Education « Nesmith's Notes

Vote YES for 3A. Vote YES for Our Children.

Support K-12 Education in Boulder Valley

Boulder Valley School District needs your help in passing Ballot Measure 3A. The Colorado Legislature cut over $260 million from education in their latest budget. The impact for BVSD during the 2011-2012 school year is estimated to be a reduction of $11.7 million when compared to the 2009-2010 school year. The 2010-2011 budgets will come out somewhere in between these two, thanks to one time funding from Federal emergency funds and reductions in the administrative costs to run the district.

Colorado continues to fund education at levels approaching the lowest in the nation. Before the latest recession, in 2007, Colorado spent $1,500 per student below the national average and ranked 40th in the nation in public funding for K-12. Today, spending is even less, with Colorado falling to 42nd in public funding for K-12. With economists predicting Colorado’s budget shortfalls to continue, we are looking to go even lower. 42nd and falling! According to the Denver Post, in 2007 Colorado ranked 49th and was stingier than all but Florida, spending only $34.35 of every $1,000 in personal income to educate our children. This compares to a national average of $43.02. We should do better.

Last spring, each school in the BVSD gathered administrators, educators and parents together to deal with the budget shortfall. Likely, many of you attended one or more of these meetings. If you did, you may have seen what we saw in our budget meetings. There were a few things that could be cut and would save a few dollars. Some of these may have been budgeted but unspent in the latest budget or even over the past few years. Others were nice to have programs and activities that would not really be missed. But after 2, 3, 4% in cuts, reductions impacted the classroom and the learning experience. We’ve already made the easy, painless cuts and any additional cuts will be to our kids’ educations. We should do better.

What has BVSD done to address this budget issue? The central district administrative expenses were cut by 13.5% while school budgets were cut by 3.75%. Some of this 3.75% was reinstated using the federal emergency funds mentioned earlier. Some people will argue more can be done to cut the district’s overhead and if they are correct, it should be done. However, hoping for or even getting additional cuts in overhead are not going to be enough to fix the problem.

This mill levy would be used in three primary areas. The first is to restore the classroom funding reduction from the state. $12 million would be allocated to replace funds lost from the state. Superintendent King has vowed none of this money would be used to replace central administrative spending cuts. $5.5 million would be used for teacher and staff compensation to hire and retain the best teachers in the region. $5 million will be invested in early childhood education programs.

You can read more about the ballot measure, why we need it, what it does and find ways to help support its passage at Vote Children First.

Read the text of ballot measure 3A and see it as it appears on the Boulder County ballot – go to page 3.

Endorsements:

Investing in the economy through education By Helayne Jones and David Harwood

Impact on Education

The Community Foundation of Boulder County

Boulder Chamber of Commerce

Dennis Berry’s Letter to the Camera’s Editor

Jane McConnell’s Letter to the Camera’s Editor

Education

04Dec

Leeds School of Business’ Annual Colorado Business Economic Outlook is Dec 7th

Filed in Economy | Energy | Environment

The 45th Annual Event Sponsored by the Business Research Division in the Leeds School of Business and BBVA Compass
The annual forecast of the state’s economy includes snapshots from specific counties and regions around the state, as well as updates on international trade, population, labor force and personal income growth, and a general outlook on the national economy.
December 7
Grand Hyatt Hotel, 1750 Welton Street, Denver
1:00 p.m. Welcome by Leeds School and BBVA Compass
1:15 p.m. Colorado economic outlook for 2010
         Richard Wobbekind, Economist, Leeds School of Business
         John Lymberopoulos, Professor Emeritus, Leeds School of Business
2:00 p.m. Question and answer panel session
2:30 p.m. Keynote address: Nathaniel Karp, Chief U.S. Economist, BBVA Compass
3:15 p.m. Concurrent discussion sessions:
         The Future of Uranium, Renewables, and Coal–Impacts on Colorado’s Economy
         Moderator and Speaker: Vince Matthews–Colorado Geological Survey
         Panel: Jim Burnell–Colorado Geological Survey
                    Bob Burnham–Wood Mackenzie
                     Jeff Lyng–Governor’s Energy Office
4:45 p.m. Networking reception
There is no charge for this event. No RSVP is necessary. Download printable postcard invitation.
More info:

Education, Energy, Environment

25Sep

Ole Miss and SmartSynch Report Electricity Usage with…Twitter

Filed in Education | Efficiency | Energy | Environment | smartgrid

The University of Mississippi is using data from SmartSynch’s smart meters and passing it to dashboards for campus operations personnel to monitor, analyze and act via RSS and social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook. As a part of the university’s Red, Blue and Green initiative, students and faculty can register with the school’s Green Initiative website and get real time view and comparisons of energy usage around the campus.

Education, Efficiency, electricity, Energy, Environment, smartgrid, South

13Mar

What am I doing here?

Filed in Colorado | Education

For the second year in a row, Forbes names Boulder ‘smartest city’ in U.S. While a more accurate name would be the most educated city in the U.S., I can easily support the argument that the place is full of people with impressive intellectual power. Come visit us and see.

Colorado, Education

24Oct

Gazelles Growth Summit – Day Two

Filed in Management

Day two included another round of interesting speakers. We began with a horse of a different color as Paul Orfalea, Founder of Kinkos, shared his store, advice and leadership style (close the door and let the kids run the store). Then we moved on to customer satisfaction and the Net Promoter Score as described by Fred Reichheld, auther of The Ultimate Question. That question being. “Would you enthusiastically recommend our company to a friend?” That’s it. Get them to rate this on a scale of 1 to 10 and if you get a 7 or lower ask them if it is ok for someone to call them. Kaihan Krippendorf, auther of The Art of the Advantage then walked us all through the famous 36 Strategems of eastern warfare. The key to using these is to master the patterns in order to quickly apply the appropriate strategem as you confront different competitive and negotiation situations in your business and personal life. The day concluded with a magical addition to the schedule. Literally, we were entertained by a magician who suggested we should not forget to enjoy the ride and remember the kid in all of us.

Education, Management

23Oct

Gazelles Growth Summit – Day One

Filed in Management

The annual Gazelles Growth Summit began today in Las Vegas with a host of interesting speakes. Robert Bloom was first at the podium to discuss his new book Inside Advantage. It is a good read and I will write a separate post on it soon. Bloom is full of real life examples from his long career at several ad agencies including CEO of Publis Group.

Using real life examples including Sothwest Airlines, Zales Jewelers, Juicy Juice () and Curves, Bloom describes his process for creating and defending a sustainable market position. In short define your customer as one individual person, create an uncommon offering for this person, describe how you will define your uncommon offering to your customer and then Own It through a series of Imaginative Acts.

Geoffrey Moore followed with a discussion of some new models for defining where shareholder value can best be improved. Moore began with a discussion of Net Free Cash Flow and suggested the best way for early stage companies to increase valuation is to improve the long term prospects by focusing on increasing “Power” where you can get the biggest bang for the buck.

Moore talked about five types of Power and described how these match to marketing activities as shown in this table:

He went on to suggest small companies should focus on Product Marketing which leads to Offer Power.

Then we were employed to maximize the ethical influencial power afforded us through the laws of human nature as studied and described by Robert Cialdini. He outlined six primary areas that afford us influence:
Reciprocation – I scratch your back; you scratch mine
Consensus – What everyone else is doing
Authority – Trusted, knowledgable source

Education, Management

17Sep

Gazelles Growth Summit 2007 – Oct. 23 & 24

Filed in Energy

Gazelles Growth Summit highlighted by Geoffrey Moore. Sponsored by Forbes Small Business, Verizon and Range Rover, the program run by Gazelles will also showcase influence expert, Dr. Robert Cialdini, and a host of others.

Education, Management

07Mar

Why is change so hard?

Filed in Education | Environment | History | Technology

Why is it so hard to change, even when the evidence for doing so is overwhelming? This article from Scientific American, answers the question Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes, yet there are only 24 hours in a day?

It is interesting, if not surprising, that these measurements were passed down from other uses and definitions that date to the earliest points in civilization. Pardon the pun… Time and time again we’ve had the opportunity to change the system to one which would be much more comfortable, that is to use a decimal system.

And of course we could ask the same about the US sticking to our short history of the English measurement system when our British brethren were able to kick that habit quite easily.

change, Education, Management

22Feb

Building the 21st century education system

Filed in Creativity | Education | Science | Technology

Are our schools prepared for the challenges our kids will face this century?Â This decade?Â Alvin Toffler suggest our schools were built to prepare the rural American child for the industrial revolution.Â Get to work on time, enjoy repetitive tasks and essentially fall in line.Â Agree?Â Perhaps we have advanced somewhat since the late 1800′s and this seems all too familar to much of the work I recall from oh so many years ago.

Today, when I see our dedicated, hardworking teachers struggle to escape from the bonds of top down driven curriculm, I think there must be a better way.Â Â Here is one alternative.
Future School
You’re talking about customizing the educational experience.

“Exactly. Any form of diversity that we can introduce into the schools is a plus. Today, we have a big controversy about all the charter schools that are springing up. The school system people hate them because they’re taking money from them. I say we should radically multiply charter schools, because they begin to provide a degree of diversity in the system that has not been present. Diversify the system.

In our book Revolutionary Wealth, we play a game. We say, imagine that you’re a policeman, and you’ve got a radar gun, and you’re measuring the speed of cars going by. Each car represents an American institution. The first one car is going by at 100 miles an hour. It’s called business. Businesses have to change at 100 miles an hour because if they don’t, they die. Competition just puts them out of the game. So they’re traveling very, very fast. Then comes another car. And it’s going at 10 miles an hour. That’s the public education system. Schools are supposed to be preparing kids for the business world of tomorrow, to take jobs, to make our economy functional. The schools are changing, if anything, at 10 miles an hour. So, how do you match an economy that requires 100 miles an hour with an institution like public education? A system that changes, if at all, at 10 miles an hour?”

Creativity, Education, Politics

18Jul

Are Business Schools the Cause of Business Corruption?

Filed in Ethics

Economist.com |Is the MBA responsible for moral turpitude at the top? :

“SEVERAL of the corporate scandals that took place in the early years of this decade are currently being replayed in courtrooms from New York to Alabama. The trials of top executives at HealthSouth, Tyco International and WorldCom are reminding the public how unethical was the behaviour of some of the nation’s top managers only a few short years ago.

The finger of blame for this behaviour is sometimes pointed at the MBA, the degree offered by business schools from Harvard to Hawaii. Perhaps this is not as odd as it sounds. After all, MBAs lay as thick on the ground at Enron as managerial hubris, and disinterested outsiders are not alone in asking whether there might have been some connection.”

Do we really think the primary place for social and moral teachings is in the management schools teaching twenty and thirty year olds the latest theory on business and economics? Yes, these schools can and are exposing future manager to difficult situations. But, no, it is not the primary responsibility of these institutions to instill the core values of ethical and legal decision making. Here is an article on the issue worthy of a read.

Education, Ethics, governance, Management

16Dec

Network Learning

Filed in Economy | Management | Technology

Connections: The Impact of Schooling
December 2003 – Jay Cross

Cross writes, “Most learning is informal; a network approach makes it easier, more productive and more memorable to meet, share and collaborate. Emotional intelligence promotes interoperability with others. Expert locators connect you to the person with the right answer. Imagine focusing the hive mind that emerges in massive multiplayer games on business. Smart systems will prescribe the apt way to demonstrate a procedure, help make a decision or provide a service, or transform an individualâ€™s self-image. Networks will serve us instead of the other way around.”

This last sentence is critical. The individual taps into the network in the way she prefers. Yes, she is a part of the network, but she is not compromised by the thinking of others in the network. Not only does she not have to agree with others in the network, she does not have to “agree to disagree” with others in the network.

Let’s compare this to “brainstorming” sessions. We’ve all been party to “group think” sessions where one or two people have dominated or controlled the actions and outcomes of the group. Often resulting is sub-par results. (Remember those survival exercises where one member of the group scores better than the group collectively. Where two heads are worse than one?) It can be due to the person’s personality, debating skills, authority relative to others in the session or knowledge of the subject. It may be, but does not have to be intentional.

These “group think” sessions, usually corporate sponsored, have a limitation that the learning network does not have. They have to come to a single conclusionn. In the learning network, each member has the opportunity to take the network information and come to her own conclusions.

So just maybe two heads are better than one, and four heads are better than two and eight heads are better than four and so on and so on…

I’d like to see that happen here.

Economy, Education, Management