Crain's Detroit Business - Mackinac Section - June 7, 2010 - (Page 9)

June 7, 2010 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS Page M9 2010 Mackinac Policy Conference A time for action Reforms to education must reach beyond the budget to core issues BY RYAN BEENE CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS Chamber survey finds hope for biz climate BY RYAN BEENE CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS While Michigan schools may be safe from further cuts in state funding for two years, the time for education reform in the state is now, education leaders say. Exactly how, though, is another question, one that was addressed in a morning panel discussion Thursday at the Mackinac Policy Conference. The Michigan Board of Education last month approved a bipartisan plan consisting of a $3 billion reallocation of resources through a combination of school reforms, budget cuts and additional investments to revamp the state’s public schools. The plan includes universal preschool for all 4-year-olds, restoring state funding levels to those before this fiscal-year’s cuts, allocating $140 million for Promise Grant funding, and additional support for post-secondary education. Consolidating non-instructional school services between local districts, or even at countywide or statewide levels, could save up to $300 million, according to the report. Other cost-saving measures would include transitioning all newly hired public employees and educators to a defined contribution pension system, cutting higher education remediation costs, reducing health care costs and other measures. But other education leaders say reforms need to happen outside of Lansing to ensure that the state’s education system is preparing students for the 21st century. Doug Ross, CEO of New Urban Schools and head of Detroit’s University Preparatory Academy, said traditional education reform strategies that have been implemented over the past 25 years need to be abandoned because they have failed. Ross, also a panelist at the conference session, said a model that enforces school accountability by closing failing schools and replacing them with new school models must be implemented to move the state’s education system forward. “Bringing the marketplace to education has brought a transformation,” Ross said during the panel. “We now know that we can graduate African-American students and Hispanics and send them to col- lege with comparable rates to whites, whether they’re in Brooklyn or Detroit,” Ross said, referring to charter schools. What he described as big factory schools that are standardized and centrally run no longer work. “As we learned in the auto industry, when a production system becomes obsolete, it needs to be replaced, not reformed. This is where business comes in. No one understands production systems better than business leaders.” Carol Goss, CEO of the Detroit-based Skillman Foundation and an author of the Excellent Schools Detroit plan, said the plan’s central concept of independent oversight and accountability for schools, regardless of governance structure, is one needed statewide. “We need an independent body that will hold all schools, no matter what the governing structure is, accountable for results for eduGoss cating children,” she said in a pre-conference interview. “We need to close failing schools and open up high-performing schools. That’s not just in Detroit, that’s looking all over.” Goss and other Excellent Schools Detroit leaders, which include Robert Bobb, Detroit Public Schools emergency financial manager; Michigan Future Inc. President Lou Glazer and Kresge Foundation President Rip Rapson, unveiled the plan in March. It calls for the creation of citywide standards for K-12 education in Detroit, regardless of school governance, with the goal that by 2020 Detroit will be the first major U.S. city where 90 percent of its students graduate high school, go to college and lack remediation. An independent Standards and Accountability Commission would issue annual report cards to assess school performance and push poor-performing schools to be closed and replaced with new institutions. Goss said that type of oversight could ensure an increased level of educational rigor for Michigan students. “We do have a failure problem in Michigan; our kids don’t appear to have to get enough rigor in their curriculum because on national tests … our children don’t do well on that test at all,” she said. “We need to really set high standards and we need to hold ourselves to them, and that’s not just Detroit.” The performance of Michigan fifth- and eighth-graders on the Michigan Education Assessment Program has remained flat or increased slightly from 2006-2008, according to the Michigan Department of Education. But on the national level, students in Michigan schools performed below the national average on the National Assessment of Education Progress exams in math, reading and writing, according to NAEP data compiled in a March report issued by the Ann Arbor-based Center for Michigan. The report also noted that slightly more than 75 percent of Michigan students who began ninth grade in the fall of 2004 graduated high school by 2008, with 14 percent dropping out and 10 percent still in school at that point but behind. Bobb said the overhaul plan he is working to implement in the DPS, which aligns curriculum requirements to NAEP standards, has the goal of increasing DPS graduation rates to 98 percent over the next five years while shrinking the district’s footprint by 19 percent. Bobb said during the panel that while it is fine for policymakers to focus on performance of students in Detroit Public schools and their achievement gap, there is too little effort and money focused on “the preparation gap.” He said social issues Bobb from the time a child is conceived till the time he or she first arrives at school have huge impacts on achievement, from a lack of prenatal care to lead-based paint in homes to “crime and violence and gunfire. ...” We need to make investments in public health, in mental health, in crime and violence,” he said. Ryan Beene: (313) 446-0315, rbeene@crain.com. Crain’s reporter Tom Henderson contributed to this story. Business conditions in Michigan five years from now are expected to be better than the today’s challenging climate, according to a new survey of business leaders. About 87 percent of 208 respondents polled in the Detroit Regional Chamber’s seventh annual Leadership Assessment Survey rated the state’s business climate as below average or poor, down from 92 percent in 2009. More than two thirds said the economy has not changed in the past 12 months, but 73 percent expect Michigan’s economy to be stronger five years down the road. The survey, released on the first full day of the chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference, polled 208 respondents from the state’s business community on a variety of hot-button topics, including state funding priorities and tax issues, transportation, education and health care. With the passage of federal health care reform in the rearview mirror, fewer cited the high cost of health care as their top concern. Thirty-eight percent said they were concerned with high costs, compared with 52 percent in 2009. Nearly three-quarters said trade capacity between Michigan and Canada is important to secure the state’s trade position with Canada. Of those, 43 percent supported the construction of the Detroit River International Crossing, while 17 percent supported adding a second span to the Ambassador Bridge, owned by industrialist and trucking mogul Manuel Moroun. Seventeen percent wanted both projects. The top priority for state funding needs to be K12 education, according to the survey respondents. Programs to stimulate job creation and growth took the second priority, followed by university and community college funding and health care. Other survey findings include: Business leaders are split on Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s proposed new tax on services in exchange for lowering the sales tax from 6 percent to 5.5 percent. House Speaker Andy Dillon was the favorite to win the Democratic nomination for governor, with 66 percent expecting Dillon to secure the nod and 30 percent picking Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero. The Republican picture is less clear, with 37 percent expecting U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra to win his party’s nomination; 30 percent expecting it to go to Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard; 18 percent picking Ann Arbor venture capitalist and self-proclaimed “tough nerd” Rick Snyder; 13 percent for state Attorney General Mike Cox; and 1 percent for state Sen. Tom George. Health care: Leaders expect industry’s growth to continue ■ From Page M8 commercial and retail interests in the community … to create stability because we will be here for the long haul,” said Schlichting. Another opportunity for growth could come through the proposed acquisition of DMC by investorowned Vanguard Health Systems. Vanguard has promised to purchase DMC for $414 million and invest $850 million in plant, property and equipment over the next five years. “We (Southeast Michigan) could look like the Research Triangle Park of North Carolina,” Schlichting said. “We have never looked at health care in the state that way. We are beginning to do that.” Mike Duggan, president and CEO of the Detroit Medical Center, said during the Thursday panel that the expertise local health care systems have developed in holding down health care costs also is yet to be fully explored. “We actually get the concept of keeping people well, keeping people out of the emergency rooms. But it doesn’t occur to anybody to knock on the door” and say they need help in containing their health care costs, although that may be starting to change, Duggan said. Duggan also said that by 2018 the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “will prove to be one of the great things this country every did,” citing not only improved access to health care but also measures like demonstration programs that will provide financial incentives for doctors and hospitals to keep patients well. In addition, Brian Peters, senior vice president with the Michigan Health and Hospitals Association, said demographic changes over the next two decades will drive investment and job opportunities in the health sector. “When the baby boomer population matures, you will have an in- creased demand for all health care services,” Peters said. At the same time, many in the health care workforce, including doctors and nurses, also will be looking to retire. “How we fill that growing need for Peters providers of care will be a big issue in the coming years,” he said. Another major change over the next four years will be the expan- sion of health insurance as mandated by federal health reform legislation. More than 32 million uninsured people will either be enrolled in the Medicaid program or required to purchase health insurance policies. “We need to restructure our health care delivery system to accommodate people who will require chronic disease care,” Peters said. “Over the longer term, we will need investments to keep people healthy.” Jay Greene: (313) 446-0325, jgreene@crain.com Crain’s capitol correspondent Amy Lane contributed to this story.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crain's Detroit Business - Mackinac Section - June 7, 2010

Crain's Detroit Business - Mackinac Section - June 7, 2010
In this Issue
Economic Makeover
Lesson Plan for Education Reform
Teaming Up for Action
Time for a Cultural Revolution
Defense Mechanism
Slowing the State's Brain Drain
Intern, Employers of the Year

Crain's Detroit Business - Mackinac Section - June 7, 2010