Tagged: Stateside

On today's show, Michigan Radio's Lester Graham fills in for Cyndy.

We talk with Lindsey Smith who filed an investigative report today for Michigan Radio. She found some teachers in one already troubled school district are not certified to teach in Michigan.

And speaking of teachers, two-thirds of people in Michigan believe we need to hold teachers more accountable. That's according to a new report from the Center for Michigan. We'll talk to education leaders about that report.

And supply, demand, and distribution of medical marijuana in Michigan. The courts, the legislature, and the patients who rely on the relief are all debating recent developments.

The following is a summary of a previously recorded interview. To hear the complete segment, click the audio above.

According to a new study published in Elementary School Journal, the vocabulary lessons our children are getting in grade school fall woefully short of giving students the range and scope of words they need to become good, effective readers throughout their lives. 

Tanya Wright is an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at Michigan State University.  She spoke with Cindy about the study and what it could cost our kids to be saddled with a deficient vocabulary.

On today's show, we look at sales of alternative energy vehicles in this country. As much as the government wants to get us into electric vehicles and other alternative energy vehicles, the American consumer isn't warming up to them.

What keeps us from embracing the electric car?

And we talk about our special series of reports exploring the schools and the educational opportunities in Stockbridge, Michigan. It's part of Michigan Radio's State of Opportunity project.

But first, Detroit's Mayor will be delivering his State of the City address this coming Wednesday night, but even as Dave Bing prepares his speech the time may near for Governor Snyder to lower the proverbial boom and announce the appointment of an emergency manager for Michigan's biggest city.

Detroit News editorial writer Nolan Finley joined us to talk about his Sunday column that points to action from Lansing sooner rather than later. We asked him about the latest he's hearing from Lansing.

There are two ways you can podcast "Stateside with Cynthia Canty"

• Podcast of the entire show
• Podcast of each segment
  

The following is a summary of a previously recorded interview. To hear the complete segment, click the audio above.

When it comes to data and knowing just what to do with it, it seems there are two camps in this world. 

Those who can plunge into mining, parsing, analyzing and figuring out how to really use data, and those who are fairly clueless when it comes to crunching data.
 
Luckily for some non-profit groups in the Ann Arbor/ Detroit area, those types aren’t just smart, they are nice, and willing to help.
 
Thanks to some hard-working grad students at the U-M School of Information. The A2 Data Dive is coming up this weekend on the Central Campus of the University of Michigan.
 
Co-founders, Claire Barco and  Nikki Roda tell us more about the A2 Data Dive.

The following is a summary of a previously recorded interview. To hear the complete segment, click the audio above.

Bill Ryan is one of the leading lights on the new music scene.

Ryan leads 'Billband' and is also a music educator at Grand Valley State University.

It has been nine years since the last CD release from Billband, but Ryan continues to make his mark on contemporary music with his teaching at GVSU, and with the GVSU New Music Ensemble.

He's put Grand Valley on the map for those who follow and love contemporary music.

And now, after nine years, Billband has a new release. It's called Towards Daybreak with emotive, postminimalist  new music.
 
Bill Ryan joined us from Allendale and Grand Valley State.

The following is a summary of a previously recorded interview. To hear the complete segment, click the audio above.

More and more of us not just here in Michigan, but across the nation, are traveling by train and turning to Amtrak.

Its trains carried 31.2 million passengers in its fiscal year that ended last September.

Here in Michigan, a record-setting 793,000 people traveled on Amtrak's three routes, bringing in all-time high revenues of $27.8 million in Michigan.

What's behind our growing affection for the train?

Adie Tomar is a researcher with the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

He joined us from Washington.

The following is a summary of a previously recorded interview. To hear the complete segment, click the audio above.

News out of Lansing: Governor Snyder announced  today that he supports expanding Medicaid eligibility to hundreds of thousands of Michigan residents without insurance.

The expansion comes under the Obama administration's health care overhaul.... and there are benefits for states that decide to expand Medicaid. The federal government will pick up the entire cost in the first three years... and 90 percent over the long haul.

But, Snyder is likely to run into resistance from fellow Republicans who are opposed to the Affordable Health Care law.

Meanwhile, the Governor is also gearing up to deliver his budget proposal for fiscal year 2013-2014 tomorrow. You could say, unveiling the proposal begins the "debate" (sometimes putting that kindly) in Lansing over what should and should not be funded.

So which programs and initiatives could be winners? And which could be losers in the Governor's spending plan? And in what the Legislature ultimately does with it?

Cyndy talked with Chris Gautz, Capitol Correspondent for Crain's Detroit Business and Dave Eggart, the Lansing reporter for the Associated Press.