They are the employees of the citizens. Unfortunately for them the citizens have forgotten what it is like to have multiple supervisors asking them to do conflicting work assignments. I know what it is to have mutiple lines of reporting to supervisors. It only works when there is a clear structure detailing which supervisor is first level, second level, third level, etc. The supervisors must also be in agreement as to which work assignments has priority. We citizens need to be better employers and give the employees better and more timely feedback on their performance. We citizens need to give the proper support and tools that are needed by our employees to them. As employees we all know what we want and need from our employers, but we also know that our employer can not waste resources and still be successful. As employers we need to communicate with our employees often and make sure they know that our resources are limited but that we will do everything we can to help them succeed. Citizen/employer needs to remain calm when communicating with their employee/Elected Officials, but employee/Elected Official needs to remain calm when debating and discussing the best way to complete their work assignments. We must all agree to remain calm but not lose focus on how urgent decisions must be given priority now. Michigan must come together now and not continue to drift apart in different directions. We the Citizen/employers need to find the middle ground that we can all agree upon and make sure we communicate that to our Elected Official/employees. I hope the Center for Michigan can reach out to other Michigan groups in a way that will bring calmness to all. Ask Mark Murray about the 7 key values at Meijer. Maybe Michigan could establish some key values we could all agree upon and work towards.

Thank you for your time and efforts!

Roger Edington

You stated in your article that the state has over 500 individual school districts...this means there are over 1500 superintendents, Asst. Supt. and School Business Officers. So non-classroom spending is already over $137.5 million dollars (If we suppose that Supt's avg pay is $125,000 and the others avg. $75,000).

Are these costs on a district per district basis necessary today? With the Federal and State Government continually eroding local control and in essence requiring districts to teach to the test, the role of a central administration staff is limited at best. Therefore I submit to you that districts could save alot of money by combining those jobs. Could not the Intermediate School Districts (RESA's) be the organization which is utilized for Central Administration and centralized services?

The other huge issue you brought up is the number of local districts. Is it not time for downsizing the number of school districts? The past has shown a great reluctance by the public to "lose" that identity. But when it was really studied the public reluctance was at losing the local High School football team, not the local administrative structure.

These are issues from the past which all get recycled every 10 to 15 years. When I served in the late '80's and early '90's as the Aide the House Education Committee under State Rep. William R. (Bill) Keith (D-Garden City) and we worked with your then right hand person Larry Good, we dealt with all these same issues and many others.

We discovered then that systemic change is tough for any entity but especially Public Education. But change can happen.

Classroom teachers have been handed a reworked curriculum almost every year or two for as long as I can remember. There has been no consistent curriculum. This creates an unfortunate situation where business expects critical thinkers in the work place but we educate test takers. Why? Sadly, just so some politician can beat their chest. Let's not even discuss the fact that the tests, given in the early fall, test students knowledge of information they have not yet been taught. (i.e. 5th grade MEAP test given in October of the 5th grade year of the student)

The Keith/Oxender Act from the early 1990's is a law in the school code which if it had been put to work in the early '90's may have given the State an edge over our competition. Basically the Act has Business/Education/Government working together to define the future skills necessary for the jobs of the present and future and then create the coursework necessary so that our citizens may obtain those positions and our economy may flourish. Unfortunately, it was never utilized. The time may be NOW for that law to be utilized.

Lastly, an idea whose time may be here now is: Grant tax breaks to companies which allow their employees, especially parents with children in school, to volunteer in local schools. If I am correct research shows that when parents/guardians are involved in their children's education the child does better. The tax break is suggested because employers can not afford to lose their employees during the workday. The break would at least soften the blow.

There is more to say...but for now I will leave it at that.

Again, great article.

Regards,

Jim Fordell

If state leaders want to consider asking the businesses and citizens of Michigan to pay more (or different) taxes, the first corresponding obligation is sacrifice and big-time structrual reform within government itself.

To that end I believe that you left out some state level concepts in your Structural Changes In Spending section:
Your item number 2 speaks of performance metrics at the local government and school level but does not address the State Government or its departments. Why should we force on the locals what the State is unwilling to impose on itself?
Could we add a number 5 to this section that looks to eliminate most or all grants that are not directly tied to new job creation within the state.

GRADUATED INCOME TAX
You are suggesting that we institute a graduated income tax. If we translate this thought into being a college student; that would mean that the better grade someone gets on a test or in a class the more points you would take off so they are no longer at the top. Does it really make sense to you that if you work harder in a class than others, that you should give up (have taken away from you) your efforts so that the others in the class can have a better grade? Why would that same concept make sense financially?

Skip forward. I recently retired as a school administrator. One of the reasons I left early is the reporting requirments of NCLB and the Department of Education. Most of the reports don't help kids or teachers and consume a great deal of time. I believe in accountabilty, but how to measure it is a problem in terms of time.

One last thought. A statewide system might solve the disparities in funding on a per pupil basis. It just is wrong to say a pupil here is worth $11,000 and a pupil there is worth $7800.

FDR - "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" or someting close to that. I think some of what is going on in Michigan is the "fear itself" thing.

Bad things are happening in Michigan. We may not come back for a long time--but there are some good things too and it is high time we find out why they are and tell everyone about it!!

"One result might be a statewide pay scale that directly links teacher pay to educational outcomes." I'll take issue with this statement. Just the fact that Power believes this is a good idea tells me how disconnected to the education process. Students aren't widgets - a school doesn't work like a business. Often, counselors place lower-level students with certain teachers since those teachers are especially skilled at working with this population of our kids. How can their pay be linked to the scores of these students? Also, it's problematic to put so much stock in these test scores as they don't test what you assume they test. I have written questions for the MEAP and in other ways have been involved in standardized testing at the state level. I am sure that if anyone bothered to study this, there can be no real correlation made between the teaching of the standards and student performance. This is partly due to the fact that oftentimes the standards are not well-represented on the MEAP. (Hopefully this is being fixed but it's not easy to fix things like this when you have high-order thinking standards and mostly multiple choice assessment.) From what I have seen, if the students had learned the basics of the subject in the early grades (rather than the grade being tested), had solid reading comprehension skills, and good common sense, they would score well. I think you can tie MEAP success or lack-there-of to the district as ONE variable to explain student performance, but it is ignorant to suggest it is an indicator of the teaching efforts of an individual teacher.

I think there are benefits, but this article grossly oversimplifies what happens in a school district. In a society where over half of our kids are overweight, shouldn't we be paying Phys Ed teachers MORE? I wouldn't mind being a state employee, in theory - retirement and health care might be more stable. But just like we have state governments who are trusted to make local decisions instead of the Federal Gov't just making all the decisions for our country, education lumped together as a whole state ignores the regional differences in job preparation and life skills students need.

When you lose local control, you immediately see a cookie-cutter curriculum ( "teach to the test").

The assumption each school district would be served by the same type of contract regardless of their individual needs and problems is an ignorant one. For example, the cost of living (particularly with regard to housing costs) is much higher in SE MI compared to most other areas of the state.

Why aren't state legislatures paid by performance? In 2004-2005, the average salary for a MI teacher was $56,973 (4th in the nation). The current base salary for a MI state legislator is $79,650.
Sincerely,

Brett Meyer

Brighton

First ordinary people are not as concerned about tax cuts or increases as are the right wing ideologues who haunt the state house. What most people want are effective and efficient government. Our recent trials are in part the result of ill gotten tax plans and primariliy Republican irresponsibility by dividing Michigans residents on taxes for short term political gain.

Any more assaults on Michigans teacher for making an attractive wage and kiss Michigans future good by. If low taxes and poorly paid teachers are your cause think Mississippi or better yet 3rd world country.

Health care as a united package for all civil servants is a realo idea that we need to embrace. we can do better for everyone for less money. We might want our legislators to lead the way. For 100 days work the Speaker of the house gets $100,000 plus health care. Good for him ,but lets not indite others when our own hide is at the caviar trough.

Consolidation of school districts is dead on arrival. New standards ,a need for higher levels of student engagement and more prsonal accountability by first parentswho in Michigan 71% believe High school education is enough then students
and teachers is no call for wholesale schooling. We need to fix what is wrong look at consolidation of some services then raise taxes if needed to provide schooling at the retail level.

I have always thought that dollars behind each student should be the same. Paying all teachers the same would help that happen - but all $/ district whould have to be the same too.

Maybe the best thing would be to extend that line of thought to having only one district - that being the state. Would solve problem of even funding for all students throughout the state and solve the problem of consolidation too.

Are you that sure that the state is competent enough to do this right?
Does that bring state politics into the mix to a greater degree and is that a good way to make educational decisions. Not sure, have to think about that.

As for the line about teacher accountability. Merit pay that rewards excellent teaching could be a good thing as long as it is fairly done (interesting exercise in defining "fair")and based on factors beyond just standardized tests. Also, effective professional development would be a must. We need to move away from the half-day professional development days to true indepth planning and training experiences.
Perhaps adding days to the teachers calendar, with corresponding increase in pay would be easier to achieve if the state controlled the schools. Allow the teachers to serve as "full time" employees with enough time to plan, creat and learn for innovation sake. The result could be true improvements in teaching and learning and pay that would attract and keep the "best and brightest" in public education.

The line about physical education and physics teachers was interesting.
Ever thought that one of the crisis points for modern American society is the increasing sedentary lifestyle of its citizens and the impact that has on health and lifestyle - major health and economic effects that negatively effort all of our society. I would dare say that our citizen's lack of knowledge and skill that leads to physical inactivity has a far greater effect on our economy and lifestyle than does our citizen's lack of knowledge and skills in physics. Perhaps there should be as great an emphasis on quality physical education as there is on quality science education so that we can move away from being one of the fattest and most sedendary states in the United States with one of the highest expendatures for health care treating diseases related to a sedentary lifestyle (heart conditions and type 2 diabetes for example).

I am retired physical education and science teacher and a school board member in South Lyon for 24 years.

I always enjoy reading your columns in the Herald. I am also a moderate Republican (Milliken is my idea for a great Republican) I wish more folks like yourself were around. Michigan would be a better place if that were so.

Keep up the fight.

Doug Curry

It's an awful Catch-22. Kids leave b/c there seem to be no opportunities. So there are no kids to make it vibrant and appealing to other young adults, and on and on.

Here's an idea to pitch to these companies who want to tap the college grad brainpower here before it flees. A website. A matching service. Let all those grads who believe they have to leave the state submit their resumes to the site. Let's see if those companies could work together and create a site to post their jobs. Call it stayinmichigan.com. Or tapmibrainpower.com.
Or professionalsformi.com

Believe you me. The parents would post their kids' resumes in no time. Or let parents/students submit where they are attending college to the site so that their senior year they can begin to make connections with businesses who want to hire college grads. Let the companies see where our kids have gone to school out of state and do some on-campus recruiting.

We were transferred here 23 years ago from NYC (the young adult above was one month from making his entrance.) My husband works for GM. It's been a bumpy nervous ride but the midwest has been a wonderful place to raise a family. I think the Detroit area is one of the best kept secrets. But word needs to get out.

Anyway, if you ever hear tell that someone has set up a database of meaningful challenging work for
college grads, let me know. I'll get you a resume before sundown.

Debra Darvick
Birmingham