Archive for the 'Education' Category

Jeb Bush Snub, well deserved

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on April 13, 2007
in Education, Florida Gators, Jeb Bush and UF
. 4 Comments
I was featured again today by the Independent Florida Alligator’s Opinion column in response to an article written by the newspaper on Wednesday. As some of you may recall, a few weeks ago, Jeb Bush was snubbed by the UF Faculty senate for an honorary alumni status. Now, Representative David Rivera, R-Miami, is pushing a plan through the Florida State Senate to name the UF college of Education after the former governor.

I, naturally have issues with this. I think we need to stop rewarding people for doing average jobs, doing what they were elected or hired to do. Roosevelt Bradley touted how he purchased so many buses for MDT under his tenure, but then again, that’s what we expected him to do when we passed the PTP. Under Jeb Bush, Florida’s education system suffered. We’re ranked 47th among the 50 states and our high school graduation rates, teacher pay, and standards are deplorable. Jeb was a strong advocate for the student school voucher program, which was a considerable dis to the Florida Public education system. Naming the UF College of Education after a governor who failed to accomplish any educational advancement would be a disgrace to our Public Education system, UF, and the Faculty Senate who was in the right to snub him in the first place…

To read my reply, click here…

Some other noteworthy editorials: Gordon Van Owen, Lee Dykxhoorn

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Miami Streetcar Update

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on March 9, 2007
in Education, Environment, Miami, Miami 21, Sarnoff, Streetcar, Transit, Transit Oriented Development, Transportation, UM, Urban Growth and Urban Planning
. 1 Comment
One of our dedicated readers, Carolyn, informed me of an interesting lecture coming up in Miami:
The U.S. Green Building Council South Florida Chapter and University of Miami School of Architecture present:

MARCH 21
MIAMI STREET CAR UPDATE
7 pm. Refreshments at 6:30 pm, Jorge M. Perez Architecture Center Stanley and Jewell Glasgow Lecture Hall, Dickinson Drive, University of Miami, Coral Gables Campus. and open to the public.

Mary Conway, P.E., Chief of Operations, City of Miami

In recent years, the City of Miami has seen an unprecedented wave of urban infill and redevelopment in a compressed downtown core area, and in adjacent neighborhoods. Miami Streetcar Project has emerged as one essential component of a transportation network that will entice Miami motorists out of their cars, into convenient mass transit, and onto city (and County) streets. Miami Streetcar Project is a direct response to the challenge to provide improved mobility options for users of the transportation network throughout the downtown core. This presentation provides an update on the Miami Streetcar Project, and an overview of the roles that streetcar systems play in shaping cities, by fostering pedestrian-friendly urban environments, and re-invigorated downtowns across the United States. This affordable mode of mass transit is emerging as an increasingly popular application, because of its cost-effective and time-efficient construction, its financial affordability, and its ready adaptability to active pedestrian-focused environments. City of Miami has responded to the local mobility challenge by pursuing multi-agency partnerships and innovative project delivery methods to build the single transit investment that could make a profound difference in re-shaping downtown Miami, in record time.

Mary H. Conway, P.E., currently serves as the Chief of Operations for the City of Miami and is a prominent Civil Engineer and Project Manager with more than 18 years of experience in the industry. studied briefly at Harvard University and the United States Naval Academy before earning a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Miami. was the recipient of the “Most Outstanding Civil Engineering Graduate” award from University of Miami as well as a member of Tau Beta Pi and Chi Epsilon, engineering honor societies. Prior to joining the City, Mary worked with the Florida Department of Transportation for over 10 years, where she oversaw major transportation projects in Miami-Dade County as well Broward to Indian River Counties. She also worked with FPL as a service planner and Beiswenger, Hoch and Associates as a production and project manager. served as Director for the City of Miami Capital Improvements and Transportation (CIT) Department for approximately two years. Mary’s hard work and results were recognized and she was promoted to Chief of Operations and is now responsible for overseeing the following Departments: Parks and Recreation, Solid Waste, General Services Administration (GSA), Public Works and CIT. Mary has also continued her involvement with CIT,responsible for overseeing the planning, coordination,implementation and monitoring of all construction related capital projects and transportation projects in the City of Miami. projects include street infrastructure and flood mitigation; park improvements; public facilities including fire stations, police and other city buildings; marinas; the Orange Bowl; and a state of the art urban streetcar transit circulator project. City’s current Capital Improvement and Multi-year plan encompasses over 1100 projects valued at over $675,000,000 through the year 2010 and will certainly increase as Miami continues to grow. experience, professionalism, dedication and drive have earned her the respect of her peers in the City, with other government agencies and within the engineering community at large.

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City of Fools

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on November 3, 2006
in Education and Miami
. 0 Comments

We’ve got issues folks. Big ones. We have to find a way of lowering our ranking on this list, while raising our ranking on this list. That’s right Miamians are apparently a very uneducated breed of individuals when compared to other major cities across the country. As I like to refer to it, lack of education is the big elephant sitting tucked away in some nondescript part of the city. Nobody likes to bring up the subject although we all know it’s there and it’s the likely source of many of our regional problems. Perhaps things like this (or this) wouldn’t be so commonplace in our city if our literacy rate, graduation rate, or higher education percentages were all higher.

The recent education rankings don’t even mention Miami. In fact I had to search here, to find our measly 16% of adults aged 25 and older with Bachelors Degrees. 16%? That’s half what NYC has and more than three times less thank Seattle, the highest ranked city. It’s also no coincidence that the cities with higher levels of educated citizens also have more major companies headquartered in their respective regions and higher median household incomes than Miami. It’s a catch 22; should we be concentrating on educating our citizens to attract better and bigger industry to our region or should we entice and provide incentives for companies to move to our region and hope that the better educated masses follow? Either way, things have got to change or else we’ll continue to see the city’s middle and lower classes continue to be priced out of the area.

With regards to the crime: I’m glad our ranking has fallen in recent years, but, if you look at all 371 cities, way too many greater Miami area cities are also ranking fairly high on this list. I assume if our educated population base was higher, our rank on this list would decrease substantially.

Florida cities as a whole are at a grave disadvantage in attracting large corporate headquarters to our region. Our entire state education system also ranks somewhere near the bottom, alongside Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. Gov. Jeb Bush has done little to nothing throughout his tenure to improve our national education rankings and thus improve our state’s appeal to major employers. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t attribute Miami’s education woes to the state’s education deficiencies, but, it is definitely a contributing factor.

According to national figures, Florida’s graduation rate was 55.7 percent in 2002, putting it at No. 48 nationally, ahead of only Georgia and South Carolina.

As MVB also points out, our local government agencies and organizations in charge of recruiting and enticing companies to relocate to our area is ineffective to say the least. The inter-county/municipality competition alone is terrible.

Anyone have any education reform/business generation/crime reducing solutions?

Got a Face? You can Drive

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on July 26, 2006
in Drivers Improvement Course, Education, Enforcement, Miami, Police, South Miami, Traffic Tickets and US-1
. 0 Comments
If some of you have received traffic citations recently, I wouldn’t be too surprised. I’ve seen more traffic enforcement in the past 2 weeks than I’ve seen the entire summer. I’ve even seen the incredible rarity (and stupidity) of the South Miami Police force motorcycle cops out patrolling US-1 at one or two in the morning for speeders. I say stupid because when was the last time you saw a motorcycle cop out past sunset to begin with, but, this one was sitting in the turn lane facing southbound with all of his lights off (Headlight too! I thought that was against the law), radaring passing Northbound cars? Not your typical sight. I guess our local law enforcement officers have finally decided to crack down on Miami drivers by nit-picking the little things (like rolling stops in Coral Gables, or cruising above the speed limit in the wee hours of the morning in an area that knowingly reduced the speed of US-1 to 40 mph rather than the typical 45 mph to make those tickets sting a little more than usual) rather than cracking down on some of the more crucial traffic issues (the people who drive in exit lanes on the 836 knowing full well they have no intention of exiting, the hapless gridlock professionals on US-1, the red-light runners, or the speed daemons on the palmetto and I-95 at any hour where it is actually possible.) It makes me wonder if our police force is actually trying to resolve some of our traffic issues or add to them.
Some of you may remember that I was recently the lucky recipient of one of these golden tickets. I was going 47 mph in a 45 mph zone which temporarily became a 35 mph zone for some construction that was going on about a mile before I got stopped. Wonderful. In any case, my terrible experience let me realize a few crucial things:
1. Being polite and courteous to a motorcycle cop will never get you out of the citation, but, can get you a price break if you pull over promptly and show utmost respect.

2. The “Driving-Improvement” courses we are all required to take, don’t improve diddly squat and are likely the cause of so many careless drivers to begin with.

I enlisted in one of the on-line courses to avoid getting points on my license (Oh, yeah and to avoid further financial ravaging by Geico.) I thought the four hours was bad enough; the sheer stupidity of the whole course was worse than a kick to the groin. I survived the course by watching the timer on the webpage unremittingly tick away four wasted hours of my life. Then came the “final exam” which boasted some fantastic questions which I guarantee will make most of us better drivers. Here are the highlights:

How many licensed drivers are there in Florida? (I fail to see how this will make anyone a better driver.)

Until what age should a child use in a car seat? (The options for the answers to this one were: 3 years, 5 years, 60 lbs)

How many points can you receive in a 12 month period before your license is suspended? (Um, if you are worried about the maximum number of points, I don’t think you should be driving in the first place.)

What sign is shaped like an octagon? (A Stoptional! Or a S.T.O.P. sign – Slow To Observe Police…Duh!)

The obvious challenge continued throughout the rest of the 40 questions. Needless to say, I passed. Printing out my certificate of completion made me think about how backwards the licensing and driving education requirements really are. I will no longer wonder why area drivers stink- the rules to become licensed are terrible…

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