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Child Tax-Advantaged Investment

No photo description available.

 

Relata:

Texas — Invest America

U.S. Treasury Financial Education Modules

FDIC — Money Smart for Young People

Home Economics

Carnegie Classifications

"What are you afraid of losing, when nothing in the world actually belongs to you." -- Marcus Aurelius

Risk

“The Sampling Officials” | “Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild” 1662 Rembrandt

Today we run a status check on public consultations on best practice titles that set the standard of care for risk management in the education facility industry; including university-affiliated healthcare enterprises.

Open to everyone. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.  Some of topics we cover are listed below:

  • Security standards (alarms, signaling, human resources, etc.)
  • Property loss prevention standards
  • Third party use of education facilities
  • Athletic and recreational program risk
  • OSHA regulations (electrical, fall, confined space risk, etc.)
  • Information and communications technology risk
  • Total cost of ownership standards
  • Laboratory and chemical safety

FYI: 3 Tips for Protecting Remote Employees’ Data

Standing Agenda / Risk

 

530A Trump Accounts

These tax-deferred investment accounts, created under IRC §530A, allow parents or guardians to open one for any child under 18 with a Social Security number. Eligible children born 2025–2028 receive a one-time $1,000 federal seed contribution, invested in low-cost U.S. stock index funds. Families, employers, and donors can add up to $5,000 annually.
Funds grow tax-deferred until age 18, then convert to a traditional IRA. The program aims to build long-term wealth, introduce investing habits, and give every child—especially those from lower-income families—a tangible stake in the U.S. economy from childhood.

U.S. Department of Treasury

Cornell Law School: 26 U.S. Code §

CNN Here’s what families need to know

Large Language Models of Electric Power Sector

Guide for Evaluation Metrics and Methods for Large Language Models of Electric Power Sector | November 29

Standards Michigan supports the development of evaluation guidelines for Large Language Models serving the electric power sector, provided the project addresses the operational requirements of educational settlements, healthcare facilities and other complex institutional infrastructure. Evaluation criteria should extend beyond technical accuracy to include reliability, traceability, cybersecurity, interoperability, regulatory compliance and the consequences of erroneous recommendations. Particular attention should be given to electrical safety, power quality, emergency systems, distributed energy resources and continuity of operations.

We have particular interest in the interaction between merchant utilities and university owned district energy systems or distribution systems that have been spun off to private entities.

Evaluation datasets should incorporate authoritative references from IEEE, IEC, NFPA, NERC and applicable national regulations, with clear provisions for version control, jurisdictional differences and copyrighted standards. The guidelines should distinguish advisory applications from decisions affecting physical equipment, personnel safety and public welfare. Human oversight, reproducible testing and transparent disclosure of model limitations are essential.

Mike Anthony and Jim Harvey, C0-Founders of the IEEE E&H Subcommittee will apply to be among the ballot responders (if not the actual crafting of the standard).  We encourage participation by facility operators, consulting engineers, utilities, insurers and academic researchers to ensure practical applicability across the infrastructure lifecycle.  

Language 600

Lingua Franca

Innovation and Competitiveness in Artificial Intelligence

Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases

Elettrotecnico Lingua Franca

Tokens

Wildcat Den

MARQUETTE WEATHER

https://standardsmichigan.com/136343-2/

Homecoming Schedule of Events | Michigan Upper Peninsula

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Locations | Hours | Menu

Homophily Michigan

906 Day

Northern Michigan University | Marquette County

Election Cake & Coffee

 

Standards Michigan: Coffee

"What are you afraid of losing, when nothing in the world actually belongs to you." -- Marcus Aurelius

Security 400

 

“We worry about what a child will become tomorrow,

yet we forget that he is someone today.”

– Stacia Tauscher

 

Today we run a status check on the stream of technical and management standards evolving to assure the highest possible level of security in education communities.  The literature expands significantly from an assortment of national standards-setting bodies, trade associations, ad hoc consortia and open source standards developers.  CLICK HERE for a sample of our work in this domain.

School security is big business in the United States.   According to a report by Markets and Markets, the global school and campus security market size was valued at USD 14.0 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 21.7 billion by 2025, at a combined annual growth rate of 7.2% during the forecast period.  Another report by Research And Markets estimates that the US school security market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of around 8% between 2020 and 2025, driven by factors such as increasing incidents of school violence, rising demand for access control and surveillance systems, and increasing government funding for school safety initiatives.

Because the pace of the combined annual growth rate of the school and campus security market is greater than the growth rate of the education “industry” itself, we’ve necessarily had to break down our approach to this topic into modules:

Security 100.   A survey of all the technical and management codes and standards for all educational settings — day care, K-12, higher education and university affiliated healthcare occupancies.

Security 200.   Queries into the most recent public consultations on the components and interoperability* of supporting technologies

Video surveillance: indoor and outdoor cameras, cameras with night vision and motion detection capabilities and cameras that can be integrated with other security systems for enhanced monitoring and control.

Access control: doors, remote locking, privacy and considerations for persons with disabilities.

Panic alarms: These devices allow staff and students to quickly and discreetly alert authorities in case of an emergency.

Metal detectors: These devices scan for weapons and other prohibited items as people enter the school.

Mass notification systems: These systems allow school administrators to quickly send emergency alerts and notifications to students, staff, and parents.

Intrusion detection systems: These systems use sensors to detect unauthorized entry and trigger an alarm.

GPS tracking systems: These systems allow school officials to monitor the location of school buses and track the movements of students during field trips and other off-campus activities.

Security 300.  Regulatory and management codes and standards; a great deal of which are self-referencing.

Security 400.  Advanced Topics.  NFPA 731 Standard for the Installation of Premises Security Systems

As always, we reckon first cost and long-term maintenance cost, including software maintenance for the information and communication technologies (i.e. anything with wires) installed in the United States.  Cybersecurity is outside our wheelhouse and beyond our expertise.  In order to do any of the foregoing reasonably well, we have to leave cybersecurity standards to others.

Case Study: Inside The Safest School In America

Bob Hope Primary School Kadena Air Base

Builders Hardware Manufacturers Association

 

Education Community Safety catalog is one of the fast-growing catalogs of best practice literature.  In developing district security plans, K-12 school leaders stress that school safety is a cross-functional responsibility and every individual’s participation drives the success of overall safety protocols.  We link a small sample below and update ahead of every Security colloquium.

Artificial Intelligence Tries (and Fails) to Detect Weapons in School

Could AI be the future of preventing school shootings?

Executive Order 13929 of June 16, 2020 Safe Policing for Safe Communities

Clery Act

National Center for Education Statistics: School Safety and Security Measures

International Code Council

2021 International Building Code

Section 1010.1.9.4 Locks and latches

Section 1010.2.13 Delayed egress.

Section 1010.2.14 Controlled egress doors in Groups I-1 and I-2.

Free Access: NFPA 72 National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code

Free Access: NFPA 101 Life Safety Code

Free Access: NFPA 731 Standard for the Installation of Premises Security Systems

IEEE: Design and Implementation of Campus Security System Based on Internet of Things

APCO/NENA 2.105 Emergency Incident Data Document 

C-TECC Tactical Emergency Casualty Care Guidelines

Department of Transportation Emergency Response Guidebook 2016

NENA-STA-004.1-2014 Next Generation United States Civic Location Data Exchange Format

Example Emergency Management and Disaster Preparedness Plan (Tougaloo College,  Jackson, Mississippi)

Partner Alliance for Safer Schools

Federal Bureau of Investigation Academia Program

Most Dangerous Universities in America

Federal Bureau of Investigation: Uniform Crime Reporting Program

ICYMI: Guide to Campus Security

* Interoperability refers to the ability of different technologies or systems to communicate and work together seamlessly. In the context of school security technologies, interoperability can help improve the effectiveness of security systems and make it easier for school personnel to manage and respond to potential security threats.  Here’s what we look for:

  1. Standardization: By standardizing communication protocols and data formats, school security technologies can be made more compatible with each other, making it easier for different systems to communicate and share information.
  2. Integration: School security technologies can be integrated with each other to provide a more comprehensive security solution. For example, access control systems can be integrated with video surveillance systems to automatically trigger alerts when an unauthorized person enters a restricted area.
  3. Open Architecture: Open architecture solutions enable different security systems to be connected and communicate with each other regardless of their manufacturer or supplier. This approach makes it easier to integrate different technologies and avoid vendor lock-in.
  4. Cloud-based Solutions: Cloud-based security solutions can enable interoperability by providing a centralized platform for managing and monitoring different security systems. This approach can also simplify the deployment of security technologies across multiple locations.
  5. Collaboration: School security technology providers can work together to develop interoperability standards and best practices that can be adopted across the industry. Collaboration can help drive innovation and improve the effectiveness of security systems.

 

 

 

Ædificare & Utilization

New Construction Release Schedule: https://www.census.gov/construction/c30/release.html

Reports are usually released at 10 AM EST the first day of every month except this month. (May 2026)

There’s been a significant redesign of the look and feel of the monthly Census Bureau reports construction activity. Today we sort through the rather more granular statistics that inform our recommendations for facility spend.

 

December 1, 2025

It has been 20 years since we began tracking educational settlement facility spend.  Starting this month we will examine federal government data together with the best available data about space utilization to enlighten our response to the perfectly reasonable question: “Are we over-building or under-building or building ineffectively”.  Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.

United States: Schools of Architecture

The Society for College and University Planning (Ann Arbor, Michigan)

National Center for Education Statistics

The Financial Impact of Architectural Design: Balancing Aesthetics and Budget in Modern Construction

 

Homeschooling

2022 International Existing Building Code 

  • University College London

As reported by the US Department of Commerce Census Bureau the value of construction put in place by August 2025 by the US education industry proceeded at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $137.604 billion.  This number does not include renovation for projects under 50,000 square feet and new construction in university-affiliated health care delivery enterprises.   Reports are released two months after calendar month.  The complete report is available at the link below:

MONTHLY CONSTRUCTION SPENDING August 2025 (released two months after calendar month)

 

 


This spend makes the US education facilities industry (which includes colleges, universities, technical/vocational and K-12 schools, most university-affiliated medical research and healthcare delivery enterprises, etc.) the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States after commercial property; and fairly close.  For perspective consider total public + private construction ranked according to the tabulation most recently released:

$137.604 billion| Education Facilities

$155.728 billion | Power (Note data center buildout)

$69.625 billion | Healthcare

Keep in mind that inflation figures into the elevated dollar figures.  Overall — including construction, energy, custodial services, furnishings, security. etc., — the non-instructional spend plus the construction spend of the US education facilities is running at a rate of about $300 – $500 billion per year.

LIVE: A selection of construction cameras at  US schools, colleges and universities

Architectural Billings

We typically pick through the new data set; looking for clues relevant to real asset spend decisions.  Finally, we encourage the education facilities industry to contribute to the accuracy of these monthly reports by responding the US Census Bureau’s data gathering contractors.

Reconstruction of Ancient Agora

 

As surely as people are born, grow wealthy and die with extra cash,

there will be a home for that cash to sustain their memory and to steer

the cultural heritage of the next generation in beautiful settings.

More

National Center for Educational Statistics

AIA: Billings Index shows but remains strong May 2022

National Center for Education Statistics

Sightlines: Capital Investment College Facilities

OxBlue: Time-Lapse Construction Cameras for Education

Architectural Billing Index

IBISWorld Education Sector

US Census Bureau Form F-33 Survey of School System Finances

American School & University

New Report from Occuspace Finds U.S. Campuses Face Significant Underutilization

Global Consistency in Presenting Construction & Life Cycle Costs

Carnegie Classifications

Gallery: School Bond Referenda

In terms of total spend, the US elementary and secondary school industry is about twice the size of the higher education industry according to IBISWorld. About $100 billion is in play every year for both (which we cover during our Ædificare colloquia); with higher education spending only half of what elementary and secondary school systems spend on facilities.

Note that some districts are including construction for faculty housing.

Our focus remains on applying global standard to create educational settlements that are safer, simpler, lower-cost and longer-lasting — not on the hurly-burly of local school bond elections.  We recommend consulting the coverage in American School & University for more detailed and more timely information.

“GV Brew”

ALLENDALE WEATHER

Grand Valley State University Statement of Financial Position 2023: $1.057B

Michigan West

Located on the First Floor of the Mary Idema Pew Library*

Facilities Services

Moving into college vlog

Moving into Grand Valley State University | Kent County Michigan

Grand Valley State University

Facilities Services

* Proposed GVSU Library to be named for Mary Idema Pew

 

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Standards Michigan Group, LLC

455 East Eisenhower Parkway, Suite 300
Ann Arbor, MI 48108 USA

888-748-3670

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