Boo! A scary topic for Halloween: EDUCATION

While I should be doing homework after working 20 hours this weekend, I find more comfort in discussing the scariest topic of all the problems Cleveland faces - education.

This topic is really difficult and takes many perspectives to wrap your mind around. There are many reasons to complain, many groups to blame, yet it seems like there are no viable solutions in place yet.

So, let's start from the beginning. Cleveland's schools were great in the 50's and 60's. (At least from my dad's perspective). Cleveland was still on the upswing, gaining population, industry, and tax revenue. However, Cleveland remained EXTREMELY SEGREGATED from that era forth. There was a large pool of poor black families and second generation immigrants that lived on polar ends of the city. This idea may sound egregious to my generation, but the truth is segregation still exists. (puerto rican inner southwest, black east and southeast, and white west and outer southwest.

My dad always insisted that once the city started bussing, Cleveland was done for. The city forced equal demographics in all schools across the city and bussed all of "those black kids" (not my dad's words at all, I can't quote, but that's the theory) to the west side schools. Not to mention the HUGE cost of bussing. My dad believed that this was the catalyst for the city's demise, and I basically agree. My grandma took my aunt, who was very young at this time, and fled to the suburbs (North Olmstead?) to escape the revolution in Cleveland's schools. Bussing wasn't the cause, but it seems like it was the catalyst. It combined with low gas prices, new highways cutting through neighborhoods and becoming arteries to the suburbs, loss of jobs in the oil industry to the Mideast, an increase in service industry jobs, and new inventions to making often family interaction less necessary (women working and sending kids to daycare, commercial airlines, highways, and the telephone) combined to promote a white-flight from the city to the sprawl of the suburbs. (I hate sprawl. All planners do. It's the anti-everything our world and country should stand for.) My point is that bussing provided a catalyst for the white flight in our region experienced, which in turn effected our education system.

As bussing "forced" many white families to leave our city, it began to decline at a rapid level, losing population, tax dollars, and most importantly, the families with good students who could find better opportunities in whiter suburban districts. The district has taken hits every year with lower revenue, lower student populations, and a larger proportion of students who are economically disadvantaged.

We've reached a point now where people want to live in Cleveland, yet have two real options when they have four options: 1. Homeschool, 2. Private schools, 3. Move to suburbs, 4. Charter schools
At least that's the way I would look at it now if I had kids.

The goal is for the school district to succeed. Or is it? In a capitalistic world, things that fail should get shut down. "But we can't eliminate a school district!" But can we? This is where charter schools come into play. Frankly, I'm the product of great parents, great talents, and a charter school (gasp!). After an imperfect Kindergarten at Saint Thomas More in such a structured environment, my parents asked me to try a new school (with blocks to build towers!) for one year. Old Brooklyn Montessori School. I ended up loving it, and I stayed there for eight years and got into Ignatius, which leads me to where I am today! OBMS has since undergone a lot of changes that it needed to make to get more state funding and compete better with the state's "Report Card" and national "No Child Left Behind" testing requirements. It's now "Old Brooklyn Community School" and "Old Brooklyn Community Middle School." I'll always wish the school had stayed focused on Montessori (which helped my free spirit excel by letting me take my own initiative) however:

OBCS is annually ranked an "Excellent" school on the state report card.

This is remarkable given that charter schools receive 1/2 the funding of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) and teachers change so quickly with the lower salaries that incurs. A school district receives X amount from the city and Y amount from the state, which accounts for about the same.  So charter schools in Cleveland run on 1/2 the funding of CMSD yet receive superior results in cases. Why is that? COMPETITION IN THE MARKETPLACE. Parents can now raise their kids in Cleveland without moving or paying for them to attend good schools. The students that attend charter schools (in my opinion) have parents that care more than the average CMSD parent and are encouraged to actively participate in the school. This recreates that suburban pool of schools, but in the city. Plus, students don't change schools every six months. Just imagine how much MORE successful certain charter schools could be if they received vouchers for students from the city. Teachers could get paid wages more competitive to wages of unionized public school district's teachers, and more resources could get paid into expansion, equipment, and facilities.

My argument here is that if CMSD doesn't change trends around in five years after its recent change in philosophy under CEO Eugene Sanders, we need to promote a strong voucher system and open up competition in the charter school market.

I have faith in Dr. Sanders and hope his plan works, but if if doesn't work we need new philosophies. OUR CHILDREN CANNOT WAIT ANYMORE. Without a decent set of free education options, our region is doomed to failure.

The deal with charter schools is that if they fail after Z many years, the state shuts them down. Fair enough, no?

In case you're confused, I'm going to explain various viewpoints involved with the CMSD and it's problems.

CMSD (Cleveland Metropolitan School District) runs into problems in five key areas: Demographics, student motivation, parent motivation, teachers union, and teachers approach.

I've already documented the demographics. We cannot force bussing, which the district repealed a few years ago if I remember correctly, but we have to leave it an option to certain specialty schools (particularly high schools for the arts, technology, science, etc.). We need demographics to improve (bring families with good students and care about involvement in the education process into all areas of town. However, this attraction needs to occur with some incentives such as a better education system, which is redundant, or a great lakefront, community center service, close to jobs, safe, etc.

I should've mentioned this earlier if I didn't, but EDUCATION IS THE SINGLE BIGGEST KEY TO OUR REGION'S GROWTH. Turning the region and school district around involves all of the topics I'm cataloguing, but without good schools we will never succeed in producing good workers, entrepreneurs, or attract new industry.

Parent participation to their child's education is critical. If a parent doesn't push their kids to do well, connect them to resources to help them, use the library system to read to kids when they're growing up, and challenge kids to grow, a kid doesn't obtain the necessary skills or motivation to succeed in life. There are always anomalies in this situation however part of the blame goes on parents of kids. Parents who were raised in the system and may or may not have had their first kid in high school and there's no dad and the "blaming" goes on and on and on....

Simply, the city and schools need to try everything they can to encourage parents to read to their children, encourage them to do well, connect them with resources (libraries) and help out at school. I made an 18-page proposal a month ago about how to do this. If you'd like a copy please let me know. It involved a bunch of changes including using $200 of the $14,000 per student CMSD spends on incentives for grades, attendance, good behavior, graduation, participation, etc. I determined it to be impractical and scrapped it, although I'm sure I'll revisit it sometime.

Kids motivation is key, but when you're young and are faced with odds against you such as parents who don't care or bad teachers, you have little chance of making it in life.

Cleveland Teachers Union. Oh boy. Let me premise the ravaging I'm about to do by saying I believe Unions should be a great place to foster ideas, living wages, and promote activism in the city. I'm not anti-union. I'm pro-union to a certain extent.

HOWEVER THIS UNION HAS GONE TOO FAR.
Problems: High wages, low results.
THEY SHELTER BAD, REALLY BAD, TEACHERS WITH OLD SCHOOL APPROACHES AND LITTLE IMPACT WITH THEIR SENIORITY.
They're way too powerful and spend resources on special interest groups at the federal level as far as I understand.
They're focused way more on their well being than that of their students. Which is Wrong. If the teachers don't care about their students as a whole, and worry more about themselves, we're doomed to failure. Their jobs will be such much better if they work more to turn the system around and change policies to promote growth instead of stagnation.

CMSD CEO Dr. Eugene Sanders has attempted to work with the unions to change some of these policies, but the unions still aren't budging. Seemingly every three years they're laying off hundreds of young energetic teachers at the expense of the students so that teachers with seniority keep their fat paychecks. This is unsustainable. I'm hoping Sanders wins his push to change the unions. If not, we need to threaten the union's existence by strongly promoting charter schools and vouchers in the city. If the school district disappears and the city is not growing, unions have no one to serve.

UGH. This is really scary folks. It's one of the nightmares about Cleveland.

New teacher approaches such as positive reinforcement are needed, but I've got too much of a headache now to expand upon that. Plus, I'm no expert in that area.

SO, my plan:

1. CMSD should be the city's #1 priority.

-Union needs to scrap seniority
-New teaching methods need to be implemented
-Parents need to be well informed and active in child's education
-Every student needs to have opportunities to "make it"


If Cleveland's Transformation plan doesn't result in significant changes by the 2015-2016 school year, the flood gate needs to be opened on CMSD with charter schools flooding the district. Families need options. If CMSD is doomed to fail, the unions die with it. And from there maybe a fresh start can begin.

At this point I'm rambling. And that's what's scary about the education system. You can't do much unless you're in charge and have power to negotiate with the unions and can influence parents' motivation.

I'll revisit this topic again eventually when I understand it a bit better

Happy Halloween!

God Bless,

-Ken

CLEERIET - 8 steps for Cleveland, Infinite possibilities

A quick acronym to tie together my general themes (just making this up now)

C- end CORRUPTION
L- develop and connect to the LAKEFRONT
E- ECONOMIC environment
E- EDUCATION
R- REGIONALIZATION
I- INNOVATE and INVEST in new INDUSTRY such as solar and wind**
E- Ecologically sound decisions. ENVIRONMENT
T- TRANSPORTATION*

       *use our enviable location and infrastructure assets to create a 21st century TRANSPORTATION network. i.e. high speed rail system across the midwest

          **(we can become North American leader in through linear production, bringing in innovative European technology...)



So....

CLEERIET

makes no sense

anywho:

Corruption
Lakefront
Economic Environment
Education
Regionalization
Innovate
Environment
Transportation

CLEERIET
take note :)

Clean it up!

My plans for the City of Cleveland begin with fiscal and leadership responsibility.

In order to grow and move forward, we need the least corrupt government possible. Although corruption is often inevitable when the powers that be remain in office for a long period of time, there are steps we can take. As citizens, we are called to vote good people first and foremost into office, seeing beyond the financial aspects of their campaigns into whether or not their intentions are good. A strong platform and experience also help. Secondly, we need to utilize the strong FBI presence we have here. Sure, they may slow down some government processes, but ratting out corrupt politicians and city/county workers is a priority. They've done a valiant job so far and need to continue looking into government corruption at all levels.

Cleveland is a leader in philanthropy between businesses, non profits, and governments. THAT is GREAT! It's the inside jobs and skimming money that have cost our region MILLIONS of tax dollars.

Weeding out this government corruption is the first step to fiscal responsibility. Cleveland's population loss is beginning to decline as the people who are left mostly either want to stay or do not have the means to leave if they wanted to. A large chunk of the population loss over the last five years was from the foreclosure crisis and the exodus of wealthy city workers (previously required to live IN Cleveland) to the suburbs. Now that those workers who wanted to leave have left, there's really nothing else forcing people to stay in town.

As our population begins to stabilize, we can begin to focus on a fixed income (as opposed to a constant decline) as well as the best ways to use the resources we have. But in order to complete the projects we wish to continue to fund as a city and county, we need to attempt to clean up the messes we have already made and refocus our resources on projects and agencies that benefit everyone, particularly the under served.

I first propose approaching the owners of our three major sports teams about refinancing our deals.
Here are some facts:
-We're still paying for about a half of "The Q" and "Progressive Field."
-Both owners get subsidies.
-The Dolan family still makes annual profits on the Indians through MLB revenue sharing.
-Dan Gilbert is a very wealthy man and has huge stakes in our city through his investments and great returns on the Cavaliers and through the new casino.
-Almost all of athletes live in the far suburbs, the owners live out of town, and many workers live in the suburbs.
-Cleveland is getting very little returns on the huge investment that these box projects were.
-Neither owner has to pay property taxes.

Facts more enraging to me:
-The County is still paying about $7 million a year for Cleveland Browns Stadium, will through something like 2025
-Randy Lerner pays NO PROPERTY TAXES (fund our schools) on the stadium for ETERNITY
-We lose EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS a year on that lost property tax income.
-The stadium was poorly placed on prime real estate land that could have been developed for other uses (developed new lakefront community, park, etc.)
-Lerner lives in England, is a multi Billionaire, and is basically pillaging our city for extra profits from our team.
-The players and workers who are needed 9 times a year live in the suburbs.
-Lerner's annual rent is a measly $250,000 with no increase over 30 years.
-This is all BULLSHIT to Clevelanders!

Corruption comes in many forms. TALK ABOUT CORRUPTION!

The Medical Mart and convention center are the same things all over again, however I argue FOR IT as soon as possible in a tba post.

With all of this in mind, as a sign of faith in moving our region forward, I highly recommend the city business leaders, city nonprofit leaders, city leaders, county leaders, state governor, and state congressmen to set up meetings with the owners of these teams to try to work out new deals. At least put public pressure on them.

Since the county's 50% shares in the Gateway district are almost paid off, try to negotiate slashing the subsidies by two thirds, or else threaten to remove them all together. Gilbert's not leaving, and the Dolans   might sell the franchise (which, in my opinion, would be fine, as long as they stay). I think it's reasonable that the county is paying for just 50% of these projects with sin taxes.

That gives us more money to spend on critical projects.

The two large pushes are at the state level and with Lerner:

The state needs to repeal its laws that guarantee stadiums built in Ohio do not have to pay property taxes.

We need to sit down with Lerner and find a way to convince him to pay for the remainder of the stadium, or at least a half of that remainder. It will likely fail because the deal is already in place. However, a sign of good faith in trying to move on from our corrupt past needs to be shown by the powers that be.

In total, on our stadiums and the Key Center and Gateway Parking complex, we lose $20 million in property taxes EACH YEAR. Imagine what we'd be able to do if we had that back!

If we could renegotiate with Lerner for half of the remaining financing for Browns stadium as well as removing subsidies to the Cavaliers and Indians, that would at least free up $5 million!

Corruption comes in many shapes and forms, and we're currently so entrenched in it that we need to find a way out now before it becomes too late and we miss out on growth opportunities in the next 20 years.

Moving forward with any projects, plans, and regionalization requires that we clean up our fiscal act NOW and free up funds for new projects so we won't have to raise taxes.

Oh how I LOVE Cleveland!

Here's a link on financing issues in Cleveland:
http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/10751

-Ken



NEXT TIME: something else interesting, possibly lakefront

What We Got

Cleveland is well-known (at least to residents) for many "facts": We're poor, unsafe, losing population, losing industry, losing jobs in general, and corrupt.

That list is in actuality very long, very detailed, and very depressing, but I'm not going into detail because that "Cleveland sucks" attitude is what is holding us back. Everything is focused on the negative, how "good it was," the inability of our sports teams to win championships, how high the taxes are, and it's almost like we're in a stalemate. Even when large investments are made in "box projects" (i.e. Rock Hall, Science Center, Stadiums, Medical Mart & Convention Center, Casino), we barely gain from it. Cleveland's gone about things all wrong for about fifty years, and it's time for a younger generation to take the by the reigns city and tap into its potential to do great things.

So, if we're so crappy, how do we turn the city around?
This is a complex situation, and the focus of my blog.
I don't believe we'll ever be a true tourist destination, so we need to stop catering to tourists who aren't here and won't be here until America hears of the great comeback we're going to make (when it happens).
In theory, a city's vitality to me revolves around eight important factors:

1. Excellent K-12 education and strong resident college communities
2. An economic environment encouraging growth and new businesses/industries of all sizes
3. Anchor industries and institutions that are based in the city at all stages of production
4. Safety: (low crime levels and increasing public's "sense of security."
5. Strong public institutions
6. Proper utilization of land in redevelopment
7. A regional network of certain public services which provides greatest efficiency.
8. Infrastructure, transportation, and utilities network which encourages growth

These are going to be my main topics of discussion. Many ideas will be proposals. The main thing to note is that if we fight for what we want, we will be able to attain the resources necessary to create change.

I promise this will be the most all-over the place blog in this series.

As I further my education and hopefully dedicate myself to Cleveland, here are my plans:
1. Graduate from Urban and Regional Studies at Cornell
2. Either join Jesuit Volunteer Corps, volunteer at Saint Ignatius, or join the US Peace Core then enter the workforce.  (This step is skippable)
3. Enter the workforce in Cleveland, somewhere.
4. I would like to pursue a Masters in Urban/Regional Planning, and Masters in Business Administration and/or attend Law School.
5. Become Cleveland's City Planner or Cuyahoga's Planner
6. Run for office when my time expires in one of the jobs
7. Teach at Saint Ignatius in the History Department.

THE POINT OF THIS WHOLE POST:

What DO we have? What problems do we NOT have that more "desirable" cities have?

Resources

• Lake Erie
• Cuyahoga River
• Salt mines under Lake Erie
• Sun (sometimes)
• Wind
• Relatively Flat Land

Problems other cities have, which we don't.

• Lack of fresh water (Atlanta, Southern California, Nevada, Southwest)
• Flooded with illegal immigrants (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California)
• Looming threat of a mega-earthquake (California)
• Threat of Hurricanes (Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Carolinas, Texas)
• Under or at current sea level (NYC, Florida)
• Threat of sinking into empty aquifers and oil deposits (Texas cities)

Sustainable Anchor Institutions in city limits (Local Economic Engines)

• The Cleveland Clinic (#4 hospital in USA, #1 in heart care for 13 straight years)
• University Hospitals (Top ranked)
• KeyCorp
• Cliffs Natural Resources (Continuous growth through recession)
• Case Western University (41st undergraduate program in USA)
• Sherwin Williams
• Cleveland Browns
• Cleveland Indians
• Cleveland Cavaliers
• PNC-Cleveland (formerly National City)
• Cleveland State University
• Parker Hannifin
• Ferro
• Medical Mutual of Ohio
• Lincoln Electric Holdings
• University Circle, Inc.

Regional Institutions

• Eaton Corporation
• American Greetings
• Progressive Insurance
• Goodyear Tire & Rubber (Akron)
• Aleris International
• Diebold (North Canton)
• PolyOne (Avon Lake)

Main Tourist Attractions

• Cleveland Metroparks Zoo (#1, summer 2010)
• The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame (#2)
• The Cleveland Museum of Art (#3)
• Great Lakes Science Center (#4)
• West Side Market (#5)
• Impending Casino
• New Convention Center
• New Medical Mart
• Sports Teams
• Neighborhoods, civic history, etc. (list further below)
• Christmas Story House
• Lake View Cemetery
• The Cleveland Play  House (Largest connected theater district in North America outside of Broadway)
• Tower City Center
• Football Hall of Fame (Canton, 1 hour south)
• The Lake Erie Islands (1 hour west)
• Cedar Point (#1 amusement park in the world; 1 hour west)
• Amish Country (largest Amish community in the US; 1 hour southeast)
• Seasonal: (Ingenuity Festival, Christmas Celebration, Air Show, St. Patrick's Day Parade) 
• Cleveland Cultural Gardens
• Cleveland's restaurant & cuisine scene, recognized nationally. Led by Michael Simon & other renowned chefs 

Cultural Institutions, Public Services

• Cleveland Metroparks (one of the top urban park systems in the nation)
• Cuyahoga Valley National Park (#1 traveled national park)
• The Cleveland Orchestra (Arguably #1 in the world)
• The Cleveland Museum of Art (Renowned free art museum undergoing multimillion renovation and expansion)
• The Museum of Natural History
• Cleveland Botanical Gardens
• Western Reserve Historical Society
• Cuyahoga County Library System (Ranked #1 in the nation of libraries serving populations of +500,000)
• Cleveland Public Library (one of the top systems as well)
• Ohio has the 5th best public education system in the country
• Incredible private schools 
• Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (#1 in North America in 2007)
• Civic Landmarks:
• Public Square
• Bridges
• Guardians of Transportation
• Terminal Tower
• West Side Market
• Soldiers & Sailors Monument
• Cleveland Fountain of Eternal Life
• Cultural Gardens

Neighborhoods worth Visiting

• Little Italy
• Ohio City
• Tremont
• Detroit Shoreway

Any Cleveland resident can recognize most of these institutions and their importance to the city.

As the population decline is finally starting to pan out, there's an opportunity to develop the lakefront, encourage business growth, connect the great attractions, and develop new industries. There's a lot of potential here. I know it. Many Clevelanders know it. To reap the benefits of this potential, we need smart land use, new ways of thinking, a different economic climate, new industry, regionalization, fixing the education system, immigration encouragement, and smart equity planning. If no one else will, I want to be the guy to tie these all together.

Thanks for reading!

Next up: The Lakefront

Beginning of a Journey

Hello all!

Welcome to my new blog.

For basics, my name is Ken Kalynchuk and I am majoring in Urban and Regional Studies at Cornell University.

ALL I EVER THINK ABOUT IS CLEVELAND!

I want to dedicate my life to helping the people back at home improve our city and make it an even better place to live in this 21st century.

On this here blog, I plan to detail and publish certain ideas of mine which I hope to push in the city's agenda. This is mostly an opinion blog, although I will attempt to support every statement with proof.

I'm creating a giant list in my new planning journal, and I would love input from family and friends!

Thanks for reading this, and I hope to have my first opinion post out soon.