How to Understand how to Improve Outcomes in Your School

Edward Deming

From pre-school to higher education we have been both officially and unofficially held to expected outcomes by our communities who uphold the value of education. Throughout the ages of school improvement it has always been an inherent mission for schools is to educate students to be better than they were. When asking this question of being better than they were or can we truthfully measure our outcomes to measure our school attenders and employees that they are succeeding to achieve at their true potential. When we walk the halls and view classrooms or sit in on an online course what is the measure that the teacher is reaching their full potential or are the students being an realizing an opportunity to move closer to their potential? Schools have often accepted redundant teaching methods over the years and produced lesson plans that have been the same way for many years. When our student audience has changed over the years our teaching approaches now needed to adapt to the learning styles and values of our society.

It is a proven fact that giving grades for our students is without a doubt is a very subjective measure to predict and show competencies accomplished. Very little is measured from a skills perspective for skill in a competency at the conclusion of any term. We can extend this weakness to how we give opportunities for the educators to improve their potential by improving instruction. The measures of instruction fit into the same class as our student measures which is very subjective. As we look at these glaring facts our schools at all levels of for-profit, non-profit, private and sectarian are influenced by government regulations focusing on these old outdated forms of measurement. Our states are using standardized testing for measuring the success of their resident students. When we should be looking for improvement, we are looking at a standards established for only those that could meet the artificial targets. Improvement starts with a baseline and a build from there.

I am sure many of you remember the movie “Money Ball” with Brad Pitt as the general manager of a professional baseball team. This was a story of an actual team who relied on results to improve the team outcomes with success. The data were pointed at the key targets to make baseline improvement of the team. Measurement dictates a process for improving outcomes. The baseball team proceeded to an ultimate outcome of success. If we can use the premise of process by using data we too can have success in our schools.

Schools and colleges making these adjustments will offer to all their stakeholders visible growth by allowing for participants to move to higher potentials. By making these process changes outcomes are not subjective but measuring validated targets after the improvement of learning.

If you have any interest in making this change I have the process used now for eight years that makes the data work for you. Process is key to success in any organization. Process was the key to improving industry by a famous industrial consultant who rebuilt Japan after World War II. Dr. Edward Deming.

Process Steps

Surprisingly Schools have not did much to capitalize on this process. Research coming forth now may change this practice in our academic centers.

Edward Deming

Change for the future

It is certain that by establishing the correct target by using data and analytics with schools in any environment or culture can improve. GRCARLSON INC. are here to help you make the transition.

Process in action with coaching for faculty, teacher and instructor improvement.

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Polarization

How Long Will IT Take To Identify the Elephant in the Room

Did social media change your attitude? (Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok)

Research of the facts:

How are your emotions affected regarding your mental state by seeing others’ responses? If you were to define the value and use of social media what would the majority of the world see the platform being used to achieve? Is it possible for social media to influence others to change their views or attitudes? Below gives you an in-depth view of the growth of how social media may change our lives. What does this mean for you and our youth? A true revolution of information doesn’t mean it is true or false.

This growth trend exemplifies outcomes we may not be proud of in our societies using or misusing this tool. This is a composite look at how our public has accepted social media and found a new influencer associated with potential power.

64% of Americans say social media have a mostly negative effect on the way things are going in the U.S. today

BY BROOKE AUXIER

In a Pew Research Study in 2020, American participants in a study reported only one in ten people felt social media had a positive effect on the way things are going. In addition, one-quarter surveyed felt they didn’t have a positive or negative effect.

Just by looking at the grave differences in outcomes of negative and positive, we can see a chasm of difference in the perception of how social media is reported. A point to consider here is the research on how much our local and national news is positive or negative.

By reviewing these results it is possible to have answers to what societal values are being constructed by the social media presented to the masses. In comparison to the total number of people being affected by social media, we must ask how often do they turn to this medium?

I ask you, how much influence this medium may have on the future of society. Knowing that it could be possible to have positive effects the actual findings show most users see a different story.

Young adults were among the earliest social media adopters and continue to use these sites at high levels, but usage by older adults has increased in recent years. As society continues to adapt to a technology age there have become new avenues of information opportunities through social media. The new caveat to information is being capable of deciphering what is true and what is false.

Technology has adjusted our youth’s dependence on automation technology to satisfy their psyche. Our ability to implement a new facet of our young people’s lives has been somewhat of a failure. By the research statistics, our youth have been vandalized of their innocence by a culprit mentality by taking advantage of their needs. During the past two decades, social media has offered our society a double-edged sword. Young people have turned to substitute entertainment, to relieve boredom, and stay in touch with friends electronically, which has had physiological effects on their brains that have effects on dopaminergic pathways connecting directly with mental health.

Per a recent Pew Research Center (2021), 82 percent of American adults 30 years and younger use some type of social media. How are these people using social media?

• social interaction
• information seeking
• entertainment
• relaxation
• fear of missing out

The time has come when we need to understand the pros and cons of social media and subscribe to educating ourselves on how to better prepare our future generations to utilize the medium productively. In comparison, social media like alcohol or drugs can deter dopaminergic pathways more quickly and reliably than naturally derived awards such as studying hard and getting good grades. Instant dopamine rush is as addictive as drugs or alcohol. This rush may cause depression, anxiety, and other mental illness. Signs of compulsive social media use include preoccupation, spending increased time on social media, as well as restlessness, sadness, or anxiety when attempting to control social media use.

Parents today can relate to the days when it was difficult to get their children to come in at night into the house. Where today it is difficult to get their children away from social media.

Steps to be taken:

1. Recognize there is a problem
2. What is excessive use and make a plan to curb usage
3. Teach self-corrective behavior by using apps that measure the use
4. Take the most used apps and place them in a folder
5. Time limits
6. Changing from color to black and white on a smartphone

More time spent on social media can lead to cyberbullying, social anxiety, depression, and exposure to content that is not age appropriate. Social Media is addicting. When you’re playing a game or accomplishing a task, you seek to do it as well as you can.

Please be cognizant and not leary of the actual impact social media has had on your life and society. Social Media is a double-edged sword where it can be beneficial but also can be effective in propagandizing people of all ages. Social Media is not going away but society will need to be more conscious of what is fact and what is opinion. This medium of communication has had a negative influence on our youth and young adults. Awareness by each of us and our families is the way to full comprehension of the ills that may accompany social media.

Stay in tune with your own usage and family. Look for the truth and not an opinion created with no facts. All the uproar can be stifled if you can be smarter than the false information that may be coming your way.

We all need a brighter future that is created by the people who look for the truth.

If Don’t Like the Weather Today wait Until Tomorrow

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite type of weather?

View all responses

How does weather measure up to something being favorite? Weather is close to being the number one question in starting a conversation. Throwing this question to people in conversation strikes emotions of envy, sorrow, happiness, or serenity. It is for certain the same weather listed may be considered as anyone of these characteristics of weather. Someone’s pick for favorite relates to there current situation.

Age makes a difference where young people can find almost any weather creates some form of recreational activity. No matter the temperature, wind, rain, snow or ice will find young people making a game out of the situation.

Work makes a difference if you are depending on good weather to complete the job. This is when we begin to reduce what weather best fits the outdoors workers to desire for weather that allows their jobs skills to best utilized in weather friendly to their timely outcomes.

Agriculture depends on the diversity of weather for moisture, sun, that translates to timing and measures which would be appropriate and not to much.

Transportation both in the air and on the ground needs weather that allows for shipping of both goods and people to remain safe and on time.

There are those who seek weather somewhere where they can regenerate and relax. Weather of this type becomes an escape from day to day routine to something enjoyable they could not experience where they work or live. This is the weather you would like to take home with you.

Looking at any weather it may be good or it may be bad. If it creates conflicts and misery it definitely is bad. If it creates happiness and joy it could be good.

No matter where you live you may have four seasons to contend with to maybe two. The seasons of weather which are not anticipated may cause stress and reactions of discontent.

Traveling the entire United States for many years gives notice that there are some more desirable areas to live but no place is ideal. What I found from the people who I spoke with in all the places they lived were their take on satisfaction with the weather seemed similar to people residing in other places. What we see is that when it comes to weather the grass is always greener on the side of the fence. Finally, if you don’t like the current weather, just wait awhile.

As my father used to tell me the sun comes up everyday!

Wake Up America

Focus on the next generation!

This post goes out to all the citizens, moms, dads, teachers, and communities in America. My appeal to you comes from observation, translation, and experience that exceeds fifty years of being affected by a slow takeover. You must be aware of the public’s shift in control and direction. private, parochial, and proprietary schools are being slotted and categorized by the US Department of education with a committee politically motivated by members being appointed by politicians called the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. From its inception to today has been so manipulated that it doesn’t even get close to what it once was during President Carter’s intention.

President Carter

Upon signing the Department of Education Organization Act Statement in October 1979, Carter said:

Primary responsibility for education should rest with those States, localities, and private institutions that have made our Nation’s educational system the best in the world, but the Federal Government has for too long failed to play its own supporting role in education as effectively as it could. Instead of assisting school officials at the local level, it has too often added to their burden. Instead of setting a strong administrative model, the Federal structure has contributed to bureaucratic buck passing. Instead of simulating needed debate of educational issues, the Federal Government has confused its role of junior partner in American education with that of silent partner.

Department of Education Act, October 1979

Was this for political reasons> the first It was the first time the country’s largest labor union, the NEA endorsed a president in the election?

At this time I was active in school operations at the secondary level in special education and had just recently received by doctorate degree in education. At first glance of what President’s intentions were seemed admirable and focused on the responsibilities of the state and local schools. His proclomation seemed to be intended to support the works of local schools by assistance and not the bureaucratic oversite of a federal government. Sounds good from the first glance of 1979. It is with great concern. that I would encourage you to take time to see how federal government by using your tax dollars are taking over control of the neighborhood schools, colleges, career schools, public schools, private schools and trade schools. Decisions in the last twenty years have been made from the US Department of Education without any regard for your community needs. In the past twenty years we have seen big governmnt bailout auto industries, insurance companies, influence energy cost, reduced the value of US dollar, and ignore the forefathers outline of school intentions and requirements. The outward dependency of schools on dollars has put them into a double edged sword of regulations and fear mongoring directed to mere survival from one year to the next.

This government control expansion has been growing with each year and is placing schools into a please and thankyou position with their benefactors. It is my hope that when you see the facts and understand what is at stake here you will consider how important elections are to bring the pedalum back to student oriented decisions that apply to educational methodology for baseline development and optimal potential. There needs to bea complete focus on rewards for great teachers and replicating successful teaching by investing in better teacher training. The parallels from business, technology, economics, life skills, budgeting, civic responsibilities, emotional intelligence and spirituality has become a gray area because of the threats to schools who might be outside the federal government compliance rules and would lose funding. The heights and breadth of what can be in a school is dependent on the rules by regulators. The ability for teachers to put dreams into action would be outside the realm of regulations jurisdiction. I ask you how would an Anne Sullivan teacher be supported today with a Hellen Keller. Her search for what methodology would have been outside the rules.

Today, influences on the next step in education are political and financial and not performance. Both unions and government shy away from what really would make a difference in our schools today. The rewards for expanding and implementing what is successful from the teacher ranks has the attention of an ata boy recognition. Ted Talks brings more forth to the community of educators than the government. Great ideas need support though with promotion, piloting by teachers, training, implementation and review. So many great ideas get lost on the shelf. This call for action is a resullt of a political view where a corporation or business of magnitude is in trouble there is an answer on how to bail them out. But let a school fall to bad times or leadership like business and we just finda a way to close them down.Which affects jobs, communities, families, students, businesses, tax dollar potentials, and the increase in shortages.

Schools Closed Elementary and Secondary Please click on link:

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=619

Higher Education

I ask you as a citizen when you get so much lip service to sustaining our great democracy but shun the rapid diminishing of schools and colleges than once were part of your community.

Don’t be fooled by the explanation of how technology and student interest has changed the outlook on how students are proceeding in their educational life. My observations with many of the schools being closed with their enrollments were with students who were first to attend a school of higher education in their family. Final question is after their school closed where are they now?

Ask your representative the right questions that will and are affecting your community and family!

Talking Someone Out of Joining Your Team

You have seen this person do beautiful things in your life. It became almost an obsession to be seen by this person side as he traveled throughout the land. We all have a sense of pride and dedication to this person. Living in America we build our daily lives on becoming safe and obtaining self-efficacy, success, health, and spirituality. Our leaders in this environment encourage us to join their team to attain all of the desires of life. It becomes beneficial for the leaders to encourage potential followers to join them with the benefits in store with our support of this movement. Most assuredly we all have encountered the opportunity to follow a leader that would subscribe to making our lives easier.

On the other hand, what if your leader would express to. you that if you join their movement you will experience great suffering. Your focus is only on the final outcome and not so much on the suffering of the journey. I am sure you have made choices that suffering was part of the road to success. Not knowing your past but I would suspect many of you have experienced physical therapy, cross-training, diets that deprive you of those things you love, work projects, psychotherapy, plus many more. When we begin the suffering decisions we look for the actions that would reduce the suffering and look to all the different techniques that would reduce the suffering. Listening to media, reading, and referrals by friends engages our interest in how to obtain results the best way. Suffering for gain has been part of our lives.

Leadership has entered into your life making you a leader and those you follow as leaders. When a leader presents themselves to you what is their invitation to you and how did they get your attention? If you choose to follow the leader the question is why would you make the decision to represent their call of duty? What do the leaders you choose to follow offer you? Have you been approached by a leader who demands complete devotion and first love to them over all others? What if their response back to you is that by becoming part of this movement you will be experiencing greater suffering by revealing your love, commitment, and dedication?

Scaling your love may have its value in life. Are there limits to your obedience? Would you sign a blank check for a loved leader or just use a gift card?

If your devotion and following someone was a blank check or a gift card what does it mean for you? If you were to give a leader you know of a blank check in life who would it be?

Read Acts 14: 25-35

How would you interpret this scripture?

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Veterans Day U.S.A

It is with great pleasure I get to work with young men at the Open Door Mission in Omaha, Nebraska. Today was a special day where we discussed the meaning of Veterans Day and Memorial Day. Veterans day and Memorial day has always had a special place in my heart. My deceased father was in the Army for thirty years and was my hero when it came to patriotism and the love of his country the United States of America. It was his attitude and lessons that taught me the appreciation for the veterans of America for what they have sacrificed for the citizens of this country. Throughout history we are so lucky to have the men and women who have graciously given of their time and skills for our benefit. It seems like a small bit of appreciation of on day in May or November when these people have given years and lives to maintain the constitution provided through many blood, Sweat and tears. I had a couple students who have not been privy to my experiences and life with the military by having a father who provided his life to the military but wanted to still express their gratitude towards our veterans. The two narratives were replicated exactly as written. Keep in mind these are people who have reached out for help and are in recovery for many different reasons. You will see the sacrifices our veterans made for these two residents of the Open Door Mission have not gone without their appreciation. I hope you enjoy their remartks.

OEM the Fourth, Many Americans do not understand and take for granted the saying, “Freedom isn’t free.” However, my father is a veteran of the United States Air Force which has given me a good understanding of that saying. I am honored to be a part of a military family and hold a deep respect for those whom gave their lives for this country and for those who are dedicating their lives for this country and for those who are dedicating their lives today. Thank you all that paid the ultimate sacrifice and thank you to those that lived and are a sacrifice for our nation’s safety and security as I writ this letter. I am eternally grateful and we are forever in your debt.

ABJ: To all that has served, Thank you for the peace I can live within today. I thank you for fighting, serving and sacrificing for the peace that I enjoy. Words really don’t explain the feelings I hold for everything our veterans have done for peace, unity, love, care, kindness, strength and courage. My grandfather served in World War II and am assured that even though I never met him his spirit lives on in our family. I served at Fort Sill Oklahoma. I still hold values that I learned there. Finally I would like to express my gratitude for all your love sacrifice, commitment, grace, perseverance, and faith. Thank You for all you have done.

In turmoil and peace we can count on your service people to be their when the need arises!

Rocks in the Road

1. How is it possible to be successful with these rocks in the road?? 
   
   We all have moments in our lives that are out of our comfort zones. This illustration gives you some of those situations where we may be stalled in our tracks when confronting the rocks in the road. You can sometimes talk yourself out of a better future.  Have any of you prepared for a special day or event like a holiday or birthday. Your vision provides the way things should be for the day. But when we look at the rocks in the road we don’t use our vision to keep our motivation on the end result. When our focus is on the rocks we crash right into them.  When the rocks seem to be scary we allow the impression to keep us from overcoming steps toward our vision. 
   
   
   Simply when you talk to yourself with reactions and do not maintain your vision the result will cause a detour from your vision of what you have desired.  People who are successful have a mindset on what they want. Forethought brings success to you.  It is important to create a path for you to get around the obstacles. If you hold to the image you influence others to help you to succeed.  Your light cannot be extinguished. No one can keep you from your success. Nothing will get in your way!
   
   
   The difference at this moment is that I know you can do it. You must know you can do it.  Throughout our life we make investments but when do you invest in yourself? What are you waiting for? Don’t tell yourself you will do it tomorrow. It is important you find a person who shares your vision and have them become your coach. This person becomes your mentor and sounding board to keep you on the path toward success. 
   
   
   Forethought, what can you do to start. Start simply with what are you going to do when you get up in the morning, when you go somewhere check out road signs that make you think about what is coming up.  Do you mentally think about your day with logic and emotion? Forethought begins not just when you get up in the morning but will begin many days before. Keep the vision alive.
   
   Forethought is used at the Street School each week. The ills of life are many individuals who have no forethought, the light of a vision has been put out, and survival is just making it through another day.  Today, I agreed to begin to work with the homeless and people in need at an Open Door Mission to change lives. A key to changing a lifestyle is to begin journal writing.  What could a good journal reveal and guide you?
   
   
   A journal could record:
   Successes 
   Setbacks and how to overcome
   Life events
   Your beliefs
   Information from the day you have learned
   Feelings about situations
   The honesty of where you may be getting in the way of your success
   Establish goals and affirmations
   Positive Self Talk
   
   Date all your journal entries. You will begin to see your progress to achieve your vision.  Society in the past three years has been disrupted by a pandemic and a generation evolving that will be our new leadership. These lessons of life apply to us all. If you are a person who is reading this intro to success for both adults and youth and would like more information please don’t hesitate to contact me.
   email: gary@gcarlson-inc.com
   
   Start your journey to success today!
   
   

   

   Zeal versus Knowledge

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

 

Accountability

By: Gary R. Carlson Ed.D.

On A Mission

As a U.S. citizen you read and view news regarding the status of many of today’s issues. During these days and times, it is difficult to decipher what is fact or fiction with the amount of information available to all of us. Information can be used to influence your decisions, thoughts, and actions. Knowing this, it is imperative to make sure we are positive with the information we receive by asking ourselves to consider the facts more than the communicator of the information. Actual information should be analyzed before any actions were taken to communicate. Today there is so much information available through social media, smart phones, and freelance reporters in that it is often reported before investigated. In the past we could rely on specific individuals to give you the facts. Now we may just be getting the information. There is one full sure result of information is that it has consequences. Actual information creates positive, negative, emotional or apathy thoughts. Without looking at the actual analysis of the information anyone of these could be without merit.

I am sure the twist on words, both vocally and in writing, can be used against any of us or associations we are actively involved. By speaking out on these issues for example, I would be coined as having a conflict of interest whereas it is not a conflict but most definitely an interest. Our schools in America have been drawn into question continually by some people who have interest in education but have no knowledge of the education process. We have become a Google society where all information exists. I would like to highlight one senator who has a huge challenge in their state with budget, taxes, and education funding. This person is one of the most frequent critics of career schools.  This senator’s attacks career schools in America in general and doesn’t see the value of career education. His state needs skilled workers. We have all heard of the statement that it is easier to be negative than positive. When someone needs to be noticed with sensationalism by using scapegoats and getting on their bandwagon provides immediate attention. Our country is one that provides a free enterprise system. Our citizens have enjoyed the freedom to use this system with the encouragement of freedom of choice. As an American citizen, I have always admired the freedom of choice by observing our society enjoying alternatives that fit their needs and desires. Education leaders have recognized the needs and desires by creating free public education, private education, sectarian, and vocational education to offer alternatives. While considering all the alternatives, not one but all of these are having to rethink their philosophies to adhere to the stipulated regulations provided by law. 

In a free enterprise system, we are aware it allows for good, bad, and ugly to exist. Be assured that those that fit into the bad and ugly will be singled out and identified. But when we ever generalize religion, race, community, education, or industry as the institution of fault and are scapegoated in history it has proven to be incorrect. Leaders of deceit and wrong doings are the individuals who are misleading. 

What has happened to the old economic rule of supply and demand. Our communities, states, and country all have needs and demands. The free enterprise system needs to have the freedom to meet the supply requirements with good common sense. Career schools from a citizen’s vantage point provides an alternative. Our education systems have in the past solved the supply needs for professional and skilled workers. By providing these alternatives we offer to our citizens the opportunities of employment, work satisfaction and the life, liberty, and freedom our forefathers so sincerely guarded. The conclusion of what we have built is not to tear down but to create, fine tune and improve our commitment for the future. 

My challenge to you the consumer, taxpayer and patriot is to start, if you haven’t already to review and study the information you may be receiving from any leader, professing both negative and positive information. You need to be the decisive user of information for all the right reasons. False leadership provides a platform of leaving a legacy behind for our next generations to clean up. Taking comments and reports from people at face value doesn’t leave much to question except the outcomes of where it has taken us. Looking at education singly, we have students experiencing school and college closures, thousands of teachers being dismissed, communities losing taxpayers, employers desperate for skilled employees and a future pathway that has destruction written all over it. Don’t be surprised when you do your research to find out many of the basis of destructive comments may lack the moral truth of the generalizing of the entire enterprise. The craft of scapegoating and sensationalism is alive and well. Recently I met a gentleman who recently moved out of Illinois because of the state budget issues. He and his family could no longer afford to live in a state that is broke and going downhill fast.  We have all been inundated with what has been called fake news. How accountable are the leaders in states where this condition continues to thrive? On the other hand, look at who their contributors are to their campaigns and see who influences their votes. One senator communicated to the entire nation that career schools are not accredited. I ask you to go to these schools’ websites and see if they are accredited. This person claims people with membership on these accrediting boards have conflict of interest by being part the school industry. How would you like a nursing board to have members of the culinary industry or tax lawyers? Have you looked at your senator or representative on how they vote in congress and see how large donors may affect outcomes. The simple solution is to become an educated citizen on who your elected officials are and how they vote which affects all those who need to know. Don’t aspire to follow on emotion alone by the rhetoric written or spoken without the facts you have gathered. 

Be careful with people who pass vendettas for proprietary schools and cast vengeance on their accreditation organizations by communicating they are not accredited. As people know this was a false statement where they are accredited in most cases by national accreditors approved by the US Department of Education. Rhetoric is used for impact No attention was given to the teachers and students education in the schools and only had a concern for proprietary schools having conflict of interest in their membership in the accreditation organizations with their votes. Campaign donations may be a conflict of interest. I will leave it up to you on how you would assess 39 million dollars donated from interest groups and how an elected official keeps their integrity when voting on issues regarding their funders. One of the U.S. Senators had a state that operated two years without a budget. This state had 250 billion dollars in pension liability. Medicaid payments were not being paid. Lottery tickets were not distributed in a state because of the lack of confidences to pay out the winning funds. This only exemplifies the issues that are carried over to the Federal government. We have bailed out entire industries and destroyed others. What was the influence that caused these decisions?

Find your congress representatives or senators and see how they stack up in your state and are they have your key interest at heart. A country that has been based on the consciousness of the importance of education at all levels creates a healthy and prosperous country. When we ignore our supply and demand education gaps become issues. Blanket statements on how to destroy which offers not well-thought-out solutions makes for false hopes from citizens who have put their trust in these leaders. You will see below just one leader who has focused on destruction for many of the alternative’s citizens have enjoyed. 

The ills of student loan debt exist at all levels and institutions. The hierarchy of education has resulted in chaos with our education institutions in the middle. 

Questions to be answered:

1. Over regulation and equity of regulations?
2. Education funding responsibility and equity of funding? (federal, state, local, private)?
3. Institutions responding to supply and demand?
4. Competency based curriculum.
5. Faculty and teacher performance based upon fair and empirical research?
6. Building potential out of diversity? 
7. Standardized Test value or purpose?
8. Personalized education (measuring from baseline intervals to outcomes?
9. Accepting and improving online education alternatives?
10. Gatekeepers for education excellence vs. student finances?
11. Teacher compensation not based on number of years but on achievement.
12. Small and large business partnerships with all levels of schools written into the curriculum?
13. Utilizing research that highlights symptoms of innovation success and culprits that may be the enduring factors of failure?
14. How to create a well thought out strategic plan which may be destroyed by lack of funding?

While moving forward in our great country these issues and more need to be considered and solved with the diversity of leadership that exists in all the alternatives. Track records of leadership should not be measured by media reports but should be from your sincerity to review the facts. When leaders have a big stage, we may overlook their success or it could be it has been some time since you had time to hear or see them locally. Elections are not about one or two people but are key to all of us to know why we are voting for any candidate. Know their platform and check to see they are fulfilling their promises. Your opinion and vote is a freedom we don’t want to give up. An unintelligent vote is just as bad. Please be assured you know what and who you are voting for!

Your Future is not in the Rearview Mirror

No matter the age you are today, your station in life may be the people who have influenced you up to this point. If you are younger it could be your peers or family that has been the guiding post of who you think you are in life. As you get older your experiences with more people increase. These moments in life result in high points and low for all of us. My life has had its share of ups and downs but one thing is for sure I have been blessed with all of them. During my high school graduation reunion, I was asked by a classmate whatever happened to me? They explained that if they were to vote on who was the most likely to never succeed in life it was me. His question to me, was what changed my life? My only response to this question is people.

My journey in life has helped me become a better servant leader of others by recognizing people’s strengths over weaknesses. These strengths may not have been all academic but were a host of soft skills, cognitive skills, tactile skills, common sense skills, health, and hygiene, coping skills, problem-solving, family, fatherhood, and faith.

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  Potential

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  from student to teacher

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  Family around the table

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  People who believed in you

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  Value Added

It has been my pleasure to join other mentors each week to support young men fourteen to eighteen at an alternative high school. Looking at them each week up close and personal you can see their expectations of themselves are what their family and peers expect of them. If that is true they don’t understand their own potential in life. A question for you about your life have you been all-in? Reviewing your journey provides fuel for your future. Are you all in or just satisfied?

As we approach each day we encounter rocks on the road.

Climbing to Success!

Each of us will encounter some or all of these rocks in the road which can dampen your ability to meet with success. Some of these pronounce immediately failure for those who give up to the blocks in front of us. Remember what my classmate said what happened to you. There wasn’t faith in my peers that I could achieve success in conquering these rocks in the road. Your search should be for people who don’t enable your failures but they need to encourage your ability to persevere. People who have experienced success in their lives have conquered the rocks in the road. All of these successful people have experienced wisdom from people they have met in their life to model and mentor successful practices to enjoy achieving their goals. Assuredly we know the structural needs with education, hard-work, discipline, motivation, endurance and personal faith to build your foundation life skills. Even with these accomplishments each successful person will report to you the key people in their lives who modeled and mentored them.

Street School

In conclusion, I recommend for us who work with people to improve their lives needs to encourage them to surround themselves with positive mentors and models to understand the pitfalls in life and how to avoid them. Keep your eye on the prize and people who can help you with their practices which brought them to the table of success.

Society is in need of more mentors!

Who Should Pay The Bill

College Endowments and the Cost of Education

by Gary R. Carlson

If I asked you, what is a college endowment and what do they do? When there is a call for more funding for higher education, there is an equity policy between wealthy people with both physical and financial assets and those serving a student body of first-time college students in their families. When the request for funds lands on the government’s doorstep how do the consumers know the need of each institution? Over the years many college campuses have acquired large amounts of money by fundraising. How large you may ask? These are the twenty largest endowments today in America.

SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics. (2022). Table 333.90. Endowment funds of the 120 degree-granting postsecondary institutions with the largest endowments, by rank order: The fiscal year 2020 [Data table]. In Digest of education statistics. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved August 22, 2022, from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_333.90.asp?current=yes.

In the billions and growing. I talk with parents and students weekly about the high cost of education. There has always been a quandary with teacher and faculty salaries and the financial burdens placed on families to afford college. Government student loans have not proven to be the answer in that the balance of the tuition loans has continued to make it offensive to the starting incomes of the graduates. Education has become so expensive the low-middle class and the middle-class student will not be able to attend. Pressures on students for academic scholarships and athletics are what many parents are putting pressure on to attend college after secondary school. There seem to be a lot of promises during the election years about the importance of school. We all know the answer has been higher tuition and loans that are almost impossible to pay off. For colleges the answer is to recruit and put more bodies into the seats for their tuition dollars. I have observed this trend for over 50 years. Revealed in these statistics is that colleges in general can raise money. They could be non-profit and acquire more funds than schools that are for-profit. The mystery isn’t a mystery at all. The emphasis has been on putting the burden of obtaining an education beyond belief on the consumer. How many times have you heard any politician say the future of our country is in the education our citizens will have available to them in quality and quantity. Mainstream America is being forced out of the opportunity when all cost is rising Most Americans have felt hopeless about what they can do to change this dilemma. It has become a priority in college organizations to increase enrollments, hire adjunct faculty versus full-time, have graduate assistants teach undergraduates to save money, tenured faculty teach two classes a semester, focus on research versus the improvement of instruction, screen students who are more likely to be completers, create financial barriers to entice more influential students than those who come from families who have never had anyone attend a post-secondary school. Let’s stop there but there is obviously more. 

If you were asked as an American citizen as to the priorities of post-secondary schools. How knowledgeable would you be with the outcomes of any of these schools? Ask yourself these questions:

1. What is the average daily attendance by class and program?
2. What is the ratio of success by subject with pass and failure?
3. What is student retention by cohort class?
4. What is student retention by the program?
5. What is the average faculty member providing face time with students?
6. Other than Liberal Arts what is the job placement in the field in each graduating class? 
7. What is the ratio of students continuing to the following degree level?
8. What are the ratios of students on a student loan program? (By program)
9. What are the percentages of salaries for college administration, athletic coaches’ faculty, and staff?
10. What is the average age of faculty and staff.?

The most disappointing fact is that all these questions should be measured and quantified each year. 

I am not a proponent of free school or college, but I am a proponent of equity and reasonability for all American families should have the ability and opportunity to fulfill their education dreams by persevering a sought-after education. This article is to mainly to get you thinking. No matter where you are in life, a senior citizen, or a member of any of the generations today you should be on board to improve and not bury your heads in the sand on what should be expected from our colleges. As you can see by the introduction of this article it would be hard to understand that money could be an issue in some of these schools. When it comes to priorities, we must understand that income from athletics to any great degree professionally is a very small percentage. If you were to do a graduate income from the cost of an athletic program versus a student-athlete post-graduate income, we would close that business down. NIL is now available for student-athletes. This also is an opportunity created for the few and benefits the business organization. 

It is time to look at the system and create what produces the best outcomes for all potential students based on their mission of quality, service, and compliance.

Our future is in the hands of today’s leaders. It is up to us to ask the right questions!

September 27, 2022

Alternative High School in Omaha, Nebraska

Starting on the first Friday after Labor Day three mentors and I will begin the school year working with a group of young men at the school.

Introduction: It is a pleasure each year to serve as a mentor to these young men ages fourteen to eighteen. We are blessed to share our life experiences and successes with the students at the Street School. The attendees at the school haven’t met with much success in their lives at a school. In most cases, they have been suspended or expelled from their schools. It is a mission and goal for our mentors to inspire these students to reach new horizons in their lives. During this journey this school year we will be sharing success stories from this school and challenges to better acquaint you with the promising achievements of these students.

We look forward to allowing you to look through the looking glass of a volunteer and how maybe you could become that same volunteer in your community.

The first report will be after the last Friday of each month.

Talk to you soon!

2022 School Year

Week 2

Last week we were graced with fifteen young men ages 15 to 18. All have been removed from their home school and now are attending an alternative school. Our first session was focused on truth and lies. All but one of the young men did not like school. From the information, we as mentors received it was our decision to pursue the topic of how to reverse this feeling about school. We had seven mentors who were coaching us on the importance of completing high school education. Comparisons were presented between those who finish high school and those that don’t. The discussion was focused on how important it is to be ALL IN to succeed. We accepted they were committed but probably committed to the wrong things. If they get up in the morning and don’t go to school and play video games they probably are committed to being lazy and not bettering themselves. Commitment alone is about being devoted, committed, and have a passion for improvement in their lives. We are blessed to have mentors from all walks of life and an immense amount of knowledge of life experience.

1. Mentor/served over ten years in prison
2. Mentor/served in prison and has become a pastor
3. Mentor/serves as an estimator for a large construction company
4. Mentor/serves jail ministry and is a young man who has come through the Juvenile system
5. Mentor/serves as a Professor and Department Head for Creighton Unversity in speech.
6. Mentor/serves and has been working with students and young adults in education for over 55years.
7. Two of the mentors have advanced graduate degrees.

What makes this work is the curriculum that is used and the diversity of the group which represents all minorities and a multitude of experiences.

Coaching has been styled after the “Pacific Institute.”

Looking forward to next week. Mentors will report back to you in two weeks. No school this week.

Keep the Faith!