Interview with Al Widner on "Keep Learning... Our Future Depends On It"
Announcer: Welcome to Inside Michigan Education, a weekly show featuring interviews with community leaders, school administrators, school business officials, and individuals who are passionate about the future of Michigan Education. Now, here is your host for Inside Michigan Education, Rob Huisingh.
Rob Huisingh: Welcome to Inside Michigan Education. Now this week we are joined by Al Widner. Al is the Superintendent of the Eaton County Intermediate School District and he is the Chair of an initiative which is raising parental awareness of the life long implications of their children and for their children. If they fail to obtain a quality education and the initiative is called "Keep Learning... Our Future Depends On It."
Welcome Al, it's a pleasure to have you on our show.
Al Widner: Thanks Rob! I am delighted to be here.
Rob Huisingh: Now, Al I was hoping you take just a few minutes to tell our listeners a little bit about your background, who you are and how did you come to be the Superintendent of Eaton Intermediate School District?
Al Widner: Sure Rob, I have about 40 years in public education about half of that serving as Administrator. I have served as Superintendent in three different local school districts and about four years ago I went to Eaton Intermediate School District to serve as the Superintendent there.
Rob Huisingh: This initiative "Keep Learning... Our Future Depends On It", it's not your future, it's our future, talk to us about that.
Al Widner: Sure, it's a broad-based Mid-Michigan coalition which really encompasses three counties that's Ingham, Clinton and Eaton County and the primary mission of the coalition is to better communicate the value of and the need for a well-educated high-skills workforce for economic survival in today's economy.
Rob Huisingh: In practice how does the initiative play, Al?
Al Widner: Well, let me just go through maybe some other things that we've done so far. First of all the initiative is about a year-and-a-half old. This year we had what we called our media launch just as school was starting. We met with all the electronic media and print media prior to this time and had wonderful endorsement by all of those, editorial endorsement in the Lansing State Journal as well as several articles during the week of the launch. We have four network television stations in that area, they all embraced and endorsed the concept and multiple stories during the week about the concept of the need for a well-educated high-skill workforce.
We have on a complementary basis access to billboards along I-69 and 96 Corridor. We've met with and had a great response from the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce as well as several of the Local Chamber of Commerce's. We also produced a yellow decal that we hope to stick with the town really with the message that quality education is important, and then finally, we sent out a letter to every parent in the Tri-County Area a school started this year, emphasizing again the value -- as you indicated earlier the consequences of not having quality education.
Rob Huisingh: I was intrigued by the fact that you actually sent home checks to children.
Al Widner: That was an excellent symbolic representation of our message and the purpose of the check; it was a $1 million check, not to be cashed of course. But the $1 million check was to represent the parents, the difference between the lifetime earnings of somebody who graduates from high school versus those who have a bachelor's degree or there is another measurement. All Michigan juniors are now tested on the Michigan merit exam, that's two of the three parts necessary to get a Career Readiness Certificate which I think we'll talk about more in the interview later, but what we do know is on that Michigan Career Readiness Certificate the kids who tested five or above or the course of their lifetime or earn $1 billion more than those who tested three or lower and that was a really meaningful way to connect with parents, I've been really thrilled with the response we've got, when we talked to parents about, are you aware of the consequences that your child who may have scored three or less is going to suffer throughout their adult life?
Rob Huisingh: Just last week we interviewed Rachel Jungblut and she was mentioning, I am not sure whether it occur, whether we talked about it during the interview or whether it was afterwards. But that she was talking about this staggering number of approximately 80% of parents did not necessarily understand the value of education to their children and I was amazed to think that some 80% of people don't actually understand the value.
Al Widner: I think in the Detroit area over the last two years they've done some surveys along that line and something like only 27% of the parents solved the value and the necessity for quality education.
Rob Huisingh: So it's closer to 70%.
Al Widner: That's the statistics I recall.
Rob Huisingh: The National Career Readiness Certificate, can you help us understand, what is the National Career Readiness Certificate?
Al Widner: Sure, it's credential now that's been offered nationwide. It's been offered through the ACT testing agency, which is the same test, the test of our kids for College Readiness and many regions and states are using the Career Readiness Certificate now to certificate that they have a highly-trained, well-educated workforce.
Here in Michigan a year ago, we implemented two components of the three necessary components to qualify for the National Career Readiness Certificate. As part of the Michigan merit exam and that's the WorkKeys testing and it's applied math and reading. So what many of us are doing in our region in certainly it an initiative that we support and our future depends on it is offering the third test this year. So that our graduates can qualify for the National Career Readiness Certificate which is a National Certificate, indicating your preparedness for college and for work.
Our focus on using it for work preparedness is as an economic development tool and as you and all of our listeners know, Michigan is in a very stagnate economy right now and we've lost the strength of our economy has always been the industrial base at least historically, and so now we need to make sure that new 21st century employers know that we have a highly-educated, well-trained workforce to encourage them to bring 21st century jobs here. They will pay little bit of wages and provide the opportunity for advancement.
Rob Huisingh: You mentioned to me earlier that there is actually a need in your opinion to be somewhat brutally honest with parents and children.
Al Widner: Yeah, one of the disconnects I've seen through my career is this disconnect of parents not realizing that for their kids to really be successful, they are going to have to be successful in school and I share just a couple of incidents. We provided a summer academy for kids who had struggled on last year's test to try to improve their skills, not just test scores but their skills which would be reflected in a higher test score, but in talking with those parents, I would get things like -- and these are like kids who are scoring very, very low and how they expected their child to be a veterinarian, quite honestly and this is not just low expectation. That's just not a realistic expectation, they have to improve their skills and as we talked earlier the disconnect were only 27% of the parents education is vitally important to the future of the children.
So, there is this major disconnect including through the eyes of the children, they don't understand that you can't do a poor job or what I call pretend to go to school and then compete successfully in the adult world.
Rob Huisingh: It just doesn't work and you talk about both educators raising the parental awareness but holding students more accountable as well.
Al Widner: What I have kind of stumble into really is this commitment for what I call it Three-Way Partnership, and for educational expense to occur and I'm a school official and sort of I certainly acknowledge that we have to need to do more from our end and part of that is just communicating their parents where there are skill deficits to students and their parents. Your child is not where we want them to be, but we have a plan to help them.
So that's I think our obligation and quite honestly been brutally honest instead of pretending the things are going okay. Just tell parents and tell children, you are not where you need to be and we have a plan to help you out. So that's one part of the formula.
The other part of the formula is parents, so I have met with parents recently as we have rolled this initiative out who would be concerned and disappointed and aggravated with the public schools and which I would buy some of that but then my response also, where have you been for 18 years? You are a key part of this formula here. Actually, that has worked well, once we can get everybody settled down and have that conversation, and then obviously the third and key component of this is, students needs to apply themselves, put honest effort into this and realizing importance of quality education.
Rob Huisingh: The process how's it been going?
Al Widner: Well, I am really pleased with our outcomes today. We have a lot of work to do here and one of the things I would say is that public education is tremendously successful for a significant percentage of our student population and those who are chosen very carefully because it also means that for some of our student population were not as successful as we would like to be and I think our challenge is that what I would called our struggling tier.
We really need to do more to -- we want to make sure that they are aware that they need to improve their skills, then the other part quite honestly is to get from the punitive consequence environment that we live and now to really more of a supportive environment where once we've recognized the skilled efficiency, we come up of a plan of extra support to help those kids, get the skills that they need and both, No Child Left Behind which is very punitive in its nature.
Some of the initiatives that we're talking about here in Michigan where we want every kid to read at grade level which I fully support that initiative, but from a positive perspective, I don't think we can do that with consequences to students and to parents and really if they're talking about retention there. What we need to do is say, yes, it's mandatory that all kids read at grade level and once we know that they don't; here's our support system to help them get there.
Rob Huisingh: Yes, we end up trying to be more of a supportive environment as opposed to punitive, I understand that, but how do you address that with schools that are clearly underperforming and just seem to be continually underperforming.
Al Widner: Well, in a way that's where my role as an Intermediate School District Superintendent comes into play because the local school districts are providing services directly to students. From the Intermediate School District, we're supporting those services to students, but we're also supporting those who deliver the services. So we can look at -- as we talk with the kids when they're skilled efficient, we should have support services to help them and the same holds true for the adult or staff in the building but once we can identify that they have a skilled efficiency or there's something that's standing in the way of their progress then it's our challenge and our role to come in and say, and here's our help.
Rob Huisingh: What do you see as the most significant challenge facing us over the next five years?
Al Widner: I personally would say that going back to this tier what I call are struggling students, we no longer exist in environment where we can have up to a-third of our students not be prepared to successfully the economies we know today. In Michigan particularly if you look back at our history, those kids could survive because they could get an industrial-based job. They really didn't require hold out of education and particularly if they were willing to work a little bit of overtime, they could have a nice middle-class life.
Today, that opportunity is just not there, and for Michigan to compete, we're going to have to really develop all of our children, so they can contribute to and attract 21st century employers who will pay a livable way to an opportunity for advancement. Not only is this imperative from a personal economic development plan, which I would like to revert to it as, but it's also important as a regional state plan. I can't think in my life of a time when Michigan was in worst economic condition than we are today and the only way that I am aware that we can turn that around is by producing a higher-skilled, better educated workforce than we historically have and to attract those in 21st century employers to want to come to Michigan.
Rob Huisingh: It's turning it honest, as opposed to in acting legislation or putting in place tax cuts or whatever we might happen to do try to lure jobs into Michigan. It's really about creating the workforce that's ready for those jobs and then the jobs will come.
Al Widner: Yes, and certainly that's not a long voice, several research papers and economic development organizations have really indicated that over the last few years and a mistake that I believe that we made in Michigan is that we really kind of played our hand to the tax cut and incentives, with can play certainly a part in the formula but I think that better strategy is to develop a well-educated highly-skilled workforce and if we step that more time then look at support services we really need to talk about, I know this is a debatable conversation, but we need to talk about resources and that's dollars to support public education.
Rob Huisingh: Well, is there anything that we can do as the predominant audience right now for this podcast is superintendents and superintendents of ISDs and research, and Secondary School Principals, what is the call that goes out to these people?
Al Widner: Rob, I would see this is, I am pleased with the opportunity you've given me here to broaden this message out to people. I think that's what we in the coalition believe that we have a ten-year mission to continue to raise the awareness of the changing environment which we love.
Again, historically some of these students who struggle could go out make a livable way that there is no longer too and we need to make sure that the students, the parents and all honestly our policy makers are crystal-clear on that new message, and our policies and our initiatives should reflect that need.
Rob Huisingh: Well Al, I want to thank you for taking the time to join us today and I hope that you will continue to keep us updated with the process.
Al Widner: Thank you very much; I was delighted to be here Rob.
Rob Huisingh: If you'd like to contact Al, you can be reached by telephone at (517) 543-5500, and you can also visit Eaton County Intermediate School District online at www.eaton.k12.mi.us.
Until next week, this is Rob Huisingh with Inside Michigan Education.
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