[Velvet_Highground]

Detroit’s comeback story may be the marquee event with Grand Rapids as the large mid-sized city trying to break out on its own in terms of national identity taking up a lot of the bandwidth. Kalamazoo is arguably just as important and astonishing the Kalamazoo promise of two years of free secondary school really helped to rejuvenate the city while the aggressive expansion & redevelopment of WMU which has really solidified itself as a good major sort of first choice school in the state.

Well for something besides drinking. Though it’s had a good music program for a long time while business is looked down in academic circles if it’s a good program that prepares students for the world good on em. I was listening to History after Dark and it was interesting hearing their perspective on how well some students are prepared. Not being able to read was the complaint, lol. There was some hyperbole but a couple really sad cases laid out. But that’s a K-12 issues and we haven’t invested in it nationally in over a generation at a time when teachers were famously broke.

The new event center is a great project downtown has come a long way and I think this could be the first step to moving onto the next level. It’s been cool to see other cities take up different versions of the Kalamazoo promise which is a great opportunity for those students. I know I had a completely different positive experience learning in the College setting vs K-12 the freedom to go in-depth on subjects I was curious and or a strong subject where I wanted to and walk out and have a smoke break or even leave early if I needed it.