Improving the well-being of our communities requires, obviously, that we address local issues and concerns. However, it also requires attention to national, international, and global issues. The quality of our environment, while it may seem like something over which we have little control, is one of those issues that relates fundamentally to our local quality of life. We need to do our part to preserve and enhance the environment.
For example, Wilder has a commitment to build an energy-efficient structure for our new Wilder Center at the corner of Lexington and University in Saint Paul. We hope to receive gold certification for the building; we'll be one of very few such buildings in the state, but hope that we are one of many over the next 10 years.
My annual visit to the Minnesota State Fair a month ago prompted me to wonder if we could make major progress toward a better environment through simple steps at public events like the Fair. Can the State Fair take visible action toward reducing waste and, through its example, educate Fair-goers, who will then increase their attention to environmentally friendly behavior?
One thing that struck me: the number of disposable items - cups, spoons, napkins, etc., -distributed by vendors, used by patrons for only a few minutes, and then discarded. Why not require that Fair-goers bring their own cups, or purchase one "souvenir cup" from the Fair, and then have vendors dispense portions into those cups? This could greatly reduce the 1,000 plus tons (2 million plus pounds) of garbage that the Pioneer Press reported the Fair produces. More important, though, it brings 125,000 people per day to realize that they should, and can, do their part for the environment.
Vaclav Havel, the author and a former president of the Czech Republic wrote recently that "Maybe we should consider our sojourn on earth as a loan. There can be no doubt that for the past hundred years at least, Europe and the United States have been running up a debt, and now other parts of the world are following their example. Nature is issuing a warning that we must not only stop the debt from growing but start to pay it back."
If all of us listen to nature's warning and do our small parts for the environment, the collective result will be very positive. We'll help the world, and we'll help the Twin Cities region!
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Achievement Gap
The "Achievement Gap" refers to the differences between white children and children of color on measures of academic performance. For example, White children are about twice as likely to score proficiently on reading and math tests, and twice as likely to graduate from high school on time, compared with African-American children.
The gap presents a challenge to our region because children of color constitute a rapidly growing segment of our population; they represent the majority of students in the Minneapolis and Saint Paul schools. They represent a signficant portion of our future.
The Superintendent of the Saint Paul Schools announced that she wants to close this gap. According to reports appearing in the August 24 Pioneer Press and StarTribune, she intends to develop a plan that will engage the community to work toward equal educational outcomes for all students.
The education achievement gap is not new; it is not local. Wilder Research began formally reporting it in the early 1990s, as did others around the country. It had been identified even before then.
Dan Mueller of Wilder Research outlined a number of strategies that research demonstrates can reduce or eliminate the gap. These include: high quality, center-based preschools; elementary schools that have a strong focus on teaching and learning (minimizing distractions for other purposes, for example); schools that have a rigorous curriculum; schools that align their curriculum and instruction with their assessment process; effective school leadership; strong teacher professional development programs; and others.
Note that income differences do not fully explain the achievement gap; note also that different racial groups tend to score differently. And remember that the numbers are typically averages; within each racial group, you can find students who perform well and students who do not.
The Superintendent intends to create a plan in the coming months. I encourage her to consider both short-term and long-term strategies, as the research suggests. For some students, improvement can likely occur rapidly. Complete closure of the gap, for all students, will take longer.
Saturday's Pioneer Press reported that she will institute new "training" in which "outside consultants" will "observe staff members at work and advise them on areas of potential racial, socio-economic and gender bias." This will start with clerks and the executive team; observations of teachers will not occur at first. Research evidence does not yet exist to indicate that such training will substantially close the gap, but potentially it can begin to enhance the atmosphere of schools and the day-to-day behaviors of front line staff in ways that will foster better learning environments for children of all colors.
Closing the gap will require changes in the cultures of schools, other organizations, the community, and families. It will require joint efforts among many of us in Saint Paul. It will require that we all share responsibility; we will need to move beyond blame and finger-pointing and take special care not to "blame the victim".
If you have looked at the research, you know that elimination of the achievement gap will only occur if our schools change. That will cause stress and discomfort. However, our schools cannot accomplish this alone. We all need to pitch in, and we all might experience some discomfort in the short run.
Are we ready? I think that many of us are. If we pay attention to the evidence on what does work to close the gap, and if we make a steadfast effort, we can succeed to overcome one of the most significant challenges to the future of our region.
(You can learn more about the research on the achievement gap in the paper by Dr. Dan Mueller, "Tackling the Achievement Gap Head On" on the Wilder Research web site.)
The gap presents a challenge to our region because children of color constitute a rapidly growing segment of our population; they represent the majority of students in the Minneapolis and Saint Paul schools. They represent a signficant portion of our future.
The Superintendent of the Saint Paul Schools announced that she wants to close this gap. According to reports appearing in the August 24 Pioneer Press and StarTribune, she intends to develop a plan that will engage the community to work toward equal educational outcomes for all students.
The education achievement gap is not new; it is not local. Wilder Research began formally reporting it in the early 1990s, as did others around the country. It had been identified even before then.
Dan Mueller of Wilder Research outlined a number of strategies that research demonstrates can reduce or eliminate the gap. These include: high quality, center-based preschools; elementary schools that have a strong focus on teaching and learning (minimizing distractions for other purposes, for example); schools that have a rigorous curriculum; schools that align their curriculum and instruction with their assessment process; effective school leadership; strong teacher professional development programs; and others.
Note that income differences do not fully explain the achievement gap; note also that different racial groups tend to score differently. And remember that the numbers are typically averages; within each racial group, you can find students who perform well and students who do not.
The Superintendent intends to create a plan in the coming months. I encourage her to consider both short-term and long-term strategies, as the research suggests. For some students, improvement can likely occur rapidly. Complete closure of the gap, for all students, will take longer.
Saturday's Pioneer Press reported that she will institute new "training" in which "outside consultants" will "observe staff members at work and advise them on areas of potential racial, socio-economic and gender bias." This will start with clerks and the executive team; observations of teachers will not occur at first. Research evidence does not yet exist to indicate that such training will substantially close the gap, but potentially it can begin to enhance the atmosphere of schools and the day-to-day behaviors of front line staff in ways that will foster better learning environments for children of all colors.
Closing the gap will require changes in the cultures of schools, other organizations, the community, and families. It will require joint efforts among many of us in Saint Paul. It will require that we all share responsibility; we will need to move beyond blame and finger-pointing and take special care not to "blame the victim".
If you have looked at the research, you know that elimination of the achievement gap will only occur if our schools change. That will cause stress and discomfort. However, our schools cannot accomplish this alone. We all need to pitch in, and we all might experience some discomfort in the short run.
Are we ready? I think that many of us are. If we pay attention to the evidence on what does work to close the gap, and if we make a steadfast effort, we can succeed to overcome one of the most significant challenges to the future of our region.
(You can learn more about the research on the achievement gap in the paper by Dr. Dan Mueller, "Tackling the Achievement Gap Head On" on the Wilder Research web site.)
Thursday, August 02, 2007
The 35W Bridge in Minneapolis
Does civic engagement affect our responses to metal fatigue? Probably yes, as I reflected upon it this morning.
Everyone in Minnesota, and many throughout the nation and the world, watched events unfold Wednesday evening in the aftermath of the collapse of the bridge over the Mississippi River. Today, we could view a tape of the actual collapse. The victims and their families have directly experienced a tragedy, and continue to do so; all of us feel the effects.
Today, the morning after the collapse, I had an 8:00 a.m. meeting with an advisory committee to discuss how to measure "Civic Engagement" as part of our Twin Cities Compass initiative, intended to measure the quality of life in the Twin Cities region. Prior to the meeting, I had wondered if committee members would attend, given the emotionally stressful events of the previous evening, not to mention potential traffic problems in the morning. I even had considered canceling the meeting.
I'm glad we met, not just because we productively accomplished our work, but because the meeting offered me the chance to reflect on the fact that civic engagement does very much relate to what happened to the bridge and on the bridge.
We have structures and infrastructures of all kinds in this world. They enable us to travel, communicate, and get important things done. Similar to people, they get old. Bridges get old.
Who should decide when to replace an aging bridge - engineers and other technicians? public officials? the general public? The experts gave this bridge a "sufficiency rating" of 50%, meaning from their point of view that it "might" need to be replaced; they rated its "structural members" at 4 on a scale of 9. Should it have been replaced? Who decides?
These decisions are not purely technical. They involve values; they involve hard decisions about costs. They pit different needs against one another, since money spent on bridge replacement cannot pay for something else. The decisions have implications that people feel directly, for example, in the time it takes them to travel, and in the taxes they have to pay.
Good decisions require informed and engaged members of the community. Productive action must be nonpartisan (or cooperatively multi-partisan), not motivated by attention only to rigid political or ideological agendas. Long-term thinking (which some politicians will not do) is required.
So, when we consider what happens to bridges, roads, and other physical structures, we must remain aware that our action or inaction, our interest or apathy, determine how safe we will be when we ride in cars, buses, trains, and planes. For the 35W bridge, some person or persons made the decision that the 50% rating was good enough not to make structural work a priority. Perhaps more people should be involved in that type of decision, in addition to many other decisions that literally affect our lives.
What about on the bridge? There we saw civic engagement at its finest in a crisis situation. Everyone - our police and fire services, service agencies like the Red Cross, nearby residents, passers-by, drivers (some of whom narrowly missed catastrophe), and others - pitched in, in some cases risking their lives.
I could not be near enough to get on that bridge to help people last night; but I'm very happy to be part of a process that can bring our region together to examine our trends and needs and to get mechanisms in place that will prevent future tragedies of this type.
That's why our meeting this morning - while it might seem remote from the victims, the crushed cars, the jumbled slabs of concrete - while it might seem irrelevant to engineering studies and reports - has great significance. We need civic engagement; we need good information that engaged citizens can use. Our lives and well-being depend on it.
As a footnote, three of the thirteen people in the room this morning had a close connection to victims on or near the bridge at the time of the collapse. One of these victims was seriously injured and is waiting for a decision about surgery. So, 3 of 13 at "one degree of separation" from people directly involved; my guess is that the rest of us in the room are only "two degrees" separated from the tragedy - that is, we most likely know someone who is personally linked to a victim.
That shows how much of a community we are - and demonstrates how important it is for us, as community members to make our region a better place to live!
Everyone in Minnesota, and many throughout the nation and the world, watched events unfold Wednesday evening in the aftermath of the collapse of the bridge over the Mississippi River. Today, we could view a tape of the actual collapse. The victims and their families have directly experienced a tragedy, and continue to do so; all of us feel the effects.
Today, the morning after the collapse, I had an 8:00 a.m. meeting with an advisory committee to discuss how to measure "Civic Engagement" as part of our Twin Cities Compass initiative, intended to measure the quality of life in the Twin Cities region. Prior to the meeting, I had wondered if committee members would attend, given the emotionally stressful events of the previous evening, not to mention potential traffic problems in the morning. I even had considered canceling the meeting.
I'm glad we met, not just because we productively accomplished our work, but because the meeting offered me the chance to reflect on the fact that civic engagement does very much relate to what happened to the bridge and on the bridge.
We have structures and infrastructures of all kinds in this world. They enable us to travel, communicate, and get important things done. Similar to people, they get old. Bridges get old.
Who should decide when to replace an aging bridge - engineers and other technicians? public officials? the general public? The experts gave this bridge a "sufficiency rating" of 50%, meaning from their point of view that it "might" need to be replaced; they rated its "structural members" at 4 on a scale of 9. Should it have been replaced? Who decides?
These decisions are not purely technical. They involve values; they involve hard decisions about costs. They pit different needs against one another, since money spent on bridge replacement cannot pay for something else. The decisions have implications that people feel directly, for example, in the time it takes them to travel, and in the taxes they have to pay.
Good decisions require informed and engaged members of the community. Productive action must be nonpartisan (or cooperatively multi-partisan), not motivated by attention only to rigid political or ideological agendas. Long-term thinking (which some politicians will not do) is required.
So, when we consider what happens to bridges, roads, and other physical structures, we must remain aware that our action or inaction, our interest or apathy, determine how safe we will be when we ride in cars, buses, trains, and planes. For the 35W bridge, some person or persons made the decision that the 50% rating was good enough not to make structural work a priority. Perhaps more people should be involved in that type of decision, in addition to many other decisions that literally affect our lives.
What about on the bridge? There we saw civic engagement at its finest in a crisis situation. Everyone - our police and fire services, service agencies like the Red Cross, nearby residents, passers-by, drivers (some of whom narrowly missed catastrophe), and others - pitched in, in some cases risking their lives.
I could not be near enough to get on that bridge to help people last night; but I'm very happy to be part of a process that can bring our region together to examine our trends and needs and to get mechanisms in place that will prevent future tragedies of this type.
That's why our meeting this morning - while it might seem remote from the victims, the crushed cars, the jumbled slabs of concrete - while it might seem irrelevant to engineering studies and reports - has great significance. We need civic engagement; we need good information that engaged citizens can use. Our lives and well-being depend on it.
As a footnote, three of the thirteen people in the room this morning had a close connection to victims on or near the bridge at the time of the collapse. One of these victims was seriously injured and is waiting for a decision about surgery. So, 3 of 13 at "one degree of separation" from people directly involved; my guess is that the rest of us in the room are only "two degrees" separated from the tragedy - that is, we most likely know someone who is personally linked to a victim.
That shows how much of a community we are - and demonstrates how important it is for us, as community members to make our region a better place to live!
Monday, July 16, 2007
Information Gold Mine
If you owned a business and you had some great performance numbers—revenues, total sales, annual profits, or whatever—would you list them in a financial report? Certainly. You would also use those numbers in a variety of other ways—perhaps to congratulate and motivate your staff, or to publicize the success of your business to attract more customers or investors. As a smart businessperson you would try to promote success in any way that makes sense.
What about nonprofits? Do we make the most of our performance information? Many of us sit on a treasure trove of evaluation information without realizing its potential. Some organizations, however, have discovered ways to creatively use such information to effectively demonstrate their impact. I and my co-authors wrote our book, Information Gold Mine: Innovative Uses of Evaluation, to uncover and share some of the best examples of creative uses of evaluation. We wanted to showcase program managers who could talk to their peers about what they had done and the benefits it produced for them.
Our book highlights organizations who use their evaluation findings to improve their services, to raise funds, or to influence policy and legislation. For example, PACE, an organization in Florida that serves adolescent girls, uses its evaluation findings to inform the general public and donors about its work, to provide training and technical assistance to other organizations, and to influence legislation. In 2004, it influenced the passage of a bill that mandated gender-specific services for adolescents.
Another example is YouthZone, in Colorado, who used their evaluation to push for excellent programming based on sound data. They made real changes—dropping parts of their model and changing others—to get genuine results. Debbie Wilde, executive director, says it has also given her and her board “more confidence in talking with people who have financial resources, in doing public relations, and in being assertive in asking for referrals.”
Information Gold Mind is available from Fieldstone Alliance, www.fieldstonealliance.org. (It will also be available at libraries soon.) You might also want to take a look at Wilder’s series of program evaluation tip sheets prepared by Cheryl Holm-Hansen highlighted on the first page of this Sampler. On the same topic, The Manager’s Guide to Program Evaluation, offers a framework for program managers to plan, contract, and manage useful evaluations. It is also available through Fieldstone.
We all strive to improve our effectiveness. Credible, clear data can empower us to continually adapt to our rapidly-changing environment, form good strategies, take control and be proactive in service delivery, alliance building, fundraising, marketing, and whatever else it takes to get our jobs done.
Perhaps you have some thoughts on this topic. Please let me know. Also, if you have an interest in more information about this book, or want to obtain it, visit the Fieldstone Alliance website.
What about nonprofits? Do we make the most of our performance information? Many of us sit on a treasure trove of evaluation information without realizing its potential. Some organizations, however, have discovered ways to creatively use such information to effectively demonstrate their impact. I and my co-authors wrote our book, Information Gold Mine: Innovative Uses of Evaluation, to uncover and share some of the best examples of creative uses of evaluation. We wanted to showcase program managers who could talk to their peers about what they had done and the benefits it produced for them.
Our book highlights organizations who use their evaluation findings to improve their services, to raise funds, or to influence policy and legislation. For example, PACE, an organization in Florida that serves adolescent girls, uses its evaluation findings to inform the general public and donors about its work, to provide training and technical assistance to other organizations, and to influence legislation. In 2004, it influenced the passage of a bill that mandated gender-specific services for adolescents.
Another example is YouthZone, in Colorado, who used their evaluation to push for excellent programming based on sound data. They made real changes—dropping parts of their model and changing others—to get genuine results. Debbie Wilde, executive director, says it has also given her and her board “more confidence in talking with people who have financial resources, in doing public relations, and in being assertive in asking for referrals.”
Information Gold Mind is available from Fieldstone Alliance, www.fieldstonealliance.org. (It will also be available at libraries soon.) You might also want to take a look at Wilder’s series of program evaluation tip sheets prepared by Cheryl Holm-Hansen highlighted on the first page of this Sampler. On the same topic, The Manager’s Guide to Program Evaluation, offers a framework for program managers to plan, contract, and manage useful evaluations. It is also available through Fieldstone.
We all strive to improve our effectiveness. Credible, clear data can empower us to continually adapt to our rapidly-changing environment, form good strategies, take control and be proactive in service delivery, alliance building, fundraising, marketing, and whatever else it takes to get our jobs done.
Perhaps you have some thoughts on this topic. Please let me know. Also, if you have an interest in more information about this book, or want to obtain it, visit the Fieldstone Alliance website.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Aging in Our Region
Today's StarTribune reported that the number of aging people in the suburbs will greatly increase in the coming years. (The Brookings Institution made these projections; they resemble earlier predictions made for Minnesota by our State Demographer.)
As we have discussed before, the movement of the Baby Boom into older age will constitute a demographic change unlike anything we have seen previously. The number of people in their 80s and 90s, for example, will grow in some suburban Twin Cities counties far more rapidly than any other age group. The currently evolving demographic trends have implications not just because of the increase in elderly, but also because the generation that follows the Boomers is smaller in numbers, which may produce various types of shortages in businesses, nonprofits, and government, and which may require that we re-think how we get things done.
The increasing number of older people will lead to "more of everything." On the positive side, more people who live longer, healthier lives - who want to remain active, perhaps in the labor force, perhaps as volunteers. On the negative side, more people who will spend longer periods of time needing care and assistance with their daily lives - which will strain families, communities, and formal health and long-term care systems.
Another article in today's news indicated that many Boomers feel the need to postpone retirement, due to financial concerns. As we showed at a recent conference, the proportion of older people with low incomes, even living in poverty, seems to be increasing, after a decline over many decades.
We need to realize the importance of addressing the changing demographics as a region. It's not a "city" issue or a "suburban" issue. Cities and suburbs are socially and economically interdependent. (Geographic dispersion in the suburbs may increase the challenges of caring for older people there, relative to cities where density provides opportunities to bring services closer to more people, reduce transportation time and costs, etc.; but that's a different issue.) As a region, we need to understand what changes will likely occur, plan for them, and act together to promote the best quality of life for residents of the entire region, young or old.
As we have discussed before, the movement of the Baby Boom into older age will constitute a demographic change unlike anything we have seen previously. The number of people in their 80s and 90s, for example, will grow in some suburban Twin Cities counties far more rapidly than any other age group. The currently evolving demographic trends have implications not just because of the increase in elderly, but also because the generation that follows the Boomers is smaller in numbers, which may produce various types of shortages in businesses, nonprofits, and government, and which may require that we re-think how we get things done.
The increasing number of older people will lead to "more of everything." On the positive side, more people who live longer, healthier lives - who want to remain active, perhaps in the labor force, perhaps as volunteers. On the negative side, more people who will spend longer periods of time needing care and assistance with their daily lives - which will strain families, communities, and formal health and long-term care systems.
Another article in today's news indicated that many Boomers feel the need to postpone retirement, due to financial concerns. As we showed at a recent conference, the proportion of older people with low incomes, even living in poverty, seems to be increasing, after a decline over many decades.
We need to realize the importance of addressing the changing demographics as a region. It's not a "city" issue or a "suburban" issue. Cities and suburbs are socially and economically interdependent. (Geographic dispersion in the suburbs may increase the challenges of caring for older people there, relative to cities where density provides opportunities to bring services closer to more people, reduce transportation time and costs, etc.; but that's a different issue.) As a region, we need to understand what changes will likely occur, plan for them, and act together to promote the best quality of life for residents of the entire region, young or old.
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