by Mike Gallagher for the CMF NewsWire
Posted 1/25/10

A historic economic and educational transition is taking place in America and Michigan must place an emphasis on innovation, creativity and flexibility if it hopes to play a pivotal role in the ever-changing global economic landscape, according to foundation and education leaders.

To achieve that goal, Michigan leaders in government, education and the private sectorneed to continue to foster and develop problem-solving skills within Michigan’s workforce. And, those efforts must also begin with K-12 students and continue through post-secondary education as well, say the experts.

That message resonated at the recent Council of Michigan Foundations’ (CMF) Detroit Area Grantmakers meeting held at the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education in Detroit. Presenters included: Richard L. Rogers, president, College for Creative Studies; Deborah Parizek, executive director, Henry Ford Learning Institute; Carol Goss, president & CEO, The Skillman Foundation; and Allyson Knox, U.S. Partners in Learning, a program of Microsoft Corporation based in Washington D.C.

Moderator Wendy Lewis Jackson, senior program officer for the The Kresge Foundation, said, “Innovation and flexibility will drive Michigan’s economic stability and growth…and employers are demanding a new set of skills throughout the workforce to keep up in this fast changing environment.

“Many people in Detroit are working to meet these demands through enhanced educational efforts…and they are making a difference,” added Jackson.

New Innovation Center Sparks Creativity

Rogers shared the history of the College for Creative Studies’ (CCS) acquisition and renovation of the 750,000-square-foot Taubman Center and its efforts to mold it into a state-of-the-art educational design facility focusing on 21st century innovation. Michigan’s emerging new businesses can now rely upon it as a source of creative and well-educated, well-trained job talent.

“The Taubman Center was designed by Albert Kahn and built in two phases, in 1928 and 1936, as General Motors’ original engineering and research center,” said Rogers. “It’s been the scene of the development of hundreds of patents for new technologies under GM’s engineering leader, Charles ‘Boss’ Kettering.

“It also was home to the industry’s first automotive design studio under legendary designer Harley Earl,” he added.

Rogers said he was pleased that, with the help of the foundation community, other nonprofits, the business sector and state tax breaks, “We have taken a giant step forward reasserting Detroit’s place as a source of creativity and a home for the creative industries that are so important to economic growth today.”

More than 1,400 students are enrolled in CCS courses at the center which is providing cutting-edge training in automotive and marine design; film production; animation; gaming and more.

While CCS still maintains its main Detroit campus, the expansion into the Taubman Center provides a unique opportunity to begin building a synergistic K-20 educational experience, noted Rogers.

“For instance, our building now houses the Henry Ford Academy: School for Creative Studies (HFA:SCS), Detroit’s art and design middle and high school which focuses on engaging students and preparing them for the future through strong academics, a college-going culture, intensive art and design preparation and real world experiences centered on innovation and creativity,” he said

“As a public school academy, all enrolled students attend tuition-free,” added Rogers.

HFA: SCS opened with grades 6, 7, 9 in September 2009 and currently serves 380 students. The school will host grades 6 through 10 during the 2010-2011 school year and by 2013 will add grades 11 and 12.

“It is built on a foundation of experience, as a partnership led by Henry Ford Learning Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating public schools in public spaces, and CCS, a world leader in art and design education,” he said.

Most importantly, added Rogers, “This center is now a pathway for minority students into the creative professions. We believe we can now change the process for innovation for our children…and Detroit and Michigan will reap the benefits of their knowledge and intellectual strength, creativity and innovation in the years to come.”

The Skillman Foundation Making A Difference

Building on the success of its “Fix Our Schools” community meetings held last year, The Skillman Foundation is participating in an ongoing effort to involve a broad cross-section of Detroit’s education, government, community, parent and philanthropic leaders to develop a citywide education plan to help ensure that all Detroit children attend excellent schools, Goss told the DAG attendees.

“All Detroit children deserve a great education,” she said. “Our goal is to develop a shared vision of what that looks like and a roadmap for how to get there. We need to strengthen the whole system: all schools as well as early childhood and after-school programs.

“We finally have all the key players in place in Detroit to make this work,” noted Goss. “Our new mayor Dave Bing, Robert Bobb as the Detroit schools’ emergency financial manager, a new city council and our dedicated foundations, nonprofits and business leaders are all working together to improve our schools for our children.

“Participants in the “Excellent Schools Detroit” partnership want to take advantage of a unique window of opportunity: a new sense of urgency and hope in the community; results-driven and accountable school and city leadership; and additional federal, state and philanthropic funding and support for bold initiatives,” said Goss.

Goss said the Detroit leaders have come up with a “cradles to career” plan for the city that is being informed and supported by such groups as United Way, the NAACP, Detroit Federation of Teachers and charter schools and that foundations – such as Skillman, The Kresge Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation – are taking philanthropic leadership roles in helping fund the effort.

“We will be announcing the plan next month,” promised Goss, who cited a statement by Bobb who said:

“We will forever be limited if we continue planning in silos. This process allows all Detroiters concerned about the city's educational future to envision the matrix of educational offerings that will best suit our children's needs for 21st century teaching and learning.

“And, it will create the opportunities to plan the best possible set of options with minimal duplication and overlap, allowing all those engaged in public education to build upon their particular set of strengths.”

Henry Ford Learning Institute Focuses On “Innovation Education”

The real challenge in teaching creative innovation to the young people of Detroit is bringing together the visions of the city’s leaders and taking those rich, robust ideas and making them applicable to both students and teachers, said Parizek, executive director of the Henry Ford Learning Institute (HFLI).

“Our goal is to offer a college preparatory environment with a rigorous academic focus bursting with creative and innovative opportunities for our students,” said Parizek. “We need to determine what those skills are that are common in a curriculum and generate success…so we can nurture them in both students and teachers.”

HFLI was launched in 2003 as a partnership between Ford Motor Company Fund and The Henry Ford to create a national network of small, community-based schools based on the education reform model first implemented at Henry Ford Academy, noted Parizek.

“We are working with a cadre of national partners to ‘re-vision’ our teaching model curriculum to include an explicit focus on innovation and creativity that is needed for success in the 21st century,” she said.

“Our curriculum is designed to help students gain an orientation to innovation,” added Parizek. “This is America’s only innovation-based middle- and high-school curriculum where learning centers around design challenges that bring students together and engage them in the process of developing a solution to a real-world question.

“Our children need to see that their ideas have value and they can visualize and realize a way to bring their ideas to reality,” she noted. “We want to teach them to see a challenge, take action and move forward.”

U.S. Partners In Learning

Michigan is ripe for the implementation of new innovative teaching methodologies and curriculums and a new program created by Microsoft – called U.S. Partners in Learning – is looking to invest in people, partnerships, services, philanthropy and products to stimulate positive change in education.

That message from Knox, spokeswoman for the Microsoft initiative based in Washington D.C., came with an invite to the Detroit Area Grantmakers and their education partners to look into the company’s $500 million, global initiative to:

  • Create new 21st Century learning communities
  • Help existing schools transform into 21st century-learning environments
  • Develop skilled and innovative leaders
  • Increase adoption of innovative learning solutions through scale.

“Together with our partners around the world, we are focusing on three key areas that have the greatest potential to empower students and teachers and transform education: innovative schools, innovative teachers and innovative students,” said Knox.

“My job is to build public/private partnerships,” she added. “Because we believe that successfully creating and transforming learning communities can only be done through partnership, we work closely with educators, schools, school districts, state departments of education, and other organizations to create diverse projects that can serve as models for the future.”

U.S. Partners in Learning does this in several ways, including providing students increased access to technology and promoting the creation of exemplary practices, awarding software grants and giving educators access to online learning communities, noted Knox.

“We’re here to offer our services to Detroit and Michigan because we understand the need is so great to find new, innovative and creative ways to move the economy forward,” she said. “And that all begins with the children.”