A Tale of Two Economies

Good article (with video interview of George Fulton) by Nathan Bomey at AnnArbor.com. Its called Education Chasm. Its the new reality we all need to adjust too. Using data from a new projection of Washtenaw County by UM’s Fulton and Don Grimes, Bomey portrays a county where the knowledge economy is poised for growth as […]

Improving College Graduation Rates III

So what are the specifics that higher education can learn from successful urban high schools to substantially improve student outcomes? By substantial improvement I mean something like the 90/90 that many urban high schools are now measured against. In the case of higher ed this would mean 90% of those entering needing remediation leaving ready […]

Improving College Graduation Rates II

Received a thoughtful response from Mike Hansen – the terrific President of the Michigan Community College Association – on my improving college graduation rates post. Mike is a reformer, one who believes his members can serve students better and is working on developing models for getting better student outcomes. He correctly points out that the […]

Worth Reading

When I committed to writing a blog twice a week I worried that I wouldn’t have enough to write about. Boy was I wrong. The exact opposite has been the case. I keep putting aside articles that I want to write about and then never get to them. So here are links to three articles […]

Excellent Schools Detroit

The release of the citywide plan for improving student achievement in Detroit was quite exhilarating. It marks a fundamental change in strategy and, for the first time, offers a realistic possibility that we can get big increases in student outcomes. What’s different this time? It focuses on kids, not institutions. All the past reform efforts […]

The Myth of High Paid Green Manufacturing Jobs

Interesting article in the Free Press this weekend on the wages that GM will pay workers in plants that will make the components for its electric vehicles. Less than $14 an hour. And yes workers in those plants will be represented by the UAW! This should put to rest –but won’t – the dream that […]

Improving College Graduation Rates

At Michigan Future, Inc. we believe that investments in higher education are the single best thing the state can do to grow a high prosperity economy. It is the best asset we have to grow a knowledge-based economy. In the Twentieth Century we built one of the best public higher ed systems on the planet […]

We Have To Change

The question I get most often these days is for my take on the 2010 elections. To be honest I don’t have a clue what is going to happen. But I do have a sense of the nature of the debate. Likely it will be a repeat of the 2006 elections. As you remember that […]

Charters for Adults?

I attended a terrific conference this week – co hosted by CEOs for Cities and United Way for Southeastern Michigan – on reducing poverty. The mission was to identify local actions that can significantly reduce poverty over the next two to four years. In my presentation, unfortunately, I said we don’t know how to do […]

Introducing Michigan Future Schools

Today we officially launch Michigan Future Schools (MFS) as an initiative of Michigan Future, Inc. It builds on the work we have been doing for the past decade or so to figure out how to connect urban high schools students to the economy of the future.  Its goal is to create new high schools at […]