Agenda Item
Presentation by Pure Joy Pediatrics (Healthy Living Project-based Learning Initiative for Youth)
Early Childhood Challenge Grant http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/earlylearning/elcf-factsheet.html
LISC Green Preservation Affordable Housing http://www.lisc.org/docs/experts/2009/eo_2009_04_30.pdf
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Monday, October 05, 2009
21st Century Digital Learning Environments (REAL-WORLD Stimulations for OUR Imaginations, Creativity & Innovations)
Mobile Learning Institute (A 21st Century Education)
http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/21stcenturyeducation/
http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/21stcenturyeducation/
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
A Race WORTH Running (AND ONE WE MUST NOT LOSE!)
For Release:
1:00 pm
September 24, 2008Contact:
Gary G. Naeyaert
517-281-2690
2,500 ADVOCATES HOLD EDUCATION REFORM RALLY AT STATE CAPITOL
Change agents urge legislature to pass bills to close the achievement gap and secure “Race to the Top” funds
Lansing, MI – More than 2,500 students, parents, teachers and education activists held a rally on the lawn of State Capitol Building this morning.
Education reform priorities pushed during the rally included the need to fix failing schools, provide alternative routes to teacher certification, and expand quality public school options, especially in underperforming areas.
“It is a moral imperative that we close the academic achievement gap in Michigan,” said Michael Tenbusch, Vice President for Education Preparedness at the United Way of Southeastern Michigan.
“These reforms are not only the right approach for our students – they could bring millions in federal education funds to the state,” he continued.
Most observers believe passing these types of bills are necessary before Michigan will be competitive in $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” federal incentive program.
“Each and every American citizen is entitled to have equal access to a high quality education,” said Kevin Chavous, one of the nation’s leading education reform activists, during his stirring keynote address at the rally.
Students released over 1,000 “Kids Need Great Schools” balloons after Chavous’ remarks, and each balloon represented hundreds of minority and at-risk students behind grade level and stuck in failing schools.
“Every child can learn, and all kids deserve great schools. The status quo isn’t getting it done, so we need to work together and find new ways to help kids achieve,” said Rachele Downs, Vice President, CB Richard Ellis Detroit and member of the Leadership Detroit Education Support Committee.
“We agree with President Obama that students must take responsibility for their own education, and empowering parents as true partners in public education should be a much higher priority,” said Sharlonda Buckman, Executive Director of the Detroit Parent Network.
1:00 pm
September 24, 2008Contact:
Gary G. Naeyaert
517-281-2690
2,500 ADVOCATES HOLD EDUCATION REFORM RALLY AT STATE CAPITOL
Change agents urge legislature to pass bills to close the achievement gap and secure “Race to the Top” funds
Lansing, MI – More than 2,500 students, parents, teachers and education activists held a rally on the lawn of State Capitol Building this morning.
Education reform priorities pushed during the rally included the need to fix failing schools, provide alternative routes to teacher certification, and expand quality public school options, especially in underperforming areas.
“It is a moral imperative that we close the academic achievement gap in Michigan,” said Michael Tenbusch, Vice President for Education Preparedness at the United Way of Southeastern Michigan.
“These reforms are not only the right approach for our students – they could bring millions in federal education funds to the state,” he continued.
Most observers believe passing these types of bills are necessary before Michigan will be competitive in $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” federal incentive program.
“Each and every American citizen is entitled to have equal access to a high quality education,” said Kevin Chavous, one of the nation’s leading education reform activists, during his stirring keynote address at the rally.
Students released over 1,000 “Kids Need Great Schools” balloons after Chavous’ remarks, and each balloon represented hundreds of minority and at-risk students behind grade level and stuck in failing schools.
“Every child can learn, and all kids deserve great schools. The status quo isn’t getting it done, so we need to work together and find new ways to help kids achieve,” said Rachele Downs, Vice President, CB Richard Ellis Detroit and member of the Leadership Detroit Education Support Committee.
“We agree with President Obama that students must take responsibility for their own education, and empowering parents as true partners in public education should be a much higher priority,” said Sharlonda Buckman, Executive Director of the Detroit Parent Network.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
EARLY Childhood Learning (Dollars-But WHAT does it Look Like?)
September 20, 2009
Initiative Focuses on Early Learning Programs
By SAM DILLON
Tucked away in an $87 billion higher education bill that passed the House last week was a broad new federal initiative aimed not at benefiting college students, but at raising quality in the early learning and care programs that serve children from birth through age 5.
The initiative, the Early Learning Challenge Fund, would channel $8 billion over eight years to states with plans to improve standards, training and oversight of programs serving infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
The Senate is expected to pass similar legislation this fall, giving President Obama, who proposed the Challenge Fund during the presidential campaign, a bill to sign in December.
Experts describe the current array of programs serving young children and their families nationwide as a hodgepodge of efforts with little coordination or coherence. Financing comes from a shifting mix of private, local, state and federal money. Programs are run out of storefronts and churches, homes and Head Start centers, public schools and other facilities. Quality is uneven, with some offering stimulating activities, play and instruction but others providing little more than a room and a television.
Oversight varies by state, but most lack any early childhood structure analogous to the state and local boards of education that govern public schools. A result is that poor children, even many who have access to government-financed early care or learning programs, tend to enter kindergarten less prepared for school than those with wealthier parents.
To qualify for grants, states would have to demonstrate that they have established or improved what the bill calls a “governance structure” for their networks of child care centers and prekindergarten programs.
The structure would include quality standards; a curriculum of sorts, appropriate for young children; a mechanism for reviewing programs and assigning quality ratings; minimum training requirements for providers; a plan for reaching out to parents; and a system for collecting data on children and families. The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services would jointly administer the Challenge Fund.
Sharon Lynn Kagan, a professor at Teachers College who has traced the history of American child care programs back to the early 19th century, wrote a paper last year advocating federal aid to states in building a more coherent and robust early-childhood infrastructure.
“No one bill can solve everything,” Professor Kagan said, “but this will move us more than any other piece of legislation toward higher quality in early education, not just more spaces for children.”
Since the campaign, Mr. Obama has raised expectations among early learning advocates with his endorsements of public investments in the careful nurturing of young children, especially the disadvantaged. In the economic stimulus bill, Congress last spring appropriated more than $4 billion in new financing for child care and education efforts, including Head Start, the federal program that serves about 900,000 preschoolers.
Still, not all early learning advocates are satisfied that the administration is doing all it could to integrate early learning efforts into the nation’s broader public education system.
The Department of Education is already administering a separate $4.3 billion competition among states to reward and encourage improvements to elementary and secondary schools. In August, scores of early learning groups and advocates wrote letters to the department criticizing proposed rules for that competition, known as Race to the Top, as largely ignoring early childhood education.
“We don’t see how our country can race to the top when all kids are not at the same starting line” when they reach kindergarten, said Marcy Young, project director for the Pre-K Now program at the Pew Center on the States, one group that criticized the rules.
One reason the administration focused on elementary and secondary schools in the Race to the Top competition and early childhood in the Challenge Fund is that the two are at contrasting levels of development, administration officials said, with the public schools needing initiatives to improve teacher effectiveness, for instance, and early childhood needing basic structures of governance.
Sara Mead, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, said, “I haven’t talked with anybody who isn’t excited about the prospects for this Early Learning Challenge Fund.”
“But there is disappointment in some parts of the early childhood community that it’s not more focused on adding slots,” Ms. Mead said.
One reason advocates are especially concerned about slots for children is that after a decade in which states had taken the lead in expanding access nationwide, several with deep budget troubles have recently eliminated or reduced services for tens of thousands of children.
Illinois, for instance, cut the budget for its Pre-K for All program to $305 million this fiscal year from $338 million last year, eliminating slots for about 9,500 children, according to statistics provided by Albert Wat, a project manager at Pre-K Now.
In Ohio, lawmakers did away with a program known as the Early Learning Initiative, the budget for which last year was $125 million, Mr. Wat said. The action eliminated access for 12,000 children, he said.
“In some states, we’re seeing a disaster,” said Steve Barnett, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.
But despite the tightest budgets in decades, nearly 30 states have chosen to protect or increase financing for early learning programs.
Initiative Focuses on Early Learning Programs
By SAM DILLON
Tucked away in an $87 billion higher education bill that passed the House last week was a broad new federal initiative aimed not at benefiting college students, but at raising quality in the early learning and care programs that serve children from birth through age 5.
The initiative, the Early Learning Challenge Fund, would channel $8 billion over eight years to states with plans to improve standards, training and oversight of programs serving infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
The Senate is expected to pass similar legislation this fall, giving President Obama, who proposed the Challenge Fund during the presidential campaign, a bill to sign in December.
Experts describe the current array of programs serving young children and their families nationwide as a hodgepodge of efforts with little coordination or coherence. Financing comes from a shifting mix of private, local, state and federal money. Programs are run out of storefronts and churches, homes and Head Start centers, public schools and other facilities. Quality is uneven, with some offering stimulating activities, play and instruction but others providing little more than a room and a television.
Oversight varies by state, but most lack any early childhood structure analogous to the state and local boards of education that govern public schools. A result is that poor children, even many who have access to government-financed early care or learning programs, tend to enter kindergarten less prepared for school than those with wealthier parents.
To qualify for grants, states would have to demonstrate that they have established or improved what the bill calls a “governance structure” for their networks of child care centers and prekindergarten programs.
The structure would include quality standards; a curriculum of sorts, appropriate for young children; a mechanism for reviewing programs and assigning quality ratings; minimum training requirements for providers; a plan for reaching out to parents; and a system for collecting data on children and families. The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services would jointly administer the Challenge Fund.
Sharon Lynn Kagan, a professor at Teachers College who has traced the history of American child care programs back to the early 19th century, wrote a paper last year advocating federal aid to states in building a more coherent and robust early-childhood infrastructure.
“No one bill can solve everything,” Professor Kagan said, “but this will move us more than any other piece of legislation toward higher quality in early education, not just more spaces for children.”
Since the campaign, Mr. Obama has raised expectations among early learning advocates with his endorsements of public investments in the careful nurturing of young children, especially the disadvantaged. In the economic stimulus bill, Congress last spring appropriated more than $4 billion in new financing for child care and education efforts, including Head Start, the federal program that serves about 900,000 preschoolers.
Still, not all early learning advocates are satisfied that the administration is doing all it could to integrate early learning efforts into the nation’s broader public education system.
The Department of Education is already administering a separate $4.3 billion competition among states to reward and encourage improvements to elementary and secondary schools. In August, scores of early learning groups and advocates wrote letters to the department criticizing proposed rules for that competition, known as Race to the Top, as largely ignoring early childhood education.
“We don’t see how our country can race to the top when all kids are not at the same starting line” when they reach kindergarten, said Marcy Young, project director for the Pre-K Now program at the Pew Center on the States, one group that criticized the rules.
One reason the administration focused on elementary and secondary schools in the Race to the Top competition and early childhood in the Challenge Fund is that the two are at contrasting levels of development, administration officials said, with the public schools needing initiatives to improve teacher effectiveness, for instance, and early childhood needing basic structures of governance.
Sara Mead, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, said, “I haven’t talked with anybody who isn’t excited about the prospects for this Early Learning Challenge Fund.”
“But there is disappointment in some parts of the early childhood community that it’s not more focused on adding slots,” Ms. Mead said.
One reason advocates are especially concerned about slots for children is that after a decade in which states had taken the lead in expanding access nationwide, several with deep budget troubles have recently eliminated or reduced services for tens of thousands of children.
Illinois, for instance, cut the budget for its Pre-K for All program to $305 million this fiscal year from $338 million last year, eliminating slots for about 9,500 children, according to statistics provided by Albert Wat, a project manager at Pre-K Now.
In Ohio, lawmakers did away with a program known as the Early Learning Initiative, the budget for which last year was $125 million, Mr. Wat said. The action eliminated access for 12,000 children, he said.
“In some states, we’re seeing a disaster,” said Steve Barnett, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.
But despite the tightest budgets in decades, nearly 30 states have chosen to protect or increase financing for early learning programs.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Let the FORCE be With Them!
Meeting: YAPO CLC Future Entrepreneurs (@ YAPO CLC)
Saturday, August 22, 2009 9:00AM
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Informs OUR Understanding
Michigan Drop-Out Summit 2009
http://www.midropoutsummit.org/
Michigan Conference Proceedings
http://www.midropoutsummit.org/SummitProceedings.aspx
Michigan Conference (Videos)
http://mistreamnet.com/vidflv.php?who=mdedrop1n01
ONE-D Drop-Out Conference (Update Brochure)
http://www.uwsem.org/_collateral/pdf/oned/TurnaroundUpdate0508.pdf
http://www.midropoutsummit.org/
Michigan Conference Proceedings
http://www.midropoutsummit.org/SummitProceedings.aspx
Michigan Conference (Videos)
http://mistreamnet.com/vidflv.php?who=mdedrop1n01
ONE-D Drop-Out Conference (Update Brochure)
http://www.uwsem.org/_collateral/pdf/oned/TurnaroundUpdate0508.pdf
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Monday, July 06, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
YAPO CLC Board of Directors Meeting AGENDA Wednesday, July 1, 2009 5:30PM
YAPO COMPUTER LEARNING CENTER
an authorized Neighborhood Network Center
Meeting Agenda
July 1, 2009
26 Leanne Lane
Pontiac, MI 48340
(248) 338-7346/(248) 338-4771 (fax)
- Call to Order
- Roll Call
- Adoption of Agenda
- Approval of Yapo CLC Board of Directors’ Minutes-6/3/09
- Executive Director’s Report
- President/Treasurer’s Report
- Old Business
a) D&O Insurance
b) Solicitation License
c) Employee Manual
- New Business
- MSUE-SET – Presentation by Jim Ross
- Announcements
- Adjourn
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Youth for Tomorrow Banquet Invitiation
Hello all,
Attached is your personal invitation to Youth of Tomorrow's 4th Annual Engineers of Tomorrow Banquet. The banquet is for our students to showcase the challenging projects that they have worked on during the Engineers of Tomorrow program. There is no charge to get in and you can bring as many people as you would like. We will have great food, great projects and a great speaker to create an environment of positive synergy. This is going to be our best banquet ever!!
Best Regards,
Marc D. Alexander
President & CEO
Youth of Tomorrow
P.O. Box 431065
Pontiac, MI 48343-1065
Phone: (888) 799-2819 ext. 709
Fax: (888) 799-2819www.yoft.org
From: The Great Lakes Information Technology Report (GLITR)
I wrapped up my visit to Flint with a meeting with the Kettering Entrepreneurial Society, a student group at the university of current and would-be business owners.
I met Scott Skelton, a Belleville senior in mechanical engineering, who has two Web businesses -- HighPerformanceOutlet.com for high-performance auto parts, and BookDealFinder.com, a search engine for college textbooks.
Also at the lunch: James Cooper, a Rochester Hills senior in electrical engineering, working on a vending machine concept for taverns; Caymon Love, a senior in industrial engineering who is client project manager at TechWorks, helping Sheridan sort through those 50 potential companies; Kristina Kamensky, a recent graduate in mechanical engineering, special projects manager at TechWorks; Matt Gaidica and Brad Birdsall, whose PrimeStudios offers Web and graphic design and Web application work (see www.primestudiosllc.com); Marc D. Alexander, president and CEO of Youth of Tomorrow, which offers youth career exploration experiences; and entrepreneurial adviser Homayun Navaz, a professor of mechanical engineering, founder of the new chemical engineering degree at Kettering and its new aeronautical engineering minor. Navaz is in the process of starting a business called Coolificient, which will offer manufacturers of commercial coolers software and equipment to make their coolers far more energy efficient.
All in all a great morning and early afternoon. And now it's on to the final stop of the spring tour, our state's capital, Lansing, and its burgeoning tech scene.
I met Scott Skelton, a Belleville senior in mechanical engineering, who has two Web businesses -- HighPerformanceOutlet.com for high-performance auto parts, and BookDealFinder.com, a search engine for college textbooks.
Also at the lunch: James Cooper, a Rochester Hills senior in electrical engineering, working on a vending machine concept for taverns; Caymon Love, a senior in industrial engineering who is client project manager at TechWorks, helping Sheridan sort through those 50 potential companies; Kristina Kamensky, a recent graduate in mechanical engineering, special projects manager at TechWorks; Matt Gaidica and Brad Birdsall, whose PrimeStudios offers Web and graphic design and Web application work (see www.primestudiosllc.com); Marc D. Alexander, president and CEO of Youth of Tomorrow, which offers youth career exploration experiences; and entrepreneurial adviser Homayun Navaz, a professor of mechanical engineering, founder of the new chemical engineering degree at Kettering and its new aeronautical engineering minor. Navaz is in the process of starting a business called Coolificient, which will offer manufacturers of commercial coolers software and equipment to make their coolers far more energy efficient.
All in all a great morning and early afternoon. And now it's on to the final stop of the spring tour, our state's capital, Lansing, and its burgeoning tech scene.
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