Relearning the GI Bill lessons
What is so distressing about a recent Center for Michigan’s Bridge feature article is that it positions higher education as a combination of vocational training and supplier to Michigan employers. Where the chief purpose of Michigan’s public universities should be to prepare students for a professional job in the student’s major with a Michigan employer […]
Density drives economic growth
In our 2006 A New Agenda for a New Michigan we wrote: For many Michiganians, vibrant central cities are part of the past. No longer relevant or just something you visit in unique places like Manhattan, Toronto or Chicago. Think again! They are an important ingredient to future economic success. The pattern across the country is […]
Unlimited charters: not smart
From their inception in the Nineties Michigan Future, Inc. has been an enthusiastic supporter of charter schools and public school choice. Still are. We have been involved in helping create charter schools for more than a decade. But our support is tempered by the reality of student performance in charter schools. It is mixed at […]
Our 2012 High Schools
Our Michigan Future Schools initiative proudly announces grants of $2.4 million to open three innovative new high schools that will challenge and support Detroit students as they prepare for college and careers. The schools will open to incoming freshmen in Fall 2012 and add a grade per year. Pretty exciting! The new schools are: • […]
A better school ranking system
The Michigan Department of Education (MDOE) recently released their 2011 rankings of all of Michigan’s k-12 schools. They released two rankings. One clearly is a better measure than the other of relative school quality. One ranking is mandated by the federal government. The other was developed by MDOE. The reason there are two rankings is […]
Michigan talent attracting companies
Mlive recently ran an article on HP opening a new IT services office in Pontiac. According to the article “the center expects to hire more than 200 technically skilled employees as well as an undetermined number of support personnel.” Why is HP coming to metro Detroit? According to HP Vice President Rick Sullivan: HP selected […]
What’s new at the accelerator
I haven’t written for quite awhile about our high school accelerator – Michigan Future Schools. But we have been busy! Just as a reminder the accelerator is designed to help start at scale new quality high schools serving students from the city of Detroit without regard to governance. We select schools to work with through […]
What we learned: the national economy
Our work is focused on how Michigan’s economy is performing compared with the nation’s and why. To do that we need to understand what is driving the national economy. At the core of our work is the basic belief, since we were founded twenty years ago, that globalization and technology are mega forces that are […]