "graduates" now receive can't be too far behind.