Emily McFarlan Miller

Friday, May 17, 2013

Biweekly Wrap-up: Miracles, an education summit and an announcement

One of the greatest privilege of my job is being trusted with people's stories. The past few weeks, that included the stories of a living Holocaust survivor, of a man who lost his daughter to a heroin overdose, of several survivors of sexual abuse, all so incredibly brave to share their stories.

I also had the opportunity to see Elgin Community College's production of "Our Lady of the Underpass," a play I've been wanting to see for years, since, you know, it's about saints and apparitions and based on a true story that took place at the underpass I drive through every day to work.

And to throw a hardball question at U.S. Secretary of State Arne Duncan during his visit to School District U46, the second-largest in the state. Previously, he'd gotten a question about Chicago Public Schools, a question asking him to summarize what he's done that day in U46 since the reporter only showed up at the end and a vague question from a student asking him what he's doing at the federal level to help students. I felt pretty good about that one.

Oh, and I found out I won a couple of prizes in the Illinois Press Association's Excellence in Journalism awards, although I won't know where I placed until the awards ceremony next month in Springfield.

Here are all those stories, starting with the cover stories I've written over the past few weeks:

And the rest:

While I was following Secretary Duncan, my colleague Kalyn Belsha at The Beacon-News covered the latest development with the proposed multi-district online charter school: School districts in proposed virtual charter to get own appeals hearings.

That's a completely different proposal for an online charter school than this one, presented this week: D300 hears bid for local charter online expansion.

Photo credit: Michael Smart for Sun-Times Media.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

U.S. education secretary takes 'tough' questions in U46 (Sun-Times Media)

STREAMWOOD — U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan squeezed through a passing period in the hallway at Streamwood High School, head and shoulders above the students scrambling to class.

Duncan stopped into a Project Lead the Way Principles of Engineering class, where he learned about the affordable prosthetic leg that senior Jerell Fingers is designing. He taste-tested junior Tania Coaros’ cheesecake in a culinary arts class. He joined a discussion in a freshman reading intervention class — suit coat off and desk pushed together with four students — about whether revenge ever is appropriate (his answer: “I’m a bigger fan of justice than revenge”).

And he took questions from those students: Can the former professional basketball player dunk a basketball? Is he a better basketball player than President Barack Obama? What is he reading now?

The questions got tougher afterward at a roundtable discussion in the library with U46 administrators, school board members, union officials and students about collaboration — or, as the education secretary put it, “what’s working, what’s not, how we can be a better partner.”

“Some of the challenges we all are facing are similar: how do we increase the graduation rate, how do we decrease the dropout rate, how do we make sure our students are college- and career-ready when they graduate?” Duncan said.

Elgin Teachers Association President Kathy Castle pointed to collaboration within the second-largest school district in Illinois on its Transformation Task Force. That task force was created during contract negotiations last year to bring together administrators, teachers, students and community members to discuss what the best possible school day would look like.

“Little by little, we’re bring all the voices to the table. It’s slow, it’s complicated and it needs to happen,” Castle said.

School board member Amy Kerber said that can be “a difficult balance” because the board feels an urgency around student achievement. But it also realizes the teachers need to lead the transformation, and it needs to give them time to do that well, Kerber said.

For the rest of the story, read U.S. education secretary takes 'tough' questions in U46.

Here's a Vine I made of Secretary Duncan visiting classrooms at Streamwood High School:

And here's audio of his response to a question I asked him about U46's equity work and efforts to close the achievement gap, a hot topic during the roundtable:

Photo credit: John Konstantaras for Sun-Times Media.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

GUEST POST: What’s the Big Deal about Klout? by Amanda Luedeke of MacGregor Literary

If there are two things I love, they're writing and social media. That's why I'm living the dream as a reporter and social media manager.

That's also why I loved Amanda Luedeke (and downloaded her e-book The Extroverted Writer) right off the bat after reading her post, "Pursuing the Writing Dream," on Devotional Diva. In both the e-book and the post, she shares social media marketing advice with writers in a friendly, conversational way. And it's good advice. I found a few ideas to mull, and you can trust me: I have a Klout score of 64.

Just kidding.

Like most, I don't put a whole lot of stock in Klout, although I do enjoy the perks. (I'm on a wait list for a free Egg White Delight McMuffin right now. Reporters, like college students, have a knack for scoring free meals.)

Amanda has a few more words on Klout, below.

Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary, Inc. A 2006 graduate of Taylor University's Professional Writing program, Amanda spent some years working in marketing as a social media expert and copywriter for major national brands, including Vera Bradley, Peg Perego and Benjamin Moore. While in marketing, she launched blogs, YouTube channels, Facebook pages and more on behalf of clients.

She has been an agent since 2010 and has quickly put to use her knack for understanding and not shying away from marketing and promotions. She works with her authors to perfect their brands and marketing efforts, while offering weekly marketing advice on the agency blog.

Amanda lives in Fort Wayne, Ind., with her husband and Great Dane.

If you hang in social media or marketing circles, you’re bound to hear someone brag about their Klout score, acting as though they’re some kind of social media celebrity or wizard. They throw their number around, anticipating attention and slack-jawed stares. They expect to be admired.

To catch everyone up, Klout is a ranking system that looks at your online interactions, followings, fan bases and presence, and it kicks back a number between 1 and 100. The stronger your online presence, the higher the number.

But here’s the dirty truth: To most, Klout doesn’t matter, because Klout doesn’t mean anything. A vast majority of Americans haven’t even considered figuring their Klout scores (most flat-out don’t know what it is), so telling someone that your score is a 60, means absolutely nothing. In fact, it could hurt you, because let’s face it… in the world’s terms, a score of 60 out of 100 isn’t that good (yet according to Klout, it’s pretty decent).

Touting your Klout score to impress others is akin to walking into a job interview and telling the boss that you were the third most popular person in high school. “Great,” they’ll think, but where is there to go from there? Popularity, even if given a handy little score, can’t be easily communicated. It can’t be defined. You can’t just say, “I had twelve people ask me to prom,” and then demand the respect of everyone around you. Popularity must be proven, and as of now, Klout doesn’t prove popularity because its scale means nothing.

What are some other dirty Klout truths?

The average Klout score is 40.
I’m a literary agent, with a decent following, and my score is only 61.
Klout relies on others interacting with YOU. Not just you interacting with others.
You can spend hours and hours trying to increase your Klout score, only to have someone ask you, “What’s Klout?” right when you’re trying to use the score to impress them.

The bottom line is that Klout hasn’t taken off enough for me to recommend people care about it. Until Americans become aware of what it is, it’s nothing more than a silly number.

So in the meantime, if you’re looking to impress with your platform, don’t stress over your score. Stress over your numbers. Spend your time increasing those Facebook page likes, those Twitter followers, those blog subscribers, etc.

Those are numbers people “get.” Those numbers mean something.

If you’re looking for a great guide to help build those social media follows, likes and fans, check out my new marketing e-book, THE EXTROVERTED WRITER: AN AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO MARKETING AND BUILDING A PLATFORM. Available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords (for all other e-reader devices).

Photo credit: Amanda Luedeke.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Pushing City Limits (RELEVANT)

For the past five weeks some of my friends and fellow urban dwellers from the East, West and Third Coasts have joined me here on my blog to explore Christ's relationship to the city and what that means for us as Christians living in the city. That's a topic I'd been exploring as part of my peace project, and a topic I'd been exploring for this article I wrote for RELEVANT.

I had started the "God of this City" series with this question: What is the biggest challenge or opportunity you face as a Christian living in the city?

Others' answers included raising children, poverty and loneliness. The answer for me -- based on the neighborhoods I've lived in (Ukrainian Village, Humboldt Park, Wicker Park), the volunteer work I do (teaching ESL through River City Community Church) and my gift for hospitality -- is gentrification.

Gentrification presents a challenge for city-dwelling Christians not to be the jerk. It also presents an opportunity simply to be a neighbor. Here's how.

The Spanish-speaking students in my English as a Second Language class know what it is even if they don’t know the word for it in English.

They know, as one of the men in my class explains to me, that east of Western Ave. in Chicago, everyone is American (read: “white”) and that west of Western, everyone is Mexican and Puerto Rican. They know that rent is now twice what it used to be when they first moved into the neighborhood, as another woman tells me. She says that when she first moved in, she was scared of the crime and wanted to leave. But not anymore—not since the young professionals starting streaming in and the urban developers not long after.

They know all about gentrification.

British sociologist Ruth Glass first used the term in 1964, describing the movement of the middle class “gentry” into working-class neighborhoods of London, which resulted in the displacement of the original occupants and the transformation of the area’s social character.

The same concept applies in the changing cityscapes of today, but with a few added layers of complexity.

The process often begins when artists looking for cheap rent migrate into low-income neighborhoods. This hipster influx brings fresh vitality to the neighborhood, which yuppie urbanites soon begin to see as cultural hotspots rather than the “bad side of town” it once was.

But when young professionals start moving in, prices continue to rise. Rent takes a hike, condo high-rises are constructed, local businesses are threatened by next-door development of national franchises, and it’s not long before the lower-income residents are pushed out.

When the focus is on the positive outcome of this process, it’s often called urban renewal. But when the focus shifts to its uglier side effects, it’s called gentrification.

For the rest of the story, pick up the May/June issue of RELEVANT, or read Pushing City Limits.

Photo credit: RELEVANT.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Monthly Wrap-up: Film festivals, album release parties and a visit from Tony Blair

April went by incredibly fast -- or, at least, it felt that way as the city came to life after the sleepy trudge that is a Chicago winter. Things also are picking up on my newspaper beat as the school year is winding down in the districts I cover, celebrating another year gone by and trying to pack in as much as possible before it's over. That's made for some fun assignments: two film festivals (including a satellite of one of my favorite Chicago festivals in Elgin!), an album release party, Record Store Day, even a visit from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Also fun: I just joined Vine. My username is the same there as everywhere else: emmillerwrites. I'm trying to find ways to use it to help tell stories for The Courier-News, and I'm open to your ideas!

So, yeah, I'm feeling pretty cool right now.

Here are those stories you'll enjoy, even if you're not an education wonk like me:

Probably the biggest story I'm covering right now is the proposed Illinois Virtual Charter School @ Fox River Valley, what would be the first multi-district online charter school in the state. At this point, all 18 area school boards have voted it down. But then there are appeals. And there is that proposed legislation. (Here's another post I wrote with some background about the proposal.)

Here are the latest developments in the proposed online charter school:

Here are a few more cover stories I've written for The Courier-News this past month:

And here are the rest:

That last story, surprisingly, appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times and on the FOX Chicago website. Maybe because we all were so shocked -- flu season pretty much is over, and so are the days of people dying of the flu -- and saddened by the news.

Photo credit: Michael Smart for Sun-Times Media.