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Detroit News; 11/22/06
Topic Started: Nov 22 2006, 07:23 AM (54 Views)
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http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...57/1026/SCHOOLS

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

State may hike merit awards

Mark Hornbeck / Detroit News Lansing Bureau

LANSING -- All Michigan high school students who graduate next year should be in line for a $4,000 scholarship upon completion of two years of college or technical school, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday.

Granholm predicted that her plan to increase the Merit Scholarship Award will win passage in the Legislature. The bill has already cleared the Senate.

The governor said she has a promise from House Speaker Craig DeRoche, R-Novi, to take up the Senate-passed bill during the lame duck session that ends in December.

The legislation would increase the scholarship from $2,500 to $4,000.

"A lot of legislators care about it a good deal because the parents care about it," Granholm said during a news conference. "I think it'll pass."

"Earlier this fall, I made a commitment to the governor to work with her to find a consensus plan during the lame duck session and I will keep my commitment," DeRoche said. "If a consensus can be reached, then a vote will be taken."

Under the current program, only students who pass the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) tests are eligible for the $2,500 scholarships. Under Granholm's version, students who pass the MEAPs will get $1,000 before their freshman year, another $1,000 before their sophomore year and the remaining $2,000 upon completion of two years of higher education.

Students who don't pass the MEAP tests can still get the money, but they'd receive the entire $4,000 once they complete two years of college or trade school and maintain a 2.5 grade-point average. The money to pay for the scholarships comes from the settlement of a lawsuit with tobacco companies.

You can reach Mark Hornbeck at (313) 222-2470 or mhornbeck@detnews.com.
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http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a.../611220387/1026

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Nick Ut / Associated Press

Teacher Becky Wyatt leads rehearsals for the Thanksgiving Day play at Kettering Elementary School in Long Beach, Calif.
Teachers offer different views on Thanksgiving

As educators ditch traditional lessons about Pilgrims, Indians, critics say it's too extreme.

Ana Beatriz Cholo / Associated Press

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Teacher Bill Morgan walks into his third-grade class wearing a black Pilgrim hat made of construction paper and begins snatching up pencils, backpacks and glue sticks from his pupils. He tells them the items now belong to him because he "discovered" them.

The reaction is exactly what Morgan expects: The kids get angry and want their things back.

Morgan is among elementary school teachers who have ditched the traditional Thanksgiving lesson, in which children dress up like Indians and Pilgrims and act out a romanticized version of their first meetings.

Morgan said he still wants his pupils at Cleveland Elementary School in San Francisco to celebrate Thanksgiving. But "what I am trying to portray is a different point of view."

Others see Morgan and teachers like him as too extreme.

"I think that is very sad," said Janice Shaw Crouse, a former college dean and public high school teacher and now a spokeswoman for Concerned Women for America, a conservative organization. "He is teaching his students to hate their country. That is a very distorted view of history."

Even American Indians are divided on how to approach a holiday that some believe symbolizes the takeover of their lands.

Chuck Narcho, a member of the Maricopa and Tohono O'odham tribes who works as a substitute teacher in Los Angeles, said younger children should not be burdened with all the gory details.

"If you are going to teach, you need to keep it positive," he said. "They can learn about the truths when they grow up. Caring, sharing and giving -- that is what was originally intended."

Adam McMullin, a member of the Seminole tribe of Oklahoma and a spokesman for the National Congress of American Indians, said schoolchildren should get an accurate historical account.

"You can't just throw an Indian costume on a child," he said. "That stuff is not taken lightly. That's where educators need to be very careful."

Becky Wyatt, a teacher at Kettering Elementary School in Long Beach, decided to alter the costumes for the annual Thanksgiving play a few years ago after local Indians spoke out against students wearing feathers, which are sacred in their culture.

"We have many mixed cultures in Long Beach, so we try to be sensitive," Wyatt said. "What you teach little children is important."
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http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a.../611220347/1009

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Ricardo Thomas / The Detroit News

Kenwood Elementary first-graders Meghan Palmer, 6, left, and Shyanne Jones celebrate Thanksgiving with dress, food and stories about the Pilgrims' life. The Clawson Public School District has shown a growing student enrollment.
School chief job outlined

Clawson sets criteria to hire district leader

Shawn D. Lewis / The Detroit News

Ricardo Thomas / The Detroit News

Jim Nolan has been running the 1,700-student district on an interim basis since September 2005.

CLAWSON -- The top job in the Clawson Public School District, which has been vacant for more than a year, is one small step closer to being filled.

The job description for the new superintendent has been written to reflect all the attractions -- small-town ambience with a growing student enrollment -- and it has been returned to the search firm for the final draft.

The growing student enrollment is one lure the district points out with pride, especially since many districts in Metro Detroit, including Southfield and Detroit, are losing students, and consequently per-pupil state aid.

"We were at about 1,500 students a couple of years ago, and now we're up to 1,700," said interim superintendent Jim Nolan. "We think it's because of our reputation, a lot of community pride, as well as the economy. People are not moving out and some are coming back because they want to be closer to their jobs with the rising gas prices. And we're also having open enrollment and schools of choice, so we get students from parochial schools, as well as from surrounding cities."

Nolan has been running the district since September 2005. He retired as superintendent of the Sandusky, Ohio, school district, but since his wife was still working, he applied for the interim Clawson position and was hired. He said he only planned to stay for a year, but was convinced to remain a bit longer. The district will post the new position by Dec. 1. It will pay between $175,000 and $200,000. And while the smaller classroom sizes and high level of parental involvement may be appealing, Nolan cautions there are other aspects to consider.

"This is a smaller district with less overhead," he said. "This is not a district where you have a bunch of people you can delegate others to do the work. It's very much a hands-on position."

Parent Christine Hodge has her own ideas of the qualities she would like in the next superintendent.

"Our interim superintendent is very approachable, and that's what I'd like to see in the next one, too," said Hodge, who has a fifth-grader and a second-grader in the district. "He or she should also be able to work well with parents, staff and students."

Hodge said she also would like the new superintendent to have an interest in early childhood development.

"I would love for us to become a model everywhere of developing early childhood programs," said Hodge, who also would like to see better test scores.

Nolan explained that the elementary and junior high school students did well on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program test.

"But our high school received an overall grade of C. The main problem seems to be math, and they're also struggling with writing. But our teachers have been trained in programs encouraging students to write more."

The district hopes to begin interviewing job candidates in February.

You can reach Shawn D. Lewis at (248) 647-8825 or slewis@detnews.com.
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http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...BIZ03/611220342

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The incredible deflating housing market

Region's home prices fall most, but is rebound near?

Dorothy Bourdet | The Detroit News / The Detroit News

First came the sting of massive job and income cuts, making Metro Detroiters nervous about their futures. Right behind were fear and caution, which kept homebuyers on the sidelines and created an oversupply of homes that can sit months, even years, on the market.

Now, comes home price deflation, the worst in the nation, according to a survey released this week by the National Association of Realtors. The median home price in Metro Detroit sank to $154,100 in the third quarter, down 10.5 percent from $172,100 at the same time last year. It was the largest percentage drop of U.S. cities.

"The overall feeling in Michigan is everybody's knees are knocking a little bit," said Nancy Warson, a Livonia Realtor.

While prices are down, at least one top Realtor predicts the market may be ready to rebound.

"We're ready to turn around," said Pat Vredevoogd Combs, National Association of Realtors president and a Grand Rapids Realtor. "What we're seeing, we think, is that it's bottoming out."

The steep decline in home prices can be blamed on big losses in jobs and income in Metro Detroit, said Dana Johnson, chief economist at Comerica Bank.

"Overlaid on top of that fundamental is the fear and uncertainty that pervades this region," he said

Would-be homeseller Brian Kurtz knows that uncertainty well. The financial planner from Troy has dropped the price on his Sterling Heights colonial by $36,600 to $259,900 and is now paying $4,000 per month for two mortgages.

"It's like trying to sell ice cubes to Eskimos," said Kurtz, whose home has been on the market since August 2005.

Warson, with Real Estate One, said buyers are just not out there. One of Warson's clients in South Lyon, who is selling their house for about $500,000, has had only one potential buyer look at it in seven months.

Those kinds of waits are reflected in the state's slumping home sales, which are down 17.2 percent in the third quarter. Those kinds of waits also can quickly force down home prices, as sellers often drastically cut their asking prices so they can snag a buyer.

In a state where the jobless rate has soared above the national average, buyers are wary of getting into long-term financial commitments, Warson said. Current homeowners, such as empty nesters, are also reluctant to move or downsize, fearing they'll take a loss on their home.

"Some are scared about their job, some are scared (because) they don't know where the market is and they would prefer to buy at the very, very bottom, so they're holding out -- and nobody knows where the bottom is," Warson said.

Sellers have to be patient

Home prices are slipping nationally, too, though not as drastically as in Michigan. The median single-family home price in the U.S. was $224,900 in the third quarter, down 1.2 percent from last year when the median price was $227,600.

While the national decline is seen as an expected correction in housing prices that had soared out of control with five years of double-digit increases, the big drop in the Metro Detroit median home prices over the past six months has been unparalleled since 1989, the furthest back data is available.

"We're kind of an oddity out there," said Combs, the Grand Rapids Realtor.

Economists say home sellers will have to be patient as they wait for the local real estate market get upright again.

"It's going to be a while before that fear and uncertainty goes away. We're at least six months away from the time when jobs and income bottom out here in Michigan," Johnson said.

Falling home prices mean people have fewer options when they hit financial rough spots.

Wayne County had the nation's second-highest metro foreclosure rate in October, with one in every 196 households filing for foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac, an online firm that tracks foreclosures.

"When it (the median house price) drops sharply, it leaves people with no equity and when they get into trouble they have no choice but to walk away," Johnson said.

"It's an example of how the distress in the economy ripples from one sector to another."

Agents are getting creative

To jump start the housing market, real estate agents have pulled out all the stops. They've developed individual Web sites for each house, increased commissions for the buyer's agent and added other incentives for buyers.

"We've seen plasma TVs, we've seen $5,000 bonuses, we've seen cars, we've seen airline tickets. We're about as creative as we can get at this point," Warson said. "It's still not driving the market up."

In an average year, real estate broker Rob Scalici closes on about 75 to 100 home sales. Right now, he's got 30 listings and no buyers.

"It's kind of amazing. I'm back to doing things that I haven't done in a long time," said Scalici, a broker with RE/MAX Metropolitan in Utica, who is spending more and more Sundays in open houses hoping to snag a buyer.

Scalici hopes 2007 will be a better year for home sellers.

"You've gotta hope that with the New Year comes renewed spirits," he said.

Combs of the National Association of Realtors is optimistic.

Her open houses have been busier -- just this week she sold two homes in the Grand Rapids area.

"Buyers have been sitting on the sidelines watching," she said. "We're seeing them coming back into the market."

You can reach Dorothy Bourdet at (313) 222-2293 or dbourdet@detnews.com.
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