November 24, 2008

Kalamazoo Promise: Showing Racine the way?

Remember the Racine Promise? It burst upon the scene earlier this month, as city officials announced they are seeking grants to study the feasibility of a program that would guarantee college tuition to any Racine high school graduate.

Well, here's a story about the Kalamazoo Promise, the program the city would like to emulate. A panel discussion in Kalamazoo last week -- about how to market the city and the Promise -- was filled with positive statements about the program, now in its fourth year, from local officials.

The city leads the U.S. in per-capita job creation; hotel tax revenues are up 8 per cent; entrepreneurs are draw to the community. Robert Miller, Western Michigan University vice president for community outreach, says Kalamazoo is "ahead of the curve'' in revitalizing its economy through education. He credits the Kalamazoo Promise for that, and says. "The entire state and nation could take a lesson from Kalamazoo.''

Which is just what Racine hopes to do. Alderman Aron Wisneski -- who along with Greg Helding and City Administrator Ben Hughes is pushing for the two $8,000 grants to get a study under way -- sent us a link to the article referenced above. He adds, "For all the negative voices around here that complain about how we need to do something about jobs and crime, it strikes me as important that they finally get what this is all about -- jobs and crime. If there is one thing that we have learned throughout human history, it is that the more educated a populace is, the better off it is in all ways."

12 comments:

  1. Yes we get what this is all about. You geniuses are going to stimulate a multi-layered, stagnant local economy with another freebie and people will continue to have their doors kicked in in the middle of the day.

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  2. Out of the four major companies left in Racine, only one is in any shape to help pay for this. So where will the money come from?
    Crime is at an all time high no matter what The Mayor and his lap dogs on the City Consul tell you, RSUD can not get 50% of the kids to get out of High School so who will be moving here? What jobs are there here to get?
    This city is losing jobs and population, the number of owner occupied home going down our schools SUCK and the Smoke and Mirrors of the Racine Promise will just let some of us bury our heads in the sand

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    Then too large numbers of kids who do get out of RUSD and go to Parkside or other UW schools need to be taught basic skills that RUSD can not do. I think we need to fix RUSD before we even think about this
    Racine Promise = Smoke and Mirrors

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  3. Helding, Hughes and Wisneski, they are the modern day version of the 3BLIND MICE! (Wisneski, run while you still can!) Hughes and Helding are nothing but a couple puppets doing the mayor's bidding.

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  4. Anan 4:57

    Do not forger Ben " But I love you" Hugues the City Adim
    Speaking of The City Grant Writer did she not get fired from the YWCA for not bringing grants to the YWCA.
    What gets me is the Post is carrying water for the Mayor.

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  5. Ben "But I love you" city admin??? Hahahahahaaa........too funny!

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  6. And to qualify my 4:57 (and 2:01) posts, I happen to like it here. Complaining without a desire for success is pretty stupid. However, I have decided to throw in the towel. I started another company in September and I am waiting to find a buyer for our house so I can slide down that big dinosaur's tail into my car and drive away -

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  7. What happened to the post from anonymous at 4:57??? I don't remember what it said now, but I didn't think anything was worthy of deleting.

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  8. I consider the Rcine Post to be a good place to have conversations and a valuable news alternative for this area. My post was not a personal attack, it is my honest perception of the "inside scoop". If Pete and Dustin think that this is worth deleting AGAIN don't worry, I'll never come back.

    Repost of the deleted anonymous 4:57 post:

    So professionals are going to move here to take advantage of free tuition for their children? No, they'll ask what kind of hell hole has people in charge who think this will work. Don't worry, this is actually just a high-visibility attempt to justify the employment of grant coordinator Deborah L. Embry, MBA.

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  9. And that was deleted? Why??? I've seen far far worse posted, you are correct it was not a personal attack. And speaking of personal attacks, I've seen blogs here where there were many personal attacks but they were not deleted. If this website is going to be policed, then there should be some consistent standards to use as guidelines. It's not worth even looking at this website if the editors are just going to delete something because they simply don't agree with it.

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  10. Thank you 10:02!

    A letter was re-printed here some time ago signed by Ms. Embry with her degree after her name. If I wrote a letter and signed it Joseph P. Blow, "M.D." or "Founding Member of the Mickey Mouse Club", people should be able to ask questions. If newsworthy people are so thin-skinned that they need to be "protected" from questions or comments then perhaps I (we) should become suspicious.

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  11. It really bothers me that the anonymous post was deleted by the racinepost. There was no logical reason the post was deleted other than someone at racinepost didn't like it. That is not a reason to censor a comment - racinepost you should be ashamed of yourselves. If you don't want opinions and discussion here, then don't allow any posts at all.

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  12. I thought this was something Racine (and other cities) should've started years ago. Where's the leadership in copying another program after four years? This program was deemed successful almost immediately. How does this tie into the Wisconsin Covenant that Doyle is implementing?

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