The Confucius Institute at Michigan State University (CI-MSU) is pleased to announce that it has up to 20 openings for Michigan educators to participate in an educational tour of schools in China from December 2 – 10, 2010. Cost for the trip will be relatively modest for such a trip: participants are required to pay one-half of the price of the round trip air fare from designated hub cities (Detroit included), Chinese tourist visa application fee, and a portion of their meals. The balance of airfare, the cost of hotels, travel within China, and several group meals are covered.

For the third year in a row Michigan’s high school students improve their ACT scores!

Hey, if the Detroit Lions had a trend-line like that they’d stop being the butt of jokes. With the news that GM sold more cars this year than last, we felt there may be a light at the end of this long, long bad news tunnel.

I hope you’ll take time to share your success as documented by recent test scores and celebrate with your faculty.

As you start this school year, here are some facts that make the case that your school is doing right by its students:

Applying for an MPLP Fellowship

NEWS RELEASE FROM MEA, MASA, MASB, August 20th.

LANSING—Michigan’s K-12 education community on Friday released a strong rebuke against a proposal to balance the state’s budget by dipping into emergency reserves in the School Aid Fund. Leaders in Lansing are poised, yet again, to kick the can farther down the road instead of solving Michigan’s budget problems. The state doesn’t have enough money to pay the bills for the rest of the 2009-10 fiscal year and there’s not enough time to cut the almost $300 million that’s already been spent.