Urban America suffers from poverty caused by both negative publicity and actions that scare away potential investors to our community. Urban America poverty is also due to bad policies that restrict people in the community from opening the doors of innovation amongst ourselves. Many urban communities in America have a civil rights mindset that restricted silver rights entrepreneurship while local urban governments have criminalized or penalized local entrepreneurship by passing strict, unproductive and unfriendly business practices. For example,Detroit's business climate is non-existent, contracts are difficult gain due to inefficient governmental policies.
High level corruption in our community is fueled by an ineffective government and the private sector. Corruption in urban America is not an individual issue; it is a process, a systematic issue that can only be addressed by discouraging the incentive behind it. Part of the incentive is in the mentality of the people who have the willingness to bank all the stolen money from our community. The begging bowl approach by the civil rights leadership fuels this vice because they approach the bargaining table from the point of weakness and not strength. Does cities like Detroit need rock stars and to fix these problems? Absolutely not.
First of all urban America must recognize that we are not a poor community. Urban America is rich in wealth. With over $1 trillion in buying power Blacks alone can feed the whole community and export the surplus to countries globally. This community has a huge market of millions of people struggling in poverty simply because their lack of understanding to make it difficult to enact a uniform business oriented policy that will make it easy for entrepreneurs to spring up and address the demands of this market. Domestically and globally both Black American and African potential of the women and youth is yet to be tapped on another level. Part of this restriction comes from illiteracy. Our global community offers a huge potential to problem solvers but as long as we continue to fight against one another and not find the common ground that is needed we will never solve the issues we need to handle.
Therefore, urban conservatives must take the lead in innovation and developing new ideas to help eradicate poverty. We know quality education plays a role in eradicating poverty but intrapreneurship is also needed in urban communities. Black conservatives preach about the need for entrepreneurship but rarely discuss intrapreneurship.
Intrapreneurship is basically having a spirit of enterprise within an organization – and it means that you’re taking initiatives and taking your job as you’re running your own business. This means you act in the best interests of the organization. In the eyes of the community we can take this concept and utilize this in a organizational manner.
For example, we want to help the community in which we are trying to serve increase their profitability (businesses), to reduce the costs of their operations (by downsizing), to maybe spearhead or create activities, leads or launches that will really add to the bottom-line of the community.
Every organization in a community or local municipality will value intrapreneurs because at any point in time, if there’s a retrenchment exercise, who are the people they’ll get rid of? The dead-weight. The people who are just doing what they’re told. But intrapreneurs are people who are continuously looking for ways to create value for the organization that will in return help the community. These people will be more valuable and you’ll be the last to be affected in the downturn.
There is a need to promote both entrepreneurship that will lead to intrapreneurship. Entrepreneurship is someone who brings resources, such as land, labor, materials, and combine them to enhance their value through various transformation method while they also bring about change, engender innovation and introduce new ideas and orders. Entrepreneurial process is a major factor in economic development and the entrepreneur is the key to economic growth.
We use intrapreneurship in urban communities by utilizing a process to seek entities such as faith based/non-profits and private businesses to utilize, maintain or retain the edge in innovation and profit-making by asking employees to spawn businesses within the business. Most of these people are given free rein to run a particular aspect of the company, perhaps a new product line or subsidiary.
Entrepreneurs builds something from the ground up while intrapreneurs build something new within an establishment. Both are needed to help eradicate poverty in our communities.
We can take the same synergy into educational entrepreneurship and other business/economic models that will help eradicate poverty and other negative effects in our community.
Therefore, urban America and its cities can make poverty history by owning the problem. What urban people need to recognize is the fact that economies do not grow by one addressing only the demands of their community. Urban investors must look beyond the horizon. Leadership should facilitate the local investors’ ability to expand by recreating policies to enable our community to invest globally. More emphasis must be placed on the educational and business climate in the urban communities, and efforts made to increase security for those who live in cities like Detroit and Philadelphia.
By promoting intrapreneurship in our community, urban America will be able to take care of the health of their citizens, improve our infrastructure and provide public-private services to its citizens.
Friday, March 26, 2010
The Making of An Edutropolis
I am getting phone calls and e-mails asking for my opinion on the upcoming gubernatorial election here in Michigan. Many people are asking me for my opinion on who would be the best Governor for the State of Michigan. They are asking for who I would support.
To tell you the truth I have not come out to support anyone. Not Mike Cox, Rick Snyder, Pete Hoekstra, Mike Bouchard or even my good friend State Sen. Tom George. I will not vote for a Democrat for Governor in Michigan.
I will say this. I am looking at two elements in this election. I would like to see who will have the strongest urban platform as it relates to infrastructure and who will take educational reform into the 21st century. Who is willing to reinvent urban communities in Michigan.
I have read Rick Snyder and Mike Cox's platform on education. Both Snyder and Cox have taken positions on urban infrastructure but it sounds like the same urban infrastructure that most Republican throw around during election season. I see that Cox is more open to lifting the cap off charter schools while Snyder is committed to transforming Michigan’s educational system is essential to prepare our children to compete globally in a knowledge-based economy. Both are needed to move Michigan forward.
Tom George is also committed to urban infrastructure in terms on reinventing urban greenspace and brownfield in urban areas such as Detroit. I also think this is necessary to build upon to create economic development.
I did not see a platform or ANYTHING on educational reform nor urban infrastructure from Mike Bouchard or Pete Hoekstra. So we will leave them out of the equation for now.
Well, whoever is going to be the next Governor of the State of Michigan need to support urban conservatives on the development of an educational empowerment zone called an Edutropolis. It is a concept that focuses on a K-16 network of academic institutions serving and supporting a multiplicity of educational, social, economic and cultural missions. This include the traditional triad of teaching, research and community service, and also, increasingly, community advancement and enhancement; i.e. economic development.
Most of our urban communities are brownfields. however, like what urban conservatives have been discussing for a while, we are sole interested in transforming urban communities into goldmines. We believe that an edutropolis in an area such as Benton Harbor, Northwest Detroit, Southeast Detroit or Northeast Detroit, Muskegon Heights, Saginaw, Flint and Pontiac will benefit from the edutropolis.
An edutropolis can help rebuild the middle class in these urban areas by reinventing failing schools into high quality institutions. Our aim is to draw students and faculty from an international pool of exceptionally qualified candidates and scholars. An edutropolis can serve an area like the Brightmoor district in Detroit with 21st century programs and academic courses that will improve their lives and advance their position in a competitive society.
K-16 education is a fundamental economic and cultural resource in urban areas across Michigan. Therefore, support for K-16 education will continue to be an important economic and social factor in Michigan's economic and social development, transcending partisan politics, public policy debates, and local, county and state elections.
What most people do not realize is the fact that the concept of campus and community has to be extended to embrace more than town and gown. It has to include the network of all the institutions of learning. This is why institutions such as Wayne County Community College should be allowed to authorize charter schools in Detroit.
The new 21st century model of an Historically Black College and Universities should be allowed to flourish in an edutropolis. That 21st century HBCU model is not based on the traditional school/campus model but now has been transformed into 100% online schools (cyber schools), small learning centers and an international model of education to help prepare students to compete globally.
There are office spaces all over the City of Detroit that are not being used in any capacity. Welcome to your new Historically Black College and University right here that is connected next to a high performing charter school which has a relationship to a high performing Detroit Public School that focuses on engineering. The private K-16 Christian school/college is training and developing new ways to reach a new ministry from a moral and spiritual perspective. When you have a network of these institutions working together they will anchor the middle class. When you develop a network this sophisticated it will begin to take shape in urban areas across Michigan with a high participation rate in education.
An edutrpolis must be able to educate our children in several disciplines:
Art and Design
Business and Management
Education
Engineering and Technology
Law
Medical and Dental
Music and Dramatic Arts
Theology
These core features are needed in urban areas to reinvent urban core here in Michigan. If we create a model here in urban areas such as Muskegon and Ecorse then we can take it to Newark, Los Angeles, Oakland, California and even Camden, NJ.
All too often, attempts to encourage urban renewal and get families to move back into cities fail to address one of the largest stumbling blocks: a lack of access to good schools. Urban conservatives strongly believe that the development of an edutropolis will help reinvent urban communities in Michigan. Working and middle class families with children are vital to neighborhood and city building because they have higher incomes and are more economically and socially stable.
The development of an edutropolis would also provide education alternatives to families through high performing charter schools and leaving the option of converting existing traditional public and private schools to Schools of Choice. As well as providing more educational options for parents, competition among those schools would prompt traditional public schools to improve. Quality education options also would reduce neighborhood income segregation as wealthier families would be attracted into low-income neighborhoods by high-quality schools.
We are not just limiting the idea of an edutropolis to urban areas in Michigan. We would like for urban conservatives to discuss this topic nationally and internationally. We no longer wait for the RNC, the Tea Party people or others to give us the green light to discuss our needs in our community. We have our own platform, our own issues that we need to address and create solutions for without asking for permission. The edutropolis should be on the lips of every urban conservative activist domestically and globally. The reason? Because urban conservatives do not look in the past for support (i.e. Ronald Reagan, Party of Lincoln, etc.). We acknowledge our past heroes on education (Booker T. Washington and Mary McCleod Bethune), our own past heroes on capitalism (Marcus Garvey, Madame C.J. Walker) and look into the future for leadership (Dambia Moyo, Muhammad Yunus, John Hope Bryant, and yourself).
So the next time someone asks you who you are supporting for public office ask them (1) an educational strategy and (2) and urban infrastructure strategy. Would they be willing to support the idea of an edutropolis and not only implementing this model domestically in urban Michigan but internationally in areas such as Lagos, Yaounde and Accra to create our own network and system of international educational excellence.
To tell you the truth I have not come out to support anyone. Not Mike Cox, Rick Snyder, Pete Hoekstra, Mike Bouchard or even my good friend State Sen. Tom George. I will not vote for a Democrat for Governor in Michigan.
I will say this. I am looking at two elements in this election. I would like to see who will have the strongest urban platform as it relates to infrastructure and who will take educational reform into the 21st century. Who is willing to reinvent urban communities in Michigan.
I have read Rick Snyder and Mike Cox's platform on education. Both Snyder and Cox have taken positions on urban infrastructure but it sounds like the same urban infrastructure that most Republican throw around during election season. I see that Cox is more open to lifting the cap off charter schools while Snyder is committed to transforming Michigan’s educational system is essential to prepare our children to compete globally in a knowledge-based economy. Both are needed to move Michigan forward.
Tom George is also committed to urban infrastructure in terms on reinventing urban greenspace and brownfield in urban areas such as Detroit. I also think this is necessary to build upon to create economic development.
I did not see a platform or ANYTHING on educational reform nor urban infrastructure from Mike Bouchard or Pete Hoekstra. So we will leave them out of the equation for now.
Well, whoever is going to be the next Governor of the State of Michigan need to support urban conservatives on the development of an educational empowerment zone called an Edutropolis. It is a concept that focuses on a K-16 network of academic institutions serving and supporting a multiplicity of educational, social, economic and cultural missions. This include the traditional triad of teaching, research and community service, and also, increasingly, community advancement and enhancement; i.e. economic development.
Most of our urban communities are brownfields. however, like what urban conservatives have been discussing for a while, we are sole interested in transforming urban communities into goldmines. We believe that an edutropolis in an area such as Benton Harbor, Northwest Detroit, Southeast Detroit or Northeast Detroit, Muskegon Heights, Saginaw, Flint and Pontiac will benefit from the edutropolis.
An edutropolis can help rebuild the middle class in these urban areas by reinventing failing schools into high quality institutions. Our aim is to draw students and faculty from an international pool of exceptionally qualified candidates and scholars. An edutropolis can serve an area like the Brightmoor district in Detroit with 21st century programs and academic courses that will improve their lives and advance their position in a competitive society.
K-16 education is a fundamental economic and cultural resource in urban areas across Michigan. Therefore, support for K-16 education will continue to be an important economic and social factor in Michigan's economic and social development, transcending partisan politics, public policy debates, and local, county and state elections.
What most people do not realize is the fact that the concept of campus and community has to be extended to embrace more than town and gown. It has to include the network of all the institutions of learning. This is why institutions such as Wayne County Community College should be allowed to authorize charter schools in Detroit.
The new 21st century model of an Historically Black College and Universities should be allowed to flourish in an edutropolis. That 21st century HBCU model is not based on the traditional school/campus model but now has been transformed into 100% online schools (cyber schools), small learning centers and an international model of education to help prepare students to compete globally.
There are office spaces all over the City of Detroit that are not being used in any capacity. Welcome to your new Historically Black College and University right here that is connected next to a high performing charter school which has a relationship to a high performing Detroit Public School that focuses on engineering. The private K-16 Christian school/college is training and developing new ways to reach a new ministry from a moral and spiritual perspective. When you have a network of these institutions working together they will anchor the middle class. When you develop a network this sophisticated it will begin to take shape in urban areas across Michigan with a high participation rate in education.
An edutrpolis must be able to educate our children in several disciplines:
Art and Design
Business and Management
Education
Engineering and Technology
Law
Medical and Dental
Music and Dramatic Arts
Theology
These core features are needed in urban areas to reinvent urban core here in Michigan. If we create a model here in urban areas such as Muskegon and Ecorse then we can take it to Newark, Los Angeles, Oakland, California and even Camden, NJ.
All too often, attempts to encourage urban renewal and get families to move back into cities fail to address one of the largest stumbling blocks: a lack of access to good schools. Urban conservatives strongly believe that the development of an edutropolis will help reinvent urban communities in Michigan. Working and middle class families with children are vital to neighborhood and city building because they have higher incomes and are more economically and socially stable.
The development of an edutropolis would also provide education alternatives to families through high performing charter schools and leaving the option of converting existing traditional public and private schools to Schools of Choice. As well as providing more educational options for parents, competition among those schools would prompt traditional public schools to improve. Quality education options also would reduce neighborhood income segregation as wealthier families would be attracted into low-income neighborhoods by high-quality schools.
We are not just limiting the idea of an edutropolis to urban areas in Michigan. We would like for urban conservatives to discuss this topic nationally and internationally. We no longer wait for the RNC, the Tea Party people or others to give us the green light to discuss our needs in our community. We have our own platform, our own issues that we need to address and create solutions for without asking for permission. The edutropolis should be on the lips of every urban conservative activist domestically and globally. The reason? Because urban conservatives do not look in the past for support (i.e. Ronald Reagan, Party of Lincoln, etc.). We acknowledge our past heroes on education (Booker T. Washington and Mary McCleod Bethune), our own past heroes on capitalism (Marcus Garvey, Madame C.J. Walker) and look into the future for leadership (Dambia Moyo, Muhammad Yunus, John Hope Bryant, and yourself).
So the next time someone asks you who you are supporting for public office ask them (1) an educational strategy and (2) and urban infrastructure strategy. Would they be willing to support the idea of an edutropolis and not only implementing this model domestically in urban Michigan but internationally in areas such as Lagos, Yaounde and Accra to create our own network and system of international educational excellence.
A Literacy Test Will Not Solve The Problems of Civic Education in America
Saturday, the National Tea Party convention took place in Nashville, Tennessee. The person who opened up the event was former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo.
Now Tancredo was the guy who ran for President in 2008 on one issue immigration. As a paleoconservative, I can only imagine that he wants to keep America White..at least that is my guess. However, it was his remarks at the Tea Party Convention that made me shake my head.
First, look at the video here.
http://www.youtube.com/wat
Tancredo told the audience that the country had elected “a committed socialist ideologue in the White House” because “we do not have a civics, literary test before people can vote in this country."
Interesting. Tancredo tried to clean it up by saying this afterwards:
"I do think they should have to know something about how the government works.” He suggested using the citizenship test that immigrants take — maybe, he said, voters could take it "verbally.”
And even Judson Phillips, one of the organizers for the Tea Party Convention, said Tancredo's speech was "fantastic."
Please look at his remarks on video:
http://www.youtube.com/wat
To tell you the truth there was nothing fantastic about Tancredo’s remarks because they were offensive. For years, literacy tests were used across the South to disenfranchise African-American voters, who generally had illiteracy rates 4-5 times as high as whites due to historical discrimination and lack of opportunity. Unfortunately for Tancredo, the 1965 Voting Rights Act makes literacy tests illegal.
Even if I did attend the convention I would have never came back. You cannot be that reckless in your words and think people are going to support you. It's impossible.
Civic education is important but conducting a literacy test is NOT the answer. Urban conservatives push for civic education from K-12 instead of 9th or 10th grade. Civic education should also be available for adult education courses and should be taught with a balanced approach. Conservatives make the mistake of saying how liberal education is without presenting an alternative approach to education to balance out the equation. Tancredo failed to say this.
But then again, was this ever on his mind to begin with?
What is even more embarrassing is the number of Black Republicans who are silent on this issue. How come we have to be silent when Pat Robertson or Tom Tancredo make ridiculous statements with a lack of scholarship but when Harry Reid made his comments Black Republicans were ALL over him? Did we miss the memo? Both Reid and Tancredo are in the bed together and have no intentions of helping Americans. One is a Moron..I mean Mormon who comes from the period where Mormons thought Blacks were cursed and the other is anti-immigrant. Jesus, I cannot imagine what Tancredo thinks of Africans and Caribbean people in this country who are hard working citizens.
My point is if Black Republicans are going to point out the error of Sen. Reid then how come we have not said anything about Tancredo? Are you afraid to get your GOP pass revoked? Please, you better speak up against racism when you hear and see it. This is not the time to be afraid. The comments were disrespectful and silly. Literacy tests? This is the 21st century not Dixie in 1960. You cannot call yourself a freedom fighter when you allow such nonsense to continue in our party. To be this silent shows that we will allow anything to fly past our head. But if Obama, Reid or Pelosi said the same thing I can hear Black Republicans coming out of the woodwork like roaches saying how racist the Democratic Party is and etc. Kill the rhetoric and get on with the business of solutions not getting caught up on plantation politics. Here is a newsflash for you. There is racism in BOTH parties. So it does not matter if you call yourself a Black Democrat or Black Republican both parties are archaic in their thinking, keep people thinking in a box and keep people fighting against each other while we have serious issues to tackle in our community.
Tancredo also mentioned about the cult of multiculturalism. Did I miss something? Perhaps he was sleepwalking when he said this.
The latest breakdown of the Republican Party is this:
95% of the GOP are White.
2% of Blacks are Republican.
5% of Hispanics are Republican.
I can understand why Tancredo is hellbent on immigration not because of Mexicans taking jobs from Americans but because Hispanics in general will be the top population in the near future and that places the GOP at risk because people like Tancredo is against multiculturalism. Or maybe he wants to continue the Southern Strategy..which is why he supported the notion of literacy tests.
He need to get a clue. The world is changing and politics is not about Democrat or Republican per se. It's global. For him to not understand that tells me a lot about his character. And urban conservatives must dismiss him and keep him in the 20th century.
Politics can be a trap and a blessing if you know how to work it to a community's advantage. I personally do not participate in tea parties because that is not my calling. However, for those who do participate in it just be aware of the things that are being said.
Finally, as urban conservatives, we have our own platforms that we must go by not get caught up with other madness.
Our tea party = financial literacy.
Our method of change = Silver Rights on both a micro and macro level.
Our 21st century school districts = Charter schools.
Our educational choices = Vouchers and homeschooling.
Our economic empowerment zone = Educational empowerment zones.
Our higher educational models = Any university but we stress the importance of redirecting our HBCUs in the 21st century.
Our scholarship = The up and coming urban conservatives who have dedicated themselves to change the direction of our community.
Our Heroes = Booker T. Washington, Madame C.J. Walker, Marcus Garvey and Ralph Bunche and men like Brandon Brice, Dr. Timothy Johnson and Richard Ivory.
Our Sheroes = Madame CJ Walker, Mary McCleod Bethune, Alveda King, and women like Michelle Bernard, Shay Riley, Tiffany Shorter, Vanessa Jean Louis and Shirley Husar.
Our financial market = the Diaspora.
Our politics = Both domestic and global.
Our economic model = A relationship between government, business and technology. A model where we can establish our own credit rating system, our own debit card system and our own economic processing where we can make capitalism work for those in poverty.
Our focus = Freedom.
Our solution to social problems in our community = Creating a counterculture.
Our solutions to health insurance = Non-Profits with a working relationship with government and private business.
Our solution to family problems - Faith Based/non profit communities.
And if we had a literacy test it would be rooted in education to help young people read better not turning back the clock to Dixie in 1960.
Celebrate our own accomplishments and leave Congressman Tom Tancredo in 1960.
Now Tancredo was the guy who ran for President in 2008 on one issue immigration. As a paleoconservative, I can only imagine that he wants to keep America White..at least that is my guess. However, it was his remarks at the Tea Party Convention that made me shake my head.
First, look at the video here.
http://www.youtube.com/wat
Tancredo told the audience that the country had elected “a committed socialist ideologue in the White House” because “we do not have a civics, literary test before people can vote in this country."
Interesting. Tancredo tried to clean it up by saying this afterwards:
"I do think they should have to know something about how the government works.” He suggested using the citizenship test that immigrants take — maybe, he said, voters could take it "verbally.”
And even Judson Phillips, one of the organizers for the Tea Party Convention, said Tancredo's speech was "fantastic."
Please look at his remarks on video:
http://www.youtube.com/wat
To tell you the truth there was nothing fantastic about Tancredo’s remarks because they were offensive. For years, literacy tests were used across the South to disenfranchise African-American voters, who generally had illiteracy rates 4-5 times as high as whites due to historical discrimination and lack of opportunity. Unfortunately for Tancredo, the 1965 Voting Rights Act makes literacy tests illegal.
Even if I did attend the convention I would have never came back. You cannot be that reckless in your words and think people are going to support you. It's impossible.
Civic education is important but conducting a literacy test is NOT the answer. Urban conservatives push for civic education from K-12 instead of 9th or 10th grade. Civic education should also be available for adult education courses and should be taught with a balanced approach. Conservatives make the mistake of saying how liberal education is without presenting an alternative approach to education to balance out the equation. Tancredo failed to say this.
But then again, was this ever on his mind to begin with?
What is even more embarrassing is the number of Black Republicans who are silent on this issue. How come we have to be silent when Pat Robertson or Tom Tancredo make ridiculous statements with a lack of scholarship but when Harry Reid made his comments Black Republicans were ALL over him? Did we miss the memo? Both Reid and Tancredo are in the bed together and have no intentions of helping Americans. One is a Moron..I mean Mormon who comes from the period where Mormons thought Blacks were cursed and the other is anti-immigrant. Jesus, I cannot imagine what Tancredo thinks of Africans and Caribbean people in this country who are hard working citizens.
My point is if Black Republicans are going to point out the error of Sen. Reid then how come we have not said anything about Tancredo? Are you afraid to get your GOP pass revoked? Please, you better speak up against racism when you hear and see it. This is not the time to be afraid. The comments were disrespectful and silly. Literacy tests? This is the 21st century not Dixie in 1960. You cannot call yourself a freedom fighter when you allow such nonsense to continue in our party. To be this silent shows that we will allow anything to fly past our head. But if Obama, Reid or Pelosi said the same thing I can hear Black Republicans coming out of the woodwork like roaches saying how racist the Democratic Party is and etc. Kill the rhetoric and get on with the business of solutions not getting caught up on plantation politics. Here is a newsflash for you. There is racism in BOTH parties. So it does not matter if you call yourself a Black Democrat or Black Republican both parties are archaic in their thinking, keep people thinking in a box and keep people fighting against each other while we have serious issues to tackle in our community.
Tancredo also mentioned about the cult of multiculturalism. Did I miss something? Perhaps he was sleepwalking when he said this.
The latest breakdown of the Republican Party is this:
95% of the GOP are White.
2% of Blacks are Republican.
5% of Hispanics are Republican.
I can understand why Tancredo is hellbent on immigration not because of Mexicans taking jobs from Americans but because Hispanics in general will be the top population in the near future and that places the GOP at risk because people like Tancredo is against multiculturalism. Or maybe he wants to continue the Southern Strategy..which is why he supported the notion of literacy tests.
He need to get a clue. The world is changing and politics is not about Democrat or Republican per se. It's global. For him to not understand that tells me a lot about his character. And urban conservatives must dismiss him and keep him in the 20th century.
Politics can be a trap and a blessing if you know how to work it to a community's advantage. I personally do not participate in tea parties because that is not my calling. However, for those who do participate in it just be aware of the things that are being said.
Finally, as urban conservatives, we have our own platforms that we must go by not get caught up with other madness.
Our tea party = financial literacy.
Our method of change = Silver Rights on both a micro and macro level.
Our 21st century school districts = Charter schools.
Our educational choices = Vouchers and homeschooling.
Our economic empowerment zone = Educational empowerment zones.
Our higher educational models = Any university but we stress the importance of redirecting our HBCUs in the 21st century.
Our scholarship = The up and coming urban conservatives who have dedicated themselves to change the direction of our community.
Our Heroes = Booker T. Washington, Madame C.J. Walker, Marcus Garvey and Ralph Bunche and men like Brandon Brice, Dr. Timothy Johnson and Richard Ivory.
Our Sheroes = Madame CJ Walker, Mary McCleod Bethune, Alveda King, and women like Michelle Bernard, Shay Riley, Tiffany Shorter, Vanessa Jean Louis and Shirley Husar.
Our financial market = the Diaspora.
Our politics = Both domestic and global.
Our economic model = A relationship between government, business and technology. A model where we can establish our own credit rating system, our own debit card system and our own economic processing where we can make capitalism work for those in poverty.
Our focus = Freedom.
Our solution to social problems in our community = Creating a counterculture.
Our solutions to health insurance = Non-Profits with a working relationship with government and private business.
Our solution to family problems - Faith Based/non profit communities.
And if we had a literacy test it would be rooted in education to help young people read better not turning back the clock to Dixie in 1960.
Celebrate our own accomplishments and leave Congressman Tom Tancredo in 1960.
Gov. Granholm Falls Short on Educational Metrics in Her State of the State Address
As promised to other urban conservatives across the state who listened to Gov. Jennifer Granholm's State of the State address we are looking at how education will tie into Michigan's urban infrastructure for the next 10-20 years. Granholm talked about education and I do agree with her that it is a pressing issue for our residents in our state. However, I did not hear any specifics on how education can be used as a tool for urban redevelopment.
Let me give you an example. We stress a lot about technical jobs here in Michigan. However, we do not stress about urban and regional planning. When you look at the racial makeup of urban and regional planning positions most of them are White and they are planning for urban redevelopment in predominately Black areas. Now, I am not saying this in terms of a conspiracy theory (the White folks are taking over Detroit crap) but you cannot rebuild an infrastructure of a city without a balance of ideas and skill sets that include the people that live there. They know the landscape better than those who just graduated with their degrees in urban and regional planning and have never lived in any urban area in Michigan. It's easy for urban people to invest in education but they too should be part of the growing process in the very city where they pay taxes. In order to do this people in the inner city MUST have the motivation and drive to do this without anyone holding their hand.
Now maybe its not Gov.Granholm's job to stress the need for more urban planners to help develop new centers such as Muskegon and Benton Harbor but it is our responsibility to promote new job ideas and growth as well. Urban conservatives must take the lead on this.
Education is the #1 issue in Michigan and the United States. Gov. Granholm and the Michigan Legislature must put aside their petty differences and begin discussing the development of an educational empowerment zone. This zone can help benefit Michigan's major cities as part of a strategy to re-establish the competitive advantage of the inner city. A combination of traditional, charter schools, and an expanded education voucher available to low-wealth families, these zones could lead revitalizing efforts by enticing middle-income families with children back into the inner city.
For example, the City of Flint can be used as a general framework and assess the potential
impacts of implementing educational empowerment zones. Transforming a city like Flint into an educational empowerment zone would improve the prospects for revitalization in several ways.
Specifically, the zone could:
a) Create high-quality education opportunities for all Flint children.
b) Add 7,000 children to Flint’s private schools.
c) Free local tax dollars to increase per pupil spending in conventional public schools.
d) Result in more kids attending small schools that improve student learning.
Increasing the availability of high-quality education opportunities in Flint's increases the attractiveness of living in Flint. Expanding Flint’s educational choice program is likely to:
a) Move nearly 10,000 working-and-middle class families to the city.
b) Integrate Flint economically as the number of working-and-middle-class families living in Flint grows.
c) Stabilize neighborhoods as families can access better schools without moving.
d) Increase housing values as more families build new homes or renovate older housing in the city.
Education ties in with urban redevelopment because when people purchase a more expensive home in a urban community, however, they are not only purchasing a home, but they are also purchasing the government services that go with that home. As residents’ incomes rise they not only want more housing, they want better government services. For many home shoppers, the number-one government service they care about is the quality of the local public schools.
This is important because Gov. Granholm has not been able to stop the brain drain even with the bells and whistles of the Promise scholarship.
We, as urban conservatives, should not fret because the Promise Scholarships were cut. This is where we need to learn how to convert our consumer dollars into productivity. The urban community generates more income than most, however, our dollars are used in the least productive manner. We owe our children a good education and we should not always rely on state government to bail us out. Instead, we should develop public-private partnership and allow government to become our partners instead of our parents. These public-private partnerships can provide these Promise Scholarships for our children instead of relying on state government and allowing these scholarships become a target of political nonsense.
An smaller educational empowerment zone that we can duplicate here in urban areas in Michigan is one similar to the Harlem Children's Zone. This zone targets poverty-stricken children and families living in Harlem, providing free support for the children and families in the form of parenting workshops, a pre-school program, three public charter schools, and child-oriented health programs for thousands of children and families.
If Michigan is serious about transforming the direction of education and eradicating intergenerational poverty then we need to establish some serious fundamentals to make K-16 education competitive.
This includes building learning partnerships between businesses and schools to develop in-demand job skills and talents, expanding mentoring and internship opportunities as well as emphasizing opportunities and training for college-bound and non college-bound students.
We would also encourage businesses to partner with school districts to develop an entrepreneurial curriculum to show students that they are not just coming to school to work for someone else but eventually become their own vision through entrepreneurship.
Building an educational empowerment zone also includes treating the arts and culture as both educational and economic development assets. This will lead to improving core infrastructure as well as linking university research and development with entrepreneurs.
We have to engage our citizens by making them feel that they can be agents of change in their communities and regions.
To best attract and retain job providers and talent, Michigan must invest in and protect those assets which differentiate it from other places—our quality of life, work ethic and pioneering history, business innovation and technology, education and health systems, natural resources, urban centers, and the diversity of our people and communities.
Unfortunately, Gov. Granholm fell short on educational metrics tonight in her message. However, out of the GOP candidates who are running for Governor only Attorney General Mike Cox gives a detail of his urban and educational plan (even though his team should expand his urban plan). GOP candidate Rick Synder gives a "white paper" on his plan for education. I would like to hear further hear both Cox and Synder discuss how education can connect with urban redevelopment in a 21st century framework. Cox is open about lifting the cap off charter schools while Synder has not taken a position on the issue.
Meanwhile, Congressman Hokstra and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard do not have a plan for education or urban redevelopment. State Senator Tom George is pushing his redevelopment authority as a part of his educational connection to urban redevelopment in places like Detroit.
Urban conservatives are not going to just support a candidate because of party affiliation. We are serious about our platforms, our policy positions and want results not the same old 30 year talking points to help revitalize urban areas in Michigan.
Maybe its time to run urban conservatives for office in Michigan. Let's recruit some to actually FIX Michigan.
Let me give you an example. We stress a lot about technical jobs here in Michigan. However, we do not stress about urban and regional planning. When you look at the racial makeup of urban and regional planning positions most of them are White and they are planning for urban redevelopment in predominately Black areas. Now, I am not saying this in terms of a conspiracy theory (the White folks are taking over Detroit crap) but you cannot rebuild an infrastructure of a city without a balance of ideas and skill sets that include the people that live there. They know the landscape better than those who just graduated with their degrees in urban and regional planning and have never lived in any urban area in Michigan. It's easy for urban people to invest in education but they too should be part of the growing process in the very city where they pay taxes. In order to do this people in the inner city MUST have the motivation and drive to do this without anyone holding their hand.
Now maybe its not Gov.Granholm's job to stress the need for more urban planners to help develop new centers such as Muskegon and Benton Harbor but it is our responsibility to promote new job ideas and growth as well. Urban conservatives must take the lead on this.
Education is the #1 issue in Michigan and the United States. Gov. Granholm and the Michigan Legislature must put aside their petty differences and begin discussing the development of an educational empowerment zone. This zone can help benefit Michigan's major cities as part of a strategy to re-establish the competitive advantage of the inner city. A combination of traditional, charter schools, and an expanded education voucher available to low-wealth families, these zones could lead revitalizing efforts by enticing middle-income families with children back into the inner city.
For example, the City of Flint can be used as a general framework and assess the potential
impacts of implementing educational empowerment zones. Transforming a city like Flint into an educational empowerment zone would improve the prospects for revitalization in several ways.
Specifically, the zone could:
a) Create high-quality education opportunities for all Flint children.
b) Add 7,000 children to Flint’s private schools.
c) Free local tax dollars to increase per pupil spending in conventional public schools.
d) Result in more kids attending small schools that improve student learning.
Increasing the availability of high-quality education opportunities in Flint's increases the attractiveness of living in Flint. Expanding Flint’s educational choice program is likely to:
a) Move nearly 10,000 working-and-middle class families to the city.
b) Integrate Flint economically as the number of working-and-middle-class families living in Flint grows.
c) Stabilize neighborhoods as families can access better schools without moving.
d) Increase housing values as more families build new homes or renovate older housing in the city.
Education ties in with urban redevelopment because when people purchase a more expensive home in a urban community, however, they are not only purchasing a home, but they are also purchasing the government services that go with that home. As residents’ incomes rise they not only want more housing, they want better government services. For many home shoppers, the number-one government service they care about is the quality of the local public schools.
This is important because Gov. Granholm has not been able to stop the brain drain even with the bells and whistles of the Promise scholarship.
We, as urban conservatives, should not fret because the Promise Scholarships were cut. This is where we need to learn how to convert our consumer dollars into productivity. The urban community generates more income than most, however, our dollars are used in the least productive manner. We owe our children a good education and we should not always rely on state government to bail us out. Instead, we should develop public-private partnership and allow government to become our partners instead of our parents. These public-private partnerships can provide these Promise Scholarships for our children instead of relying on state government and allowing these scholarships become a target of political nonsense.
An smaller educational empowerment zone that we can duplicate here in urban areas in Michigan is one similar to the Harlem Children's Zone. This zone targets poverty-stricken children and families living in Harlem, providing free support for the children and families in the form of parenting workshops, a pre-school program, three public charter schools, and child-oriented health programs for thousands of children and families.
If Michigan is serious about transforming the direction of education and eradicating intergenerational poverty then we need to establish some serious fundamentals to make K-16 education competitive.
This includes building learning partnerships between businesses and schools to develop in-demand job skills and talents, expanding mentoring and internship opportunities as well as emphasizing opportunities and training for college-bound and non college-bound students.
We would also encourage businesses to partner with school districts to develop an entrepreneurial curriculum to show students that they are not just coming to school to work for someone else but eventually become their own vision through entrepreneurship.
Building an educational empowerment zone also includes treating the arts and culture as both educational and economic development assets. This will lead to improving core infrastructure as well as linking university research and development with entrepreneurs.
We have to engage our citizens by making them feel that they can be agents of change in their communities and regions.
To best attract and retain job providers and talent, Michigan must invest in and protect those assets which differentiate it from other places—our quality of life, work ethic and pioneering history, business innovation and technology, education and health systems, natural resources, urban centers, and the diversity of our people and communities.
Unfortunately, Gov. Granholm fell short on educational metrics tonight in her message. However, out of the GOP candidates who are running for Governor only Attorney General Mike Cox gives a detail of his urban and educational plan (even though his team should expand his urban plan). GOP candidate Rick Synder gives a "white paper" on his plan for education. I would like to hear further hear both Cox and Synder discuss how education can connect with urban redevelopment in a 21st century framework. Cox is open about lifting the cap off charter schools while Synder has not taken a position on the issue.
Meanwhile, Congressman Hokstra and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard do not have a plan for education or urban redevelopment. State Senator Tom George is pushing his redevelopment authority as a part of his educational connection to urban redevelopment in places like Detroit.
Urban conservatives are not going to just support a candidate because of party affiliation. We are serious about our platforms, our policy positions and want results not the same old 30 year talking points to help revitalize urban areas in Michigan.
Maybe its time to run urban conservatives for office in Michigan. Let's recruit some to actually FIX Michigan.
The Other War on Poverty: How The Vietnam War Destroyed The Black Family In the 1960s
Black conservatives always discuss how President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty ripped the Black community into half by utilizing destructive welfare programs. These welfare programs help divide the Black family up. However, one thing that is never discussed from any conservatives is the effect of the Vietnam War and how that helped destroy Black families.
I find it extremely weird how I have heard Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and other White and Black conservatives bring up all the negative aspects of the Great Society Programs but managed to skip the effects of Black families during the Vietnam War. Therefore, I will discuss the effects of the war from an urban conservative perspective.
In his essay The War on Poverty Revisited economist Dr. Thomas Sowell, who makes his point on the War on Poverty:
"In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated into new slums. Many of these projects later had to be demolished. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind those projects were not demolished, but live on in other disastrous programs, such as Section 8 housing. Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed. The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the "root causes" of crime and creating new "rights" for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed. The Black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life."
While Dr. Sowell's analysis is direct on both the negative socialization and economic effects of the Great Society Programs one thing he never points out in his analysis is the Vietnam War and its destructive effects on the Black family. The Vietnam War split our homes up because of Black men being drafted into the War where many were being killed in Vietnam. As a result, many women were widowed and left to raise their children as single parents.
What many in this generation do not understand is how The Vietnam War saw the highest proportion of Blacks ever to serve in an American war. During the height of the U.S. involvement, from 1965-69, Blacks, who formed 11% of the American population at that time, made up 13% of the soldiers in Vietnam. The majority of these were in the infantry, and although authorities differ on the figures, the percentage of Black combat fatalities in that period was a staggering 15%.
Our Civil Rights leaders and other critics, including the formidable Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., described the Vietnam conflict as racist—"a White man's war, a Black man's fight." King maintained that Black youths represented a disproportionate share of early draftees and that Blacks faced a much greater chance of seeing combat.
Draft boards themselves were, by their very nature, divisive and discriminatory. For example, in 1967 no Black Americans were present on the boards in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Jack Helms, a member of the Louisiana draft board, was a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan. He described the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as “a communist-inspired, anti-Christ, sex-perverted group of tennis short beatniks."
While Selective Service regulations offered deferments for college attendance and a variety of essential civilian occupations that favored middle- and upper- class whites the vast majority of draftees were poor, undereducated, and urban—blue-collar workers or unemployed. This reality struck hard in the Black community.
Therefore, President Johnson launched a Great Society Program called Project 100,000. This project attempted to enhance the opportunities of underprivileged youths from poverty-stricken urban areas by offering more lenient military entrance requirements. Although more than 350,000 men enlisted under Project 100,000 during the remainder of the war, 41 percent were African American and 40 percent drew combat assignments.
Some felt in the Black community that the U.S. government were using the Vietnam War as a form of genocide against Blacks and their families by drafting young Black men into a war they fully did not understand. Money was being pumped into Vietnam instead of poor Black communities in America. Although Black represented only 11% of the U.S. population they accounted for almost 20 percent of all combat-related deaths in Vietnam during that period. Over 58,000 lost their lives in the conflict. Black families were destroyed through this effect.
In 1965 alone African Americans represented almost one-fourth of the Army's killed in action. In 1968 African Americans, who made up roughly 12 percent of Army and Marine total strengths, frequently contributed half the men in front-line combat units, especially in rifle squads and fire teams.
Black soldiers were drafted into war and went off to fight because some believed they were protecting their country. Other Black soldiers were avoiding prison so they had no choice but to go. It was quite sometime before word leaked back to the soldiers that the U.S. made a mistake by being in this war. Some Black soldiers were angry, while others had to stick with the old "blood and guts of war belief" because if they faltered in their beliefs then the whole war was for not and loss of many American soldiers would also be for not.
Today, anyone will tell you how the Vietnam War was a political and racial mess. It also help divide our familes in ways unimaginable. It's easy for Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and other Black conservatives to discuss how the Democrats destroyed the Black community with the War on Poverty. I saw a program with Glenn Beck on recently with a group of Black conservatives on there discussing Martin Luther King's legacy. How come these same Black conservatives did not point out how Dr. King voiced his concerns and charged the U.S. Government with being “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world" and urged dissenting Blacks to seek the status of conscientious objectors (to the Vietnam War).
And how come Glenn Beck did not point out how after Martin Luther King’s assassination White soldiers applauded his murder. Racist graffiti, cross burnings and Ku Klux Klan material were tolerated on some bases. Young African-American recruits were confronted with the symbol most associated with historical racist oppression, the Confederate flag, daubed on army machinery including tanks, jeeps and even helicopters. Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, the same time President Richard Nixon campaigned on "states rights" in the Southern Strategy which saw a number of Democrats crossing over to the Republican Party.
The American Government also knew full well that Agent Orange and Agent White would cause many problems, and had absolutely no problem involving their own soldiers when these two chemicals were dispersed. Agent Orange was called "The Red Rain" by the Vietnamese. This affected Black soldiers greatly and many died as a result of both Agent Organe and Agent White which also contributed to destroying the Black family.
Meanwhile, Colin Powell began his military career in Vietnam, rising through the ranks to become General. Indeed, since Vietnam many African-Americans have been promoted to the highest ranks of the U.S Army. Therefore, a positive legacy was left for the new generation of black servicemen, but at a cost: 40% of Black veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress, compared with 20% of White veterans. Again, this post-traumatic stress was hard and explosive for Black families. Add the drug trade of heroin into the community and we had a systematic problem. Again, Black conservatives are silent on these issues that affected our community.
In terms of employment Blacks suffered after returning from combat in Vietnam unforgiving working conditions, particularly in the North. Manufacturing firms were relocating southward because of cheaper land, lower taxes, and lower union membership. This placed a strain on the family component and forced some of these families to get on welfare or sell drugs which often led to incarceration or death. Again, the Black family in shambles.
Not only were there great horrors of the Vietnam War and many casualties, Black soldiers had to face the fact often that they were beginning to disbelieve in the war which made it difficult for them. Some soldiers did more than one tour of duty because they knew nothing else and knew going home would be difficult for them. Besides being psychologically confused by all the horrors of a confusing war, they also got word that some of the very people back in the U.S., were calling them so-called "baby killers."
When Black soldiers came home they were met with opposition from their own community and even had some people spitting at them. They were shocked, bewildered and saddened. Not only did many Black men come back with loss of limbs, blind, but also spiritually and mentally broken. Some managed to find jobs, while others had an extremely difficult time adjusting to civilian life. There are still Vietnam Vets in the urban community who suffer from terrible nightmares and find it difficult to function in civilian life.
So while mainstream conservatives will point out consistently about how the Democrats War on Poverty destroyed Black families Black Republicans cannot remain silent on how the Vietnam War also destroyed Black families as well. This is a history that we must continue to explain to this generation. To omit this discussion from young Black conservatives is considered dishonest. We need to tell ourstory as urban conservatives to those who we are trying to free mentally and not fall for the talking points.
I find it extremely weird how I have heard Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and other White and Black conservatives bring up all the negative aspects of the Great Society Programs but managed to skip the effects of Black families during the Vietnam War. Therefore, I will discuss the effects of the war from an urban conservative perspective.
In his essay The War on Poverty Revisited economist Dr. Thomas Sowell, who makes his point on the War on Poverty:
"In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated into new slums. Many of these projects later had to be demolished. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind those projects were not demolished, but live on in other disastrous programs, such as Section 8 housing. Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed. The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the "root causes" of crime and creating new "rights" for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed. The Black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life."
While Dr. Sowell's analysis is direct on both the negative socialization and economic effects of the Great Society Programs one thing he never points out in his analysis is the Vietnam War and its destructive effects on the Black family. The Vietnam War split our homes up because of Black men being drafted into the War where many were being killed in Vietnam. As a result, many women were widowed and left to raise their children as single parents.
What many in this generation do not understand is how The Vietnam War saw the highest proportion of Blacks ever to serve in an American war. During the height of the U.S. involvement, from 1965-69, Blacks, who formed 11% of the American population at that time, made up 13% of the soldiers in Vietnam. The majority of these were in the infantry, and although authorities differ on the figures, the percentage of Black combat fatalities in that period was a staggering 15%.
Our Civil Rights leaders and other critics, including the formidable Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., described the Vietnam conflict as racist—"a White man's war, a Black man's fight." King maintained that Black youths represented a disproportionate share of early draftees and that Blacks faced a much greater chance of seeing combat.
Draft boards themselves were, by their very nature, divisive and discriminatory. For example, in 1967 no Black Americans were present on the boards in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Jack Helms, a member of the Louisiana draft board, was a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan. He described the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as “a communist-inspired, anti-Christ, sex-perverted group of tennis short beatniks."
While Selective Service regulations offered deferments for college attendance and a variety of essential civilian occupations that favored middle- and upper- class whites the vast majority of draftees were poor, undereducated, and urban—blue-collar workers or unemployed. This reality struck hard in the Black community.
Therefore, President Johnson launched a Great Society Program called Project 100,000. This project attempted to enhance the opportunities of underprivileged youths from poverty-stricken urban areas by offering more lenient military entrance requirements. Although more than 350,000 men enlisted under Project 100,000 during the remainder of the war, 41 percent were African American and 40 percent drew combat assignments.
Some felt in the Black community that the U.S. government were using the Vietnam War as a form of genocide against Blacks and their families by drafting young Black men into a war they fully did not understand. Money was being pumped into Vietnam instead of poor Black communities in America. Although Black represented only 11% of the U.S. population they accounted for almost 20 percent of all combat-related deaths in Vietnam during that period. Over 58,000 lost their lives in the conflict. Black families were destroyed through this effect.
In 1965 alone African Americans represented almost one-fourth of the Army's killed in action. In 1968 African Americans, who made up roughly 12 percent of Army and Marine total strengths, frequently contributed half the men in front-line combat units, especially in rifle squads and fire teams.
Black soldiers were drafted into war and went off to fight because some believed they were protecting their country. Other Black soldiers were avoiding prison so they had no choice but to go. It was quite sometime before word leaked back to the soldiers that the U.S. made a mistake by being in this war. Some Black soldiers were angry, while others had to stick with the old "blood and guts of war belief" because if they faltered in their beliefs then the whole war was for not and loss of many American soldiers would also be for not.
Today, anyone will tell you how the Vietnam War was a political and racial mess. It also help divide our familes in ways unimaginable. It's easy for Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and other Black conservatives to discuss how the Democrats destroyed the Black community with the War on Poverty. I saw a program with Glenn Beck on recently with a group of Black conservatives on there discussing Martin Luther King's legacy. How come these same Black conservatives did not point out how Dr. King voiced his concerns and charged the U.S. Government with being “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world" and urged dissenting Blacks to seek the status of conscientious objectors (to the Vietnam War).
And how come Glenn Beck did not point out how after Martin Luther King’s assassination White soldiers applauded his murder. Racist graffiti, cross burnings and Ku Klux Klan material were tolerated on some bases. Young African-American recruits were confronted with the symbol most associated with historical racist oppression, the Confederate flag, daubed on army machinery including tanks, jeeps and even helicopters. Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, the same time President Richard Nixon campaigned on "states rights" in the Southern Strategy which saw a number of Democrats crossing over to the Republican Party.
The American Government also knew full well that Agent Orange and Agent White would cause many problems, and had absolutely no problem involving their own soldiers when these two chemicals were dispersed. Agent Orange was called "The Red Rain" by the Vietnamese. This affected Black soldiers greatly and many died as a result of both Agent Organe and Agent White which also contributed to destroying the Black family.
Meanwhile, Colin Powell began his military career in Vietnam, rising through the ranks to become General. Indeed, since Vietnam many African-Americans have been promoted to the highest ranks of the U.S Army. Therefore, a positive legacy was left for the new generation of black servicemen, but at a cost: 40% of Black veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress, compared with 20% of White veterans. Again, this post-traumatic stress was hard and explosive for Black families. Add the drug trade of heroin into the community and we had a systematic problem. Again, Black conservatives are silent on these issues that affected our community.
In terms of employment Blacks suffered after returning from combat in Vietnam unforgiving working conditions, particularly in the North. Manufacturing firms were relocating southward because of cheaper land, lower taxes, and lower union membership. This placed a strain on the family component and forced some of these families to get on welfare or sell drugs which often led to incarceration or death. Again, the Black family in shambles.
Not only were there great horrors of the Vietnam War and many casualties, Black soldiers had to face the fact often that they were beginning to disbelieve in the war which made it difficult for them. Some soldiers did more than one tour of duty because they knew nothing else and knew going home would be difficult for them. Besides being psychologically confused by all the horrors of a confusing war, they also got word that some of the very people back in the U.S., were calling them so-called "baby killers."
When Black soldiers came home they were met with opposition from their own community and even had some people spitting at them. They were shocked, bewildered and saddened. Not only did many Black men come back with loss of limbs, blind, but also spiritually and mentally broken. Some managed to find jobs, while others had an extremely difficult time adjusting to civilian life. There are still Vietnam Vets in the urban community who suffer from terrible nightmares and find it difficult to function in civilian life.
So while mainstream conservatives will point out consistently about how the Democrats War on Poverty destroyed Black families Black Republicans cannot remain silent on how the Vietnam War also destroyed Black families as well. This is a history that we must continue to explain to this generation. To omit this discussion from young Black conservatives is considered dishonest. We need to tell ourstory as urban conservatives to those who we are trying to free mentally and not fall for the talking points.
The Future of Michigan: Vision, Purpose and Strategy
I often teach our up and coming urban conservatives how we need to always keep our foundation as conservatives intact. This includes one's understanding of marriage, family, spiritual values, financial values and culture. However, in a 21st century framework our methods and strategies must be executed differently. Our vision must me higher than what it is already.
I have also stated often how urban areas in Michigan are emerging markets waiting to be born. This includes places like Detroit, Saginaw, Muskegon, Benton Harbor and Pontiac. People here in Michigan has written off these urban communities as Democratic strongholds. Of course they are Democratic strongholds because most conservatives gave up the ghost and moved to the suburbs.
But these same urban communities can be re-created with innovation in a silver rights framework and perspective. Presently, most of our urban leadership in urban communities in Michigan are using an outdated civil rights framework that is working AGAINST the interests of the people instead of working FOR the people.
Innovation can only come from real education. Its our responsibility to eradicate poverty through education. Then we must connect our vision with strategies that will create legacies.
In the 21st century we, as urban conservatives, must begin to think out the box. The old policies of leadership is gone. We are living in a global society. Therefore, our way of thinking must be elevated.
Our vision includes how we are going to deal with the food shortages in the coming years domestically. Food shortages are happening globally as we speak. Therefore, we know that the world is entering a new food era. It will be marked by higher food prices, rapidly growing numbers of hungry people, and an intensifying competition for land and water resources that crosses both national and international boundaries when food-importing countries buy or lease vast tracts of land in other countries. Because some of the countries where land is being acquired do not have enough land to adequately feed their own people, the stage is being set for future conflicts.
How do you solve this problem?
Another thing to look at is how researchers have developed an artificial-intelligence program that could help reduce invasive diagnostic testing on patients suspected of having cardiac infections. The software is an artificial neural network that responds to unique situations based on accumulated knowledge, just as doctors do.
The program underwent three separate trainings to learn how to evaluate symptoms of endocarditis--infection of the heart's valves and chambers. Diagnosis typically involves an invasive and risky procedure, with a probe inserted into the patient's esophagus.
The program was tested retrospectively on known cases, and made correct diagnoses "most of the time," with 99% confidence levels.
If we could build that technology right here in Detroit it would help revitalize both the education, the economics and diversity of the city.
What about the City if Kalamazoo developing a portable, ultrasensitive virus detector could perceive a virus within just five minutes, using samples of an individual's saliva, blood, or other body fluid. Currently, this device is being developed at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, contains an array of receptors such as antibodies that will bind to microorganisms in the sample, thus creating a detectable interference pattern, like a fingerprint.
The ability to detect viruses almost instantly in clinics or other places without access to laboratories and trained personnel could be a boon to preventing future epidemics. The device can also detect bacteria, proteins, and DNA molecules. The university's spin-off company, Ostendum, plans to introduce the first detector to market in late 2010.
How come Kalamazoo cannot manufacture such technology and generate revenue?
How about Grand Rapids and Pontiac be part of the race for biomedical and genetic enhancement? Humanity is ready to pursue biomedical and genetic enhancements, says UCLA professor Gregory Stock. The money is already being invested, but, he says, "We'll also fret about these things-because we're human, and it's what we do.
To bring this level of knowledge into urban communities in Michigan would put our economy back on track.
Let's not forget about Saginaw, who could lead in the design economy technology of the future that will allow people to download and print their own products, including auto parts, jewelry, and even the kitchen sink. Rapid prototyping, or 3-D printing, and devices like the RepRap self-reproducing printer are allowing people to design, customize, and print objects from their home computers. In the future, cheaper versions of these devices could disrupt manufacturing business models, resulting in far cheaper products individually tailored to every customer’s desire.
Again, a vision for Michigan takes innovation to place it on the global balance sheet.
Will places like Detroit Diesel flip over to making ammonia as a fuel? Ammonia may become the fuel of choice for cars by 2020. As a candidate source for hydrogen used in fuel cells, ammonia (comprising one nitrogen and three hydrogen atoms) is plentiful, easier to liquefy than methane, and emits nitrogen rather than carbon, thus having fewer negative impacts on the climate.
And while Michigan is tapping into the green market how about making algae the new oil? According to researchers at a Department of Energy plant in New Mexico, single-celled microalgae, grown in pond water, produce a biofuel that is lead-free and biodegradable, emits two-thirds less carbon dioxide and other pollutants than gasoline, and can run any modern diesel engine. Even better, algae require only a fraction of the land area of biofuel-producing crops. Building a plant that convert algae into oil can be built right off the shore of Benton Harbor.
The State of Michigan must begin to utilize its resources and brain power to become an emerging market through our urban core centers. This is critical as China will most likely become the world's largest economy within 15 years. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace believes China's economy will surpass that of the United States by 2035 but I say this will happen sooner than later. There are debates about whether India's economic development will ultimately surpass China's, but it is clear that Asia's economies are growing. Overall, workers in Asia are becoming more skilled and educated.
With the The United States headed for a "demographic singularity."at a pace of change so fast that the American identity as we know it will be irreversibly altered where do the American politics fit into this category? By 2015 minorities will make up 40% of the U.S. population and will begin to alter politics as a whole.
Urban conservatives must begin to think global as well as domestic. Our skills are needed globally. For example, electrification has expanded around the world, from 40% connected in 1970 to 73% in 2000, and may reach 83% of the world's people by 2030. Electricity is fundamental to raising living standards and access to the world's products and services. Impoverished areas such as sub-Saharan Africa still have low rates of electrification; Uganda is just 3.7% electrified.
Now how come Ypsilanti is not leading in this effort to create power grid technology since Willow Run Airport is part of the Aerotropolis?
Recently, MIT researchers have created a system of floor blocks that generate power when the blocks rub against one another as people walk over them. A crowd of 30,000 moving to and fro could create enough power to run a small electrical system or perhaps bring a subway train safely to a platform in the event of a blackout.
How come the City of Detroit is not using its brain power to duplicate such technology here?
Urban conservatives have been discussing bringing an Michigan State University Experiment Station to Southeast Michigan for years as well as taking the urban agriculture discussion higher such as buying houses and turning them into greenhouses for experimentation. This is real urban agriculture that will result in addressing food shortages, as well as improving vegetation and developing cost effective models that will help develop better agricultural technology both domestically and internationally. Revenue can be generated from such projects right here in Detroit.
What about the city of Inkster leading the way for developing televisions in 3-D. Mathematicians in Finland have produced a blueprint for instruments that would project floating 3-D images by means of nanomaterials that bend light around objects. How about allowing students in 9-12 from Inkster High School and Wayne County Community College to work on technology like this to create a way for the future.
Urban Michigan also must be prepared for mass migration. This level of migration will redistribute the world’s population. There are about 80 million international migrant workers in the world today, and the widespread movement of people from poor countries to richer ones is exacerbating social and economic problems in the host regions. Immigrant workers who perform poorly become a strain on social security systems, while those who do well often divert their financial resources back to their home countries, creating resentment among their new neighbors. Michigan will need to have a system in place to help balance the financial health of the state with a new influx of migrants settling to work and live here in the next 20 years.
Urban Michigan must also become a new hub for education globally. Studies show how more students will migrate for their education. The number of students who will journey abroad to take college courses will triple from 2 million to 6 million a year by 2020. Those students who cannot afford to physically travel to other countries will increasingly look toward online educational opportunities. Demand for transnational education delivered online, via satellite, or though videoconferencing systems will outstrip demand for onshore learning by 6% before 2020.
Meanwhile, urban school districts will build classrooms with no walls, no clocks, and no age segregation. More and more high-school students are leaving the classroom in favor of age-diverse workshops and seminars that focus on their specific interests. Additionally, the traditional 9-to-3 school day will fade as more students learn to take advantage of real-time technology and the availability of distance education to schedule their “class” sessions on their own terms.
Instant messaging and e-mail will bring kids to the head of the class. Cell phones and personal digital assistants might be considered distractions to some teachers, but in one trial at Kansas State University, such devices helped some students become more actively engaged with teachers and classmates. In digitally enhanced classrooms, instructors will be able to give real-time quizzes and get instant feedback so they can adjust their lesson plans.
We have a choice as urban conservatives. Either we can use our foundation to create a new reality or we can stay here and be morally and educationally bankrupt with outdated methods of training, learning and executing our vision in a 21st century framework.
All we need are visionaries who are serious about making Michigan a global emerging market. To constantly lie and talk about politics when nothing will get done is a waste of time and resources. Its time to start electing people who have a 21st century vision and plan. Its time to HIRE people who are global minded and understand the affects of education on a world wide scale.
I have also stated often how urban areas in Michigan are emerging markets waiting to be born. This includes places like Detroit, Saginaw, Muskegon, Benton Harbor and Pontiac. People here in Michigan has written off these urban communities as Democratic strongholds. Of course they are Democratic strongholds because most conservatives gave up the ghost and moved to the suburbs.
But these same urban communities can be re-created with innovation in a silver rights framework and perspective. Presently, most of our urban leadership in urban communities in Michigan are using an outdated civil rights framework that is working AGAINST the interests of the people instead of working FOR the people.
Innovation can only come from real education. Its our responsibility to eradicate poverty through education. Then we must connect our vision with strategies that will create legacies.
In the 21st century we, as urban conservatives, must begin to think out the box. The old policies of leadership is gone. We are living in a global society. Therefore, our way of thinking must be elevated.
Our vision includes how we are going to deal with the food shortages in the coming years domestically. Food shortages are happening globally as we speak. Therefore, we know that the world is entering a new food era. It will be marked by higher food prices, rapidly growing numbers of hungry people, and an intensifying competition for land and water resources that crosses both national and international boundaries when food-importing countries buy or lease vast tracts of land in other countries. Because some of the countries where land is being acquired do not have enough land to adequately feed their own people, the stage is being set for future conflicts.
How do you solve this problem?
Another thing to look at is how researchers have developed an artificial-intelligence program that could help reduce invasive diagnostic testing on patients suspected of having cardiac infections. The software is an artificial neural network that responds to unique situations based on accumulated knowledge, just as doctors do.
The program underwent three separate trainings to learn how to evaluate symptoms of endocarditis--infection of the heart's valves and chambers. Diagnosis typically involves an invasive and risky procedure, with a probe inserted into the patient's esophagus.
The program was tested retrospectively on known cases, and made correct diagnoses "most of the time," with 99% confidence levels.
If we could build that technology right here in Detroit it would help revitalize both the education, the economics and diversity of the city.
What about the City if Kalamazoo developing a portable, ultrasensitive virus detector could perceive a virus within just five minutes, using samples of an individual's saliva, blood, or other body fluid. Currently, this device is being developed at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, contains an array of receptors such as antibodies that will bind to microorganisms in the sample, thus creating a detectable interference pattern, like a fingerprint.
The ability to detect viruses almost instantly in clinics or other places without access to laboratories and trained personnel could be a boon to preventing future epidemics. The device can also detect bacteria, proteins, and DNA molecules. The university's spin-off company, Ostendum, plans to introduce the first detector to market in late 2010.
How come Kalamazoo cannot manufacture such technology and generate revenue?
How about Grand Rapids and Pontiac be part of the race for biomedical and genetic enhancement? Humanity is ready to pursue biomedical and genetic enhancements, says UCLA professor Gregory Stock. The money is already being invested, but, he says, "We'll also fret about these things-because we're human, and it's what we do.
To bring this level of knowledge into urban communities in Michigan would put our economy back on track.
Let's not forget about Saginaw, who could lead in the design economy technology of the future that will allow people to download and print their own products, including auto parts, jewelry, and even the kitchen sink. Rapid prototyping, or 3-D printing, and devices like the RepRap self-reproducing printer are allowing people to design, customize, and print objects from their home computers. In the future, cheaper versions of these devices could disrupt manufacturing business models, resulting in far cheaper products individually tailored to every customer’s desire.
Again, a vision for Michigan takes innovation to place it on the global balance sheet.
Will places like Detroit Diesel flip over to making ammonia as a fuel? Ammonia may become the fuel of choice for cars by 2020. As a candidate source for hydrogen used in fuel cells, ammonia (comprising one nitrogen and three hydrogen atoms) is plentiful, easier to liquefy than methane, and emits nitrogen rather than carbon, thus having fewer negative impacts on the climate.
And while Michigan is tapping into the green market how about making algae the new oil? According to researchers at a Department of Energy plant in New Mexico, single-celled microalgae, grown in pond water, produce a biofuel that is lead-free and biodegradable, emits two-thirds less carbon dioxide and other pollutants than gasoline, and can run any modern diesel engine. Even better, algae require only a fraction of the land area of biofuel-producing crops. Building a plant that convert algae into oil can be built right off the shore of Benton Harbor.
The State of Michigan must begin to utilize its resources and brain power to become an emerging market through our urban core centers. This is critical as China will most likely become the world's largest economy within 15 years. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace believes China's economy will surpass that of the United States by 2035 but I say this will happen sooner than later. There are debates about whether India's economic development will ultimately surpass China's, but it is clear that Asia's economies are growing. Overall, workers in Asia are becoming more skilled and educated.
With the The United States headed for a "demographic singularity."at a pace of change so fast that the American identity as we know it will be irreversibly altered where do the American politics fit into this category? By 2015 minorities will make up 40% of the U.S. population and will begin to alter politics as a whole.
Urban conservatives must begin to think global as well as domestic. Our skills are needed globally. For example, electrification has expanded around the world, from 40% connected in 1970 to 73% in 2000, and may reach 83% of the world's people by 2030. Electricity is fundamental to raising living standards and access to the world's products and services. Impoverished areas such as sub-Saharan Africa still have low rates of electrification; Uganda is just 3.7% electrified.
Now how come Ypsilanti is not leading in this effort to create power grid technology since Willow Run Airport is part of the Aerotropolis?
Recently, MIT researchers have created a system of floor blocks that generate power when the blocks rub against one another as people walk over them. A crowd of 30,000 moving to and fro could create enough power to run a small electrical system or perhaps bring a subway train safely to a platform in the event of a blackout.
How come the City of Detroit is not using its brain power to duplicate such technology here?
Urban conservatives have been discussing bringing an Michigan State University Experiment Station to Southeast Michigan for years as well as taking the urban agriculture discussion higher such as buying houses and turning them into greenhouses for experimentation. This is real urban agriculture that will result in addressing food shortages, as well as improving vegetation and developing cost effective models that will help develop better agricultural technology both domestically and internationally. Revenue can be generated from such projects right here in Detroit.
What about the city of Inkster leading the way for developing televisions in 3-D. Mathematicians in Finland have produced a blueprint for instruments that would project floating 3-D images by means of nanomaterials that bend light around objects. How about allowing students in 9-12 from Inkster High School and Wayne County Community College to work on technology like this to create a way for the future.
Urban Michigan also must be prepared for mass migration. This level of migration will redistribute the world’s population. There are about 80 million international migrant workers in the world today, and the widespread movement of people from poor countries to richer ones is exacerbating social and economic problems in the host regions. Immigrant workers who perform poorly become a strain on social security systems, while those who do well often divert their financial resources back to their home countries, creating resentment among their new neighbors. Michigan will need to have a system in place to help balance the financial health of the state with a new influx of migrants settling to work and live here in the next 20 years.
Urban Michigan must also become a new hub for education globally. Studies show how more students will migrate for their education. The number of students who will journey abroad to take college courses will triple from 2 million to 6 million a year by 2020. Those students who cannot afford to physically travel to other countries will increasingly look toward online educational opportunities. Demand for transnational education delivered online, via satellite, or though videoconferencing systems will outstrip demand for onshore learning by 6% before 2020.
Meanwhile, urban school districts will build classrooms with no walls, no clocks, and no age segregation. More and more high-school students are leaving the classroom in favor of age-diverse workshops and seminars that focus on their specific interests. Additionally, the traditional 9-to-3 school day will fade as more students learn to take advantage of real-time technology and the availability of distance education to schedule their “class” sessions on their own terms.
Instant messaging and e-mail will bring kids to the head of the class. Cell phones and personal digital assistants might be considered distractions to some teachers, but in one trial at Kansas State University, such devices helped some students become more actively engaged with teachers and classmates. In digitally enhanced classrooms, instructors will be able to give real-time quizzes and get instant feedback so they can adjust their lesson plans.
We have a choice as urban conservatives. Either we can use our foundation to create a new reality or we can stay here and be morally and educationally bankrupt with outdated methods of training, learning and executing our vision in a 21st century framework.
All we need are visionaries who are serious about making Michigan a global emerging market. To constantly lie and talk about politics when nothing will get done is a waste of time and resources. Its time to start electing people who have a 21st century vision and plan. Its time to HIRE people who are global minded and understand the affects of education on a world wide scale.
The War on Illiteracy Has Begun in Detroit Public Schools and the Urban Community
Twenty years ago, the “Nation at Risk” report declared that illiteracy and poor literacy skills are pervasive in this country. They also found that remedial courses are required for a significant number of freshmen entering our colleges. Many of those issues have not been addressed twenty years later by parents, local public school officials, governmental, business and community leaders.
Especially in urban communities.
Black America is in serious trouble economically, and many Black people are living in “deep poverty.” Black people in America are not just poor by American standards; many of us are third-world poor.
To know the future of Black America in 15 to 20 years, one need only look at the dismal academic performance of 3rd- and 4th- grade Black students today. When it comes to reading, as a group, without the ability to read well, no future exists for Black children in America. The real tragedy is that Black American students are no longer just competing against White American students. They are competing academically against the best and the brightest students globally. And Black students are failing miserably.
This failure exists after six years of No Child Left Behind, 53 years of Brown versus the Topeka Board of Education, and 142 years of being technically removed from slavery. If Black children cannot read today, they cannot become the Black doctors, nurses, lawyers, engineers, bankers, accountants, technologists, business people or educators of tomorrow who will make Black communities successful. If Black children cannot read today, they are really no better off than their forefathers who were slaves.
This is why I was grateful to see this past Saturday 3000 parents, educators, community activists from across Metro Detroit signed up for the new Detroit Public School Reading Corps at Renaissance High School.
The Call to Action comes on the heels of recent test scores that showed Detroit schoolchildren ranked the lowest in the nation of participants on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math test.
In terms of performance levels in the fourth grade in Detroit on the math test, 69 percent of students scored at a below basic level. In terms of performance levels in the eighth grade in Detroit, 77 percent were below basic.
This is a ground breaking opportunity for us to raise up a new generation of literate students who will not only be able to read but to actually use critical thinking skills to change the direction of the city.
In America we can see how,
(a) Reading skill is the single greatest predictor of future academic success. (National Assessment of Educational Progress)
(b) 40 percent of America's children have difficulty learning to read. (National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, 2008)
c) Early Identification of poor readers is critical. More than 90% can attain average reading levels through programs that combine phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency development and reading comprehension strategies, provided by well-trained teachers. If intervention is delayed until age nine, 75% of children will continue to have difficulty learning to read. (National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, 2008)
(d) People in the US who are illiterate represent 75% of the unemployed; a third of mothers receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children; 85% of juveniles who appear in court and 60% of prison inmates. (Straight Talk About Reading, 2008)
It's more crucial with your young Black because only 20% of them graduate from high school in Detroit. This must change as well.
Literacy on ALL levels are crucial. Education must be the #1 issue in America in 2010. I STILL cannot understand how so many Americans are not taking education seriously. Instead, we are so focused on the economy that we often forget that we need FINANCIAL EDUCATION to solve the problem. I stress this to ALL urban conservatives that education is the #1 issue facing America.
In other words financial literacy. However, you cannot solve an economic crisis if you have an astronomical dropout rate.
According to The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts, a recent study published by Civic Enterprises that shared the perspectives of high school dropouts, approximately one-third of all children, and 50% of minorities in public schools, drop out of high school nationwide. In many of the nation’s “dropout factories,” the percentage of dropouts far outpaces the percentage of graduates.
This is not good for 21st century , and it is an economic death sentence if not changed for urban communities nationwide, or almost 100 million Americans. Can we afford to write-off almost 100 million Americans, or approximately a third of our nation’s population?
Even as Black people earn more money in the United States, the wealth gap between Blacks and Whites grows dramatically. The indices that catalogue the misery in the Black community--poor and useless educational preparation, mass unemployment, low-quality housing stock, disintegrating communities, and failing families--are rising.
Black families cannot wait for the any government to save us. Annually, Black Americans generate close to $1 Trillion within the American economy. However, a 2008 report by the Target Market Group shows that we don’t use our dollars wisely to improve our plight in America. For example, in 2007, we had collective purchases that included $22 billion for clothes, $10.7 billion for furniture, $28.7 billion for cars, $14 billion for phone service, $3.7 billion for consumer electronics (not computers) and 2.3 billion on alcoholic beverages. Unfortunately, the only area where we showed restraint in our spending was on books where we spent only $257 million, down from $303 million in 2002. We spent more on our finger nails and our hair, $6.3 billion on personal care, than on books and reading materials.
So we have to make education and academics sexy again, and we most begin to better show the aspirational relevancy of education to our young people, if we ever expect to meaningfully kick the high school dropout and illiteracy craze.
The DPS reading corps is extremely important because we have another shot to get it done right with our children. With this level of mentoring we are able to increase not just new reading and writing skills to our children but also give them a sense of purpose and direction. This is extremely important at such a crucial time where there is an all out assault on education in our community.
(a) We have to teach our children to get as much education as you can. Higher levels of academic and technical education readily translate into better employment, higher income, and more wealth. Education begins with you teaching your children to read well. The new hierarchy of human needs is air, water, food, and education. Without education, our children might as well be dead.
(b) Invest your money and your time in your skills, your knowledge base, and your self-improvement -- not in cars, clothes, furniture, frivolous electronics, sports, games, the lottery, etc. Second, learn how to let big companies work for you rather than you only working for them through stock ownership. And third, invest your money in the U.S. and global stock markets. The world is much bigger than just the United States.
(c) Two-person headed households are more viable economically than one-person headed households. Marriage can be an economic advantage when both parties are aligned on financial priorities and fiscal realities. Sixty-two to sixty-five percent of Black children are born into single-parent households and begin life trying to climb out of poverty. Most of them never make it.
(d) Start your own business. Few people acquired wealth working for someone else. By starting your own business, you can hire family, friends, and community members. Additionally, you build the economy of your community. Finally, you will also be able to pass on a successful business as a family inheritance to your children and grandchildren.
(e) Create a Will to pass on your accumulated wealth to the next generation. Studies suggest as much as 70% of most households’ current wealth was inherited from a previous generation.
Our children are not exposed to this type of knowledge on a day to day basis.
In addition, financial literacy should be mandatory for every child in school , but particularly low-wealth young people who may lack proper role models. You cannot live in the largest economy in the world and not teach young people the basic language of money, let alone the rules of capitalism and free enterprise. You are setting your child up for economic slavery and disaster.
However, the problem does not start with the children. We have a serious adult illiteracy problem that is not being addressed either. A major reason why Detroit and the United States are having trouble competing globally is because of adult illiteracy.
Currently, the United States ranks tenth out of seventeen industrialized nations in literacy proficiency ratings (reading, writing and math). There are 44 million adults (23%) in the United States who are functionally illiterate and are rated at a level one, the lowest of five levels of literacy proficiencies. Additionally, there are 50 million adults (25% - 28%) who are at the second level.
Furthermore, sixty percent (60%) of the unemployed in the United States lack the basic literacy proficiency skills necessary to be trained for high tech jobs. Also, the United States has one of the highest high school dropout rates in the industrialized world. The national high school drop out rate is at twenty nine percent (29%) and rising. There is no sense of urgency to these problems. These problems need national attention because they have a direct effect on our nation’s ability to compete in the global economy.
One quarter of White high school student dropout of school. For Blacks and Latinos, the dropout rate is fifty percent. The dropout rates are stagnant, essentially for whites, and skyrocketing for blacks and Hispanics. The gap in testing is in excess of thirty percent, whether black or Hispanic, behind white students. Furthermore, statistics show how high school dropouts have much higher rates of unemployment, become tax consumers, involvement with the criminal justice system, negative long-term health issues, welfare enrollment and poverty.
A National 2008 Report Card on High Seniors report that: 27% of High Seniors scored below in basic levels of reading and 39% of High School Seniors scored below in basic levels of math. And the United States of America ranks 17th out of 22 industrialize nations in the number of students graduating from High School. Meanwhile, a quarter of a trillion dollars a year are spent in our criminal justice system on prisons, justice, covering damages and loss GNP.
In Michigan, eighteen percent (18%) of adults, nearly one in five, are functionally illiterate. An extraordinary number of Michigan young adults continue to head to adulthood without a high school diploma or GED credentials. Fifty five percent (55%) of citizens in the Detroit Metropolitan area alone need adult education and training programs because they lack a high school or GED credentials.
This includes the number of many parents and adults in our community who are failing to recognize that Detroit is now locked in global competition with all industrialized nations on this globe, and that their attitude towards literacy proficiency and education will impact how well we are able to compete in the global economy.
In fact, parents' low educational expectations of their children are driving low educational achievement for them, which is making it tough for our country to compete economically in the global economy.
Powerful evidence indicates that the problem of poor literacy skills begin not in the schools, but at home, due to the intergenerational cycle of illiteracy. Poor academic achievement and dropping out before completing school are commonplace among children of parents who are functionally illiterate or have poor literacy skills.
For example, I often hear Democrats accusing Republicans of dropping the ball on Hurricane Katrina back in August 2005. But here is something that both parties will not tell you.
(1) One reason why many people decided to stay in New Orleans was that August 29th was one day prior to the day they would receive their next check. For folks living paycheck to paycheck, missing that next check would have been a disaster for them and their families, they thought. They figured they could ride out "just another storm," get their check and then make decisions they could afford.
(2) In the nearly all-black Ninth Ward (of New Orleans), more than a third of residents live below the poverty level. They ended up below water as well.
(3) Before Hurricane Katrina, 26% of New Orleans residents were below the poverty line, and 50,000 didn't have cars. The average income was just over $17,000 per capita.
(4) The money FEMA gave out wasted because people did not have bank accounts to wire the money electronically.
These are some points you will not hear in a debate on Hurricane Katrina.
The crippling consequences of illiteracy, the intergenerational cycle of illiteracy, and poor literacy skills are: breeding a lifetime of self-doubt, disappointments and a sense of worthlessness, hopelessness and alienation; producing anger, poor self-image, loss of dignity and an imbedded belief of that their future has little promise. Additionally, the consequences hinder communication among family, friends and people that one must interact with just to co-exist in today’s society. They prevent one from being able to read a newspaper, write checks or a letter on their own. Parents are prevented from being able to read to their children, and read and comprehend written instructions.
Keep in mind that Haiti has a literacy rate of 45%. Detroit literacy's rate is similar to Haiti's and there is no way in the world we can become competitive in the global market if we cannot increase our literacy rate.
Just as the Emergency Financial Manager of the Detroit Public Schools Robert Bobb has called for the DPS Reading Corps to emerge from the community we also need to engage our adults in the same movement for increasing their literacy skills. The better the literacy skills the faster we can reduce poverty.
Even though the energy of the DPS reading Corps was electric Saturday the main thing I want to stress is being COMMITTED to the program. That means we have to be consistent, driven and dedicated to our worthy cause. It's important that we prove other people wrong in terms of changing the direction of the Detroit Public Schools and our children in general. We have so many forces that are working against the Detroit Public Schools it is not funny. We have people who do not want our children to succeed and would like to keep our children on a 21st century illiteracy plantation. To allow us to keep voting by name recognition in every election hoping for change when we know change is not coming.
It's time to lift the fog off our eyes and pay attention to the crisis at hand. This is not a gender, race or class issue. This is not about Democrats or Republicans because we have both supporting the DPS Reading Corps. So please don't make this a political issue. Political illiteracy in our communities equates to mental suicide when you take one side of the political spectrum constantly without ever being objective and solution-oriented.
Literacy means freedom. Literacy equates to prosperity.Literacy means power. Literacy with comprehension, is the purest indicator of academic and economic success.
Reading well is the essential step to solving almost every problem in the Black community. Reading well is the gateway to success for Black Americans in the 21st century. The DPS Reading Corps is a start. Let's ignite the movement to increase literacy skills not just in Detroit Public Schools but in all academic institutions here in urban communities nationally.
Especially in urban communities.
Black America is in serious trouble economically, and many Black people are living in “deep poverty.” Black people in America are not just poor by American standards; many of us are third-world poor.
To know the future of Black America in 15 to 20 years, one need only look at the dismal academic performance of 3rd- and 4th- grade Black students today. When it comes to reading, as a group, without the ability to read well, no future exists for Black children in America. The real tragedy is that Black American students are no longer just competing against White American students. They are competing academically against the best and the brightest students globally. And Black students are failing miserably.
This failure exists after six years of No Child Left Behind, 53 years of Brown versus the Topeka Board of Education, and 142 years of being technically removed from slavery. If Black children cannot read today, they cannot become the Black doctors, nurses, lawyers, engineers, bankers, accountants, technologists, business people or educators of tomorrow who will make Black communities successful. If Black children cannot read today, they are really no better off than their forefathers who were slaves.
This is why I was grateful to see this past Saturday 3000 parents, educators, community activists from across Metro Detroit signed up for the new Detroit Public School Reading Corps at Renaissance High School.
The Call to Action comes on the heels of recent test scores that showed Detroit schoolchildren ranked the lowest in the nation of participants on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math test.
In terms of performance levels in the fourth grade in Detroit on the math test, 69 percent of students scored at a below basic level. In terms of performance levels in the eighth grade in Detroit, 77 percent were below basic.
This is a ground breaking opportunity for us to raise up a new generation of literate students who will not only be able to read but to actually use critical thinking skills to change the direction of the city.
In America we can see how,
(a) Reading skill is the single greatest predictor of future academic success. (National Assessment of Educational Progress)
(b) 40 percent of America's children have difficulty learning to read. (National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, 2008)
c) Early Identification of poor readers is critical. More than 90% can attain average reading levels through programs that combine phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency development and reading comprehension strategies, provided by well-trained teachers. If intervention is delayed until age nine, 75% of children will continue to have difficulty learning to read. (National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, 2008)
(d) People in the US who are illiterate represent 75% of the unemployed; a third of mothers receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children; 85% of juveniles who appear in court and 60% of prison inmates. (Straight Talk About Reading, 2008)
It's more crucial with your young Black because only 20% of them graduate from high school in Detroit. This must change as well.
Literacy on ALL levels are crucial. Education must be the #1 issue in America in 2010. I STILL cannot understand how so many Americans are not taking education seriously. Instead, we are so focused on the economy that we often forget that we need FINANCIAL EDUCATION to solve the problem. I stress this to ALL urban conservatives that education is the #1 issue facing America.
In other words financial literacy. However, you cannot solve an economic crisis if you have an astronomical dropout rate.
According to The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts, a recent study published by Civic Enterprises that shared the perspectives of high school dropouts, approximately one-third of all children, and 50% of minorities in public schools, drop out of high school nationwide. In many of the nation’s “dropout factories,” the percentage of dropouts far outpaces the percentage of graduates.
This is not good for 21st century , and it is an economic death sentence if not changed for urban communities nationwide, or almost 100 million Americans. Can we afford to write-off almost 100 million Americans, or approximately a third of our nation’s population?
Even as Black people earn more money in the United States, the wealth gap between Blacks and Whites grows dramatically. The indices that catalogue the misery in the Black community--poor and useless educational preparation, mass unemployment, low-quality housing stock, disintegrating communities, and failing families--are rising.
Black families cannot wait for the any government to save us. Annually, Black Americans generate close to $1 Trillion within the American economy. However, a 2008 report by the Target Market Group shows that we don’t use our dollars wisely to improve our plight in America. For example, in 2007, we had collective purchases that included $22 billion for clothes, $10.7 billion for furniture, $28.7 billion for cars, $14 billion for phone service, $3.7 billion for consumer electronics (not computers) and 2.3 billion on alcoholic beverages. Unfortunately, the only area where we showed restraint in our spending was on books where we spent only $257 million, down from $303 million in 2002. We spent more on our finger nails and our hair, $6.3 billion on personal care, than on books and reading materials.
So we have to make education and academics sexy again, and we most begin to better show the aspirational relevancy of education to our young people, if we ever expect to meaningfully kick the high school dropout and illiteracy craze.
The DPS reading corps is extremely important because we have another shot to get it done right with our children. With this level of mentoring we are able to increase not just new reading and writing skills to our children but also give them a sense of purpose and direction. This is extremely important at such a crucial time where there is an all out assault on education in our community.
(a) We have to teach our children to get as much education as you can. Higher levels of academic and technical education readily translate into better employment, higher income, and more wealth. Education begins with you teaching your children to read well. The new hierarchy of human needs is air, water, food, and education. Without education, our children might as well be dead.
(b) Invest your money and your time in your skills, your knowledge base, and your self-improvement -- not in cars, clothes, furniture, frivolous electronics, sports, games, the lottery, etc. Second, learn how to let big companies work for you rather than you only working for them through stock ownership. And third, invest your money in the U.S. and global stock markets. The world is much bigger than just the United States.
(c) Two-person headed households are more viable economically than one-person headed households. Marriage can be an economic advantage when both parties are aligned on financial priorities and fiscal realities. Sixty-two to sixty-five percent of Black children are born into single-parent households and begin life trying to climb out of poverty. Most of them never make it.
(d) Start your own business. Few people acquired wealth working for someone else. By starting your own business, you can hire family, friends, and community members. Additionally, you build the economy of your community. Finally, you will also be able to pass on a successful business as a family inheritance to your children and grandchildren.
(e) Create a Will to pass on your accumulated wealth to the next generation. Studies suggest as much as 70% of most households’ current wealth was inherited from a previous generation.
Our children are not exposed to this type of knowledge on a day to day basis.
In addition, financial literacy should be mandatory for every child in school , but particularly low-wealth young people who may lack proper role models. You cannot live in the largest economy in the world and not teach young people the basic language of money, let alone the rules of capitalism and free enterprise. You are setting your child up for economic slavery and disaster.
However, the problem does not start with the children. We have a serious adult illiteracy problem that is not being addressed either. A major reason why Detroit and the United States are having trouble competing globally is because of adult illiteracy.
Currently, the United States ranks tenth out of seventeen industrialized nations in literacy proficiency ratings (reading, writing and math). There are 44 million adults (23%) in the United States who are functionally illiterate and are rated at a level one, the lowest of five levels of literacy proficiencies. Additionally, there are 50 million adults (25% - 28%) who are at the second level.
Furthermore, sixty percent (60%) of the unemployed in the United States lack the basic literacy proficiency skills necessary to be trained for high tech jobs. Also, the United States has one of the highest high school dropout rates in the industrialized world. The national high school drop out rate is at twenty nine percent (29%) and rising. There is no sense of urgency to these problems. These problems need national attention because they have a direct effect on our nation’s ability to compete in the global economy.
One quarter of White high school student dropout of school. For Blacks and Latinos, the dropout rate is fifty percent. The dropout rates are stagnant, essentially for whites, and skyrocketing for blacks and Hispanics. The gap in testing is in excess of thirty percent, whether black or Hispanic, behind white students. Furthermore, statistics show how high school dropouts have much higher rates of unemployment, become tax consumers, involvement with the criminal justice system, negative long-term health issues, welfare enrollment and poverty.
A National 2008 Report Card on High Seniors report that: 27% of High Seniors scored below in basic levels of reading and 39% of High School Seniors scored below in basic levels of math. And the United States of America ranks 17th out of 22 industrialize nations in the number of students graduating from High School. Meanwhile, a quarter of a trillion dollars a year are spent in our criminal justice system on prisons, justice, covering damages and loss GNP.
In Michigan, eighteen percent (18%) of adults, nearly one in five, are functionally illiterate. An extraordinary number of Michigan young adults continue to head to adulthood without a high school diploma or GED credentials. Fifty five percent (55%) of citizens in the Detroit Metropolitan area alone need adult education and training programs because they lack a high school or GED credentials.
This includes the number of many parents and adults in our community who are failing to recognize that Detroit is now locked in global competition with all industrialized nations on this globe, and that their attitude towards literacy proficiency and education will impact how well we are able to compete in the global economy.
In fact, parents' low educational expectations of their children are driving low educational achievement for them, which is making it tough for our country to compete economically in the global economy.
Powerful evidence indicates that the problem of poor literacy skills begin not in the schools, but at home, due to the intergenerational cycle of illiteracy. Poor academic achievement and dropping out before completing school are commonplace among children of parents who are functionally illiterate or have poor literacy skills.
For example, I often hear Democrats accusing Republicans of dropping the ball on Hurricane Katrina back in August 2005. But here is something that both parties will not tell you.
(1) One reason why many people decided to stay in New Orleans was that August 29th was one day prior to the day they would receive their next check. For folks living paycheck to paycheck, missing that next check would have been a disaster for them and their families, they thought. They figured they could ride out "just another storm," get their check and then make decisions they could afford.
(2) In the nearly all-black Ninth Ward (of New Orleans), more than a third of residents live below the poverty level. They ended up below water as well.
(3) Before Hurricane Katrina, 26% of New Orleans residents were below the poverty line, and 50,000 didn't have cars. The average income was just over $17,000 per capita.
(4) The money FEMA gave out wasted because people did not have bank accounts to wire the money electronically.
These are some points you will not hear in a debate on Hurricane Katrina.
The crippling consequences of illiteracy, the intergenerational cycle of illiteracy, and poor literacy skills are: breeding a lifetime of self-doubt, disappointments and a sense of worthlessness, hopelessness and alienation; producing anger, poor self-image, loss of dignity and an imbedded belief of that their future has little promise. Additionally, the consequences hinder communication among family, friends and people that one must interact with just to co-exist in today’s society. They prevent one from being able to read a newspaper, write checks or a letter on their own. Parents are prevented from being able to read to their children, and read and comprehend written instructions.
Keep in mind that Haiti has a literacy rate of 45%. Detroit literacy's rate is similar to Haiti's and there is no way in the world we can become competitive in the global market if we cannot increase our literacy rate.
Just as the Emergency Financial Manager of the Detroit Public Schools Robert Bobb has called for the DPS Reading Corps to emerge from the community we also need to engage our adults in the same movement for increasing their literacy skills. The better the literacy skills the faster we can reduce poverty.
Even though the energy of the DPS reading Corps was electric Saturday the main thing I want to stress is being COMMITTED to the program. That means we have to be consistent, driven and dedicated to our worthy cause. It's important that we prove other people wrong in terms of changing the direction of the Detroit Public Schools and our children in general. We have so many forces that are working against the Detroit Public Schools it is not funny. We have people who do not want our children to succeed and would like to keep our children on a 21st century illiteracy plantation. To allow us to keep voting by name recognition in every election hoping for change when we know change is not coming.
It's time to lift the fog off our eyes and pay attention to the crisis at hand. This is not a gender, race or class issue. This is not about Democrats or Republicans because we have both supporting the DPS Reading Corps. So please don't make this a political issue. Political illiteracy in our communities equates to mental suicide when you take one side of the political spectrum constantly without ever being objective and solution-oriented.
Literacy means freedom. Literacy equates to prosperity.Literacy means power. Literacy with comprehension, is the purest indicator of academic and economic success.
Reading well is the essential step to solving almost every problem in the Black community. Reading well is the gateway to success for Black Americans in the 21st century. The DPS Reading Corps is a start. Let's ignite the movement to increase literacy skills not just in Detroit Public Schools but in all academic institutions here in urban communities nationally.
The Role of the College of Education in the 21st Century
Recently, there has been some discussion on the article entitled, Black Education, by Dr. Walter E. Williams, an economist from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virgina. While I respect Dr. Williams work in economics and have done so for years and will continue to respect his work there were some points he brought out that I felt was more politically motivated as opposed to solution oriented. Unfortunately, conservatives and libertarians who I have been discussing educational issues with have brought this article to my attention on several occasions and have been using this as a backlash against the education of children here in the City of Detroit.
Before I continue please read his article here:
http://townhall.com/column
Now allow me to set the record straight.
I have lived in Detroit all but 10 years of my life. As an urban conservative who has done many works in the field of education for years I find it disturbing that we live in a society where we continue to fail our children. Education, as I have always said, is the #1 issue on our agenda because it gives us a foundation for us to build.
I am not, nor never will, make any excuses for the Detroit Public Schools because they have embarrassed us as a community. I am also embarrassed of the recent test scores that were administered to our fourth graders by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). It's criminal for us to continue in this manner.
But my problem with Dr. Williams assessment of Detroit schools was the fact he said it was because we keep asking for more money for the schools. Civil rights leaders ask for more money while silver rights activists asks for accountability and integrity in the public school system. We are asking for Detroit Public Schools to post their check registers to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy's website to show where the dollars are being spent.
Dr. Williams also took a cheap shot at mentoring:
"What about role models? Standard psychobabble asserts a positive relationship between the race of teachers and administrators and student performance. That's nonsense."
It is reported that boys receive up to 70 percent of the Ds and Fs given to all students, and create 90 percent of all classroom discipline problems. According to a Schott Foundation report, "Given Half a Chance," some alarming educational trends involve young black male students. Their 2005/2006 national graduation rate was 47 percent. That means that most black male students did not graduate with their cohort.
These startling school-related statistics, coupled with the increasing number of children growing up without fathers, are creating a permanent underclass. This underclass can be measured by studying the escalating rates of community violence, economic isolation, poverty and substance abuse.
In cities like Detroit, father absence has hit Black communities hard. It is decimating our communities and we have garnered no adequate response to it. This reality highlights the need for communities to engage in projects that make black men better fathers, better husbands and better community leaders.
Here is my question to Dr. Williams. What should these children do without mentors? The psychobabble is coming from people who stand on the sidelines and do nothing. He failed to even mention how Black owned and operated faith-based and non profit organizations, in the Black community, mentor students who project positive measurable outcomes.
Dr. Williams also failed to expound in his article on how Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has called for the development of a reading corps. The Detroit Free Press, in partnership with Detroit Public Schools,has called for citizens to volunteer 100,000 hours collectively to tutor reading in DPS schools. People and organizations have stepped up to the plate in hopes of trying to change the tide of education in the City of Detroit.
However, the biggest concern that stood out in the article was this:
"Another issue deemed too delicate to discuss is the overall quality of people teaching our children. Students who have chosen education as their major have the lowest SAT scores of any other major. Students who have an education degree earn lower scores than any other major on graduate school admission tests such as the GRE, MCAT or LSAT. Schools of education, either graduate or undergraduate, represent the academic slums of most any university. They are home to the least able students and professors. Schools of education should be shut down."
This has become the libertarian cry when it comes to education. Just in the past week I have been engaged in heated debate over the role of the College of Education on university campuses. 95% of the mainstream conservatives and libertarians who I have encountered have used this statement from Dr. Williams. But what they all fail to realize is that teachers are not in the classroom to babysit the children. This is the parents responsibility to promote positive habits and norms BEFORE they get into the classroom.
The United States, Canada, The United Kingdom and other countries have a College of Education. This is nothing new. But Dr. Williams in his article said get rid of them.
The College of Education is important because they are certain core elements that are helpful in aiding educators.these elements include teacher education, curriculum, and instruction. Another element is educational administration. As the main institution for the training of principals and superintendents, there is a focus on the administration of schools and school districts. A final element of interest is education policy and reform. Many graduates of schools of education become involved in education policy.
At the same time some of these schools have some serious flaws such as the lack of training potential teachers to deal with hostile environments. Student teaching does not prepare you for such environments 100% because where you may student teach is in the suburbs you may well end up in the worst school district in the state.
But to say they should be eliminated is not only reckless but dishonest. I would have rather for Dr. Williams to say the College of Education on university campuses should be reformed rather then eliminated.
Let's take a look at what some of these College of Education have produced over the years.
(1) The Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) is a non-profit organization that targets poverty-stricken children and families living in Harlem, providing free support for the children and families in the form of parenting workshops, a pre-school program, three public charter schools, and child-oriented health programs for thousands of children and families. The Zone is aimed at doing nothing less than breaking the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and families it serves.
Its President and CEO is a man named Geoffrey Canada. Mr. Canada holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College and a Master's degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Hmm...an educational degree? I thought educational degrees were useless.
(2) When teachers Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg completed their Teach For America commitment and launched a program for fifth graders in a public school in inner-city Houston, Texas. That program today is called KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program). KIPP is a nationwide network of free open-enrollment college-preparatory public schools in under-resourced communities throughout the United States. KIPP schools are usually established under state charter school laws and KIPP is America’s largest charter chain.
More than 95% of KIPP students are African American or Latino / Hispanic.
The Texas Education Agency has recognized KIPP Academy Houston as an "Exemplary School" for almost every year of its existence. According to the New York City Department of Education, KIPP Academy New York is the highest performing public middle school in the Bronx. KIPP alumni have earned over $21 million in scholarships for college-preparatory high schools and are continuing to excel in four-year colleges and universities.
By the way, Dave Levin got his B.A. in History from Yale University (with distinction). Mike Fienberg graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, in 1991 with a degree in international relations. What can you do with a history and international relations degree? Many things. The core thing was how BOTH went through Teach for America to launch their dream and ambition of helping low-wealth students.
(3) There is a Black Republican named Rod Paige, who was the 7th Secretary of Education in the United States. Paige is the son of public school educators. He earned a bachelor's degree from Jackson State University in Mississippi and a Master's degree and a Doctor of Physical Education degree from Indiana University Bloomington.
Hmm...an educational degree?
As a trustee and an officer of the Board of Education of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) from 1989 to 1994, Paige coauthored the board's A Declaration of Beliefs and Visions, a statement of purpose and goals for the school district that called for fundamental reform through decentralization, a focus on instruction, accountability at all levels, and development of a core curriculum. A Declaration of Beliefs and Visions was the catalyst that launched the ongoing, comprehensive restructuring of HISD.
And an educational degree does not mean anything?
(4) Deborah McGriff will forever be my favorite Detroit Public Schools Superintendent. McGriff was overseeing reforms as far back as the 90s. McGirff was named by Crain’s Detroit Business newsmaker of the year for 1992.She is currently president of the Education Industry Association, the leading professional association of professional providers of education services.
She has a bachelor’s degree in education with a minor in history from Norfolk State University, a master’s degree in education, with a specialization in ready pedagogy from Queens College of the City University of New York, and a doctorate in administration, policy, and urban education from Fordham University
Education degrees from a College of Education? A waste of time?
(5) Howard Fuller is the former Superintendent of the Milwaukee Public Schools. Dr. Fuller was an early African-American advocate for vouchers and choice as an urban reform strategy. During Fuller’s tenure as the superintendent of the Milwaukee Public School District (1991-1995), the city started the first publicly- funded school voucher program in the nation. This program grew from 350 voucher students in seven private schools in 1990 to 15,000 in 110 private schools by 2006.
Dr. Fuller also co-founded the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO). BAEO's goals are to increase access to high-quality educational options for Black children by actively supporting parental choice policies and programs that empower low-income and working-class Black families.
Again, did Dr. Fuller waste his time earning his educational credentials?
There are others who have given to improving education including Wendy Kopp and Michelle Rhee. Kopp founded Teach for America and Rhee founded the New Teacher Project, a non-profit organization which works with needy school districts to recruit and train new teachers. In ten years, the New Teacher Project has expanded to forty programs in twenty states and recruited more than 10,000 teachers. Rhee is currently the Chancellor of the Washington D.C. Public Schools...the same school district that Dr. Williams criticize but fail to recognize Chancellor Rhee's effort of turning things around.
Think about the number of school districts across the United States who hire educators from the College of Education at various universities to teach in the school districts and perform well. Blacks are not exempt from this process. As many educators I know personally, who turn out the grade, create and publish curriculums, and have changed the tide of education.
As much as I criticize Detroit Public Schools I also must show the positive. There is a report from the Skillman Foundation called Good Schools. This report can be found here at this website: http://www.skillman.org/go
Now, Dr. Williams is supposed to be an educator of economics as well as a researcher. How come he did not put in his article about the number of schools that are making the grade in Detroit? Sure, the NAEP showed that we have a long way to go in terms of educational output and yes, I agree that current educational policies as well as public policies have damaged the infrastructure of education in urban communities. But the liberals are not just to blame for this. We are having a hard time convincing most conservatives in business that education is a #1 issue. Both ideologies are at fault for this crisis because its easier to play politics than play solutions.
The Skillman Foundation is a private grantmaking foundation that is a charitable, tax-exempt organization. The chief aim of the Foundation's three programs is to help develop good schools and good neighborhoods for children. Within the Skillman Foundation there is a popular program called the Skillman Scholars. This is a program provides educational opportunities for academically gifted, minority scholars from Metropolitan Detroit to maximize their potential to become future leaders in society.
Not one time, Dr. Williams brought this up in his article. However, lazy ass leeches like those who are constantly bashing Black children in the City of Detroit are reading Dr. Williams's article and taking it face value without every cross examining the real issue.
Williams also did not bring up the fact that other programs such as the YES Foundation have a program called the Yes for Prep that prepares our children to compete in rigorous academic achievement.
College of Education such as Eastern Michigan University is the No. 1 producer of educators in the nation. The school received an "Exemplary" grade from the Michigan Department of Education. Eastern's Teacher-Preparation Program earned a 66 out of 70 possible points; tying EMU for third place in the state.
Michigan State University's College of Education is also high-ranked programs in elementary, educational technology, educational policy, and secondary education. Again, teachers who are actually turning out the grade.
America’s colleges of education play an important role in education but need to dramatically change how they prepare the next generation of teachers so that they are ready to prepare their future students for success in college and careers. In the next five years America’s schools will need to hire up to 200,000 first-time teachers annually and these new teachers will need the knowledge and skill set to prepare students for success in the global economy.
Most College of Education students tell me while they appreciate the knowledge they receive in the university setting some have admitted that teacher-preparation programs need to ensure that new teachers will master the content of the subjects they’ll teach and they will have well-supported field-based experiences embedded throughout their preparation programs.
This can be done with new revolutionary thinking.
While assertions made by these critics include that the typical school of education has a Left-wing political bias, favoring Socialist philosophies such as Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy the truth of the matter is conservatives have allowed liberal ideology to dominate the academic spectrum for decades. This should have never been allowed to happen but moving away from the critical need of education and allowing liberals to run rough-shot on colleges and universities show not only the lack of competition coming from conservatives but also allowing liberal though to dominate HOW classes and lessons are taught. You cannot complain about liberal education without ENGAGING in the process of ideals and thought.
This is the 21st century and while the U.S. Constitution says nothing about education, states for over two centuries states have been responsible for meeting the nation's education needs. But in a world of fierce economic competition, we can't afford to pretend that the current system is getting us where we need to go. Greater federal interference is not the answer -- but neither is a naive commitment to "states' rights." A new model -- standards set nationally, daily decisions made locally -- strikes the best balance. The reason? Education is no longer just an local issue. It's no longer a parental issue. It has become a national security problem. The lack of education has caused a breech in our intellectual capital and therefore needs to be reexamined. This is not the time to always point out the negative in Black communities when it comes to education. If Black libertarians such as Dr. Williams would like to sit at the table with us to discuss ways of improvement in terms of policy,governance and methods of instruction we are open to that in our community.
The Black community has all stars in their midst of students who can achieve higher and greater standards. When we realize that we too have a stake on the global balance sheet is when we will be able to participate in both the educational and economic markets of the world. To keep showing America how dumb Black people are is a demonstration and lack of being solution focused, as well as demonstrating a vision for urban education in the 21st century.
Before I continue please read his article here:
http://townhall.com/column
Now allow me to set the record straight.
I have lived in Detroit all but 10 years of my life. As an urban conservative who has done many works in the field of education for years I find it disturbing that we live in a society where we continue to fail our children. Education, as I have always said, is the #1 issue on our agenda because it gives us a foundation for us to build.
I am not, nor never will, make any excuses for the Detroit Public Schools because they have embarrassed us as a community. I am also embarrassed of the recent test scores that were administered to our fourth graders by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). It's criminal for us to continue in this manner.
But my problem with Dr. Williams assessment of Detroit schools was the fact he said it was because we keep asking for more money for the schools. Civil rights leaders ask for more money while silver rights activists asks for accountability and integrity in the public school system. We are asking for Detroit Public Schools to post their check registers to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy's website to show where the dollars are being spent.
Dr. Williams also took a cheap shot at mentoring:
"What about role models? Standard psychobabble asserts a positive relationship between the race of teachers and administrators and student performance. That's nonsense."
It is reported that boys receive up to 70 percent of the Ds and Fs given to all students, and create 90 percent of all classroom discipline problems. According to a Schott Foundation report, "Given Half a Chance," some alarming educational trends involve young black male students. Their 2005/2006 national graduation rate was 47 percent. That means that most black male students did not graduate with their cohort.
These startling school-related statistics, coupled with the increasing number of children growing up without fathers, are creating a permanent underclass. This underclass can be measured by studying the escalating rates of community violence, economic isolation, poverty and substance abuse.
In cities like Detroit, father absence has hit Black communities hard. It is decimating our communities and we have garnered no adequate response to it. This reality highlights the need for communities to engage in projects that make black men better fathers, better husbands and better community leaders.
Here is my question to Dr. Williams. What should these children do without mentors? The psychobabble is coming from people who stand on the sidelines and do nothing. He failed to even mention how Black owned and operated faith-based and non profit organizations, in the Black community, mentor students who project positive measurable outcomes.
Dr. Williams also failed to expound in his article on how Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has called for the development of a reading corps. The Detroit Free Press, in partnership with Detroit Public Schools,has called for citizens to volunteer 100,000 hours collectively to tutor reading in DPS schools. People and organizations have stepped up to the plate in hopes of trying to change the tide of education in the City of Detroit.
However, the biggest concern that stood out in the article was this:
"Another issue deemed too delicate to discuss is the overall quality of people teaching our children. Students who have chosen education as their major have the lowest SAT scores of any other major. Students who have an education degree earn lower scores than any other major on graduate school admission tests such as the GRE, MCAT or LSAT. Schools of education, either graduate or undergraduate, represent the academic slums of most any university. They are home to the least able students and professors. Schools of education should be shut down."
This has become the libertarian cry when it comes to education. Just in the past week I have been engaged in heated debate over the role of the College of Education on university campuses. 95% of the mainstream conservatives and libertarians who I have encountered have used this statement from Dr. Williams. But what they all fail to realize is that teachers are not in the classroom to babysit the children. This is the parents responsibility to promote positive habits and norms BEFORE they get into the classroom.
The United States, Canada, The United Kingdom and other countries have a College of Education. This is nothing new. But Dr. Williams in his article said get rid of them.
The College of Education is important because they are certain core elements that are helpful in aiding educators.these elements include teacher education, curriculum, and instruction. Another element is educational administration. As the main institution for the training of principals and superintendents, there is a focus on the administration of schools and school districts. A final element of interest is education policy and reform. Many graduates of schools of education become involved in education policy.
At the same time some of these schools have some serious flaws such as the lack of training potential teachers to deal with hostile environments. Student teaching does not prepare you for such environments 100% because where you may student teach is in the suburbs you may well end up in the worst school district in the state.
But to say they should be eliminated is not only reckless but dishonest. I would have rather for Dr. Williams to say the College of Education on university campuses should be reformed rather then eliminated.
Let's take a look at what some of these College of Education have produced over the years.
(1) The Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) is a non-profit organization that targets poverty-stricken children and families living in Harlem, providing free support for the children and families in the form of parenting workshops, a pre-school program, three public charter schools, and child-oriented health programs for thousands of children and families. The Zone is aimed at doing nothing less than breaking the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and families it serves.
Its President and CEO is a man named Geoffrey Canada. Mr. Canada holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College and a Master's degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Hmm...an educational degree? I thought educational degrees were useless.
(2) When teachers Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg completed their Teach For America commitment and launched a program for fifth graders in a public school in inner-city Houston, Texas. That program today is called KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program). KIPP is a nationwide network of free open-enrollment college-preparatory public schools in under-resourced communities throughout the United States. KIPP schools are usually established under state charter school laws and KIPP is America’s largest charter chain.
More than 95% of KIPP students are African American or Latino / Hispanic.
The Texas Education Agency has recognized KIPP Academy Houston as an "Exemplary School" for almost every year of its existence. According to the New York City Department of Education, KIPP Academy New York is the highest performing public middle school in the Bronx. KIPP alumni have earned over $21 million in scholarships for college-preparatory high schools and are continuing to excel in four-year colleges and universities.
By the way, Dave Levin got his B.A. in History from Yale University (with distinction). Mike Fienberg graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, in 1991 with a degree in international relations. What can you do with a history and international relations degree? Many things. The core thing was how BOTH went through Teach for America to launch their dream and ambition of helping low-wealth students.
(3) There is a Black Republican named Rod Paige, who was the 7th Secretary of Education in the United States. Paige is the son of public school educators. He earned a bachelor's degree from Jackson State University in Mississippi and a Master's degree and a Doctor of Physical Education degree from Indiana University Bloomington.
Hmm...an educational degree?
As a trustee and an officer of the Board of Education of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) from 1989 to 1994, Paige coauthored the board's A Declaration of Beliefs and Visions, a statement of purpose and goals for the school district that called for fundamental reform through decentralization, a focus on instruction, accountability at all levels, and development of a core curriculum. A Declaration of Beliefs and Visions was the catalyst that launched the ongoing, comprehensive restructuring of HISD.
And an educational degree does not mean anything?
(4) Deborah McGriff will forever be my favorite Detroit Public Schools Superintendent. McGriff was overseeing reforms as far back as the 90s. McGirff was named by Crain’s Detroit Business newsmaker of the year for 1992.She is currently president of the Education Industry Association, the leading professional association of professional providers of education services.
She has a bachelor’s degree in education with a minor in history from Norfolk State University, a master’s degree in education, with a specialization in ready pedagogy from Queens College of the City University of New York, and a doctorate in administration, policy, and urban education from Fordham University
Education degrees from a College of Education? A waste of time?
(5) Howard Fuller is the former Superintendent of the Milwaukee Public Schools. Dr. Fuller was an early African-American advocate for vouchers and choice as an urban reform strategy. During Fuller’s tenure as the superintendent of the Milwaukee Public School District (1991-1995), the city started the first publicly- funded school voucher program in the nation. This program grew from 350 voucher students in seven private schools in 1990 to 15,000 in 110 private schools by 2006.
Dr. Fuller also co-founded the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO). BAEO's goals are to increase access to high-quality educational options for Black children by actively supporting parental choice policies and programs that empower low-income and working-class Black families.
Again, did Dr. Fuller waste his time earning his educational credentials?
There are others who have given to improving education including Wendy Kopp and Michelle Rhee. Kopp founded Teach for America and Rhee founded the New Teacher Project, a non-profit organization which works with needy school districts to recruit and train new teachers. In ten years, the New Teacher Project has expanded to forty programs in twenty states and recruited more than 10,000 teachers. Rhee is currently the Chancellor of the Washington D.C. Public Schools...the same school district that Dr. Williams criticize but fail to recognize Chancellor Rhee's effort of turning things around.
Think about the number of school districts across the United States who hire educators from the College of Education at various universities to teach in the school districts and perform well. Blacks are not exempt from this process. As many educators I know personally, who turn out the grade, create and publish curriculums, and have changed the tide of education.
As much as I criticize Detroit Public Schools I also must show the positive. There is a report from the Skillman Foundation called Good Schools. This report can be found here at this website: http://www.skillman.org/go
Now, Dr. Williams is supposed to be an educator of economics as well as a researcher. How come he did not put in his article about the number of schools that are making the grade in Detroit? Sure, the NAEP showed that we have a long way to go in terms of educational output and yes, I agree that current educational policies as well as public policies have damaged the infrastructure of education in urban communities. But the liberals are not just to blame for this. We are having a hard time convincing most conservatives in business that education is a #1 issue. Both ideologies are at fault for this crisis because its easier to play politics than play solutions.
The Skillman Foundation is a private grantmaking foundation that is a charitable, tax-exempt organization. The chief aim of the Foundation's three programs is to help develop good schools and good neighborhoods for children. Within the Skillman Foundation there is a popular program called the Skillman Scholars. This is a program provides educational opportunities for academically gifted, minority scholars from Metropolitan Detroit to maximize their potential to become future leaders in society.
Not one time, Dr. Williams brought this up in his article. However, lazy ass leeches like those who are constantly bashing Black children in the City of Detroit are reading Dr. Williams's article and taking it face value without every cross examining the real issue.
Williams also did not bring up the fact that other programs such as the YES Foundation have a program called the Yes for Prep that prepares our children to compete in rigorous academic achievement.
College of Education such as Eastern Michigan University is the No. 1 producer of educators in the nation. The school received an "Exemplary" grade from the Michigan Department of Education. Eastern's Teacher-Preparation Program earned a 66 out of 70 possible points; tying EMU for third place in the state.
Michigan State University's College of Education is also high-ranked programs in elementary, educational technology, educational policy, and secondary education. Again, teachers who are actually turning out the grade.
America’s colleges of education play an important role in education but need to dramatically change how they prepare the next generation of teachers so that they are ready to prepare their future students for success in college and careers. In the next five years America’s schools will need to hire up to 200,000 first-time teachers annually and these new teachers will need the knowledge and skill set to prepare students for success in the global economy.
Most College of Education students tell me while they appreciate the knowledge they receive in the university setting some have admitted that teacher-preparation programs need to ensure that new teachers will master the content of the subjects they’ll teach and they will have well-supported field-based experiences embedded throughout their preparation programs.
This can be done with new revolutionary thinking.
While assertions made by these critics include that the typical school of education has a Left-wing political bias, favoring Socialist philosophies such as Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy the truth of the matter is conservatives have allowed liberal ideology to dominate the academic spectrum for decades. This should have never been allowed to happen but moving away from the critical need of education and allowing liberals to run rough-shot on colleges and universities show not only the lack of competition coming from conservatives but also allowing liberal though to dominate HOW classes and lessons are taught. You cannot complain about liberal education without ENGAGING in the process of ideals and thought.
This is the 21st century and while the U.S. Constitution says nothing about education, states for over two centuries states have been responsible for meeting the nation's education needs. But in a world of fierce economic competition, we can't afford to pretend that the current system is getting us where we need to go. Greater federal interference is not the answer -- but neither is a naive commitment to "states' rights." A new model -- standards set nationally, daily decisions made locally -- strikes the best balance. The reason? Education is no longer just an local issue. It's no longer a parental issue. It has become a national security problem. The lack of education has caused a breech in our intellectual capital and therefore needs to be reexamined. This is not the time to always point out the negative in Black communities when it comes to education. If Black libertarians such as Dr. Williams would like to sit at the table with us to discuss ways of improvement in terms of policy,governance and methods of instruction we are open to that in our community.
The Black community has all stars in their midst of students who can achieve higher and greater standards. When we realize that we too have a stake on the global balance sheet is when we will be able to participate in both the educational and economic markets of the world. To keep showing America how dumb Black people are is a demonstration and lack of being solution focused, as well as demonstrating a vision for urban education in the 21st century.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
The New Leadership of Detroit: Fact or Fiction by Akindele Akinyemi
Ladies and gentlemen. While I feel that what occurred last night was a overall disgrace, however, there were some positive things that occurred.
We are excited to see James Tate make it to the Detroit City Council. I supported James Tate since the primaries.
Andre Spivey also made it to the Detroit City Council. This is also great as well.
The three on my team who did not make it were:
Raphael B. Johnson did not make it because he presented a strong approach to community development. That turned off people and actually he was the one who should have replaced JoAnn Watson.
It's ridiculous that we did not elect Fred Elliott Hall to the Detroit City Council. Fear is the ultimate prosperity killer and it showed by not electing Hall to the Detroit City Council. All he wanted was something the unions hate.....regional cooperation.
But for Lisa Howze, a Certified Public Accountant to lose a Detroit City Council race in the middle of a financial hurricane, is not only disgraceful and enbrassing on the citizens of Detroit but it clearly shows how inefficient Detroit is when it comes to financial literacy.When Lisa would speak to forums about her intense credentials in finance only 7% of the crowd heard her while the other 93% missed it.
You cannot begin a silver rights movement without having working knowledge of your home, your finances and education. In Detroit, we lack all three. I mean when you look at the bigger picture in our city we see how ignorance has become the language of money in the contemporary world that reduces people to being economic slaves.
Lisa would have brought that fiscal spirit to the table of the Detroit City Council.
Instead, we re-elected JoAnn Watson back to the Detroit City Council. This is awful. We really believe that President Obama is going to bailout Detroit? Words of wisdom for those who are stuck in the civil rights/black power movement. The government is not going to bail out Detroit like they did Wall Street or the Big Three. We have to think creative if Detroit is going to survive.
While we have Mayor Bing and a new City Council and two new elected school board members ready to work on behalf of the people I think we need to go higher than local issues. It's time to think regional and global if Detroit wants to survive. Our dignity is on the line and we need to stop thinking about local rat races and get involved in higher thinking if we are going to survive.
In order to think higher we need to change our thinking process. Even though we elected Charles Pugh, Gary Brown, Saunteel Jenkins, Andre Spivey and James Tate to the Detroit City Council people still re-elected Ken Cockrel, Brenda Jones, Kwame Kenyatta and JoAnn Watson. The ONLY way Detroit will move into the 21st century in a silver rights movement is if the 5 newcomers work together and vote against the old guard 80-90% of the time. This includes fostering a stronger relationship with Mayor Bing and his administration.
This new council cannot get caught up on old things that has traditionally scared Detroiters. Things such as privatizing, regionalization and globalization must roll off their lips if they are serious about moving Detroit from an automotive market to a financial market.
The new Council needs to understand that Detroit problems cannot be only solved by money. No money will make Detroit a safe heaven for its citizens. Something should be done- but what is it? Since the 1960s, Detroit has been receiving money in terms of loans, projects, aid, you name it but has the situation changed? There is still constant, starvation, poverty, HIV/AIDS, child abuse, death from curable diseases and corruption.The common citizen has not benefited from the 'well intentioned' projects. As donors pour money into Detroit, the citizens are busy pumping their tax-payers’ money plus natural resources back to the rest of the region. The value of the money and property taken away from Detroit is much more than what the region receives. Detroit is consequently becoming poorer and poorer.
What should the younger Detroit City Council and its counterpart the Detroit Charter Commission generation do to make the Detroit a safe place for its citizens? What should it do to make them not dream of flying out to 'safe heavens' outside Detroit?
Detroit must erase the need for a Marshall Plan as proposed by Councilwoman JoAnn Watson. We already see what federal aid does to our city when there are no checks and balances. For her to lie to people is absolutely insulting.
What Councilwoman Watson is not telling you is that such a plan would extend to poor communities like Detroit and how the common man in the street will end up paying higher taxes in the future as he is forced to bow before robbery as we see in investment in
What’s more, this so-called Marshall Plan would be money given by the left hand but it ends up being snatched by the right one. The right one being the wrong people.
This new leadership must present itself as ambassadors to the global market. African exporters are telling U.S. markets, that despite the economic downturn, the $11-trillion US market still offers many opportunities to African entrepreneurs willing to stay abreast of the dynamic marketing environment of the United States and market their products to meet consumer demand. Detroit must open its ports and allow free enterprise to make its way throughout Southeastern Michigan.
I have heard some in Detroit discussing the need to rightsize the city instead of utilizing land banks to get rid of property. Urban agriculture does not mean planting large acres of seeds in a lead-filled area. Urban agriculture means bringing an Agricultual Experiment Station to Detroit. It also means transforming abandonded homes into greenhouse space.
Urban Agriculture does not mean eating watermelons near the incincerator. It means allowing African exporters to sell their products in the Metro Detroit market under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). AGOA allows about 9,000 agricultural and manufactured products to enter the US duty and quota-free. It's something to think about when you are researching policy.
Clearly, the resources Detroit needs to develop can be found in Detroit itself – only if its leaders were willing to reform their abominable economic and political systems, re-orient their development policies toward regionalization, curb corruption and invest their wealth-legitimate or ill-gotten in
All scholars and intellectuals agree that there have been both external and internal causes of Detroit’s crises. The first is what relative weights to assign to the factors. Whereas some urban scholars would assign 80 percent of the causes to external factors, I would assign only 20 percent to the external. Second, for far too long the internal factors have been ignored. The average intelligent person looks both ways before crossing a street or risk being hit by a truck. Detroit is in bandages because its leaders always looked one way – at the external. Third, I lay more emphasis on the internal factors because they are subject to our control. Take corruption for example. We can curb it if we are serious. Hopefully, what I see is the same for our new leadership.
Politically, we should move away from celebrating numbers to celebrating quality.
So if this new Detroit City Council along with the Detroit Charter Commission and Detroit School Board is serious about transforming Detroit then they need to do it from a regional perspective. I am not interested in supporting anyone who has a tribalistic mentiality. Detroit needs to join the rest of the world if they want to survive. And even though Detroiters just elected a new City Council I still remain on my original word that we need to look into consolidating city-county governments to cut down on duplication of services to keep our budget in the black. This includes taking a look at regional policing and privatizing trash and EMS. Other cities are doing this..what makes us special? The charter commission has to revise a code where privatizing of city services can be done to allow competition in the market place. I am hoping people like Ken Harris will lead the way on this since he already believes in the free market of capitalism.
Education is a passport to freedom. According to The Silent Epidemic report written by Civic Enterprises that shared the perspectives of high school dropouts, approximately one-third of all children, and 50 percent of minorities, in public high school drop out of high school nationwide. In many of the nation’s “dropout factories,” the percentage of dropouts far outpaces the percentage of graduates. This is not good for 21st century Detroit, and it is an economic death sentence if not changed for the urban community. Nationally, can we afford to write-off almost 100 million Americans, or approximately a third of our nation’s population? Who is going to fund our Social Security fund in retirement if we do?
Education is the ultimate poverty eradication tool, for when you know better you tend to do better. But financial literacy is the means by which one moves from simply avoiding the poverty trap to embracing a true prosperity agenda; for themselves, their families and their communities.
What if we unleashed upon Detroit, and the world, a new vision for the 21st century? An aspirational generation of role model inspired, positive and contributing young entrepreneurs, self-employment projects and “doers” over the next 20 years? I’ll tell you what would happen, Detroit would get a genuine second shot at keeping this party called American prosperity going over the next 100 years, because you cannot keep a third of the American population on the economic and aspirational sidelines and otherwise expect that it will. But we have to stop always looking for larger government to give us a handout when we need a handup.
Let's see what this new leadership does in Detroit and for our region. If they believe in globalization then our city will win. But if they allow adult illiteracy to influence their vote at the council table, charter commission or school board then we will continue to beat a dead horse on a plantation.
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