The Wayne State University College of Education and Walter P. Reuther Library Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs were recently awarded a joint $83,100 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the grant-making affiliate of the National Archives and Records Administration. The two-year funding will support the ongoing partnership, “Bridging the Gap: Archives in the Classroom and Community,” which partners archivists and teaching students to bring community-based primary source materials into K–12 classrooms. The project originated five years ago when, as part of an effort to expand collaboration beyond the university’s history department, Reuther archivists considered where their collections might fit into other research areas. “I'm surrounded with the theories of education and education reform,” Daniel Golodner, archivist for the American Federation of Teachers historical collection, told LJ. “So I had the idea: Why aren't we reaching out to those who actually teach?” Wayne State’s College of Education, which offers bachelor's, master's, education specialist, and doctoral degree programs for teachers in 37 program areas, was an ideal place to start. Golodner and Outreach Archivist Meghan Courtney began working with Min Yu and Christopher B. Crowley, both assistant professors of Teacher Education at the College of Education.

Michigan schools need more money and less competition to better provide adequate education to all children, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Michigan Commission on Civil Rights. The report calls for changes to the way Michigan funds its K-12 education system, including a weighted funding formula that provides more money to schools with large numbers of students who live in poverty, have special needs or are learning to speak English for the first time. The report isn't binding, but it will be forwarded to policymakers in Lansing and elsewhere with a series of recommendations to make education in Michigan more equitable. Some of the proposals have been suggested before and others are sure to be controversial, including changes to Proposal A, an amendment to the state Constitution that lowered property taxes for schools in exchange for increasing the state sales tax. The proposal helped reduce the funding gap between Michigan's wealthiest schools and its poorest schools, but over time, it slowed the growth of Michigan school funding. "Michigan ranks a dismal 49th among the states in real per-pupil funding growth from 2005 to 2014, with an actual 7% reduction over that period," according to Michael Addonizio of Wayne State University, who testified at one of the meetings. Addonizio noted that in the 1980s, Michigan and Massachusetts funded education at nearly equal levels. Today, Massachusetts spends about 30% more funding than Michigan does. “Year after year, Massachusetts is at or near the top in all testing categories for fourth grade and eighth grade reading and math, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress,” Addonizio said.

Child psychology researchers don’t know yet what the effects of this school year will be on children, said Erika Bocknek, a Wayne State University associate professor of educational psychology. “We’re building the boat as we sail it,” Bocknek said. Unlike in a traditional classroom, children are viewing themselves and staring at the faces of their classmates, which can make them self-conscious about their own appearance, said Bocknek, who teaches courses on child psychology. “We don’t have good data on this yet, but a lot of people are in fact speculating that there may be impacts on self-esteem, on a positive sense of identity,” Bocknek said. Increased screen time during virtual school is another unknown for researchers, Bocknek said. But experts know this school year may exacerbate already existing mental and behavioral issues, she said. “I think we are going to have some positive and negative lessons learned from this time period,” Bocknek said. "We really don’t know yet for sure what the impacts are going to be. However, we hypothesize that there are children with different learning styles who might really benefit from being able to turn the camera off and focus on listening auditorily to the lesson.”

As schools across Michigan begin an unpredictable new year, teachers are facing what may seem like an insurmountable task: Helping students, particularly the most vulnerable, who’ve experienced learning loss because of the pandemic. There is little doubt that the disruption caused by COVID-19, marked by an unheard-of shift from physical to remote learning, will leave many students struggling academically. That concern runs especially deep in cities like Detroit, home to long-existing inequities and students whose communities have borne the brunt of the virus’s damage. Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, an assistant professor at Wayne State University, says schools offering choices between in-person and remote instruction should have considered the needs of students who may have suffered the greatest losses. Most district leaders left it up to parents to decide between the two. “Parents choose what’s best for them,” Lenhoff said. “But that really leaves it up to chance whether the students who would benefit the most from face to face are the ones who are going to sign up for it.” Lenhoff said it’s “scary, frankly,” to think about the long-term consequences for students from low-income families and students of color who attend economically segregated schools who will “are likely bearing the brunt of the learning loss.” 

“School 2020 is going to be radically different than school 2019. No educator, administrator or parent has a model, and there is no one model that will work for all schools,” said Roland Coloma, professor and assistant dean, Division of Teacher Education, at Wayne State University. “The lack of universal internet access, for us to implement a fully online teaching and learning format, is one issue, as is full speed broadband. If they're using Zoom or Google classroom with 20 to 25 students – that's a lot of internet and broadband. We will also need to insure that every family will have enough computers, tablets, devices, as well as for parents or caregivers. We are also assuming that these homes will have an adult present who can supervise these children, and are not working outside the home.” Lauren Mangus, PhD, assistant professor for educational psychology at Wayne State University, offers a sobering consideration faced by all educators this year: “We're trying to cram education into a crisis. This is an ongoing tornado. This virus is not detectable to the naked eye. When students are stressed, it can manifest in different ways and can impede learning. School is important, but it is very difficult when students are stressed.”

Michael Addonizio, professor of educational leadership and policy studies, wrote an article for The Conversation about the challenges of reopening in-person K-12 schooling in the U.S. “Safely resuming in-person instruction at U.S. public schools is important for the academic, physical, emotional and social well-being of children and their families. It’s also a key factor for the nation’s economic recovery. But in mid-July, despite considerable pressure from the Trump administration, many school systems around the nation had announced that they didn’t yet believe that anything close to resembling a traditional schedule would be feasible before the 2020-21 school year starts. Many school districts, including those in Los Angeles, San Diego and Houston, three of the nation’s largest, were planning to be fully online.”

The novel coronavirus pandemic has, without a doubt, forced many sectors of Michigan’s workforce to adapt and change how they operate. Autism therapy centers across Michigan are among them, and they’ve received a bit of help and guidance from industry experts. Wayne State University’s Applied Behavioral Analysis Program Director Krista Clancy and Dr. Josh Plavnick, of Michigan State University, co-authored the “Risk Assessment and Mitigation Strategies for Applied Behavior Analysis: Treatment of Children with Autism During a Pandemic” toolkit, bringing together experts to create a multidisciplinary approach to guide autism services during COVID-19. Clancy said data was a main driver guiding the group’s approach. “Knowing that things are pretty confusing right now and people are going back and forth, I was really trying to connect it with the data that’s out there. Don’t just make a decision that’s willy-nilly about what you think you should do. What does the data actually say? What are the recommendations?” Another goal, Clancy said, was to save centers time from mulling over multiple resources. “It’s really just to be a time saver, I hope, for some of these centers. They have enough to think about. This is not something they need to spend a ton of time researching themselves if the research is there.”

Tamara Hew-Butler, associate professor of exercise and sports science, and Phillip D. Levy, assistant vice president for translational science and clinical research innovation, wrote an article for The Conversation about reopening school and club sports amidst the pandemic. “Along with the revival of professional sports comes the yearning for a return to amateur sports – high school, college and club. Governing officials are now offering guidance as to when and how to resume play. However, lost in the current conversation is how schools and club sports with limited resources can safely reopen. As an exercise scientist who studies athlete health and an emergency medicine physician who leads Michigan’s COVID-19 mobile testing unit, we wish to empower athletes, coaches and parents by sharing information related to the risks of returning to play without COVID-19 testing. This includes blood tests to see if athletes have already had COVID-19 plus nasal swabs to test for the active SARS-CoV-2 virus. Regular COVID-19 testing on all athletes may seem like overkill, but the current tally of 150 collegiate athletes, mostly football players, who have tested positive for COVID-19 grows longer by the day.”

School budget makers across Michigan are eyeing cuts to employees, salaries and transportation among other things, as they work through the revenue crash caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The two largest sources of state money to the School Aid Fund, sales and income taxes, have fallen sharply during the shutdown, leaving a budget hole that could reach almost $2.4 billion over the next two years, according to state estimates. Educators are pleading for federal help, but nothing is certain yet, except that state law requires districts to submit adopt a balanced budget by July 1. "I expect layoff notices will be going out to teachers," said Michael Addonizio, a professor of education policy at Wayne State University. "If they're not going out right now, they soon will be in the absence of an aid package. You'd certainly see layoffs of support staff, you are going to lose guidance counselors, librarians, attendance officers, school psychologists. I think it would be unavoidable. Teaching staff reductions would be unavoidable." Addonizio serves on the School Finance Research Collaborative, a task force looking to reform Michigan school funding. He said schools have faced budget struggles before and received federal aid, but this time is different. "The only thing approaching it was the cut the schools took in 2011, when federal emergency aid to the districts expired and the state foundation allowance was cut by $470," Addonizio said. "That was astonishing at the time." Addonizio said he expects Congress to pass something, but in the meantime, districts are preparing for cuts. 

The Mental Health and Wellness Clinic, a graduate student training clinic in the College of Education at Wayne State University, is offering free counseling through your computer or phone. The program with 50 clinicians is offering school and community counseling, art therapy, outreach and support and an array of therapeutic services.

Anita G. Welch, Wayne State University College of Education dean, cowrote an opinion piece with Robert Floden, Michigan State University College of Education dean and Elizabeth Birr Moje, University of Michigan College of Education dean. "In Michigan and throughout the country, COVID-19 and the school closings that have resulted to help contain the virus have left parents and educators scrambling to help children learn from home. Our university students who were student teaching now are unable to be in the classroom, and our research and outreach to school districts around the state in many cases have been curtailed. But here at the Michigan State University College of Education, the University of Michigan School of Education and the Wayne State University College of Education, we still know how to help children succeed. Our educators and researchers are redoubling our efforts to assist school districts, parents and children deal with the challenges posed to education during a global pandemic.” “One example is Wayne State University’s #HealthyKidsQuarantined website, which provides activities, resources and fun challenges through weekly calendars for elementary and middle school children.

Erica Bocknek, associate professor of educational psychology, wrote a piece for The Conversation offering four good practices for families caring for quarantined children. About 55 million U.S. schoolchildren attend schools that have been closed or are being directly affected by the new coronavirus social distancing rules. Bocknek, a family therapist who studies early childhood development, parenting and family resilience, encourages parents and others raising kids to focus on the 4 R’s: routines, rules, relationships and rituals.

Tamara Hew-Butler, associate professor of exercise and sports science, wrote a piece about exercise-associated collapse – the mechanical and chemical disruptions to muscle cell membranes which trigger the muscle cells to burst. “I am seeing and hearing of more incidents of skeletal muscle ruptures that are causing harm in other parts of the body. This information is not designed to scare people back onto the couch. The key take-away from highlighting these cases is to remind athletes, coaches and mere mortals that the desired physiological response to a training stimulus requires both a gradual buildup period and period of recovery in between training sessions. Although symptomatic rhabdomyolysis is uncommon, this emergent complication of exercise should be on everyone’s radar since cases are on the rise. We coaches, trainers, scientists, practitioners and others encourage everyone to reap the joys and benefits of regular exercise training. However, we caution against exercising too much too soon. Self- (or coach-) inflicted skeletal muscle cell explosions are fully preventable with adherence to smart, physiologically sound approaches to training.

Wayne State University has launched a teaching residency project for the Detroit and Dearborn public school districts that aims to address the state's shortage of STEM teachers and support workforce development. The $2.5 million program, Metro Detroit Teaching Residency for Urban Excellence (TRUE) Project, will seek recent college graduates and mid-career professionals with STEM expertise in the metro Detroit region, especially those in the automotive and technology industries who may be impacted by plant closures. Program officials said the project will prepare 36 professionals as K-12 STEM teachers over an 18-month period, during which they will complete a master’s degree and receive their teaching certification, followed by a two-year induction period of mentoring and professional development. Keith Whitfield, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs and professor at Wayne State University, said he applauds the project’s innovative approach toward building pillars of sustainability in the region. “Having highly qualified science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) educators in the classroom is vital to the development of our nation’s and region’s workforce," Whitfield said. "Through our investment in the Metro Detroit TRUE Project, coupled with other efforts at the university, it is our aim to provide students in Detroit Public Schools Community District and Dearborn Public Schools with the STEM educators and experiences that spark learners’ curiosity to explore STEM related concepts that they can apply in the classroom, community and the world of work so they can thrive in the new knowledge economy.” 

Despite popular belief, there's no widely agreed upon benchmark for daily water consumption. That "drink eight 8-ounce glasses a day" thing likely derives from a 1945 recommendation by the U.S. Food and Nutrition Board. The recommendation stated people should ingest 1 milliliter of water for every calorie they consume. The recommendation was apparently not based on any known research, and the sentence immediately following it, which was that "most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods," was soon forgotten. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration began using 2,000 calories a day as an "average" reference point, which translates to 2,000 milliliters of water a day (or about 67 fluid ounces) per the 1945 recommendation. "The origins of that weren't based on any specific series (of studies) or one specific scientific study," says Tamara Hew-Butler, associate professor of Exercise and Sports Science at Wayne State University whose expertise is in exercise-associated hyponatremia. "And that number actually included other beverages, not just water, and it also included the moisture content in food. But from those origins, it caught on." Hew-Butler refers to our level of thirst as a natural "app" hooked up to our brain designed to protect us from drinking too much or too little water. "Everyone's looking for a perfect guideline that works for every individual in every situation. But thirst is governed in your brain. And it's not just the amount of water that's important to your body—your body doesn't really care about the absolute amount of water. The body cares about the balance between the water and sodium," Hew-Butler says. "There are osmoreceptors in our brain that actually, in realtime, every second, sample the combination between water and salt going through the circulation of our brain. So if the water content goes down and it increases the concentration of sodium, then that triggers thirst, so you can actually replace the water back to the amount that you need."

Emergency managers appointed to heal the Detroit district’s finances did little more than apply Band-Aids to a major wound, according to a recent report. Robert Bobb, one of those emergency managers, says Band-Aids were all he had. Like others appointed to run Detroit Public Schools amid a financial crisis, Bobb took out loans to cover the district’s short-term costs, an approach that led to ballooning debt and interest payments. “We couldn’t make payroll. The district could not even pay its utility bills,” he recalled. “Either we close the doors, or we go to short-term borrowing that will have a negative impact in the long term.” The report, which was commissioned by the school board, found “startling mismanagement” by the state officials who largely ran the district between 1999 and 2015. “The whole idea of emergency management is that the school district’s problems are due to poor management and the failure or local democratic governance,” said Mike Addonizio, a professor of education at Wayne State University. “By 2016 it became apparent to policymakers in Lansing that there was no way to manage DPS out of its budget deficit.” Addonizio agrees that a major cash infusion was the only way to solve the problem. He believes it didn’t come sooner because of a political consensus in the Republican-controlled statehouse that the structural issues would be solved by school choice measures. “They were convinced that more choice could resolve problems of educational deficiencies and management problems. I guess maybe they thought that failing schools would close and that children would then enroll in schools that were succeeding. But when students leave schools and districts, the schools don’t close. The children remaining in the district just suffer.”

How bad is Detroit’s student chronic absenteeism problem? Wayne State University researchers have identified eight conditions — such as poverty, unemployment, and even cold temperatures — that are strongly correlated to chronic absence, and the city leads all other large metropolitan areas in having the worst outcomes for almost all of those conditions. The findings come with a key takeaway the researchers hope will prompt action: Schools alone can’t solve the problem of getting students to school every day, said Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, an assistant professor in the college of education at Wayne State University. And, the findings come during a critical time as the Detroit school district invests heavily in a number of efforts designed to get students in school. Citywide, across district and charter schools, about half of the students are chronically absent — meaning they’re missing 18 or more days during the school year. Lenhoff said what’s needed is a more coordinated effort that brings together policymakers, school district officials, charter school officials, community organizations, and community members. Without it, the work being done by schools is “unlikely to make the huge difference we need to make,” Lenhoff said.

The women featured in this Notable Women in Education Leadership report were selected by a team of Crain’s Detroit Business editors based on their career accomplishments, track record of success in the field, contributions to their community and mentorship of others, as outlined in a detailed nomination form. Wayne State University awardees included: Monica Brockmeyer, senior associate provost for student success; Jennifer Lewis, associate professor of mathematics education and executive director, educator excellence, Detroit public schools community district; and Toni Somers, associate dean and professor at the Mike Ilitch School of Business.

Much of the mental health field is worried by the State Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) move to reduce the number of counselors who could diagnose conditions like depression, anxiety, addiction and PTSD. It would impact both clients and their counselors. "Given the prevalence rates of mental health concerns in the United States and Michigan today, this is something that would impact literally every family in Michigan," said Scott Branson, an assistant professor in the counselor program at Wayne State University. The proposal would also prevent counselors from being reimbursed by insurance companies for their work. "The amount of clients who would lose mental health services would be astronomical. This is not a good time for that," said Shirley Mack, the clinical director of counseling at Wayne State University. In response to the threat, a Republican representative in the House has introduced a bill that would preserve the scope of the profession and how they operate. Professionals are urging residents to contact their representatives to support counselors.

Detroit students who leave the city to get an education end up enrolled at schools with slightly higher test scores. But that may not be enough of an advantage given some other negative factors associated with that move. Researchers at Wayne State University who have been studying student mobility in Detroit say the suburban schools for which students leave are more likely to have higher discipline rates, more new teachers and higher teacher turnover. Those other factors “may counteract the benefits of going to a school with slightly better test scores,” said Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, an assistant professor of education at Wayne State. Lenhoff, along with Associate Professor Ben Pogodzinski, recently released two reports on student mobility. One was based on research on students who leave the city, while the other was based on research on movement in the city. The two studied student data from the 2010-11 school year through the 2017-18 school year. The research raised concerns about the 26,000 children who commute to schools outside Detroit and the many more who move within the city during and between school years. That frequent movement, one report noted, “has created an unstable learning environment for thousands of Detroit resident students, exacerbating many of the challenges faced by students and schools in the city.”