Curtis Johnson / Jan 07 2012
For Release Saturday, January 7, 2012
Citiwire.net
2011 saw Oregon once again daring to be the first bird off the wire on an audacious policy agenda. Governor John Kitzhaber, having been governor from 1995 to 2003, won the office again in 2010. What he told seasoned politicos was that he wasn’t running just to be governor again — “been there, done that.” But if elected again, he would put all his chips down on doing something bold, with the power to endure.
Kitzhaber’s bold maneuver: a proposal to overhaul the entire system of education — from toddlers to twenty-somethings, now called Oregon Learns.
In the 2011 session of the legislature he won a down payment on the promise — a liberalization of the chartered school law, a better welcome for on-line schools, and an official board. It’s called the Oregon Education Investment Board, intended from its enactment forward control how money is appropriated to get better education results.
Sounds tame enough. But the governor’s agenda is actually aimed at radical change in the system. For the first time (anywhere, not just in Oregon), the system of education would find its financial pivot point on results. The entire budgeting process would be re-engineered around outcomes rather than inputs.
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Curtis Johnson / Apr 17 2011
Originally Released August 9, 2008
Citiwire.net
An historic $14 trillion of public and personal debt, a fourth of America’s bridges deficient, more than a fourth of adults obese, and nearly half of the nation’s youth not prepared for a 21st century economy – what do these baleful effects have in common?
Each of these effects and more like them show what we got for a half-century of an easy-going, profligate, low-efficiency culture. Though only five percent of the people in the world, we Americans got comfortable with burning 25 percent of the world’s resources. From corporate practices to personal lifestyles, we shoved the consequences of waste on to the backs of the less well off and future generations. We provided schools but didn’t worry if half the students didn’t succeed.
Now costs along with climate change compel Americans to use air and water and land more efficiently, to rethink how we can arrange our lives less tethered to our car keys, to get serious about creating schools that work for every willing child. Read More »
Curtis Johnson / Dec 10 2010
For Release Sunday, December 12, 2010
Citiwire.net
TURIN — When in 1993 the Italian Parliament finally agreed to allow citizens to elect their own mayors, the people of Turin picked not a ‘pol’ but a professor, Valentino Castellani.
Turin was in what Americans make think of as the perilous “Detroit position,” with giant automaker Fiat still ratcheting down local employment from a high of 130,000 to today’s 20,000. Italy wanted more employment shifted to the south where jobs were needed; Fiat complied, seeing the bright side of lower labor costs. And Turin staggered.
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Curtis Johnson / Sep 09 2010
For Release Sunday, September 12, 2010
Citiwire.net
There’s always been a place for personal transit, starting with rickshaws, then small carriages. The modern equivalent: today’s taxis and limos. But technology, getting really good at upending the status quo, is poised now to deliver not just personal but personal rapid transit (PRT).
A PRT system is essentially a collection of programmable pod cars, running on linear induction motors or rail electrification. Unlike ‘mass’ transit, you go only to your preferred destination; and you ride with three or four others of your choice — or alone.
This is a last-mile form of transit, working best in activity-rich zones with lots of desirable destinations — think airport concourses, large mixed-used districts with retail, residential, restaurants, offices, recreational theme parks, large cultural and arts districts. PRT fits best in an area where time and distances discourage walking, and public policy, along with common sense, ought to discourage driving.
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Curtis Johnson / Jul 02 2009
For Release July 2, 2009
Citiwire.net
TAMPA — Meeting here in mid-June, the panel of judges for the 60th All America Cities awards–America’s premier civic recognition program–were in for a big surprise. Of 29 cities making presentations, a group of 25 teens and near-teens from Richmond, Ind., clearly stole the show.
The young people, a rainbow of races and sizes, not only made Richmond’s 10-minute case to be a winner, but arrested attention with their powerfully mature responses to questions.
The build-up had been Richmond’s effort to envision its future and prove its worth to be an All-America City. Adult civic leaders had been activist enough: reacting to a 2007 Johns Hopkins University report calling Richmond “a dropout factory,” they’d inaugurated a Third Grade Reading Academy for early intervention. Two-thirds of third graders reading below grade level had signed up, with scores shortly rising by 50 percent. Read More »
Curtis Johnson / Jan 02 2009
For Release January 4, 2009
Citiwire.net
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law was much praised at the time of its passage in 2001, especially its ambitious goal to bring disadvantaged and minority school achievement into the mainstream. NCLB was seen as a rare example of bi-partisan federal policy making.
Yet now this famed law is stuck in a twilight zone. Politics permit neither its re-authorization nor its repeal. This is a good thing.
Good because NCLB, despite its laudable goals and its marginal gains, has actually done considerable damage to American education. It has resulted in a rush toward standardization–trying to make every school and every program the same–precisely when we need a rich variety of different schooling opportunities for today’s diverse youth. Read More »
Curtis Johnson / Aug 09 2008
For Release August 10, 2008
Citiwire.net
By Curtis Johnson
An historic $14 trillion of public and personal debt, a fourth of America’s bridges deficient, more than a fourth of adults obese, and nearly half of the nation’s youth not prepared for a 21st century economy – what do these baleful effects have in common?
Each of these effects and more like them show what we got for a half-century of an easy-going, profligate, low-efficiency culture. Though only five percent of the people in the world, we Americans got comfortable with burning 25 percent of the world’s resources. From corporate practices to personal lifestyles, we shoved the consequences of waste on to the backs of the less well off and future generations. We provided schools but didn’t worry if half the students didn’t succeed.
Now costs along with climate change compel Americans to use air and water and land more efficiently, to rethink how we can arrange our lives less tethered to our car keys, to get serious about creating schools that work for every willing child. Read More »
