FRAGILE 20th Century Education/Government - .(Irreversible damage, blowups at the expense of others)

End holdup on Detroit schools fix

Detroit Free Press Editorial Board 11:02 p.m. EST January 7, 2016

A new report describes Detroit Public Schools' financial crisis in a series of appalling numbers. The district has $3.5 billion in total debt: $1.9 billion in legacy costs and short-term debt and almost $1.7 billion for bonds and capital improvements. The district’s accumulated deficit has soared to $215 million. It's behind on payments to its pension fund. And it may run out of cash by April.

The report, released this week by the nonpartisan research group Citizens Research Council, is the most dismal assessment yet of the district's financial circumstances. And that's saying something.

Yet Lansing seems no closer to a solution for DPS than it ever has been.

Last year, Gov. Rick Snyder, who has appointed or re-appointed four emergency managers to lead the district during his five years in office, said he was committed to finding a long-term solution. Last fall, he unveiled a plan to split the district in two: DPS would exist only to collect the district's operating millage and pay its debt, while a new entity would receive the state's per-pupil allowance and educate children.

No bills have been introduced in the state Legislature; no detailed plans have been released.
David Murray, a spokesman for Snyder, noted that recent reports highlight the "urgency" of DPS' situation, and said the governor's office expects action "soon," and that "good discussions" will ensue.
Those terms don't strike us as conveying a sense of urgency — not the kind DPS' problems merit.

What's particularly noxious is that while DPS languishes, Lansing lawmakers have prioritized other, far less-pressing matters: eliminating straight-ticket voting, a purely partisan move, barring school districts from distributing factual information about millage votes within 60 days of an election, and effectively doubling the amount of contributions allowable to political campaigns. It's a stunning misunderstanding of the state's most pressing needs
.
We have concerns about the outlines of Snyder's proposed plan — it's not clear whether the old district/new district split would free sufficient funds to satisfy the district's debt, including its pension liabilities — but it's the only plan lawmakers are even contemplating.

But it is not without hurdles to clear. In order for the new district to be viable, Snyder must convince lawmakers to free up more money for DPS, to replace revenue generated by the operating millage. Initially, the governor's team had signaled that money would come at the expense of other districts across the state; more recently, he's said that money for DPS need not impact other districts. That's welcome news, and should provide inducement for outstate or suburban lawmakers to support DPS reforms.

And then there's this: Much of DPS' debt was incurred during the district's 15 years (and counting) under state oversight. That places the moral obligation to cover district debt firmly in the state's hands — and legally, because the state stood surety for much of that borrowing.

The state's largest public school district, the system we're relying on to educate 47,000 children, is floundering. We knew this. Now it is nearly out of cash. The state is legally and morally obligated to pick up this burden. And time is running out.

So what's the holdup?

Flint Wants Safe Water, and Someone to Answer for Its Crisis

By MITCH SMITH

 JAN. 9, 2016

FLINT, Mich. — A caravan of Genesee County sheriff’s office cruisers snaked its way through the streets here on Thursday, doling out water filters and jugs of water to frustrated and terrified residents who have been trying to cope for more than a year with the public health crisis that has been flowing out of their taps.

Shortly after officials switched the source of their drinking water to the Flint River from Lake Huron in April 2014 to save money, residents started complaining that their tap water looked strange, tasted bad and caused rashes. But not until the fall of 2015, when the water was found to have elevated levels of lead that were reflected in children’s blood, did state officials swing into action.

Now they are scrambling to address a situation that has endangered the health of Flint’s children and generated untold costs and anxiety.

“It’s ridiculous we have to live in such a way,” said Colette Brown, a Flint native who months ago stopped drinking tap water. She said the filter at her home needed a replacement cartridge.

Water filters and jugs of water were distributed on Thursday to residents. Credit Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

“Put yourself in our shoes,” she said. “It’s hurting kids, the elderly. It’s hurting all of us.”

And there was plenty of blame to go around, she added. “It’s almost like a stepladder — you start from the top and you go all the way down to the bottom,” she said.

Switching the source of drinking water was meant to relieve some of the financial pressures on this struggling city. Flint has high rates of gun violence and crumbling infrastructure. And as manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, the population has steadily dropped to fewer than 100,000 — more than 40 percent of whom live below the poverty line.

But it was not long before some in Flint were pointing out the nasty color and odor of what was coming out of their taps, and digging into their wallets to buy bottled water for drinking and cooking, and baby wipes for bathing.

State and city leaders had largely dismissed residents’ complaints for months, assuring them that the water was safe and being tested regularly. With the emergence of the blood level data, officials began advising residents not to drink unfiltered tap water — a recommendation that remains in effect.

In October, Gov. Rick Snyder helped orchestrate a switch back to Lake Huron water. Though Mayor Karen Weaver called that a positive step, she said the change did not undo corrosion damage from the river water that caused pipes to leach lead.

As of last month, the state had identified 43 people with elevated lead levels in their blood. Lead is toxic, and can cause stunted development in children.

Last month, the governor apologized to residents. On Tuesday he declared the city to be in a state of emergency — the same day that federal officials said they had opened an investigation into the water contamination. And in October, Mr. Snyder announced a state plan to distribute free water filters and provide water testing to residents. But many residents remain unsatisfied.

“Their one job was to make sure our water was safe,” Melissa Mays, a Flint resident, said of Michigan environmental officials. Ms. Mays, who has helped organize protests and been among the most outspoken critics of the water situation, said she worried about how the water might be affecting her young sons’ health.

“They cut every corner,” she said. “They did more to cover up than actually fix it. That’s criminal.”

In a scathing initial report last month, a task force appointed by Mr. Snyder found that the State Department of Environmental Quality’s response to health concerns “was often one of aggressive dismissal, belittlement and attempts to discredit these efforts and the individuals involved.” That approach, the report added, was “completely unacceptable.”

For protection, Keri Webber washed dishes wearing gloves. Credit Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

After the letter was released, Mr. Snyder, a Republican and former businessman who took office in 2011, apologized and announced the resignation of the director of the Department of Environmental Quality.

On Thursday, after he met with Ms. Weaver, Mr. Snyder told reporters that he would work to provide “a broad-based suite of services” to address the water issues and other problems in Flint. Among the services could be more water testing, more filters, and health care and education support for those affected. Many residents have called for state money to replace the city’s old pipe infrastructure — which the mayor has said could cost up to $1.5 billion — and a fund to address any developmental impact on children.

“You have to earn trust,” Mr. Snyder said. “This will be a process by showing the steps we’re taking to be proactive.”

Many residents are reserving judgment. Researchers at Virginia Tech who detected the lead contamination last year released state employee emails obtained through a public records request. In a message in July, the governor’s chief of staff at the time, Dennis Muchmore, wrote that he was “frustrated by the water issue in Flint” and that “folks are scared and worried about the health impacts and they are basically getting blown off by us.”

In response, a state health official assured Mr. Muchmore that there was no evidence of increased lead poisoning, a finding later called into question.

A spokesman for Mr. Snyder said the message indicated that the governor’s staff members were engaged and seeking answers on behalf of worried community members.

Some residents are quick to point out that it was an emergency manager appointed by the governor who approved the 2014 switch away from Lake Huron water to save money.

Wantwaz Davis, a member of Flint’s City Council, said the emergency manager “created this problem.”

“What the governor should do is become fully accountable to this problem and give us the finances that we need to rectify the problem,” Mr. Davis said.

Some efforts already underway have added to residents’ frustrations. At City Hall on Thursday, where signs advertise free water filters, Quintina Swanson stopped by to pick up a replacement cartridge. But Ms. Swanson, 25, was told that the model she needed was out of stock, and that she would need to return later or go to a different distribution site.

Sheriff Robert J. Pickell of Genesee County, who organized the door-to-door water filter distribution, said traveling to another site was not always possible in a place like Flint. “People over in Lansing, they forget how the poor folks live,” Sheriff Pickell said, referring to the state capital. “They say they’re going to have a distribution center. They forget that not everybody has a car.”

Still, residents said they were grateful that state officials and federal investigators were now engaged. Ms. Weaver, a clinical psychologist elected last year largely on a promise to improve the water, praised Mr. Snyder for his emergency declaration, even as she cautioned that major commitments of time and money would be needed.

“It does let us know that our voice is being heard,” Ms. Weaver said. “And for such a long time, the residents of the city said, ‘We do not have a voice.’ 

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THINKING and Socratic Pedagogical Execution - Keys to the Kingdom ofLEARNING

Students to think, act like scientists

Changes in social studies on hold

BY LORI HIGGINS DETROIT FREE PRESS

The State Board of Education approved new science standards Tuesday that will alter the way students are taught the subject, while the Michigan Department of Education put changes to social studies standards on hold.

The change in the science standards means there will be greater emphasis on thinking and acting like a scientist and less emphasis on memorizing basic facts. The idea is for students to have a deeper knowledge of the subject.

State education officials believe the change will improve Michigan students’ dismal performance in the subject. Results of the state’s new exam — the Michigan Student Test of Educational Performance (M-STEP) — found that only 12% of fourth-graders and 22% of fifth-graders passed the science portion of the exam.

Those numbers “reflect the fact that what we’re doing today may not be working as well as we want,” said Casandra Ulbrich, D-Rochester Hills, the board’s vice president.

The new standards — a slight adaptation of the nationally created Next Generation Science Standards — were approved by a vote of 7-1, with the only dissenting vote coming from Richard Zeile, R-Dearborn.

The board heard mixed views about the science standards from a stream of parents and educators.

Critics said the standards are unproven and cited a report that gave them an average grade.

“Why are we moving in a lateral, slightly lower direction instead of up?” asked Michelle Frederick of White Lake Township.

But they were countered by people like Emily Pohlonski, president of the Network of Michigan Educators, who spoke about how the standards will affect her daughter, who will enter third grade next school year. Under the current standards, her daughter would simply have to identify the force that holds objects to the Earth. But under the new standards, her daughter would have to plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence of the effects of balance and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object.

“Let’s pay attention to the verbs. Do we want our kids identifying ... or do we want our kids planning and investigating?”

Meanwhile, MDE said it was delaying updates to the standards for social studies to address concerns raised by Michigan residents.

“We’re not going to rush it. We’re going to get it right,” state Superintendent Brian Whiston said during the meeting.

Both sets of standards outline expectations for what students will learn. It will be up to local schools to determine how to teach them.

The MDE has already addressed some big criticisms. For instance, the standards referred to the U.S. as a “constitutional democracy” rather than as a “constitutional republic.” The MDE said the standards have already been revised to make that correction.

The state also made some changes to address concerns it appeared to be dropping the study of World War II, the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel.

The proposed social studies and science standards were both sent out for public feedback from late August to early October.

About 74% of the 450 people who responded to a survey said they believed students would be better prepared under the proposed update to the social studies standards. But 26% didn’t agree. While that’s a relatively low number statistically, MDE said it was too high.

“That’s something that needs to be looked at and considered,” said
 Linda Forward, director of the office of education improvement
 and innovation at MDE.

The update — to standards last approved by the board in 2007 — was designed to reduce the number of social studies standards from 652 to 552, make them more concise and make them more rigorous, emphasizing students’ ability to apply what they’re learning to real-world situations and focusing more on completing projects.

The changes will align Michigan’s standards with those developed by the National Council for the Social Studies.

The department will address all concerns, then put together an external committee to review the changes. A new public comment period will take place after the beginning of the year, and the standards likely will go before the State Board in February.

State Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton, provided more than a dozen recommendations to the social studies standards.

“My goal is to make sure we’re presenting both sides of the story.” For instance, he said, “When we talk about progressiveness, why aren’t we talking about conservatism?” The goal, Colbeck said, should be to give kids the tools “so they can make decisions on their own.”

John Austin, president of the board, said it can be difficult to find balance in a subject such as social studies because there are often
“warring viewpoints” about topics covered. It’s the responsibility of 
the board and MDE to “get that balance as good as possible.”

“I’m glad we’re taking the time to do this,” said Austin, D-Ann Arbor.

Contact Lori Higgins: 313-222-6651

OPINION

• News
• >Technology in School
• >STEM

The Future of Education Demands More Questions, Not Answers

Flickr user evoo73

1.09k Shares

Jay Silver 
Sep 13, 2015

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Technology alone can't educate students. It’s not some mystical, magical ingredient one sprinkles over core curricula like salt on a meal. The magic is inside the child. If designed correctly, technology only extends the creative powers of the individual. Technology needn’t be “high-tech” to be effective, either. Chalk on a graphite board is one of the earliest forms of technology in the classroom; a printed book is a kind of machine; a magnifying glass is technology for investigation of the natural world; string is a tool for building things. 

A Pedagogy of Answers

Too many schools apply a paint-by-numbers approach to tech: “Let’s cover this fixed information, in this exact way, in this set amount of time, and judge ourselves as educators and students based on standardized test results.” Even our national conversation about the education crisis in the STEM subjects(science, technology, engineering, and math) focuses almost solely on America’s competitiveness on the world stage and students’ qualifications for the job market of tomorrow. That stagnant conversation has leeched much of the joy, magic, and love of learning from the study of those subjects and replaced it with an R.O.I. model of education. 

Too many schools apply a paint-by-numbers approach to tech.

Take Los Angeles’s plan to put iPads into the hands of each of its 650,000 students, which was a complete disaster; the nation’s second largest school district demanded a refund from Apple and Pearson, the company that designed the $1.3 billion curriculum. The mistake made in L.A. is that the city’s iPad experiment focused on answers: information, knowledge, skills, and tests. Children don’t learn that way.

To date, tech in the classroom has been used mostly to prettify an outdated model of passive learning. Examples of this kind of misapplication might be, “Let’s take the latest laptop computer and put a flashcard app on it!” Or, “Let’s make a math game where kids shoot at the right answer like they’re space aliens!” That kind of tech in the classroom hasn’t worked because it simply propagates into new mediums a broken model of how people learn.

A Pedagogy of Questions

Our national teaching model has for too long been a pedagogy of answers. In its place 

I’d like to suggest a new pedagogy of questions—one that prizes interest-driven, project-based, exploratory studies. Personal gardens of learning with no single pathway through them. More open play and less rote memorization. More learning by discovery than following set instructions. (It’s for these reasons I’d always choose a bucket of random Legos over a manual to build a colored-brick Batmobile or Death Star. . . ) And technology has an important part to play in making that vision a reality. Let’s imagine for a moment a classroom where children are encouraged to: 

1. Go about and wander until a salient question arises.

2. Paint and model and code solutions or experiments or musings to dig deeper into the questions raised.

3. Build things and try them out, politically, socially, or physically.

4. Share and modify results.

I’d always choose a bucket of random Legos over a manual to build a colored-brick Batmobile.

That school environment can exist today with the tools at hand. As an inventor and 

father, my advice to those looking to make digital in-roads into our nation’s schools is this: promote learning that encourages kids to choose their own problems and solutions rather than a single, siloed system. Rewards are inherent if students find novel ways to use the technology with which they’re presented; friendships are stoked, and the technology is now owned and created by them rather than the other way around. Embrace the fact that students might find ways to hack the tools you present them; if you expect it then you have created space for it to happen. Finally, tactile learning is too often overlooked in digital classroom initiatives, so think about what a student’s hands will be doing when using technology. 

Just as new media have not replaced our fundamental need to tell stories, invent characters, and instill moral lessons, so technology in the classroom will always be an aid for learning, never an end in itself. Putting the right tools in kids’ hands can help children explore the world they know and reinforce that “magic” is the silent “M” in STEM. Tech isn’t the answer, but it can help us create a new pedagogy of questions.

Jay Silver is an electrical engineer, toy inventor, and founder and CEO of JoyLabz, makers of Makey Makey, the invention kit for everyone.

5 Big Ideas that Don't Work in Education (Submitted by Hubert Price)

5 Big Ideas That Don't Work In Education

August 13, 2015 6:03 AM ET

Anya Kamenet, NPREd

i

There are few household names in education research. Maybe that in itself constitutes a problem. But if there was an Education Researcher Hall Of Fame, one member would be a silver-haired, plainspoken Kiwi named John Hattie.
Hattie directs the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He also directs something called the Science of Learning Research Centre, which works with over 7,000 schools worldwide.

Over the past 28 years he has published a dozen books, mostly on a theory he calls Visible Learning. His life's work boils down to one proposition: To improve schools, draw on the best evidence available.
Obvious? Maybe, but it's rarely honored in reality, Hattie claims. "Senior politicians and government officials clearly want to make a difference," he says. "But they want to do this, that and the other silly thing which has failed everywhere else, and I want to know why." In a new paper, "What Doesn't Work In Education: The Politics Of Distraction," published by Pearson Education, Hattie takes on some of the most popular approaches to reform.

Small classes. High standards. More money. These popular and oft-prescribed remedies from both the right and the left, he argues, haven't been shown to work as well as alternatives.
Hattie doesn't run his own studies. Nor does he analyze groups of studies on a single variable, a technique called meta-analysis. He goes one step further and synthesizes the findings of many meta-analyses, a kind of meta-meta-analysis.

Over the years, he has scrutinized — and ranked — 1,200 different meta-analyses looking at all types of interventions, ranging from increased parental involvement to ADHD medications to longer school days to performance pay for teachers, as well as other factors affecting education, like socioeconomic status. He has examined studies covering a combined 250 million students around the world.
The good news, he says, is that most education reforms tested in published studies show at least some positive effect (this should not be surprising, because studies that show no effect or negative effects are less likely to be published).

If you are the kind of person who finds certain graphs sexy, beholding Hattie's ranking of educational effect sizes will be exhilarating.

The average effect, across all the studies he's analyzed, is 0.4. standard deviations. This average also happens to translate — roughly — to the amount of progress a student can be expected to make in one year of school. Hattie believes that all educational reforms should concentrate on interventions with proven effects that fall above that line.

In his ranking, socioeconomic status has an effect size of 0.57, meaning that a student growing up in poverty may be expected to perform roughly a year and a half behind an otherwise similar student growing up more wealthy.

Putting televisions in the classroom, on the other hand, has an average negative impact of -0.18. Holding students back a grade really does hold students back, with an effect of -0.16.
"The problem is there are a lot of effects that are very small," he says, while others are huge. And yet, he says, "We never have a debate of relativity — why are we spending billions on things that have small effects?"

Technical Challenges

Hattie's grand unified theory is simple — maybe too simple. Critics have taken issue with his approach to research, the precision of some of his calculations, even his grasp of concepts as basic as probability.

"Meta-analyis is relatively new in education, and ... particularly problematic," says Dylan Wiliam, professor emeritus of educational assessment at the Institute of Education, University of London, and an expert on assessment.

He argues, for example, that averaging together studies done on students of different ages, in different settings, with different kinds of interventions and different measures of outcomes may produce entirely misleading results.

There's a danger, Wiliam says, of mushing good studies together with bad ones, or comparing apples and oranges.

"In education, meta-analysis presents a number of significant technical difficulties," he explains. "Some of these are unavoidable but Hattie does not mention these."

Others, Wiliam adds, "are avoidable, but Hattie does not avoid them."

"The synthesis approach is not an established method," agrees John O'Neill, director of the Institute of Education at Massey University in New Zealand. O'Neill is a coauthor of a 2009 paper critical of Hattie's work, titled "Invisible Learnings?"


At the same time, he acknowledges, Hattie's work "has had a profound effect on education policy and practice globally."

Many of Hattie's basic observations have been upheld by other researchers. And he and his organization continue to advise and influence governments and school leaders all over the world.
Here are five of the most common policy ideas that, he argues in his new paper, are wrongheaded — and the alternatives Hattie suggests.

1. Achievement standards. "It seems very sensible. You set up minimum standards you want students to reach; you judge schools by how many reach them. But it has a very nasty effect," Hattie tells me. "All those schools who take kids in difficult circumstances are seen as failures, while those who take privileged students and do nothing are seen as successful."
By the same token, it seems to make sense to set achievement standards by grade level, but the further along students get in school, Hattie points out, the more of them are performing either behind or ahead of the schedule that's been set.

The alternative: a focus on growth and progress for each student, no matter where he or she starts
.
2. Achievement tests. High-performing schools, and countries, don't necessarily give more standardized tests than low performers. They often give fewer.

The alternative: testing that emphasizes giving teachers immediate, actionable feedback to improve teaching.

3. School choice. Many education reformers tout school choice as a tool for parent empowerment and school improvement through competitive pressure. But Hattie says his research shows that once you account for the economic background of students, private schools offer no significant advantages on average. As for charter schools? "The effect of charter schools, for example, across three meta-analyses based on 246 studies is a minuscule .07," he writes.

The alternative: teacher choice. In the United States, variation within schools accounts for 70 percent of the differences in scores on the international PISA exam, while variation between schools makes up the rest. Hattie argues that if parents had the right to select the best teacher in a given school, that could truly be empowering. It would also be challenging to implement.

4. Class size. This has been one of Hattie's more controversial claims. In the U.S., groups such as Class Size Matters are dedicated to the proposition that fewer students per teacher is a recipe for success. This, Hattie argues, would come as a surprise to Japan and Korea, two of the highest-performing education systems in the world, with average class sizes of 33. Russia is the outlier in the other direction, a below-average performer with average classes around 18.

The alternative: Hattie says reducing class size can have a positive impact. That's if teachers are coached and supported to take advantage of it by actually changing the way they teach — to collaborate, offer personalized feedback and continuously measure their impact for improvement, for example.

5. More money. $40,000 per child, from age 6 through high school graduation. That's the rough threshold for reasonable school performance, according to Hattie: Countries that spend less than $40,000, which are all poor, tend to have much lower reading scores on the international PISA exam, and their performance correlates strongly with the money they spend. But for countries above that threshold, there is almost no relationship between money spent and results earned. For example, Korea and Finland far outscore the U.S. on PISA, while spending $60,000 and $75,000 compared with $105,000.

The alternative: Money's a necessity, but more money is not a panacea, says Hattie. "We spend millions on things that don't matter, and then we get jaundiced."

Hattie's forthcoming book, in September, will present case studies of 15 schools that are implementing some of the ideas that have the strongest evidence behind them. He says many of these boil down to empowering teachers to work collaboratively and continuously improve.

"Around the world there is so much excellence," he says. "Have we got the spine to identify and grow that?"

Education (Update)

Snyder yanks school reform office from Dept. of Education

By Lori Higgins, Detroit Free Press 12:30 a.m. EDT March 13, 2015

(Photo: Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press)

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Michigan's worst-performing schools are on notice: If their plans for improvement aren't working, the state is ready to take action.

Gov. Rick Snyder today signed a controversial executive order transferring the state school reform office from the Michigan Department of Education to a state office that is directly under his control -- the state Department of Technology, Management and Budget.

His motivation? "The governor feels like there needs to be a more proactive approach to addressing these most struggling schools, to benefit the kids that are in them," said Sara Wurfel, spokeswoman for the governor.

And what will it mean to the schools? Their improvement plans will be analyzed to see if they're working, and if they aren't other options will be considered, Wurfel said. That could mean anything from closing the school to turning it into a charter to replacing the principal or replacing half the staff. It could also mean removing the schools from their districts and placing them in a state reform district.

The move affects 138 schools whose academic performance has them currently ranked in the bottom 5% of all schools statewide. State law requires those schools develop improvement plans, and the state reform office monitors those plans and holds the schools accountable.

The executive order is particularly targeted at 54 schools that have operated under an improvement plan for more than three years.

"Despite not achieving satisfactory outcomes, the current structure has neither implemented the rigorous supports and processes needed to create positive academic outcomes nor placed any of the identified low achieving schools" in the state reform district, the executive order says.

Snyder has no direct control over the Michigan Department of Education, which has housed the state reform office since it was created by the Legislature in 2009. The department is run by the soon-to-retire State Superintendent Mike Flanagan, who is hired by an elected State Board of Education. That eight-member board has a strong Democratic majority, unlike the Legislature and governor's office, which is controlled by Republicans.

"The question is what is he going to do that's different, that's going to be better," said Robert Floden, co-director of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University. "It's a challenge, considering the greatened financial circumstances, to get these schools to improve."

The move was criticized immediately by a number of people, including the president of the State Board of Education, John Austin. Austin said he shared the governor's impatience with the pace of reform, saying "effective action is long overdue."

But he said moving it from the MDE to the DTMB "is unfortunate and counterproductive."

"Moving the authority to a state agency with no educational abilities nor mandate will make it harder, not easier to improve educational outcomes for children in chronically failing schools," Austin said.

He said it would also undermine the ability of the board, the governor's office and the next state superintendent to work together.

Wurfel said the executive order was not intended to impact the ability of the three to work together. "The governor has made collaboration a priority."

David Hecker, president of the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan, said the transfer ignores the voice of Michigan's voters "by stripping the elected State Board of Education of its oversight authority," of the reform office.

"Moving an office with an educational focus from the Department of Education, which understands education policy and has expertise, to a department focused on budgets is bad public policy," Hecker said.

The move was applauded by Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, a charter school advocacy group.

"It's important that we establish policies and take action to hold all schools accountable for their performance, and the governor's decision is a step in that direction," Quisenberry said. "Our students only have one shot at an education, so it's vital that each of them is in a school that's delivering a quality education."

The timing of the move might impact the State Board's efforts to replace Flanagan. It first came to light Wednesday as the board was choosing three finalists for the job, all of whom cited turning around the worst-performing schools as a key part of the job. The finalists are Vickie Markavitch, superintendent for Oakland Schools; Scott Menzel, superintendent for the Washtenaw Intermediate School District, and Brian Whiston, superintendent for Dearborn Public Schools.

"It seems to send a message from the governor -- and I don't know if this is the case -- that he wasn't confident in any of the three candidates being able to turn around," the schools, said Don Wotruba, deputy director of the Michigan Association of School Boards.

Contact Lori Higgins: 313-222-6651, lhiggins@freepress.com or @LoriAHiggins

Urban Equality Participatory Design Model - ("Cities Are Now" - Yes Magazine)

How Gondolas and Hip Hop Transformed the Most Dangerous City in the World  

Medellín went from being ground zero of Colombia's drug war to UN poster child for urban equality—and the people made it happen, by designing the city they wanted.

by Sven Eberlein

posted Nov 06, 2014

— tags: YTW Feature

This article appears in Cities Are Now, the Winter 2015 issue of YES! Magazine.

Posters throughout Comuna 13 neighborhood. The Héroes sin Fronteras campaign features gigantic posters of leaders who offer alternative visions to kids and teenagers in a community with little resources. Photo from Pazamanos Foundation.

“I’m sorry about the look of that house, we haven’t gotten around to painting it yet.” The woman leading us down the steep hillsides of the Comuna 13 neighborhood in Medellín, Colombia, is pointing at the lone faded building in a row of homes that looks like a tidy, earth-tone color guide.

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My friends and I—visiting Medellín for the United Nation’s Seventh World Urban Forum—are riding down escalators that have replaced 357 arduous steps. Luminous murals cover the walls below us, while above are flower-filled planters and skylights. At the end of each flight there are public patios where kids play soccer and people sit on benches to enjoy the view. Meanwhile, the escalator stereo plays Frank Sinatra singing “I did it my way.”

There’s something uplifting about an apology for a matter as small as an unfinished paint job in this neighborhood. Until a few years ago, residents here kept their doors and windows shut against the bullets exchanged by street gangs. Our guide Maria, one of the young people who work on the neighborhood’s escaleras eléctricas security and maintenance crewur, is also a community ambassador and docent. She tells us how her community collaborated on the international prize-winning design for the escalators and how much life has improved in her neighborhood since the completion of the project in 2012. “There used to be a lot of stairs,” she says, “but now people with disabilities, the elderly, and kids— who have to make frequent trips to school—have a lot more mobility.”

The “Medellín Miracle”—the city’s transformation from most dangerous city in the world in the 1980s to current U.N. poster child for urban equity—draws more than just foreign visitors. Juliana, one of our Couchsurfing hosts, is a Medellín native who lives just one barrio north of here and has traveled the world. She had never set foot in Comuna 13 until today. Now she and Maria are chatting about food and art like old friends.

Gondolas and massive escalators mean the hillside communities of Comuna 13 are no longer isolated from the rest of the city. Photo from Creative Urban Projects and Rex Features.

Collapse and rebirth of Medellín

It’s not uncommon for a city to become so ghettoized that a visit to an adjacent neighborhood is less likely for many residents than a trip to a foreign country. The number of cities with populations over 750,000 has quadrupled in the last 50 years. By 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population is projected to live in urban areas. Rapid growth often brings increased spatial and social inequalities, as poor immigrants from rural areas settle in unplanned and unregulated urban peripheries. With regional and global economic, political, and environmental dynamics driving migration, cities are often faced with large waves of disenfranchised people.

That was the case for Medellín. Nicknamed “City of Eternal Spring” for its mild year-round mountain-valley climate, the city’s history of disjointed urban growth is linked to Col0mbia’s struggles. From the collapse of the coffee market in the 1930s to the country’s brutal civil war in the 1950s and the infamous drug wars two decades ago, rural Colombians have fled to Medellín to escape violence and find economic opportunity.

Medellín’s population tripled between 1951 and 1973, and has almost tripled again since. As in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, much of the growth occurred along the city’s steep hillsides, where new arrivals desperate for shelter built the ramshackle houses that define Medellín’s poorest communities. These streets were used as a refuge by armed guerrilla and paramilitary groups fighting to dominate the booming cocaine market in the 1980s. A weak local government—there were 49 mayors between 1948 and 1988—was unable to provide any kind of regulation or security. The city’s poor were stuck in a war zone, and everyone else barricaded themselves behind walls and barbed wire.

With 6,349 murders in 1991 alone, Medellín had been in crisis for years by the time drug warlord Pablo Escobar was killed by Colombian special forces in 1993. While gunfights between right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas raged on, things began to improve with a new Colombian constitution that gave city governments new autonomy to base urban planning on citizens’ needs. Aspiring to rebuild as a “City for Life,” Medellín began its celebrated urbanismo social (social urbanism) agenda, aiming for genuine civic engagement, participatory democracy, and solidarity.

The Integrated Slum Upgrading Program of Medellín (PRIMED) in 1993 was a radical departure from traditional forms of city planning in that it drew on full community participation. In addition to building schools, incorporating and upgrading existing houses, installing street lights, and expanding public services, PRIMED led to the construction of a system of paths with railings that dramatically improved residents’ mobility.

Colombia’s first metro system, launched in 1995, soon connected downtown Medellín with San Javier in the heart of Comuna 13. The government also began investing in cultural and social programs for youth. By the late 1990s, the city started participatory budgeting, a process by which 5 percent of the city’s budget is allocated by residents of each neighborhood, often in support of local health, education, or art projects.

Perhaps most significantly, before any of these public-works projects were established, the city’s marginalized communities were remaking themselves. Comuna 13 in particular, ground zero of gang wars to this day, has produced a long line of hip-hop and graffiti artists who protest the militarization of their neighborhood with messages of civic participation, social justice, and peace.

“We were building this city long before the government arrived,” says EL AKA, a rapper from La Trece (as locals refer to Comuna 13) who calls for the recovery of open space and urban agriculture in his music. He says creative projects like the murals, urban gardens, hip-hop collectives, and cultural arts nonprofits have been major factors in building a new identity and bringing dignity to the most isolated, neglected, and impoverished parts of the city.

Popular hip hop artist EL AKA, pictured in a Héroes sin Fronteras mural, says creative projects like the murals, urban gardens, hip hop collectives, and arts nonprofits have been major factors in building a new identity and bringing dignity to the most isolated, neglected, and impoverished parts of the city. Photos from Pazamanos Foundation.

Transformation of space and mind

In 1999, Sergio Fajardo, a math professor dissatisfied with the government’s piecemeal approach to reform, founded an independent civic movement, the Citizens Commitment Group (Grupo Compromiso Ciudadano, or GCC). Its members believed the only lasting way to break cycles of ingrained violence and poverty was to integrate the most isolated neighborhoods into the rest of the city’s physical and social fabric. Instead of giving alms to the poor, the idea was to give them improved streetscapes and state-of-the-art public transit, parks, libraries, schools, and cultural centers.
Campaigning on the slogan “Medellín: from fear to hope,” GCC swept Fajardo into the mayor’s office in 2003. His administration broadened the scope of changes through an Integral Urban Project strategy (Proyecto Urbano Integral) to create inspiring living spaces and symbols of empowerment. I

In 2004, the new Metrocable, a gondola system traditionally used in ski resorts, opened service with a 1.8 kilometer line to the eastern barrio of Santo Domingo, followed in 2008 by a 2.7 kilometer line connecting the hillside communities of Comuna 13 with the Metro stop in San Javier.

The stunning gondola ride not only reduced commute times by hours, it gave residents like Maria a sense of local pride. “The Metrocable, just like the escalators, has been great for Medellín,” she says, “not just because they made life easier for us but they’ve improved our reputation in the world.”

Fajardo’s vision of connecting the informal with the formal city was rooted in his belief that education, in the broad sense of the term, has the power to open doors. “Many people in our society have a wall in front of them. … Our challenge has been to open doors in that sealed wall, so that people can pass through and participate in the construction of hope. What is hope? When someone in the community sees a path they can follow.”

The centerpieces of Fajardo’s plan, the city’s new parques biblioteca (library parks), were funded with the help of Medellín’s city-owned public utility company, Empresas Públicas de Medellín, which donates about 30 percent of its annual profits to social investment projects. A combination of library, green space, cultural center, and town square, five of these architectural gems—located in the most neglected parts of the city—opened between 2005 and 2008.

Books are just part of the public treasure that is Parque Biblioteca San Javier in the heart of Comuna 13—it’s a community hub where people gather, learn, and play, aided by inspiring architecture, lots of light, and open space. On the day of our visit, a group of teenagers practiced a dance in the main courtyard, while the classrooms, computer labs, and meeting halls were filled with studious individuals, groups, and families.

“The library park here has been spectacular,” said Amparo Guerra, a woman who lives nearby. “The classes, the libraries, the internet access, and all the other services and activities offered to the community have been so helpful. People who never had the resources now have a lot of opportunities, and everyone is welcomed and treated the same way, regardless of their social class. It truly is total social inclusion.”

An escalator carries pedestrians up a steep hill in Comuna 13. Photo from Creative Urban Projects and Rex Features.

The power of participation

Medellín’s transformation is still only half a miracle. Over the past five years, gangs have murdered ten hip-hop activists whose work advocated nonviolence. There are social land mines here that can’t be defused with gondolas, escalators, and libraries alone.

“I think all the government projects are good in a sense,” says Juan Carlos Anadón, Project Coordinator for the nonprofit Fundación Pazamanos. “But things are really complex when you work in the trenches of social development. You have to have flexibility to address problems you find along the way, which people who work in government often don’t have.”

That “work in the trenches” is recognized by Fundación Pazamanos’ crowdfunded Héroes sin Fronteras campaign, gigantic posters of La Trece leaders who offer alternative visions to kids and teenagers in a community with few resources. EL AKA is one of the heroes, featured in a triptych captioned “Yo me llamo AKA, no como el arma AK, sino como AKA disparador de rimas,” “My name is AKA, not like the gun AK, but like AKA the slinger of rhymes.”

“There are such heavy barriers that keep people from connecting,” Anadón says of the stigma of poverty and violence residents still endure, notwithstanding the positive impact of the escalators. He says the international attention on projects like escalators paints a somewhat distorted picture of who is driving grassroots changes, as well as of the many struggles that still exist. “The government likes these kinds of projects because it can show them to the world and win ‘Most Innovative City’ awards,” he says. “But there are still people being killed here. We don’t care about being innovative just because we have an escalator. We want to know what the priorities are.”
EL AKA agrees that the city is too focused on their pet projects rather than much-needed services.

“The library parks are great, but the problem is the way the city runs them. There are no nighttime activities, the security is excessive, and the territorial division of the programs is not appropriate.”
With the buzz from the World Urban Forum wearing off, the city is poised to push ahead with its 46-mile, $260 million Metropolitan Green Belt and $160 million Medellín River Park. No doubt these massive projects will benefit the city as a whole—economically, environmentally, and socially. But Anadón feels grassroots groups like Pazamanos that have a more horizontal relationship with the community provide an important alternative to big government projects. “I think we’ve received such good responses because people are getting tired of all the interventions all the time. We are friends and they understand our logic. We never think we have all the right answers. It’s more about trying to see through their eyes.”

In Anadón’s view, a miracle really is happening in Medellín, but it’s much more gradual, subtle, and people-powered than the effusive odes to libraries and escalators would have you believe. “Even though the government and rule of law has been missing for most of the people in Medellín for a long time—and the city is trying to fix that—the people are still trying. They’re resilient. They are tired of the situation and they’re trying to find new ways to go forward, and often those ways are through art.”

Photo from Pazamanos Foundation.

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Sven Eberlein wrote this article for Cities Are Now, the Winter 2015 issue of YES! Magazine. Sven is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. He is also community liaison for the Ecocitizen World Map Project, a global initiative connecting neighborhoods on the ground with online crowd-mapping tools designed to explore, understand, and measure holistic urban health from a citizen’s perspective. Medellín is one of the project’s pilot cities.