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Oct
31
Without a story a day, the memories will go away
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I love my college roommate from New Orleans, but I am grateful for her because our friendship ensures that I will never forget how she’s been widowed by Katrina. And she’s one of the lucky ones, with education, savings and family to rebuild whereever she chooses. She’s widowed because of the amount of time she must spend apart from her husband while he helps them and their friends and family sort out what was their life in New Orleans.
She pointed me to the Times-Picayune columnist, Chris Rose. If you haven’t been visiting www.nola.com once in a while, you should. Winter will be here soon and we’ve already had two or three power outages in my neighborhood. But we’re not alone, and we don’t have it like this:
I am writing this from the house where I grew up. It’s a thousand miles from New Orleans.
Could be a million, really.I have come to visit my wife and children, who have settled here amongst my family and old friends in a place we know and trust.
My gang, they live what looks like a normal life here now. School. Shopping. Play dates and birthday parties. Next week, my wife says she’s going to start going to the gym.
A normal life. Without me.
Read the rest here.
If Katrina, Wilma or any other hurricane disaster is on your mind, please check out Stories of Strength. It will be available from Lulu starting on Tuesday. I plan to buy a few copies and canvas the local press and bookstores. But I also hope to find entities willing to buy copies and give them away as gifts etc. for the holidays. Let me know if you have any suggestions. I’ve never done anything like this before.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:31 am October 31st, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
Oct
30
Without a story a day, the memories will go away
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
I love my college roommate from New Orleans, but I am grateful for her because our friendship ensures that I will never forget how she’s been widowed by Katrina. And she’s one of the lucky ones, with education, savings and family to rebuild whereever she chooses. She’s widowed because of the amount of time she must spend apart from her husband while he helps them and their friends and family sort out what was their life in New Orleans.
She pointed me to the Times-Picayune columnist, Chris Rose. If you haven’t been visiting www.nola.com once in a while, you should. Winter will be here soon and we’ve already had two or three power outages in my neighborhood. But we’re not alone, and we don’t have it like this:
I am writing this from the house where I grew up. It’s a thousand miles from New Orleans.
Could be a million, really.I have come to visit my wife and children, who have settled here amongst my family and old friends in a place we know and trust.
My gang, they live what looks like a normal life here now. School. Shopping. Play dates and birthday parties. Next week, my wife says she’s going to start going to the gym.
A normal life. Without me.
Read the rest here.
If Katrina, Wilma or any other hurricane disaster is on your mind, please check out Stories of Strength. It will be available from Lulu starting on Tuesday. I plan to buy a few copies and canvas the local press and bookstores. But I also hope to find entities willing to buy copies and give them away as gifts etc. for the holidays. Let me know if you have any suggestions. I’ve never done anything like this before.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:31 pm October 30th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
Oct
30
Earth to corporate cloud: meeting Cathy Panzica
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UPDATE: I received an email this morning that made me realize that there’s background to the original post here that helps understand it better. Here’s the background, as I wrote it to the new friend who sent the email, and the original post follows directly after:
Probably two months ago? George posted a document that came from an entity called the Red Room Revolution. It outlines five pillars of activity but no one – myself included – seemed to be able to decipher what the group wanted to do. More posts followed that fleshed out who was involved and what it appeared the group wanted to do. As more information came out, I was fascinated by the almost incestuous relationship that people insinuated existed between the Cleveland politics and this RRR – make Cleveland a tech mecca effort. Plus, there was a lot of naysaying about RRR, with a few exceptions.
One day, I saw in Henry Gomez’s TechLink that there was going to be a live chat with Cathy Panzica – the head of the RRR. I happened to be around and decided to sit in. At the end, I decided to ask, What will this do for Jane Doe? And the answer given was something about providing K-PhD education opportunities to bring people up to speed in their tech knowledge and abilities.
Well – that last thing – that really interested me. But I didn’t imagine that they meant people like me but rather it was pie in the sky for people who’ve lost their jobs because of the shifts away from manufacturing and all the other reasons people are losing jobs in this region.
So…I blogged about this sense, and emailed Panzica, to say – who exactly do you mean? Where would I get this education? When can I get it? and so on.
The responses I got came from her marketing person, Nikki DiFillipo, and at first, the pat response was very very marketing – lots of stuff about politics and Cleveland. Nikki then actually called me and I said please, drop all the political stuff – that is irrelevant to me. Just tell me – what’s it going to do for women and for people over 40 who came of age when tech was really a niche for geeks (NO OFFENSE! just how it was for me in 1980-84).
So she re-wrote the response a bit and posted it at BFD. Didn’t satisfy me, I asked more questions and got invited to meet with them. I said sure, I went and met and that blog entry yesterday [the one below, titled "Original Entry"] represents my impressions.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: I believe in fate, even though I also believe in free will. So the fact that tasks, chores and activities of greater interest than recapping my Friday morning meeting with Cathy Panzica and Nikki DiFillipo have kept me from doing so until now doesn’t surprise me. And even now, as I write this, I feel as though I’m stealing a few minutes.
These impressions are important to me because they demonstrate that, in a life that sometimes seems too full of choices and opportunities – those that I make and those that come to me (and, to be real, even those that come to me have to have some basis in my having done something that made them come to me in the first place), there is a bigger picture pecking order of what needs attention and deserves attention, even when you’re trying your damnedest to impose an order – sometimes, a conflicting order.
Likewise, what stands out from an experience, after you’ve let it rest for a certain amount of time, often appears because you’ve given it time to sink in, to impress, to let the less valuable, memorable or important points fade. And what you have left is what should be given attention.
I learned this the hard way last year while covering Euclid High School’s first year of implementation of its small schools reform effort. I was prohibited from taking notes during classes. (Long story that I’m more or less prohibited from describing.) So I would run out to the hallways in between classes and jot down notes. Or I’d run to the exit, sign out and run to my car and scribble what I could remember.
(My word processing program has crashed at 3am after hours of nighttime writing and I’ve lost everything – I believe that’s an omen most of the time too. Mostly because I’ve often been writing things no one should ever read or know.)
If you’re a writer and a researcher, you know that you rarely use more than a certain percentage of your notes in any one piece of writing. So this weeding out of info, by virtue of the fact that I couldn’t take notes during the time I was observing, ending up helping my powers of observation.
And now, I’m kind of liking the approach.
So – I did not take notes in the Friday meeting. And I’ve let the experience settle (although I will confess to two fairly substantial IM sessions with George Nemeth about the meeting, both of which have helped me think about what went on).
Nikki DiFillipo (marketing person for RRR) and Cathy Panzica met with me for over an hour on Friday morning to help clarify for me what RRR means to Jane Doe. They were cordial, forthcoming and overall, unpretentious. I’m a social worker and sociologist – part of me anyway – I can tell you, they weren’t playing any roles. What I saw was who they are. And I respect that. Any sense of pretentiousness that anyone else detects – it’s natural, for better or worse.
As you read my thoughts, remember, I’m not an average, suburban housewife with too much time on her hands – I’ve been told to drop that sham. But I’m also not a politician or a moneyed capitalist; I just want to keep up with what’s happening in the region and figure out where I fit in, since I plan to live here a long time. So here’s what I’m taking away/was left with after letting the experience settle:
1. Cathy Panzica is: articulate, passionate, exasperated. She is not the devil. We barely talked about politics – I didn’t want to, but I did say that I thought political connections were torpedoing the RRR efforts and, if those efforts are to be believed as legit and sincere, they’d be best kept under the radar until the elections are over.
Cathy has a handshake that reminded me of how an orthopedic doc friend of mine keeps telling me how our (MY) muscles, as we (I) get older, just tend to get weaker. Well, Cathy and I are the same age, and I’m feeling mighty weak after shaking her hand. God bless her natural strength or whatever weight-bearing activities she does (Her husband is in construction – maybe she’s swinging a hammer? Sorry – couldn’t help it.)
My sense, and my sense only: Cathy and the RRR exist on a corporate cloud with corporate individuals and corporate-minded individuals. Personally, I find this a difficult location to support because it feels too one-dimensional: it doesn’t draw from or pull-in or get buy-in from a horizontal and a vertical conglomerate of brains and experience (I’m very into cross-hatching and canvassing as broad a swath as possible).
To be balanced here, Cathy referred to efforts to get others involved. Since I’m not one of the others – the others being others in tech and again, I’m not in tech – I can’t really speak to that effort, except to say that she says she’s tried to reach out. What I know about the success of that effort comes from the blogosphere and there, it seems, the impression is that she has not reached out or at least not in a way that some in the tech community believe was valuable or broad enough.
I sought answers again to my original question about the fifth pillar of the RRR, which deals with education. I wanted to know, is it intended for me and other Cleveland Jane Doe’s. Cathy insists that it is and talked about Key’s efforts. That there is a program in place and it would be adapted for the RRR. She was forthright about saying that Key eschewed the idea of offering the education through faith-based groups.
I asked about numbers – are we talking tens of thousands of folks being re-educated and she said yes. She and Nikki say that this pillar is in development.
2. Part of what I think makes it difficult to assess the value of the RRR effort is that while on the one hand, anyone can accept the embryonic nature of a new venture, there seems to be a feeling that 1) it’s all been done before 2) there are other efforts going on and 3) the RRR effort is elitist.
I have to say, I definitely get the elitist vibe – everything from the location of the meeting to the RRR participants. This is not a grunge crowd.
Is that bad? Well, I would say that it’s bad if it’s excluding, alienating or disenfranchising elements that should be part of the conversation.
Which brings me back to the corporate cloud concept. Cathy has energy, Cathy has will power. These are vital ingredients to any effort hoping for results. And she referred to meetings and discussions in which she felt idea exchanges occurred that were beneficial.
But, I have to say, at this point, that, even if you believe the participants represent a broad enough array of brains and abilities and sectors, and even if you believe in all five pillars, and even if you believe this is a new and never been done before initiative (I’m playing lawyer here, you know – the even if you take all the facts as true thing), still – not much more has been done.
Now, the defense seems to be that there just hasn’t been that much time that’s gone by. Eh – ok. I don’t know what kind of time is necessary for something like this – this just isn’t my industry or my experience – I’m not a VC.
But without any solid demonstration or any specific outlines to be released (because I’ve been assured that specifics on the pillars do exist), it’s just so damn hard to wrap your brain around what is
-new
-different
-good
-beneficial
-innovative
-worthwhile
about the RRR. Maybe it’s all those things for the corporate participants, but what about for the rest of us?
Which was the question that got me into this meeting in the first place (recap: I read about RRR on BFD, I listened to a livechat, asked about Jane Doe, wasn’t satisfied with the answer and emailed and blogged about some follow up. That got me in an exchange with Nikki DiFillipo and then a meeting with Cathy and Nikki.).
3. One other significant point (in case you thought some of the other points were significant too): As we spoke about what would be done to make Cleveland more of a tech mecca, Cathy mentioned bringing in software companies.
Given the conversations on the blogs about the CIBER contract, I couldn’t let this go and had to ask her, interrupt her even. Why, I asked, did she say “bring in” – why didn’t she say “homegrow” or “incubate” here. And I referenced the fact that with all the chatter about the CIBER contract, I was surprised that she would still so naturally say “bring in.”
First, she offered up some information about the CIBER contract. I interrupted this time, a few times, because I didn’t want to go there. I just don’t know enough about the specifics and frankly, it wasn’t important to me. What was important was this immediate leap to “Bring in” as opposed to “grow here.”
This is about a mindset, isn’t it? Why isn’t “grow here” the mindset? I asked her.
And Cathy gave me reasons. Reasons that I thought had some legitimacy and reasons that she backed up with examples. Again, I cannot vouch for the veracity of the examples, and I won’t.
What I did do, was I said – write an op-ed. Write an op-ed. Tell us why – why is growing at home not enough or not possible, and why should we be more accepting of bringing in?
Neither approach is inherently flawed, they both have advantages and disadvantages.
Put that out there and quell the naysayers. Or at least step up and support in public what you believe in private is an okay business practice and regional development practice.
Help Jane Doe and everyone else with a stake (and who here doesn’t have a stake, really?) understand why this tech revolution has to be so high above us, because even with you answering my questions, I’m still getting the corporate cloud sensation.
4. Bottom line for me: As I told George, I can’t help believing that there is a way to make lots of money work for lots of people when someone with the lots of money is expending lots of energy.
How to do that, in a way that is not so goddamned fractious, seems to be at least one of the questions that I still have.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:36 pm October 30th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
Oct
30
Without a story a day, the memories will go away
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
I love my college roommate from New Orleans, but I am grateful for her because our friendship ensures that I will never forget how she’s been widowed by Katrina. And she’s one of the lucky ones, with education, savings and family to rebuild whereever she chooses. She’s widowed because of the amount of time she must spend apart from her husband while he helps them and their friends and family sort out what was their life in New Orleans.
She pointed me to the Times-Picayune columnist, Chris Rose. If you haven’t been visiting www.nola.com once in a while, you should. Winter will be here soon and we’ve already had two or three power outages in my neighborhood. But we’re not alone, and we don’t have it like this:
I am writing this from the house where I grew up. It’s a thousand miles from New Orleans.
Could be a million, really.I have come to visit my wife and children, who have settled here amongst my family and old friends in a place we know and trust.
My gang, they live what looks like a normal life here now. School. Shopping. Play dates and birthday parties. Next week, my wife says she’s going to start going to the gym.
A normal life. Without me.
Read the rest here.
If Katrina, Wilma or any other hurricane disaster is on your mind, please check out Stories of Strength. It will be available from Lulu starting on Tuesday. I plan to buy a few copies and canvas the local press and bookstores. But I also hope to find entities willing to buy copies and give them away as gifts etc. for the holidays. Let me know if you have any suggestions. I’ve never done anything like this before.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:31 pm October 30th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
Oct
30
Earth to corporate cloud: meeting Cathy Panzica
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
UPDATE: I received an email this morning that made me realize that there’s background to the original post here that helps understand it better. Here’s the background, as I wrote it to the new friend who sent the email, and the original post follows directly after:
Probably two months ago? George posted a document that came from an entity called the Red Room Revolution. It outlines five pillars of activity but no one – myself included – seemed to be able to decipher what the group wanted to do. More posts followed that fleshed out who was involved and what it appeared the group wanted to do. As more information came out, I was fascinated by the almost incestuous relationship that people insinuated existed between the Cleveland politics and this RRR – make Cleveland a tech mecca effort. Plus, there was a lot of naysaying about RRR, with a few exceptions.
One day, I saw in Henry Gomez’s TechLink that there was going to be a live chat with Cathy Panzica – the head of the RRR. I happened to be around and decided to sit in. At the end, I decided to ask, What will this do for Jane Doe? And the answer given was something about providing K-PhD education opportunities to bring people up to speed in their tech knowledge and abilities.
Well – that last thing – that really interested me. But I didn’t imagine that they meant people like me but rather it was pie in the sky for people who’ve lost their jobs because of the shifts away from manufacturing and all the other reasons people are losing jobs in this region.
So…I blogged about this sense, and emailed Panzica, to say – who exactly do you mean? Where would I get this education? When can I get it? and so on.
The responses I got came from her marketing person, Nikki DiFillipo, and at first, the pat response was very very marketing – lots of stuff about politics and Cleveland. Nikki then actually called me and I said please, drop all the political stuff – that is irrelevant to me. Just tell me – what’s it going to do for women and for people over 40 who came of age when tech was really a niche for geeks (NO OFFENSE! just how it was for me in 1980-84).
So she re-wrote the response a bit and posted it at BFD. Didn’t satisfy me, I asked more questions and got invited to meet with them. I said sure, I went and met and that blog entry yesterday [the one below, titled "Original Entry"] represents my impressions.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: I believe in fate, even though I also believe in free will. So the fact that tasks, chores and activities of greater interest than recapping my Friday morning meeting with Cathy Panzica and Nikki DiFillipo have kept me from doing so until now doesn’t surprise me. And even now, as I write this, I feel as though I’m stealing a few minutes.
These impressions are important to me because they demonstrate that, in a life that sometimes seems too full of choices and opportunities – those that I make and those that come to me (and, to be real, even those that come to me have to have some basis in my having done something that made them come to me in the first place), there is a bigger picture pecking order of what needs attention and deserves attention, even when you’re trying your damnedest to impose an order – sometimes, a conflicting order.
Likewise, what stands out from an experience, after you’ve let it rest for a certain amount of time, often appears because you’ve given it time to sink in, to impress, to let the less valuable, memorable or important points fade. And what you have left is what should be given attention.
I learned this the hard way last year while covering Euclid High School’s first year of implementation of its small schools reform effort. I was prohibited from taking notes during classes. (Long story that I’m more or less prohibited from describing.) So I would run out to the hallways in between classes and jot down notes. Or I’d run to the exit, sign out and run to my car and scribble what I could remember.
(My word processing program has crashed at 3am after hours of nighttime writing and I’ve lost everything – I believe that’s an omen most of the time too. Mostly because I’ve often been writing things no one should ever read or know.)
If you’re a writer and a researcher, you know that you rarely use more than a certain percentage of your notes in any one piece of writing. So this weeding out of info, by virtue of the fact that I couldn’t take notes during the time I was observing, ending up helping my powers of observation.
And now, I’m kind of liking the approach.
So – I did not take notes in the Friday meeting. And I’ve let the experience settle (although I will confess to two fairly substantial IM sessions with George Nemeth about the meeting, both of which have helped me think about what went on).
Nikki DiFillipo (marketing person for RRR) and Cathy Panzica met with me for over an hour on Friday morning to help clarify for me what RRR means to Jane Doe. They were cordial, forthcoming and overall, unpretentious. I’m a social worker and sociologist – part of me anyway – I can tell you, they weren’t playing any roles. What I saw was who they are. And I respect that. Any sense of pretentiousness that anyone else detects – it’s natural, for better or worse.
As you read my thoughts, remember, I’m not an average, suburban housewife with too much time on her hands – I’ve been told to drop that sham. But I’m also not a politician or a moneyed capitalist; I just want to keep up with what’s happening in the region and figure out where I fit in, since I plan to live here a long time. So here’s what I’m taking away/was left with after letting the experience settle:
1. Cathy Panzica is: articulate, passionate, exasperated. She is not the devil. We barely talked about politics – I didn’t want to, but I did say that I thought political connections were torpedoing the RRR efforts and, if those efforts are to be believed as legit and sincere, they’d be best kept under the radar until the elections are over.
Cathy has a handshake that reminded me of how an orthopedic doc friend of mine keeps telling me how our (MY) muscles, as we (I) get older, just tend to get weaker. Well, Cathy and I are the same age, and I’m feeling mighty weak after shaking her hand. God bless her natural strength or whatever weight-bearing activities she does (Her husband is in construction – maybe she’s swinging a hammer? Sorry – couldn’t help it.)
My sense, and my sense only: Cathy and the RRR exist on a corporate cloud with corporate individuals and corporate-minded individuals. Personally, I find this a difficult location to support because it feels too one-dimensional: it doesn’t draw from or pull-in or get buy-in from a horizontal and a vertical conglomerate of brains and experience (I’m very into cross-hatching and canvassing as broad a swath as possible).
To be balanced here, Cathy referred to efforts to get others involved. Since I’m not one of the others – the others being others in tech and again, I’m not in tech – I can’t really speak to that effort, except to say that she says she’s tried to reach out. What I know about the success of that effort comes from the blogosphere and there, it seems, the impression is that she has not reached out or at least not in a way that some in the tech community believe was valuable or broad enough.
I sought answers again to my original question about the fifth pillar of the RRR, which deals with education. I wanted to know, is it intended for me and other Cleveland Jane Doe’s. Cathy insists that it is and talked about Key’s efforts. That there is a program in place and it would be adapted for the RRR. She was forthright about saying that Key eschewed the idea of offering the education through faith-based groups.
I asked about numbers – are we talking tens of thousands of folks being re-educated and she said yes. She and Nikki say that this pillar is in development.
2. Part of what I think makes it difficult to assess the value of the RRR effort is that while on the one hand, anyone can accept the embryonic nature of a new venture, there seems to be a feeling that 1) it’s all been done before 2) there are other efforts going on and 3) the RRR effort is elitist.
I have to say, I definitely get the elitist vibe – everything from the location of the meeting to the RRR participants. This is not a grunge crowd.
Is that bad? Well, I would say that it’s bad if it’s excluding, alienating or disenfranchising elements that should be part of the conversation.
Which brings me back to the corporate cloud concept. Cathy has energy, Cathy has will power. These are vital ingredients to any effort hoping for results. And she referred to meetings and discussions in which she felt idea exchanges occurred that were beneficial.
But, I have to say, at this point, that, even if you believe the participants represent a broad enough array of brains and abilities and sectors, and even if you believe in all five pillars, and even if you believe this is a new and never been done before initiative (I’m playing lawyer here, you know – the even if you take all the facts as true thing), still – not much more has been done.
Now, the defense seems to be that there just hasn’t been that much time that’s gone by. Eh – ok. I don’t know what kind of time is necessary for something like this – this just isn’t my industry or my experience – I’m not a VC.
But without any solid demonstration or any specific outlines to be released (because I’ve been assured that specifics on the pillars do exist), it’s just so damn hard to wrap your brain around what is
-new
-different
-good
-beneficial
-innovative
-worthwhile
about the RRR. Maybe it’s all those things for the corporate participants, but what about for the rest of us?
Which was the question that got me into this meeting in the first place (recap: I read about RRR on BFD, I listened to a livechat, asked about Jane Doe, wasn’t satisfied with the answer and emailed and blogged about some follow up. That got me in an exchange with Nikki DiFillipo and then a meeting with Cathy and Nikki.).
3. One other significant point (in case you thought some of the other points were significant too): As we spoke about what would be done to make Cleveland more of a tech mecca, Cathy mentioned bringing in software companies.
Given the conversations on the blogs about the CIBER contract, I couldn’t let this go and had to ask her, interrupt her even. Why, I asked, did she say “bring in” – why didn’t she say “homegrow” or “incubate” here. And I referenced the fact that with all the chatter about the CIBER contract, I was surprised that she would still so naturally say “bring in.”
First, she offered up some information about the CIBER contract. I interrupted this time, a few times, because I didn’t want to go there. I just don’t know enough about the specifics and frankly, it wasn’t important to me. What was important was this immediate leap to “Bring in” as opposed to “grow here.”
This is about a mindset, isn’t it? Why isn’t “grow here” the mindset? I asked her.
And Cathy gave me reasons. Reasons that I thought had some legitimacy and reasons that she backed up with examples. Again, I cannot vouch for the veracity of the examples, and I won’t.
What I did do, was I said – write an op-ed. Write an op-ed. Tell us why – why is growing at home not enough or not possible, and why should we be more accepting of bringing in?
Neither approach is inherently flawed, they both have advantages and disadvantages.
Put that out there and quell the naysayers. Or at least step up and support in public what you believe in private is an okay business practice and regional development practice.
Help Jane Doe and everyone else with a stake (and who here doesn’t have a stake, really?) understand why this tech revolution has to be so high above us, because even with you answering my questions, I’m still getting the corporate cloud sensation.
4. Bottom line for me: As I told George, I can’t help believing that there is a way to make lots of money work for lots of people when someone with the lots of money is expending lots of energy.
How to do that, in a way that is not so goddamned fractious, seems to be at least one of the questions that I still have.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:36 pm October 30th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
Oct
30
Earth to corporate cloud: meeting Cathy Panzica
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
UPDATE: I received an email this morning that made me realize that there’s background to the original post here that helps understand it better. Here’s the background, as I wrote it to the new friend who sent the email, and the original post follows directly after:
Probably two months ago? George posted a document that came from an entity called the Red Room Revolution. It outlines five pillars of activity but no one – myself included – seemed to be able to decipher what the group wanted to do. More posts followed that fleshed out who was involved and what it appeared the group wanted to do. As more information came out, I was fascinated by the almost incestuous relationship that people insinuated existed between the Cleveland politics and this RRR – make Cleveland a tech mecca effort. Plus, there was a lot of naysaying about RRR, with a few exceptions.
One day, I saw in Henry Gomez’s TechLink that there was going to be a live chat with Cathy Panzica – the head of the RRR. I happened to be around and decided to sit in. At the end, I decided to ask, What will this do for Jane Doe? And the answer given was something about providing K-PhD education opportunities to bring people up to speed in their tech knowledge and abilities.
Well – that last thing – that really interested me. But I didn’t imagine that they meant people like me but rather it was pie in the sky for people who’ve lost their jobs because of the shifts away from manufacturing and all the other reasons people are losing jobs in this region.
So…I blogged about this sense, and emailed Panzica, to say – who exactly do you mean? Where would I get this education? When can I get it? and so on.
The responses I got came from her marketing person, Nikki DiFillipo, and at first, the pat response was very very marketing – lots of stuff about politics and Cleveland. Nikki then actually called me and I said please, drop all the political stuff – that is irrelevant to me. Just tell me – what’s it going to do for women and for people over 40 who came of age when tech was really a niche for geeks (NO OFFENSE! just how it was for me in 1980-84).
So she re-wrote the response a bit and posted it at BFD. Didn’t satisfy me, I asked more questions and got invited to meet with them. I said sure, I went and met and that blog entry yesterday [the one below, titled "Original Entry"] represents my impressions.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: I believe in fate, even though I also believe in free will. So the fact that tasks, chores and activities of greater interest than recapping my Friday morning meeting with Cathy Panzica and Nikki DiFillipo have kept me from doing so until now doesn’t surprise me. And even now, as I write this, I feel as though I’m stealing a few minutes.
These impressions are important to me because they demonstrate that, in a life that sometimes seems too full of choices and opportunities – those that I make and those that come to me (and, to be real, even those that come to me have to have some basis in my having done something that made them come to me in the first place), there is a bigger picture pecking order of what needs attention and deserves attention, even when you’re trying your damnedest to impose an order – sometimes, a conflicting order.
Likewise, what stands out from an experience, after you’ve let it rest for a certain amount of time, often appears because you’ve given it time to sink in, to impress, to let the less valuable, memorable or important points fade. And what you have left is what should be given attention.
I learned this the hard way last year while covering Euclid High School’s first year of implementation of its small schools reform effort. I was prohibited from taking notes during classes. (Long story that I’m more or less prohibited from describing.) So I would run out to the hallways in between classes and jot down notes. Or I’d run to the exit, sign out and run to my car and scribble what I could remember.
(My word processing program has crashed at 3am after hours of nighttime writing and I’ve lost everything – I believe that’s an omen most of the time too. Mostly because I’ve often been writing things no one should ever read or know.)
If you’re a writer and a researcher, you know that you rarely use more than a certain percentage of your notes in any one piece of writing. So this weeding out of info, by virtue of the fact that I couldn’t take notes during the time I was observing, ending up helping my powers of observation.
And now, I’m kind of liking the approach.
So – I did not take notes in the Friday meeting. And I’ve let the experience settle (although I will confess to two fairly substantial IM sessions with George Nemeth about the meeting, both of which have helped me think about what went on).
Nikki DiFillipo (marketing person for RRR) and Cathy Panzica met with me for over an hour on Friday morning to help clarify for me what RRR means to Jane Doe. They were cordial, forthcoming and overall, unpretentious. I’m a social worker and sociologist – part of me anyway – I can tell you, they weren’t playing any roles. What I saw was who they are. And I respect that. Any sense of pretentiousness that anyone else detects – it’s natural, for better or worse.
As you read my thoughts, remember, I’m not an average, suburban housewife with too much time on her hands – I’ve been told to drop that sham. But I’m also not a politician or a moneyed capitalist; I just want to keep up with what’s happening in the region and figure out where I fit in, since I plan to live here a long time. So here’s what I’m taking away/was left with after letting the experience settle:
1. Cathy Panzica is: articulate, passionate, exasperated. She is not the devil. We barely talked about politics – I didn’t want to, but I did say that I thought political connections were torpedoing the RRR efforts and, if those efforts are to be believed as legit and sincere, they’d be best kept under the radar until the elections are over.
Cathy has a handshake that reminded me of how an orthopedic doc friend of mine keeps telling me how our (MY) muscles, as we (I) get older, just tend to get weaker. Well, Cathy and I are the same age, and I’m feeling mighty weak after shaking her hand. God bless her natural strength or whatever weight-bearing activities she does (Her husband is in construction – maybe she’s swinging a hammer? Sorry – couldn’t help it.)
My sense, and my sense only: Cathy and the RRR exist on a corporate cloud with corporate individuals and corporate-minded individuals. Personally, I find this a difficult location to support because it feels too one-dimensional: it doesn’t draw from or pull-in or get buy-in from a horizontal and a vertical conglomerate of brains and experience (I’m very into cross-hatching and canvassing as broad a swath as possible).
To be balanced here, Cathy referred to efforts to get others involved. Since I’m not one of the others – the others being others in tech and again, I’m not in tech – I can’t really speak to that effort, except to say that she says she’s tried to reach out. What I know about the success of that effort comes from the blogosphere and there, it seems, the impression is that she has not reached out or at least not in a way that some in the tech community believe was valuable or broad enough.
I sought answers again to my original question about the fifth pillar of the RRR, which deals with education. I wanted to know, is it intended for me and other Cleveland Jane Doe’s. Cathy insists that it is and talked about Key’s efforts. That there is a program in place and it would be adapted for the RRR. She was forthright about saying that Key eschewed the idea of offering the education through faith-based groups.
I asked about numbers – are we talking tens of thousands of folks being re-educated and she said yes. She and Nikki say that this pillar is in development.
2. Part of what I think makes it difficult to assess the value of the RRR effort is that while on the one hand, anyone can accept the embryonic nature of a new venture, there seems to be a feeling that 1) it’s all been done before 2) there are other efforts going on and 3) the RRR effort is elitist.
I have to say, I definitely get the elitist vibe – everything from the location of the meeting to the RRR participants. This is not a grunge crowd.
Is that bad? Well, I would say that it’s bad if it’s excluding, alienating or disenfranchising elements that should be part of the conversation.
Which brings me back to the corporate cloud concept. Cathy has energy, Cathy has will power. These are vital ingredients to any effort hoping for results. And she referred to meetings and discussions in which she felt idea exchanges occurred that were beneficial.
But, I have to say, at this point, that, even if you believe the participants represent a broad enough array of brains and abilities and sectors, and even if you believe in all five pillars, and even if you believe this is a new and never been done before initiative (I’m playing lawyer here, you know – the even if you take all the facts as true thing), still – not much more has been done.
Now, the defense seems to be that there just hasn’t been that much time that’s gone by. Eh – ok. I don’t know what kind of time is necessary for something like this – this just isn’t my industry or my experience – I’m not a VC.
But without any solid demonstration or any specific outlines to be released (because I’ve been assured that specifics on the pillars do exist), it’s just so damn hard to wrap your brain around what is
-new
-different
-good
-beneficial
-innovative
-worthwhile
about the RRR. Maybe it’s all those things for the corporate participants, but what about for the rest of us?
Which was the question that got me into this meeting in the first place (recap: I read about RRR on BFD, I listened to a livechat, asked about Jane Doe, wasn’t satisfied with the answer and emailed and blogged about some follow up. That got me in an exchange with Nikki DiFillipo and then a meeting with Cathy and Nikki.).
3. One other significant point (in case you thought some of the other points were significant too): As we spoke about what would be done to make Cleveland more of a tech mecca, Cathy mentioned bringing in software companies.
Given the conversations on the blogs about the CIBER contract, I couldn’t let this go and had to ask her, interrupt her even. Why, I asked, did she say “bring in” – why didn’t she say “homegrow” or “incubate” here. And I referenced the fact that with all the chatter about the CIBER contract, I was surprised that she would still so naturally say “bring in.”
First, she offered up some information about the CIBER contract. I interrupted this time, a few times, because I didn’t want to go there. I just don’t know enough about the specifics and frankly, it wasn’t important to me. What was important was this immediate leap to “Bring in” as opposed to “grow here.”
This is about a mindset, isn’t it? Why isn’t “grow here” the mindset? I asked her.
And Cathy gave me reasons. Reasons that I thought had some legitimacy and reasons that she backed up with examples. Again, I cannot vouch for the veracity of the examples, and I won’t.
What I did do, was I said – write an op-ed. Write an op-ed. Tell us why – why is growing at home not enough or not possible, and why should we be more accepting of bringing in?
Neither approach is inherently flawed, they both have advantages and disadvantages.
Put that out there and quell the naysayers. Or at least step up and support in public what you believe in private is an okay business practice and regional development practice.
Help Jane Doe and everyone else with a stake (and who here doesn’t have a stake, really?) understand why this tech revolution has to be so high above us, because even with you answering my questions, I’m still getting the corporate cloud sensation.
4. Bottom line for me: As I told George, I can’t help believing that there is a way to make lots of money work for lots of people when someone with the lots of money is expending lots of energy.
How to do that, in a way that is not so goddamned fractious, seems to be at least one of the questions that I still have.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:36 pm October 30th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Oct
30
PSA
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
Did you change your clock?
In my house, we don’t get an extra hour of sleep. The kids wake us up an hour earlier.
Enjoy the gorgeous weather.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:27 pm October 30th, 2005 in Politics | 2 Comments
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Oct
30
PSA
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
Did you change your clock?
In my house, we don’t get an extra hour of sleep. The kids wake us up an hour earlier.
Enjoy the gorgeous weather.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:27 am October 30th, 2005 in Politics | 2 Comments
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Oct
30
Did you change your clock?
In my house, we don’t get an extra hour of sleep. The kids wake us up an hour earlier.
Enjoy the gorgeous weather.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:27 am October 30th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Oct
29
The psychic meaning of interruptions
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I’ve sat down to write about my hour-long meeting yesterday with Nikki DiFillipo and Cathy Panzica (of RRR), oh, probably five times. But newsflashes on other issues – long-standing and of chronic interest to me – keep shouldering in.
For example, I just got a phone call from Mayor Bruce Akers, who, I should say, in general, I like. He’s a bright man, an experienced Mayor and in general, knows the Pepper Pike and NEO community better than anyone. He’s also a consummate politician.
But what do I like the most, even if and when I don’t agree with him? That he took a voice mail message I left two days ago seriously enough to call me at home on a Saturday morning. Do all mayors do that? I don’t know. But I’m glad mine does.
I’ll blog about the substance later, as well as the Panzica-DiFillipo meeting. But I also need to get to my parents’ running me through the ringer because they didn’t evacuate Florida when they had the chance. Talk about having all those teen conversations they had with me come back to haunt me.
“Mom. I don’t think you realize how much you put my brothers and me through by not evacuating. We’ve been stressed and had to worry and think and wonder and plan for you because of bad judgement you made. You didn’t think of how that choice – to be adventurous and cavalier – might affect others. I know you didn’t intend that, but that’s what happened.
“You need to think about that next time.
“Are you there, mom?”
Wonder at which admonishment her cell phone cut out.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:46 pm October 29th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Oct
29
The psychic meaning of interruptions
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I’ve sat down to write about my hour-long meeting yesterday with Nikki DiFillipo and Cathy Panzica (of RRR), oh, probably five times. But newsflashes on other issues – long-standing and of chronic interest to me – keep shouldering in.
For example, I just got a phone call from Mayor Bruce Akers, who, I should say, in general, I like. He’s a bright man, an experienced Mayor and in general, knows the Pepper Pike and NEO community better than anyone. He’s also a consummate politician.
But what do I like the most, even if and when I don’t agree with him? That he took a voice mail message I left two days ago seriously enough to call me at home on a Saturday morning. Do all mayors do that? I don’t know. But I’m glad mine does.
I’ll blog about the substance later, as well as the Panzica-DiFillipo meeting. But I also need to get to my parents’ running me through the ringer because they didn’t evacuate Florida when they had the chance. Talk about having all those teen conversations they had with me come back to haunt me.
“Mom. I don’t think you realize how much you put my brothers and me through by not evacuating. We’ve been stressed and had to worry and think and wonder and plan for you because of bad judgement you made. You didn’t think of how that choice – to be adventurous and cavalier – might affect others. I know you didn’t intend that, but that’s what happened.
“You need to think about that next time.
“Are you there, mom?”
Wonder at which admonishment her cell phone cut out.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:46 am October 29th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
Oct
29
The psychic meaning of interruptions
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
I’ve sat down to write about my hour-long meeting yesterday with Nikki DiFillipo and Cathy Panzica (of RRR), oh, probably five times. But newsflashes on other issues – long-standing and of chronic interest to me – keep shouldering in.
For example, I just got a phone call from Mayor Bruce Akers, who, I should say, in general, I like. He’s a bright man, an experienced Mayor and in general, knows the Pepper Pike and NEO community better than anyone. He’s also a consummate politician.
But what do I like the most, even if and when I don’t agree with him? That he took a voice mail message I left two days ago seriously enough to call me at home on a Saturday morning. Do all mayors do that? I don’t know. But I’m glad mine does.
I’ll blog about the substance later, as well as the Panzica-DiFillipo meeting. But I also need to get to my parents’ running me through the ringer because they didn’t evacuate Florida when they had the chance. Talk about having all those teen conversations they had with me come back to haunt me.
“Mom. I don’t think you realize how much you put my brothers and me through by not evacuating. We’ve been stressed and had to worry and think and wonder and plan for you because of bad judgement you made. You didn’t think of how that choice – to be adventurous and cavalier – might affect others. I know you didn’t intend that, but that’s what happened.
“You need to think about that next time.
“Are you there, mom?”
Wonder at which admonishment her cell phone cut out.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:46 am October 29th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Oct
29
After hearing from a few folks (ok, my son, my mom and a writer friend in PA), I tried to figure out what was wrong with the feed via Bloglet but couldn’t (I emailed them for assistance but haven’t heard anything). So, I’ve switched subscribers and pray I did this correctly. I almost always make mistakes to things after 2 or 3 in the afternoon, so 11:30pm is really later than I should work on this stuff. But I want to keep my eyes open until after midnight to see if the email arrives (I subscribed myself).
Sign up and let me know if you start to get it! You can find the subscription info in the sidebar to the right, at the bottom of the blogrolls.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:48 am October 29th, 2005 in Politics | 2 Comments
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Oct
29
Watch the “Geniuses” portion of this show Sunday morning. And witness how a husband and wife software development team, Jan and Bob Davidson, turned their company into a multi-million dollar philanthropy to assist the development of gifted students.
After selling Davidson & Associates in 1996, Bob and Jan decided to focus on philanthropic endeavors to help young people become successful learners. While researching ways to make a positive impact, they realized that our nation’s brightest students are arguably the most underserved and neglected in America’s educational system.
Also watch because you haven’t watched CBS News Sunday Morning in years. Because you remember how friendly Charles Kuralt seemed (too friendly, perhaps, since, after his death, it was revealed that he had an entire second family in Arizona). Because you remember that warm, wavy yellow sun on an otherwise stark set.
Because you want to understand how legislated, unfunded mandates allow our politicians to suggest that they support social causes, but then never spend a dime. Because you know No Child Left Behind sucks and you’re always happy to find another reason why.
I’m biased. I’ve got a profoundly gifted kid trying to eek out a free and appropriate public education (as required under the law for all children except gifted). Consider all the myths you want:
-if I really want to, I could find money to send him to private school (surprise: private schools rarely have gifted specialists since they believe that all their students are above the bell curve)
-gifted education is elitist (surprise again: socioeconomic conditions have little connection to giftedness)
-gifted kids will do well no matter what setting they’re in (wrong again: gifted kids often become loners and develop disciplinary problems when they’re academic needs remain unmet)
-gifted kids can be enriched through the home (well, yeah, but does that justify a child – who is legally required to be educated – spending seven hours a day in a setting that fails to meet his or her needs?)
-gifted kids can be homeschooled (why – why should they have to be homeschooled if I pay taxes and my public school is required to provide an education to my child).
There are many more myths, with the corrections here and here (see page 7, a list of myths).
Needier students? There are always needier students of one type or another. For over seven years, I’ve been an active member of OPEN, a group that assists parents of children with special ed needs, gifted needs, or both (yes, many gifted kids are dually identified and get IEPs as required by the federal IDEA law which outlines a state’s responsibilities for educating kids with special ed needs). Why both categories in one group? Because federal combined special ed and gifted ed needs into a section for “Exceptional education” – meaning exceptional on both ends, and the state of Ohio does the same thing.
In addition, when parents of kids with either type of need work together, they set the tone for the school and the children: special needs kids are usually mainstreamed via inclusion and this means that a gifted kid will be in class with kids on IEPs. From the teacher’s perspective, it’s called differentiated instruction. From a parent or child’s perspective, it can be a nightmare. But when parents discuss the problems with the school – with both populations of kids in mind – everyone can get their needs met.
Even so, in the NCLB era, gifted kids have been left behind. There’s no subcategory to confirm that gifted kids learn every year (adequate yearly progress or AYP for all other subcategories). The focus is to bring the bottom up. And while no one – including me – would argue that this focus is a necessary and vital goal of federal involvement in education, the needs of the 3 million gifted students in the U.S. should likewise be met.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:19 am October 29th, 2005 in Politics | 9 Comments
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Oct
28
After hearing from a few folks (ok, my son, my mom and a writer friend in PA), I tried to figure out what was wrong with the feed via Bloglet but couldn’t (I emailed them for assistance but haven’t heard anything). So, I’ve switched subscribers and pray I did this correctly. I almost always make mistakes to things after 2 or 3 in the afternoon, so 11:30pm is really later than I should work on this stuff. But I want to keep my eyes open until after midnight to see if the email arrives (I subscribed myself).
Sign up and let me know if you start to get it! You can find the subscription info in the sidebar to the right, at the bottom of the blogrolls.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:48 pm October 28th, 2005 in Politics | 2 Comments
Print This Post
Oct
28
This Online Spin column by Mark Naples of MediaPost Publications discusses the value of blogs to search engine optimization as well as commentary. These ideas aren’t new realizations, are they? And yet, nearly all the blogs I read are the commentary-only type. Although…on the other hand, when I think about some of the more widely read blogs I follow, I realize that several of them are connected to some outlet – whether it’s a university (Pressthink) or a company (Gallup.com).
Do any of you stress about this?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:47 pm October 28th, 2005 in Politics | 1 Comment
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Oct
28
Sign up for new email subscription to this blog
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
After hearing from a few folks (ok, my son, my mom and a writer friend in PA), I tried to figure out what was wrong with the feed via Bloglet but couldn’t (I emailed them for assistance but haven’t heard anything). So, I’ve switched subscribers and pray I did this correctly. I almost always make mistakes to things after 2 or 3 in the afternoon, so 11:30pm is really later than I should work on this stuff. But I want to keep my eyes open until after midnight to see if the email arrives (I subscribed myself).
Sign up and let me know if you start to get it! You can find the subscription info in the sidebar to the right, at the bottom of the blogrolls.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:48 pm October 28th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
Oct
28
Watch the “Geniuses” portion of this show Sunday morning. And witness how a husband and wife software development team, Jan and Bob Davidson, turned their company into a multi-million dollar philanthropy to assist the development of gifted students.
After selling Davidson & Associates in 1996, Bob and Jan decided to focus on philanthropic endeavors to help young people become successful learners. While researching ways to make a positive impact, they realized that our nation’s brightest students are arguably the most underserved and neglected in America’s educational system.
Also watch because you haven’t watched CBS News Sunday Morning in years. Because you remember how friendly Charles Kuralt seemed (too friendly, perhaps, since, after his death, it was revealed that he had an entire second family in Arizona). Because you remember that warm, wavy yellow sun on an otherwise stark set.
Because you want to understand how legislated, unfunded mandates allow our politicians to suggest that they support social causes, but then never spend a dime. Because you know No Child Left Behind sucks and you’re always happy to find another reason why.
I’m biased. I’ve got a profoundly gifted kid trying to eek out a free and appropriate public education (as required under the law for all children except gifted). Consider all the myths you want:
-if I really want to, I could find money to send him to private school (surprise: private schools rarely have gifted specialists since they believe that all their students are above the bell curve)
-gifted education is elitist (surprise again: socioeconomic conditions have little connection to giftedness)
-gifted kids will do well no matter what setting they’re in (wrong again: gifted kids often become loners and develop disciplinary problems when they’re academic needs remain unmet)
-gifted kids can be enriched through the home (well, yeah, but does that justify a child – who is legally required to be educated – spending seven hours a day in a setting that fails to meet his or her needs?)
-gifted kids can be homeschooled (why – why should they have to be homeschooled if I pay taxes and my public school is required to provide an education to my child).
There are many more myths, with the corrections here and here (see page 7, a list of myths).
Needier students? There are always needier students of one type or another. For over seven years, I’ve been an active member of OPEN, a group that assists parents of children with special ed needs, gifted needs, or both (yes, many gifted kids are dually identified and get IEPs as required by the federal IDEA law which outlines a state’s responsibilities for educating kids with special ed needs). Why both categories in one group? Because federal combined special ed and gifted ed needs into a section for “Exceptional education” – meaning exceptional on both ends, and the state of Ohio does the same thing.
In addition, when parents of kids with either type of need work together, they set the tone for the school and the children: special needs kids are usually mainstreamed via inclusion and this means that a gifted kid will be in class with kids on IEPs. From the teacher’s perspective, it’s called differentiated instruction. From a parent or child’s perspective, it can be a nightmare. But when parents discuss the problems with the school – with both populations of kids in mind – everyone can get their needs met.
Even so, in the NCLB era, gifted kids have been left behind. There’s no subcategory to confirm that gifted kids learn every year (adequate yearly progress or AYP for all other subcategories). The focus is to bring the bottom up. And while no one – including me – would argue that this focus is a necessary and vital goal of federal involvement in education, the needs of the 3 million gifted students in the U.S. should likewise be met.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:19 pm October 28th, 2005 in Politics | 9 Comments
Print This Post
Oct
28
This Online Spin column by Mark Naples of MediaPost Publications discusses the value of blogs to search engine optimization as well as commentary. These ideas aren’t new realizations, are they? And yet, nearly all the blogs I read are the commentary-only type. Although…on the other hand, when I think about some of the more widely read blogs I follow, I realize that several of them are connected to some outlet – whether it’s a university (Pressthink) or a company (Gallup.com).
Do any of you stress about this?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:47 pm October 28th, 2005 in Politics | 1 Comment
Print This Post
Oct
28
Software philanthropists prevent the denial of genius
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
Watch the “Geniuses” portion of this show Sunday morning. And witness how a husband and wife software development team, Jan and Bob Davidson, turned their company into a multi-million dollar philanthropy to assist the development of gifted students.
After selling Davidson & Associates in 1996, Bob and Jan decided to focus on philanthropic endeavors to help young people become successful learners. While researching ways to make a positive impact, they realized that our nation’s brightest students are arguably the most underserved and neglected in America’s educational system.
Also watch because you haven’t watched CBS News Sunday Morning in years. Because you remember how friendly Charles Kuralt seemed (too friendly, perhaps, since, after his death, it was revealed that he had an entire second family in Arizona). Because you remember that warm, wavy yellow sun on an otherwise stark set.
Because you want to understand how legislated, unfunded mandates allow our politicians to suggest that they support social causes, but then never spend a dime. Because you know No Child Left Behind sucks and you’re always happy to find another reason why.
I’m biased. I’ve got a profoundly gifted kid trying to eek out a free and appropriate public education (as required under the law for all children except gifted). Consider all the myths you want:
-if I really want to, I could find money to send him to private school (surprise: private schools rarely have gifted specialists since they believe that all their students are above the bell curve)
-gifted education is elitist (surprise again: socioeconomic conditions have little connection to giftedness)
-gifted kids will do well no matter what setting they’re in (wrong again: gifted kids often become loners and develop disciplinary problems when they’re academic needs remain unmet)
-gifted kids can be enriched through the home (well, yeah, but does that justify a child – who is legally required to be educated – spending seven hours a day in a setting that fails to meet his or her needs?)
-gifted kids can be homeschooled (why – why should they have to be homeschooled if I pay taxes and my public school is required to provide an education to my child).
There are many more myths, with the corrections here and here (see page 7, a list of myths).
Needier students? There are always needier students of one type or another. For over seven years, I’ve been an active member of OPEN, a group that assists parents of children with special ed needs, gifted needs, or both (yes, many gifted kids are dually identified and get IEPs as required by the federal IDEA law which outlines a state’s responsibilities for educating kids with special ed needs). Why both categories in one group? Because federal combined special ed and gifted ed needs into a section for “Exceptional education” – meaning exceptional on both ends, and the state of Ohio does the same thing.
In addition, when parents of kids with either type of need work together, they set the tone for the school and the children: special needs kids are usually mainstreamed via inclusion and this means that a gifted kid will be in class with kids on IEPs. From the teacher’s perspective, it’s called differentiated instruction. From a parent or child’s perspective, it can be a nightmare. But when parents discuss the problems with the school – with both populations of kids in mind – everyone can get their needs met.
Even so, in the NCLB era, gifted kids have been left behind. There’s no subcategory to confirm that gifted kids learn every year (adequate yearly progress or AYP for all other subcategories). The focus is to bring the bottom up. And while no one – including me – would argue that this focus is a necessary and vital goal of federal involvement in education, the needs of the 3 million gifted students in the U.S. should likewise be met.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:19 pm October 28th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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