How to Tell if College Presidents Are Overpaid

Richard Vedder:

The Chronicle of Higher Education tells us the median salary of public university presidents rose 4.7 percent in 2011-12 to more than $440,000 a year. This increase vastly outpaced the rate of inflation, as well as the earnings of the typical worker in the U.S. economy. Perhaps, most relevant for this community, it also surpassed the compensation growth for university professors.

Moreover, the median statistic masks that several presidents earned more than double that amount. Pennsylvania State University's Graham Spanier, best known for presiding over the worst athletic scandal in collegiate history, topped the list, earning $2,906,721 in total compensation. (He was forced to resign in November 2011 and was indicted in November 2012 on charges related to the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal.)

Spanier's package will get the attention. But the outrage should be spread around. University presidents are becoming ever more plutocratic even as the students find it harder and harder to pay for their studies. University leaders claim institutional poverty as they enrich themselves. A perennial leader of the highest-paid list, Gordon Gee of Ohio State University (more than $1.8 million last year), paid $532 for a shower curtain for the presidential mansion.

"God Sleepeth Not": Helen Keller's Blistering Letter to Book-Burning German Students

Rebecca Onion:

In mid-May 1933, Americans learned that students in German universities planned to burn a long list of books deemed "un-German." Helen Keller, whose How I Became a Socialist was on this list, wrote this open letter to the students a day before the burning took place.

Keller, who's now remembered as a gentle, uncomplicated symbol of persistence in the face of lifelong deafness and blindness, was a radical thinker and activist in her time. While Keller was born into an influential and wealthy Southern family, her activism on behalf of blind people, many of whom lived in poverty, caused her to turn to the writings of H.G. Wells and Karl Marx. She eventually became a socialist, a women's rights activist, an early supporter of the NAACP and the ACLU, and an advocate for free availability of birth control.

This first draft carries hand-written annotations by Polly Thomson, who was, along with Anne Sullivan, one of Keller's primary aides. The paragraph added at the bottom of the page, which was eventually incorporated into the version sent to the Associated Press for publication, professes understanding for the causes of German discontent, while roundly condemning the response.

A Team Approach to Get Students College Ready

David Bornstein:

When Parker Sheffy, a first-year teacher in the Bronx Leadership Academy II, a high school in the South Bronx, talks shop with friends who are also new teachers, he often hears about the problems they are facing: students not showing up to class on time, not understanding their work, not doing homework. "I'm thinking: I don't have that problem... I don't have that problem..." Sheffy recalled. In his ninth grade integrated algebra class, he estimates that 80 to 90 percent are on track to pass the Regents exam, more than double last year's figure.

"But I have to remind myself that this is not just because of me," Sheffy said. "I'm one of six people who have created this class."

Sheffy's school is one of three New York City public schools working with an organization called Blue Engine, which recruits and places recent college graduates as full-time teaching assistants in high schools, helps teachers shift to a small-group classroom model with a ratio of one instructor for roughly every six students, uses data tracking to generate rapid-fire feedback so problems can be quickly addressed, and provides weekly instruction in "social cognition" classes, where students are introduced to skills and concepts -- such as the difference between a "fixed" and a "growth" mind-set -- that can help them grasp their untapped potential.

Blue Engine also targets algebra, geometry and English language arts in the ninth and 10th grades because performance in these so-called "gateway" courses is associated with college success.

Despite its modest size and short track record, Blue Engine has already seized the attention of educators and attracted notice from President Obama. Last year, in its schools, as a result of the program, the number of students who met the "college ready" standard -- scoring above 80 on their Regents exams in algebra, geometry or English language arts -- nearly tripled, from 49 to 140.

Madison PTO presidents consider education challenges

Susan Endres:

Although the school board elections are over, education-related issues still weigh on parents' minds.

For Suzanne Swift, the president of Franklin-Randall Elementary School's parent-teacher organization, the issues are the same as they have always been, despite certain ones being used by candidates to "hang their hats on."

Several PTO leaders from around the Madison Metropolitan School District hit on four common topics that concern them: the achievement gap, the Common Core State Standards, the state budget, and the allocation of resources across MMSD's schools.

According to Swift, the issues have shifted since her oldest child started at Franklin Elementary six years ago. At that time, the increasingly large classroom sizes dominated the discussion. Now, that issue comes up less often than the achievement gap and changing curriculum.

The achievement gap

The academic achievement disparity between white and minority students remains one of the top concerns in education.

Jill Jokela is a past PTO president who remains actively involved in the East Attendance Area PTO Coalition. The group aims to include voices from all schools that feed into East High School.

The achievement gap has been an issue for a long time, she said, but became more pronounced as Madison's demographics have changed. She spent about eight years as a PTO leader on Madison's east side until 2010.

Shelby Connell, PTO president at Van Hise Elementary School, and Ann Lacy, co-coordinator of the parent-staff group at East High School, said that although they haven't personally seen much of the achievement gap in their schools, it's still a big issue for MMSD.

School "Pay for Performance" Plan Shorts Low-Income, Urban Students

Tamarine Cornelius:

In his proposed budget, Governor Walker recommends setting aside a portion of education funding to distribute to schools based on their performance. While this proposal might sound attractive on the surface, it will result in significant funding increases for schools with few low-income students, disabled students, or English language learners. Schools with larger percentages of those students would be allocated a much smaller share of funding.

The Governor is advocating allocating the following amounts for schools over the coming two-year budget period, based on a school report card accountability measure developed by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction:

$24 million for schools that score in the highest category in DPI's school report cards;

$30 million for schools that improve their score on the school report cards by at least three points over the previous year; and

$10 million for schools that score in the category of "fails to meet expectations," if the school submits an improvement plan that is approved by DPI.

The disparities in the student population in the schools, and the higher dollar amount allocated for high-rated schools means that low-income students get relatively little out of this deal. Only one year of school report card data has been published so far, so it's hard to know what kind of schools would be eligible for the money allocated for schools that improve their score. But we can make some generalizations on how the money would be distributed among the best- and worst-rated schools based using 2011-12 school report cards.

Common Core Needs More Debate

Neal McCluskey:

Parents in Michigan, like those across the country, want their children to have the tools they need to excel in school and beyond. The Common Core national curriculum standards were sold as the way to give students those tools. But with the standards now being implemented, a growing number of Michiganians -- as evidenced by the recent House vote to withhold state funds from Common Core -- are having buyer's remorse. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's support for the Core notwithstanding, they're right to be wary, especially since Core supporters have too often ridiculed dissenters instead of engaging in honest debate.

Supporters of the Core tout the fact that 45 states have adopted the standards, but don't mistake that for enthusiastic support. Before the standards had even been published, states were coerced into adopting them by President Obama's Race to the Top program, which tied federal dough to signing on. Even if policymakers in recession-hobbled states like Michigan would have preferred open debate, there was no time. Blink and the money would be gone; which is why most people hadn't even heard of the standards at adoption time.

Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Identified?

Ashwin Dixit:

Here's my wild-ass guess for today: Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto is really Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki. Let's examine the evidence:

The 1 Percent Are Only Half the Problem

Timothy Noah

Most recent discussion about economic inequality in the United States has focused on the top 1 percent of the nation's income distribution, a group whose incomes average $1 million (with a bottom threshold of about $367,000). "We are the 99 percent," declared the Occupy protesters, unexpectedly popularizing research findings by two economists, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, that had previously drawn attention mainly from academics. But the gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent is only half the story.

Granted, it's an important half. Since 1979, the one-percenters have doubled their share of the nation's collective income from about 10 percent to about 20 percent. And between 2009, when the Great Recession ended, and 2011, the one-percenters saw their average income rise by 11 percent even as the 99-percenters saw theirs fall slightly. Some recovery!

This dismal litany invites the conclusion that if we would just put a tight enough choke chain on the 1 percent, then we'd solve the problem of income inequality. But alas, that isn't true, because it wouldn't address the other half of the story: the rise of the educated class.

Since 1979 the income gap between people with college or graduate degrees and people whose education ended in high school has grown. Broadly speaking, this is a gap between working-class families in the middle 20 percent (with incomes roughly between $39,000 and $62,000) and affluent-to-rich families (say, the top 10 percent, with incomes exceeding $111,000). This skills-based gap is the inequality most Americans see in their everyday lives.

Conservatives don't typically like to talk about income inequality. It stirs up uncomfortable questions about economic fairness. ... Liberals resist talking about the skills-based gap because they don't want to tell the working classes that they're losing ground because they didn't study hard enough.

Sweden is leading the world in allowing private companies to run public institutions

The Economist:

SAINT GORAN'S hospital is one of the glories of the Swedish welfare state. It is also a laboratory for applying business principles to the public sector. The hospital is run by a private company, Capio, which in turn is run by a consortium of private-equity funds, including Nordic Capital and Apax Partners. The doctors and nurses are Capio employees, answerable to a boss and a board. Doctors talk enthusiastically about "the Toyota model of production" and "harnessing innovation" to cut costs.
Welcome to health care in post-ideological Sweden. From the patient's point of view, St Goran's is no different from any other public hospital.

Treatment is free, after a nominal charge which is universal in Sweden. St Goran's gets nearly all its money from the state. But behind the scenes it has led a revolution in the relationship between government and business. In the mid-1990s St Goran's was slated for closure. Then, in 1999, the Stockholm County Council struck a deal with Capio to take over the day-to-day operation of the hospital. In 2006 Capio was taken over by a group of private-equity firms led by Nordic Capital. Stockholm County Council recently extended Capio's contract until 2021.

Mice, Men & Fate

Gary Marcus:

Almost fifteen years ago, in a book called "Chance, Development, and Aging," the gerontologists Caleb Finch and Thomas Kirkwood described a truly elegant study of biology: a batch of roundworms, all genetically identical, raised on identical diets of agar. Despite having identical genetics and near-identical environments, some worms lived far longer than others. The lesson? The classical equation of "life = nature + nurture" had left out chance.

Of course, that was just worms. This week, a team of German researchers, led by Gerd Kempermann, built on a similar logic and announced in Science that they had raised forty inbred mice that were essentially genetically identical in a single complex environment, and used radio-frequency identification (RFID) implants to track every moment of their lives. Nobody could ever ethically run that sort of controlled experiment with humans, but Kempermann's study provides convincing evidence that--in a fellow mammal with which we share a basic brain organization--neither genetic identity nor a shared environment is enough to guarantee a common fate. Different creatures, even from the same species, can grow up differently, and develop significantly different brains--even if their genomes are identical, and even if their environments are, too.

Because of the care with which Kempermann and his colleagues tracked the individual mice, the study provides considerable new insight into how we become who we are. It speaks to what the psychologist Sandra Scarr once called "niche-picking": the idea that each individual develops a different set of talents, in order to carve out his or her own identity. Two people with initially slight differences might develop radically different skills, because they follow different paths. One child likes basketball, another painting; at first hardly anything distinguishes the two: both struggle to make baskets, and neither one can yet draw a credible house. But, from the outset, the first is slightly better at basketball, the second at art. Over time, the first child devotes herself to basketball, spends thousands of hours playing the game, and eventually becomes a professional athlete; the other applies herself equally to her chosen pursuit, and becomes a great artist. Tiny initial differences in talent, or simply in desire, become magnified over time. By tracking in detail the learning curves for forty individual mice, genetically identical and with essentially equal environmental opportunity, Kempermann and his colleagues show how the same kind of magnification can happen under carefully observed laboratory circumstances.

Hopes, Fears, & Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2012

Robin Lake, via a kind Deb Britt email:

One of the main goals of the charter school movement at its founding was to provide new school options for families that wanted and needed them. Another was to foster innovation, for charter schools themselves and traditional public schools around them. Are charters living up to those promises?

Edited by Robin Lake, the 7th edition of Hopes, Fears, & Reality focuses on growth and innovation and presses charter leaders to consider whether they are fully using their flexibility and autonomy on behalf of students. Experts assess the national landscape and provide possible guidance for the charter sector in light of the demand for better schools, impending Common Core standards, and tight budgets:

Bill Gates Should Not Micro-Manage Our Schools

Professor Nicholas Tampio, via a kind Rebecca Wallace-Segall email:

The multinational software giant, Microsoft, once bundled its Explorer search engine with Windows, and refused, for a time, to have Windows run WordPerfect, a competitor to Microsoft Word. As head of Microsoft, Bill Gates wanted everyone to use the same program. As funder of the Common Core, I believe he wants to do the same with our children.

The Common Core is one of the most effective educational reform movements in United States history. Gates is a financial backer of this movement. Looking at this connection enables us to see why the United States should be wary of letting any one person or group acquire too much control over education policy.

Launched in 2009 and now adopted by 45 states, the Common Core articulates a single set of educational standards in language arts and mathematics. Although the Common Core claims not to tell teachers what or how to teach, school districts must prove to state legislatures or the federal government (via the Race to the Top program) that they are complying with the Common Core. The simplest and most cost-effective way for a school district to do that is to purchase an approved reading or math program.

Voucher Posturing & Special Interest Groups

Pat Schneider

Why is EAGnews, the website for a Michigan-based "education reform" group -- proudly pro-voucher, pro-charter school, anti-union and basically anti-public schools -- blasting local Madison media outlets with alarming press releases about spending in the Madison School District?

To galvanize Madison citizens into demanding accountability from school district officials, says Steve Gunn, communications director for the group.

To promote EAG's pro-voucher agenda, say critics.

"Maybe we'll whet some taxpayers' appetite, and they'll march down there and ask, 'What are you spending my money on?'" Gunn said in a phone interview Thursday. The website is part of Education Action Group, a private nonprofit organization out of Muskegon, Mich.

The headline of the press release EAGnews sent to local media Thursday proclaims: "Madison schools spent $243,000 for hotels, more than $300,000 for taxis and more than $150,000 for pizza in 2012."

Well, actually it's $232,693 in hotel expenses in 2012 that EAG cites in the body of its press release and associated article. Beyond the discrepancy between headline and text, both press release and article mash together credit card expenses for travel by district employees with expenditures for routine district functions. In citing more than $300,000 in taxi cab charges paid to three local companies, EAG does not mention that the companies are hired to transport special needs, homeless and Work and Learn students to school and job placement sites.

Gunn admits that the taxi charges or the "cool $4.8 million" in payments to bus companies might be for transporting children, but says he doesn't know for sure because the school district did not deliver promised details about the spending list it released in response to an open records request.

"Wisconsin Wave" appears to be active on governance issues as well, including education, among others.


is a project of the Liberty Tree Foundation. The Liberty Tree Foundation appeared during the 2013 Madison School Board race due to Sarah Manski's candidacy and abrupt withdrawal. Manski's husband Ben is listed as a board member and executive director of Liberty Tree. Capital Times (the above article appeared on The Capital Times' website) writer John Nichols is listed as a Liberty Tree Foundation advisor.

Long-term disastrous reading scores are an existential threat to our local schools not vouchers

Teachers Left Behind

Sharon Lerner, via a kind Rebecca Wallace-Segall email

Kathleen Knauth has had a rough school year. The principal of Hillview Elementary, near Buffalo, New York, has spent so much time typing teacher evaluations, entering data, and preparing for standardized testing, she barely had a minute to do what she used to do in her first 12 years of being a principal--drop in on classes, address parents' concerns, or get to know students. When a school social worker stopped by her office a few months back to get Knauth's take on which children might need her help, she realized she had hit a new low.

"Normally I'd say, 'This one's grandma is seriously ill. This child is going through a huge custody battle. This one has clothes that are too small. I could reel off six to eight things," says Knauth. "But this year, I had nothing."

Two weeks ago, after she was asked to raise the standards her students would be expected to meet for a fifth time this year, Knauth decided to resign and sent a public letter explaining that the educational reforms she's been asked to implement are at odds with what's important for kids.

A Case for Grade Inflation in Legal Education

Joshua M. Silverstein:

This article contends that every American law school ought to substantially eliminate C grades by settings its good academic standing grade point average at the B- level. Grading systems that require or encourage law professors to award a significant number of C marks are flawed for two reasons. First, low grades damage students' placement prospects. Employers frequently consider a job candidate's absolute GPA in making hiring decisions. If a school systematically assigns inferior grades, its students are at an unfair disadvantage when competing for employment with students from institutions that award mostly A's and B's. Second, marks in the C range injure students psychologically. Students perceive C's as a sign of failure. Accordingly, when they receive such grades, their stress level is exacerbated in unhealthy ways. This psychological harm is both intrinsically problematic and compromises the educational process. Substantially eliminating C grades will bring about critical improvements in both the fairness of the job market and the mental well-being of our students. These benefits outweigh any problems that might be caused or aggravated by inflated grades. C marks virtually always denote unsatisfactory work in American graduate education. Law schools are the primary exception to this convention. It is time we adopted the practice followed by the rest of the academy.

2,687 Years of Service

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter (PDF), via a kind Jeannie Bettner email

Combined service of 2,687 years are departing the District, as 119 employees retire. Their pending June retirement was cause for celebration at the annual joint MTI-MMSD reception at Olbrich Gardens on May 15. Topping the list of MTI represented employees in years of service to Madison's children are:

Teachers (MTI): Julie Riewe (40); Lori Hamann (39); Carol Kindschi (39); Julie Weis (37); George Marks (36); Margaret Schaefer (36); Steve Towne (36); Colleen Pfister (35); Janice Gavinski (34); Constance Kane (33); Celestine Richards- Gannon (33); Jane Mitchell (31); Diane Hawkins (30); and William Rodriguez (30).

Educational Assistants (EA-MTI): Cathy Bohnenkamp (26); Ann Feeney (24); Barbara Figy (24); Cynthia Secher (24); David Soward (22); and Gwen Peirce (22).
Supportive Educational Employees (SEE-MTI): Gay Huenink (32); Cynthia Michels (30); Anita Staats (30) and Deb Skubal (28).

New Jersey's largest teacher's union has formed a Super PAC

Jarrett Renshaw:

The state's largest teacher's union has formed a new political advocacy group that can raise unlimited amounts of money from donors during the upcoming campaign season, according to federal and state filings.

The move by the New Jersey Education Association underscores a growing trend in the state as donors and interest groups turn to the federal tax code to avoid the state limits on campaign contributions.

The New Jersey Education Association formed Garden State Forward in March of this year, according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service. The NJEA already has a state political action committee, but a spokesman said the new group will allow the union to focus more on issues, less on specific elections.

"We established it so, if we wish, we can express issue advocacy with our members," NJEA spokesman Steve Wollmer said.

Related: WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators.

Dropping In on Gottfried Leibniz

Stephen Wolfram:

I've been curious about Gottfried Leibniz for years, not least because he seems to have wanted to build something like Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha, and perhaps A New Kind of Science as well--though three centuries too early. So when I took a trip recently to Germany, I was excited to be able to visit his archive in Hanover.

Leafing through his yellowed (but still robust enough for me to touch) pages of notes, I felt a certain connection--as I tried to imagine what he was thinking when he wrote them, and tried to relate what I saw in them to what we now know after three more centuries:

Some things, especially in mathematics, are quite timeless. Like here's Leibniz writing down an infinite series for √2 (the text is in Latin):

Schools Chancellor to Strike Back at Candidates Critical of Mayor's Policies

By Javier Hernandez and Al Baker:

Charter schools would no longer be allowed space in traditional school buildings. Neighborhood school boards would be given more oversight over superintendents and principals. Cellphones, long considered contraband in schools, would again be permitted past the door.

The Democratic candidates for mayor have promised, in varying degrees, to revamp the city's school system by undoing some of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's signature policies.

The attacks have put City Hall on the defensive, leaving aides worried about the future of one of the most ambitious efforts in the nation to overhaul education.

Fearing a sea change, the city's Education Department has worked over the past few months to lock in critical components of Mr. Bloomberg's agenda. Education officials have reserved space for charter schools more than a year in advance, called for a permanent system for evaluating teachers and sought new contracts for school bus routes, saving money in part by eliminating union job guarantees.

How Wisconsin's Government Is Cheating the State's Children and Public Schools

Diane Ravitch:

The Forward Institute of Wisconsin released a new study of education policy in the state.

This is a statement made by the Institute's Chair, Scott Wittkopf:

Wisconsin has always been a leader in K-12 public education because we have long valued the right of every child to receive a quality public education. The fundamental nature of our values is reflected in the State Constitution, which guarantees all children equal access to educational opportunity in our public schools. That constitutional right is now being systematically eroded and defunded. The research presented in this report shows that current fiscal policy and education funding are depriving our poorest students access to a sound public education. Public schools are not failing our children, Wisconsin legislators and policymakers are failing the public schools that serve our children.

Our comprehensive report documents in detail that the resources being afforded schools and students of poverty are insufficient, and facing further reduction. Moreover, the resources being diverted from schools of poverty into non-traditional alternative education programs are producing questionable results with little to no accountability for the state funding they receive.

The following seven points highlight critical findings of our study:

Madison Schools Graduation Rate Update for Class of 2012

Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham (PDF):

his report presents high school graduation rates for the Madison Metropolitan School District. For additional information on graduation rates, see the Appendix.

For this report, we focus on a cohort of students expected to graduate at the end of the 2011-12 school year. For additional context and to track changes over time, we provide a three-year history for some measures. This report uses publicly available data from Wisconsin's Information Network for Successful Schools (WINSS). Additional data is available
through http://winss.dpi.wi.gov/. Key findings include the following:

1. Overall graduation rates improved almost one percent from 2011 to 2012, from 73.7% to 74.6%.

2. African American and Hispanic students have improved their graduation rates by five percent and almost seven percent over the last three years.

3. Graduation rates for students with Limited English Proficiency have improved about four percent over the last three years.

4. MMSD high schools have similar graduation rates, ranging between 74.7% and 82.8%.

College (Un)bound : The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students

HMCO:

The four-year college experience is as American as apple pie. So is the belief that higher education offers a ticket to a better life. But with student-loan debt surpassing the $1 trillion mark and unemployment of college graduates at historic highs, people are beginning to question that value.

In College (Un)bound, Jeffrey J. Selingo, editor at large of the Chronicle of Higher Education, argues that America's higher education system is broken. The great credential race has turned universities into big business and fostered an environment where middle-tier colleges can command elite university-level tuition while concealing staggeringly low graduation rates, churning out graduates with few of the skills needed for a rapidly evolving job market.

Selingo not only turns a critical eye on the current state of higher education but also predicts how technology will transform it for the better. Free massive online open courses (MOOCs) and hybrid classes, adaptive learning software, and the unbundling of traditional degree credits will increase access to high-quality education regardless of budget or location and tailor lesson plans to individual needs. One thing is certain--the Class of 2020 will have a radically different college experience than their parents.

New Mutations Tied to Kids' Heart Ills

Ron Winslow:

A major study of children born with serious heart defects suggests that at least 10% of cases result from genetic mutations that weren't inherited from their parents.

Instead, the genetic anomalies arise spontaneously early in prenatal development. Researchers said some of the mutated genes play a critical role in activating or deactivating other genes responsible for the development of the heart.

"This for the first time really establishes that these new mutations account for a significant fraction of this disease," said Richard Lifton, head of the department of genetics at Yale University School of Medicine and a senior author of the study. The findings were published online Sunday by the journal Nature.

About 40,000 babies, or nearly one in 100, are born in the U.S. each year with congenital heart disease, making it the most common birth defect. About one-third of cases involve life-threatening structural defects to the organ. Surgical advances over the past few decades have enabled the majority of such kids to live well into adulthood, though the repairs often wear out by their 20s and 30s, leading to additional procedures.

This North Dakota Mom, 77, Reared 69 Kids

James Hagerty:

Few mothers are likely to get more cards, flowers and phone calls this Sunday than Joyce Dumont.

Mrs. Dumont, 77 years old, a Native American of the Chippewa tribe, is at the root of a family tree so tangled that it seems more like a forest. By her reckoning, she has had 69 kids--including six through childbirth, five stepchildren, 11 who were adopted, several dozen foster children and a few who simply moved in when they had no better place to go.

Her latest three were adopted by Mrs. Dumont and her husband, Buddy, also 77, over the past few years. They range in age from 7 to 10. "They're really rambunctious," she told a recent visitor to her home near the Canadian border, where a washing machine chugged and a chubby Chihuahua named Peewee scoured the floor for Cheerios.

Can You Teach Yourself Synesthesia?

Megan Garber:

Conventional wisdom says that synesthesia is innate -- you're either born with the condition or you're not, end of story. If you happen not to have been born that way but would really, really love to experience numbers as colors, or colors as sound ... then you, my sense-straight friend, are pretty much out of luck.

Except ... maybe not? A group of psychologists at the University of Amsterdam have been testing whether synesthesia might, actually, be learned. Synesthetes' innate cognitive wiring leads them to augment their perception of the physical world; the researchers wanted to see whether the reverse could take place -- whether an augmented physical world could lead to synesthetic perceptions in people who weren't born with "crossed senses." And the researchers have now published their findings in the journal PLoS One.

Has the future of college moved online? And, the "Cost Disease" Relationship

Nathan Heller:

Gregory Nagy, a professor of classical Greek literature at Harvard, is a gentle academic of the sort who, asked about the future, will begin speaking of Homer and the battles of the distant past. At seventy, he has owlish eyes, a flared Hungarian nose, and a tendency to gesture broadly with the flat palms of his hands. He wears the crisp white shirts and dark blazers that have replaced tweed as the raiment of the academic caste. His hair, also white, often looks manhandled by the Boston wind. Where some scholars are gnomic in style, Nagy piles his sentences high with thin-sliced exposition. ("There are about ten passages--and by passages I simply mean a selected text, and these passages are meant for close reading, and sometimes I'll be referring to these passages as texts, or focus passages, but you'll know I mean the same thing--and each one of these requires close reading!") When he speaks outside the lecture hall, he smothers friends and students with a stew of blandishment and praise. "Thank you, Wonderful Kevin!" he might say. Or: "The Great Claudia put it so well." Seen in the wild, he could be taken for an antique-shop proprietor: a man both brimming with solicitous enthusiasm and fretting that the customers are getting, maybe, just a bit too close to his prized Louis XVI chair.

Nagy has published no best-sellers. He is not a regular face on TV. Since 1978, though, he has taught a class called "Concepts of the Hero in Classical Greek Civilization," and the course, a survey of poetry, tragedy, and Platonic dialogues, has made him a campus fixture. Because Nagy's zest for Homeric texts is boundless, because his lectures reflect decades of refinement, and because the course is thought to offer a soft grading curve (its nickname on campus is Heroes for Zeroes), it has traditionally filled Room 105, in Emerson Hall, one of Harvard's largest classroom spaces. Its enrollment has regularly climbed into the hundreds.

......

Rather than writing papers, they take a series of multiple-choice quizzes. Readings for the course are available online, but students old-school enough to want a paper copy can buy a seven-hundred-and-twenty-seven-page textbook that Nagy is about to publish, "The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours."

...

At one extreme, edX has been developing a software tool to computer-grade essays, so that students can immediately revise their work, for use at schools that want it. Harvard may not be one of those schools. "I'm concerned about electronic approaches to grading writing," Drew Gilpin Faust, the president of the university and a former history professor, recently told me. "I think they are ill-equipped to consider irony, elegance, and . . . I don't know how you get a computer to decide if there's something there it hasn't been programmed to see."

...

The answer is c). In Nagy's "brick-and-mortar" class, students write essays. But multiple-choice questions are almost as good as essays, Nagy said, because they spot-check participants' deeper comprehension of the text. The online testing mechanism explains the right response when students miss an answer.

...

It is also under extreme strain. In the mid-nineteen-sixties, two economists, William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen, diagnosed a "cost disease" in industries like education, and the theory continues to inform thinking about pressure in the system. Usually, as wages rise within an industry, productivity does, too. But a Harvard lecture hall still holds about the same number of students it held a century ago, and the usual means of increasing efficiency--implementing advances in technology, speeding the process up, doing more at once--haven't seemed to apply when the goal is turning callow eighteen-year-olds into educated men and women. Although educators' salaries have risen (more or less) in measure with the general economy over the past hundred years, their productivity hasn't. The cost disease is thought to help explain why the price of education is on a rocket course, with no levelling in sight.

...

King rattled off three premises that were crucial to understanding the future of education: "social connections motivate," "teaching teaches the teacher," and "instant feedback improves learning." He'd been trying to "flip" his own classroom. He took the entire archive of the course Listserv and had it converted into a searchable database, so that students could see whether what they thought was only their "dumb question" had been asked before, and by whom.

Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time

Michael A. Woodley, Jan te Nijenhuis, Raegan Murphy :

The Victorian era was marked by an explosion of innovation and genius, per capita rates of which appear to have declined subsequently. The presence of dysgenic fertility for IQ amongst Western nations, starting in the 19th century, suggests that these trends might be related to declining IQ. This is because high-IQ people are more productive and more creative. We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations, using high-quality instruments, namely measures of simple visual reaction time in a meta-analytic study. Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence (g) and are considered elementary measures of cognition. In this study we used the data on the secular slowing of simple reaction time described in a meta-analysis of 14 age-matched studies from Western countries conducted between 1884 and 2004 to estimate the decline in g that may have resulted from the presence of dysgenic fertility. Using psychometric meta-analysis we computed the true correlation between simple reaction time and g, yielding a decline of − 1.23 IQ points per decade or fourteen IQ points since Victorian times. These findings strongly indicate that with respect to g the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations.

Creating Adaptive, Personalized, Effective and Addictive Education System for the Next Century

Naveen Jain:

I suggested in my first article that our education system is not broken but has simply become obsolete. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do but unfortunately, our needs have changed. We can't just make incremental improvement to the current education system to somehow make it work for the next century. It's like changing the screen or making incremental changes to an old Nokia phone and somehow expecting it to become an iPhone.

It's time for us to go back to the drawing board and redesign the education system for the next century. Let me give you my thoughts on the functional specifications of the education system for the next century.
Adaptive - Student Centric Learning

New Jersey School Boards Association Advocacy Update

Dr. Larry Feinsod:

As NJSBA's semi-annual Delegate Assembly approaches (Saturday, May 18 is the meeting date), it's a good time to recount the Association's progress on key initiatives during the past six months.

Special Education Task Force: In January, NJSBA formed a task force to review our state's current process for funding and providing special education services. The study group will recommend changes to state and federal statute and regulation. The goal is to reduce special education costs to local school districts without diminishing the quality of needed services. In addition, the task force will identify best practices.

As I've previously stated in this column, I began my career in education as a special education teacher. The education of children with special needs will always be close to my heart. However, there is a dire need to develop strategies that will maintain quality services, without negatively affecting resources for general education programming.

The Task Force is working under the guidance of Dr. Gerald Vernotica, Montclair State University associate professor and former assistant commissioner of education. The group has been involved in data collection and research, has consulted with experts, and is seeking information from New Jersey's local school districts. Earlier this month, it issued a survey on special education trends to superintendents and special education directors. For more information on the survey, please contact John Burns, NJSBA counsel, at jburns@njsba.org.

Let's Fight Big Pharma's Crusade to Turn Eccentricity Into Illness

Allen Frances:

Editor's Note: The controversial fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM-5 (a.k.a. the manual formerly known as "DSM-V") is being released tomorrow - after a 14-year revision process to update its criteria for defining mental disorders. This opinion is from the former taskforce chairman and leader of previous DSM editions.

Nature takes the long view, mankind the short. Nature picks diversity; we pick standardization. We are homogenizing our crops and homogenizing our people. And Big Pharma seems intent on pursuing a parallel attempt to create its own brand of human monoculture.

With an assist from an overly ambitious psychiatry, all human difference is being transmuted into chemical imbalance meant to be treated with a handy pill. Turning difference into illness was among the great strokes of marketing genius accomplished in our time.

All the great characters in myths, novels, and plays have endured the test of time precisely because they drift so colorfully away from the mean. Do we really want to put Oedipus on the couch, give Hamlet a quick course of behavior therapy, start Lear on antipsychotics?

Tiger Mom Amy Chua Responds to Tiger Baby

Jeff Yang:

It's a sign of just how deep tensions are around parenting today that, over two years after Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" was published, its combination of shocking revelation, serious reflection and tongue-in-cheek exaggeration still sends T. Rex-scale ripples skittering across the surface of our sociocultural Dixie cups.

Two weeks ago, novelist Kim Wong Keltner's "Tiger Babies Strike Back" was published -- her nonfiction account of growing up under the paw of her authoritarian Tiger parents. Last week, the web was abuzz over the release of UT Austin psychology prof Su Yeong Kim's longitudinal study tracking the parenting styles and social outcomes of over 400 Chinese American families in the Bay Area, which seemed to show that children of Tiger Parents had both poorer emotional health and lower GPAs than those of parents who embraced warmer and fuzzier child-rearing strategies.

Up until now, Chua herself has assiduously stayed out of the fray. "I really didn't want to get into the middle of this," she told me by phone from New Haven. "People keep trying to pit me against Kim Wong Keltner, or to ask me to comment on that parenting study, and I keep telling them 'Look, all I did was write my personal family story. I'm not a social scientist, I'm not a parenting expert. So all this is like asking apples to comment on oranges.'" (Keltner isn't keen on being positioned as the Anti-Chua either: "I really see my book as an alternative, not a rebuke to 'Battle Hymn,'" she says. "And frankly, [Chua] seems like she's smart and funny and highly accomplished and very beautiful, and we'd probably have a great time hanging out.")

The trickle-down effect

Della Bradshaw:

For decades companies have faced the conundrum of how to ensure managers can implement what they have learnt at business school when they are back at work. Management guru Henry Mintzberg, scourge of business school complacency, sums it up succinctly: "You should not send a changed person back into an unchanged organisation, but we always do."

Now Mintzberg's Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, among others, is addressing the issue of how to ensure the dollars invested in the classroom convert into dollars for the corporate bottom line.

One idea gaining currency is that of "cascading", in which every manager who has been on a campus-based course has to teach a group of more junior colleagues back in the workplace. It has been more than a decade since Duke CE, the corporate education arm of Duke University, North Carolina, US, promoted the concept, but advances in workplace technology are accelerating its adoption.

"The leader as teacher is very effective," says Ray Carvey, executive vice-president of corporate learning at Harvard Business Publishing. "The leader goes back and cascades [what he or she has learnt]."

L.A. Schools Rethink Suspensions

Erica Phillips:

Damien Valentine was suspended from school for the first time as a seventh-grader in South Central Los Angeles, after arguing with a math teacher who had asked him to change seats.

Mr. Valentine, now a 16-year-old sophomore, said he was sent home for a day-and-a-half for "willful defiance," a term encompassing a variety of misbehavior that California schools can use as reason to remove students from the classroom.

This week, the Los Angeles Unified School District--the second-largest in the nation--decided to end the practice of suspending or expelling students for "willful defiance," starting this fall. District officials said the practice disproportionately affects minority students' education and leads to more disciplinary problems for students down the line.

How Could a Sweet Third-Grader Just Cheat on That School Exam?

Sue Shellenbarger:

When Kaci Taylor Avant got caught cheating on a test a few months back, the teacher called her mother, who was nothing less than stunned. After all, Kaci always does her homework and gets mostly As in school. Mother and daughter had already had "the talk" about how cheating was wrong. And then there's Kaci's age.

"I had to ask myself, 'Wow, really? She is only 8!' " says her mother Laina Avant, a Paterson, N.J., network engineer.

As school-testing season heats up this spring, many elementary-school parents are getting similar calls.

The line between right and wrong in the classroom is often hazy for young children, and shaping the moral compass of children whose brains are still developing can be one of the trickiest jobs a parent faces. Many parents overreact or misread the motivations of small children, say researchers and educators, when it is actually more important to explore the underlying cause.

How to escape education's death valley

Sir Ken Robinson:

Sir Ken Robinson outlines 3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish -- and how current education culture works against them. In a funny, stirring talk he tells us how to get out of the educational "death valley" we now face, and how to nurture our youngest generations with a climate of possibility.

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence. Full bio »

Greek Civil servants strike as teachers forced to work

ekathimerini.com:

Civil servants are to walk off the job on Tuesday in a bid to express solidarity with secondary school teachers after the government issued a civil mobilization order to force teachers to work on Friday when they had planned an anti-austerity strike.

Civil servants are to hold a rally on Tuesday, starting at 10 a.m. outside the main entrance to Athens University, following a small demonstration in the city center on Monday by teachers. ADEDY has also joined forces with the main private labor union, GSEE, in planning a work stoppage for Thursday, from noon until the end of the workers' shifts.

The government on Monday issued civil mobilization papers to some 88,000 teachers who face arrest and possible dismissal if they fail to turn up for work from Wednesday, when the order comes into effect.

The Education Ministry reportedly made a concession, however, withdrawing a presidential decree foreseeing thousands of compulsory transfers of teachers - one of the key points of contention of protesting teachers - for revision.

Closing California's education gap

Michele Siqueiros:

California has proved to be a land of opportunity where hard work delivers prosperity and nurtures innovation. Its human capital has helped the state develop into the world's ninth-largest economy, which attracts nearly half of the venture capital in the nation.

But this opportunity and success have not reached everyone, and the California dream is in danger of slipping away.

Today, California ranks first in the country in the number of working low-income families. "Working Hard, Left Behind," a new study conducted by the Campaign for College Opportunity, found that millions in the state are working hard but are increasingly left behind. More than a third of California's working families are considered low income, earning less than $45,397 a year for a family of four.

There is a solution. The study also found that higher education is a proven pathway from poverty to prosperity for working Californians. And it can work, even in these difficult economic times, if there is a will for reform and investment in the state's higher education system.

General James 'Mad Dog' Mattis Email About Being 'Too Busy To Read' Is A Must-Read

Geoffrey Ingersoll:

Security Blog "Strife" out of Kings College in London recently published Mattis' words with a short description from the person who found it in her email.

Their title for the post:

With Rifle and Bibliography: General Mattis on Professional Reading

[Dear, "Bill"]

The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men's experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others' experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

With [Task Force] 58, I had w/ me Slim's book, books about the Russian and British experiences in [Afghanistan], and a couple others. Going into Iraq, "The Siege" (about the Brits' defeat at Al Kut in WW I) was req'd reading for field grade officers. I also had Slim's book; reviewed T.E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom"; a good book about the life of Gertrude Bell (the Brit archaeologist who virtually founded the modern Iraq state in the aftermath of WW I and the fall of the Ottoman empire); and "From Beirut to Jerusalem". I also went deeply into Liddell Hart's book on Sherman, and Fuller's book on Alexander the Great got a lot of my attention (although I never imagined that my HQ would end up only 500 meters from where he lay in state in Babylon).

Wifi in Schools is a Potential Health Hazard

Techvibes:

One of the bigger names in Canadian technology has come forth to speak out on a highly controversial topic. Frank Clegg, who worked at Microsoft for 15 years and was president of Microsoft Canada from 2000 to 2005, is opposed to wireless internet in schools.

"There are already children who can't go to school because of headaches, nausea and heart problems from the wireless systems," says Clegg. "Some of these kids have a doctor's note to prove it. This is a real hazard."

On Wednesday the American Academy of Environmental Medicine announced that medical doctors are treating patients who have fallen ill from school wireless systems. Clegg plans to address parents and teachers at a public meeting in Mississauga tonight at 7pm.

Madison Superintendent on Proposed Teacher Union Contract Extension

Pat Schneider:

Madison teachers are eager to nail down another labor contract -- through June 2015 at least -- while the door to legally do so is open.

But it's going to be a while before Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham is ready to consider sitting down with them.

Madison Teachers Inc. hopes to negotiate a contract beyond the one-year pact quickly approved by School Board members last fall after a local judge ruled parts of Act 10 unconstitutional, delaying implementation of the state law curbing collective bargaining rights.

"I'm just starting" on the job, Cheatham told a crowd of 150 gathered at West High School last week to talk with the superintendent, who took the helm of the Madison School District on April 1. "I need to finish this entry plan before I would be willing to consider, with (MTI Executive Director John Matthews) and our colleagues at MTI, entering into negotiations."

Are School Vouchers Worth It?

Express Milwaukee:

Are taxpayers really getting their bang for their buck when it comes to funding school vouchers?

The short answer from the Forward Institute is no.

The new, progressive public policy research organization released its comprehensive report today on Wisconsin's education funding and poverty and it's well worth a close read.

A portion of the report examines taxpayer funding for voucher schools and their performance.

Now, this isn't easy to do since schools that accept vouchers don't have to provide the kind of data that fully public schools provide, even though the state has enhanced some of the voucher schools' accountability measures.

That said, the Forward Institute chose to look at state aid per pupil and the percentage of students that test proficient or advanced on state tests. (You'll find all of this on page 46 of the report.)

Let's just acknowledge here that both public schools and voucher schools take in money from other sources. Both types of schools typically spend more per pupil than what they receive from state taxpayers.

Much more on vouchers, here.

Racism and immigration policy: The Richwine affair

The Economist:

JASON RICHWINE, a co-author of the widely trashed Heritage Foundation study on the the costs of immigration, "resigned" his post at Heritage Friday after his doctoral dissertation on immigration and IQ fell under a shadow of suspected racism. Harvard awarded Mr Richwine a PhD in 2009 for work arguing that Hispanic immigrants are less intelligent than non-Hispanic white Americans, that this gap has a genetic basis, and that immigration policy should discriminate against less intelligent groups of people, albeit under the cover of the language of "low skill" and "high skill" immigrants. Is this really racist?

Following a useful summary of Mr Richwine's thesis, Robert VerBruggen of National Review makes a plea for letting science, rather than social opprobrium, settle scientific questions:

A Team Approach to Get Students College Ready

David Bornstein

When Parker Sheffy, a first-year teacher in the Bronx Leadership Academy II, a high school in the South Bronx, talks shop with friends who are also new teachers, he often hears about the problems they are facing: students not showing up to class on time, not understanding their work, not doing homework. "I'm thinking: I don't have that problem... I don't have that problem..." Sheffy recalled. In his ninth grade integrated algebra class, he estimates that 80 to 90 percent are on track to pass the Regents exam, more than double last year's figure.

"But I have to remind myself that this is not just because of me," Sheffy said. "I'm one of six people who have created this class."

Sheffy's school is one of three New York City public schools working with an organization called Blue Engine, which recruits and places recent college graduates as full-time teaching assistants in high schools, helps teachers shift to a small-group classroom model with a ratio of one instructor for roughly every six students, uses data tracking to generate rapid-fire feedback so problems can be quickly addressed, and provides weekly instruction in "social cognition" classes, where students are introduced to skills and concepts -- such as the difference between a "fixed" and a "growth" mind-set -- that can help them grasp their untapped potential.

Blue Engine also targets algebra, geometry and English language arts in the ninth and 10th grades because performance in these so-called "gateway" courses is associated with college success.

Despite its modest size and short track record, Blue Engine has already seized the attention of educators and attracted notice from President Obama. Last year, in its schools, as a result of the program, the number of students who met the "college ready" standard -- scoring above 80 on their Regents exams in algebra, geometry or English language arts -- nearly tripled, from 49 to 140.

Katherine Callaghan, the principal of the Bronx Leadership Academy II, who has worked in the school for more than 10 years, said: "Blue Engine has moved a huge number of our students in a way that nothing else that we've ever tried has been able to do." She added: "Last year we had a 44 percent pass rate on the integrated algebra Regents, with two kids scoring above an 80. This year, we're on track for 75 or 80 percent passing, with 20 kids hitting the college-ready mark. We're close to doubling our pass rate and multiplying by a factor of 10 our college-ready rate."

Gains like this are not often seen in education. So it's worth taking note. What's happening?

Read more here.

An avalanche is coming: Higher education and the revolution ahead

Michael Barber, Katelyn Donnelly, Saad Rizvi:

'Our belief is that deep, radical and urgent transformation is required in higher education as much as it is in school systems. Our fear is that, perhaps as a result of complacency, caution or anxiety, or a combination of all three, the pace of change is too slow and the nature of change too incremental.'

'Should we fail to radically change our approach to education, the same cohort we're attempting to "protect" could find that their entire future is scuttled by our timidity.'
David Puttnam, MIT, 2012

This wide-ranging essay aims to provoke creative dialogue and challenge complacency in our traditional higher education institutions.

'Just as globalisation and technology have transformed other huge sectors of the economy in the past 20 years, in the next 20 years universities face transformation.'

With a massive diversification in the range of providers, methods and technologies delivering tertiary education worldwide, the assumptions underlying the traditional relationship between universities, students and local and national economies are increasingly under great pressure - a revolution is coming.

What if Finland's great teachers taught in U.S. schools?

Pasi Sahlberg:

"To prepare young people for a more competitive economy, our school systems must have less competition."

Many governments are under political and economic pressure to turn around their school systems for higher rankings in the international league tables. Education reforms often promise quick fixes within one political term. Canada, South Korea, Singapore and Finland are commonly used models for the nations that hope to improve teaching and learning in their schools. In search of a silver bullet, reformers now turn their eyes on teachers, believing that if only they could attract "the best and the brightest" into the teaching profession, the quality of education would improve.

"Teacher effectiveness" is a commonly used term that refers to how much student performance on standardized tests is determined by the teacher. This concept hence applies only to those teachers who teach subjects on which students are tested. Teacher effectiveness plays a particular role in education policies of nations where alternative pathways exist to the teaching profession.

In the United States, for example, there are more than 1,500 different teacher-preparation programs. The range in quality is wide. In Singapore and Finland only one academically rigorous teacher education program is available for those who desire to become teachers.

Likewise, neither Canada nor South Korea has fast-track options into teaching, such as Teach for America or Teach First in Europe. Teacher quality in high-performing countries is a result of careful quality control at entry into teaching rather than measuring teacher effectiveness in service.

In recent years the "no excuses"' argument has been particularly persistent in the education debate. There are those who argue that poverty is only an excuse not to insist that all schools should reach higher standards. Solution: better teachers. Then there are those who claim that schools and teachers alone cannot overcome the negative impact that poverty causes in many children's learning in school.

Solution: Elevate children out of poverty by other public policies.

For me the latter is right. In the United States today, 23 percent of children live in poor homes. In Finland, the same way to calculate child poverty would show that figure to be almost five times smaller. The United States ranked in the bottom four in the recent United Nations review on child well-being.

Related: MTEL 90: Teacher Content Knowledge Licensing Requirements Coming To Wisconsin.....

How to Reinvent College

Nick Romeo:

An undergraduate having to pay off $120,000, and a university that has more than $165 million in debt? Paying adjuncts less but having them teach more, and instructors who give As 43 percent of the time? Nick Romeo on a new book that critiques how higher education has changed, and what needs to be done to save it.
Ask a 17-year-old about college and you'll probably hear the word "fit." It's the most pervasive and elusive metaphor of the college search: a quasi-religious, quasi-romantic sense of rightness that descends on students as they tour the manicured lawns of the perfect school, the one that feels, in some mystical way, like a good fit.

The hazy imprecision of this notion is a triumph of college marketing. Many colleges hope that whims and intangibles will guide student decisions. It's simply not in their interest to encourage students to think closely about the economics of their choice.

Connecticut Governor's Education Package Faces Funding Hurdle

Joseph De Avila:

Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy's determination to build on his signature legislative achievement last year--an education package worth about $100 million--now faces hurdles as the state's leaders address a $1.5 billion budget shortfall.

Last year's legislative package set up several initiatives including a network to aid underperforming schools, statewide teacher evaluations and more spending on new state charter schools.

Mr. Malloy, a Democrat, wants to spend another $61 million to further expand those programs over the next two fiscal years. But the appropriations committee, controlled by the governor's fellow Democrats, wants to reduce that amount by $47 million and shift that money to other education pursuits such as after-school programs and health clinics based at schools.

Two D.C. high schools dare to require deep research

Jay Matthews:

I often despair over the sorry state of writing and research in our high schools. Only private schools and public schools with the International Baccalaureate diploma program require research papers of significant length. Two million new high school graduates head to college every year -- but only 10 percent, by my reckoning -- have had to write a long paper or do a major project.

The only traditional public school in this region requiring that for all students is Wakefield High School in Arlington County. It is a remarkable feat for a school in which half the students are from low-income families.

Recently I discovered that two public charter schools are doing this in the District, providing more encouragement to those of us who think working through a complex, long-form research problem is the essence of a good education.

The Capitol Hill and Parkside campuses of the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy require all seniors to write a 12- to 15-page paper on a policy issue of their choice and then defend it before a panel of outside experts. Eighty percent of students at the two schools are from low-income families.

Are You Attending a University With Bad Credit?

Thierry Godard :

There's an ongoing debating about the actual value of higher education. Countless articles and studies depict the declining return on investment for students and families. Simply put college graduates are not generating enough income to justify their expensive degrees.

In the same way, some universities are also struggling to manage their finances. To highlight the universities having some of the biggest issues, we took a look at those with the lowest credit ratings... and we were pretty surprised by who we found.

What's in a credit rating?

A university is just like a large company, or country. It borrows money frequently to cover its operating costs like salaries of the professors, maintenance, maintaining the dormitories, making sure the library is stocked, and keeping the sports program in tip top shape.

In order to finance these and new projects like the addition of new buildings or the development of new curriculum, universities issue bonds. The bonds are then traded on public markets to raise capital. For investors and lenders to know how worthy (or unworthy) the institution is, credit rating companies like Moody's and Standard & Poors issue them a score.

Moody's is the current leader in the university credit rating industry. It examines the finances of nearly all the 4,495 title-iv degree granting universities in the United States. According to its estimates only 11% (500) of the total number of universities are currently financially stable enough to stave off economic, demographic and technological shifts.

'An Open Letter to Professor Michael Sandel From the Philosophy Department at San Jose State U.'

The Chronicle:

Professors in the philosophy department at San Jose State University wrote the following letter to make a direct appeal to Michael Sandel, a Harvard professor whose MOOC on "Justice" they were being encouraged to use as part of the San Jose State curriculum. (See a related article and a response from Mr. Sandel.)

San Jose State University recently announced a contract with edX (a company
associated with MIT and Harvard) to expand the use of online blended courses.

The SJSU Philosophy Department was asked to pilot your JusticeX course, and we
refused. We decided to express to you our reasons for refusing to be involved with this course, and, because we believe that other departments and universities will sooner or later face the same predicament, we have decided to share our reasons with you publicly.

There is no pedagogical problem in our department that JusticeX solves, nor do we have a shortage of faculty capable of teaching our equivalent course.

We believe that long-term financial considerations motivate the call for massively open online courses (MOOCs) at public universities such as ours. Unfortunately, the move to MOOCs comes at great peril to our university. We regard such courses as a serious compromise of quality of education and, ironically for a social justice course, a case of social injustice.

Academic publishing Free-for-all Open-access scientific publishing is gaining ground

The Economist:

AT THE beginning of April, Research Councils UK, a conduit through which the government transmits taxpayers' money to academic researchers, changed the rules on how the results of studies it pays for are made public. From now on they will have to be published in journals that make them available free--preferably immediately, but certainly within a year.

In February the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told federal agencies to make similar plans. A week before that, a bill which would require free access to government-financed research after six months had begun to wend its way through Congress. The European Union is moving in the same direction. So are charities. And SCOAP3, a consortium of particle-physics laboratories, libraries and funding agencies, is pressing all 12 of the field's leading journals to make the 7,000 articles they publish each year free to read. For scientific publishers, it seems, the party may soon be over.

How To Teach History

Larry Cuban:

Here is how a journalist described a class she watched a few months ago in a Northern California high school.

In the 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ben Stein famously plays a high school teacher who drones on about the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act while his students slump at their desks in a collective stupor. For many kids, that's history: an endless catalog of disconnected dates and names, passed down like scripture from the state textbook, seldom questioned and quickly forgotten.

Now take a seat inside Will Colglazier's classroom at Aragon High School in San Mateo. The student population here is fairly typical for the Bay Area: about 30 percent Latino, 30 percent Asian and 40 percent white. The subject matter is standard 11th grade stuff: What caused the Great American Dust Bowl?

Tapping on his laptop, Colglazier shows the class striking black-and-white images of the choking storms that consumed the Plains states in the 1930s. Then he does something unusual. Instead of following a lesson plan out of the textbook, he passes out copies of a 1935 letter, written by one Caroline Henderson to the then-U.S. secretary of agriculture, poignantly describing the plight of her neighbors in the Oklahoma panhandle. He follows that with another compelling document: a confidential high-level government report, addressed to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, decrying the region's misguided homesteading policies.

2001: A School Odyssey

Nick Case:

Over the last twelve years, I've gone from rote learning in an Eastern education, to a fast-track Western education, to mentorship as an intern, to self-direction in a startup incubator.

They announced the 2013 Thiel Fellows this week, one of whom is yours truly. The Thiel Fellowship is an annual $100k award for twenty teenagers to stop school and start something.

That's not to say school is worthless.

Switching schools, and switching countries, has exposed me to many teaching philosophies and cultures. I've learned things more valuable than anything found in one curriculum alone. Leaving school behind, I must remember those lessons.

My academic life has ended, and this post is its eulogy.

Education and the French mindset Bangalore-sur-Seine?

The Economist:

WHEN French entrepreneurs decided in March to launch a swanky new school for software developers, they thought they were on to something. But even they were startled by its popularity. For 1,000 student places starting this autumn on a three-year course, they have fully 50,000 applications.

France has a skills mismatch. Joblessness has reached 10.6%, a 14-year high. For the under-25s, it is 26%. Yet, according to a poll by the French Association of Software Publishers and Internet Solutions, 72% of software firms are having trouble recruiting--and 91% of those are seeking software engineers and developers.

Such frustrations spurred Xavier Niel, the billionaire founder of Iliad, a broadband firm, and his business pals to set up the new school--which is wilfully disruptive of France's highly centralised, state-dominated education system. It is privately financed--Mr Niel is investing €70m ($92m)--but will be free for students. It will lead to no state-recognised diploma and applicants need no formal qualifications, although the admissions literature warns would-be students that they "will have to work hard".

Salaries of public college chiefs rise, median tops $400,000

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian:

Salaries of presidents of U.S. public universities rose almost 5 percent in the last fiscal year, even as tuition rose and student debt soared, with the median pay package topping $400,000, according to a report released on Sunday.

Penn State's Graham Spanier was the top earner last year at the time he was fired over the Jerry Sandusky scandal, according to the study by the Chronicle of Higher Education, though his compensation was inflated by $2.4 million in severance pay and deferred compensation.

The median total compensation for the public university presidents in fiscal year 2011-2012 was $441,392, the study found. Four of the presidents earned more than $1 million, and the median base pay jumped 2 percent to $373,800.

Spanier received total compensation of $2.9 million, the same fiscal year that he was fired for his handling of the Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

Student Debt Slows Growth as Young Spend Less

Annie Lowrey:

The anemic economy has left millions of younger working Americans struggling to get ahead. The added millstone of student loan debt, which recently exceeded $1 trillion in total, is making it even harder for many of them, delaying purchases of things like homes, cars and other big-ticket items and acting as a drag on growth, economists said.

Consider Shane Gill, a 33-year-old high-school teacher in New York City. He does not have a car. He does not own a home. He is not married. And he is no anomaly: like hundreds of thousands of others in his generation, he has put off such major purchases or decisions in part because of his debts.

Mr. Gill owes about $45,000 in federal student loans, plus another $40,000 to his parents. That investment in his future has led to a secure job with decent pay and good benefits. But it has left him with tremendous financial constraints, as he faces chipping away at the debt for years on end.

"There's this anxiety: what if I decided I wanted to get married or have children?" Mr. Gill said. "I don't know how I would. And that adds to the sense of precariousness. There's a persistent, buzzing kind of toothache around it."

Rarely As Simple As It Seems - Pension Reform Edition

Andrew Rotherham:

In April there was a dust-up in the finance and education worlds when the American Federation of Teachers called out Dan Loeb, founder and CEO of a hedge fund, for simultaneously investing teacher pension fund assets while serving on the board of StudentsFirst's chapter in New York, which advocates for pension reform, and advocating reform of teacher pensions himself. The whole episode was part of an enemies list exercise (pdf) by the AFT to put money mangers on notice if they deviated from the union's line on pension reform. And it was, of course, easy fodder for one dimensional takes.

But as is often the case the reality was more complicated. For starters, because of multiple issues including irresponsible decisions by state legislators and unsustainable benefit schemes demanded by public employee unions (yes there is plenty of blame to go around) there is an enormous problem with financing pensions (pdf). But, for the most part, so far reforms have come at the expense of teachers, generally new teachers, rather than comprehensive efforts to reform how we finance retirement for educators. We need a richer conversation about how to simultaneously address the fiscal problems and modernize teacher retirement for today's more mobile labor market. The choice facing policymakers is less a binary one between defined benefit pensions (those that pay participants a pre-defined benefit) and defined contribution plans (401k-style plans that provide benefits based on contributions and investment choices/performance) than it is about a subset of choices about employer and employee contributions, risk allocation, vesting rules, and issues like portability for participants. In some states Social Security participation is also an issue.

Hispanic high school graduates pass whites in college enrollment rate

Valerie Strauss:

It just so happens that in the same week that a co-author of a Heritage Foundation immigration study resigned for suggesting that Hispanics have lower IQs than whites, the Pew Research Hispanic Center released a new analysis showing that Hispanic high school graduates have passed whites in the rate of college enrollment.

In a report by Richard Fry and Paul Taylor, the center says that "a record seven-in-ten (69%) Hispanic high school graduates in the class of 2012 enrolled in college that fall, two percentage points higher than the rate (67%) among their white counterparts."

Furthermore, the center's analysis of new data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that according to the most recent available data, in 2011, "only 14% of Hispanic 16- to 24-year-olds were high school dropouts, half the level in 2000 (28%)."

A recent comprehensive investigation of high school graduation rates finds that 78% of Hispanics graduated from high school in 2010, an increase from 64% in 2000.

Driving students into science is a fool's errand

Colin Macilwain:

The United States spent more than US$3 billion last year across 209 federal programmes intended to lure young people into careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The money goes on a plethora of schemes at school, undergraduate and postgraduate levels, all aimed at promoting science and technology, and raising standards of science education.

In a report published on 10 April, Congress's Government Accountability Office (GAO) asked a few pointed questions about why so many potentially overlapping programmes coexist. The same day, the 2014 budget proposal of President Barack Obama's administration suggested consolidating the programmes, but increasing funding.

What no one asked was whether these many activities actually benefit science and engineering, or society as a whole. My answer to both questions is an emphatic 'no'.

Students with autism gravitate toward STEM majors
Taken individually, of course, these programmes are all very cuddly and wonderful. They are keenly pursued by governments around the world -- particularly in countries that fret about their economic competitiveness, such as the United Kingdom and the United States.

But taken together, these schemes -- which allocate perhaps $600 to each child passing through the US education system -- constitute bad public policy. Government promotion of science careers ultimately damages science and engineering, by inflating supply and depressing demand for scientists and engineers in the employment market.

A Life of Science Was in the Cards

Anjelica L. Gonzalez

I AM a proud member of a small, emerging class of minority women with careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics -- the STEM fields for short. As a professor at Yale University and a scientist in the field of tissue engineering, or regenerative medicine, I'm often asked how I got to where I am. I usually respond with stories of my early interest in problem-solving and puzzles.

But if I really reflect on how I, a Latina from Las Vegas, was able to become a scientist at an elite university, it wasn't my own curiosity. It was the influence of a blackjack dealer who also happens to be my mother.

My mother may not know the ins and outs of academia, but she taught me the essential ingredients needed to make it as a scientist in a white, male-dominated field.

A blackjack dealer works for tips. As you can imagine, a stodgy personality will not do well in a profession where you have to entertain a diverse clientele. My mother can interact with wealthy families from faraway continents as capably as she does with the locals.

As a professor and researcher, I interact with students and colleagues from all over the world, and I must communicate with each of them in an intellectual yet relatable manner. If I fail to do so, the far-reaching implications of my work are lost on the audience.

My mother's most powerful weapon is her sense of humor. Her smile draws customers to the table, and once they are there she can gently tease a shy person into conversation or draw guffaws from an abrasive personality with a crude joke.

Likewise, whether dealing with an egotistic colleague or an insecure or disengaged student, the ability to find common ground and laugh together is the closest thing that we in academia have to a magic bullet.

My students can easily become bored or distracted when I discuss the chemistry behind metal oxidation. However, when I relate the science to descriptions of "bling-blinging rims" on car wheels, I am guaranteed a look of shock, an outburst of laughter and enough attention to relate the basics of the oxidative process. These kinds of interactions have led to the most professionally and personally rewarding experiences I've had as a professor.

My mother never gave up. She raised my brother and me on her own. I cannot recall a time in my life when she did not work. As a single mother, she provided the only source of income to our small family. I know there were days that she wanted to walk out of the casino and never return. Anyone who has worked in the service industry for over 30 years, as she has, knows the feeling. But an overriding sense of responsibility stopped my mom from doing so. I recall asking her, after she had spent a long night bent over the blackjack table, "How do you deal with all of those personalities every day?"

"What choice do we have?" she answered, referring to our family.

Even though I love my work, there are days when I want to run out of the lab or classroom, too. While not every day at work is the best, I stay for the "we," just like my mom. I've made a commitment to myself, my employers, my students, my own family, and anyone else who relies on my accomplishments. I don't have the choice to give up because I'm not really an "I" after all.

My mother was the first innovator I knew. Considered by her friends and family to be a creative genius, she can sew, crochet, paint, cook, sculpture, and do woodworking and metalworking. As fashion trends came and went, it was impractical for my mother to purchase name-brand designer clothes that I would outgrow within a season. She made me some harem pants that would have made MC Hammer jealous!

THE ingenuity and imagination behind this talent have become extremely valuable in my approach to engineering tissues and biomedical tools. In a field where inventiveness and innovation are keys to success, reallocating existing technologies and developing highly effective, yet low-cost, solutions to biomedical problems is what I have come to do best. It's a little embarrassing now to think back on those harem pants, but I'll never regret witnessing my mom's ingenuity growing up.

Though she is not college educated and has been a blue-collar worker all of her life, my mom provided a model for much of my professional development. What are the odds?

This piece brings to mind Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's memoir, My Beloved World.

Georgia Tech's new $7000 online masters degree in computer science

Ry Rivard:

The Georgia Institute of Technology plans to offer a $7,000 online master's degree to 10,000 new students over the next three years without hiring much more than a handful of new instructors.

Georgia Tech will work with AT&T and Udacity, the 15-month-old Silicon Valley-based company, to offer a new online master's degree in computer science to students across the world at a sixth of the price of its current degree. The deal, announced Tuesday, is portrayed as a revolutionary attempt by a respected university, an education technology startup and a major corporate employer to drive down costs and expand higher education capacity.

Georgia Tech expects to hire only eight or so new instructors even as it takes its master's program from 300 students to as many as 10,000 within three years, said Zvi Galil, the dean of computing at Georgia Tech.

Meanwhile, in Madison, the K-12 status quo (presently $15k/student annually) continues.

What's at Stake With Grade Inflation?

Robert Zaretsky

"By the time my students reach my classes, they've been deeply handicapped by a secondary-school system that teaches testing, not writing, and a culture that discourages what we once understood to be thinking."

Truth, we're told, is the first casualty of war. But as I hunker in my office bunker, the dull thud of history term papers landing on my desk, columns of sleep-deprived and anxiety-ridden students trudging past the door, I'm convinced that truth is also the first casualty of undergraduate paper writing. It is not only the historical truths trampled in the mangled and muddied papers written by my students. More insidiously, a deeper truth also suffers. Only tatters remain of the contract, implicit but immemorial, that teachers will grade student papers fairly and honestly. This shared conviction, that the students' level of writing can be raised only if the teacher levels with them, now seems a historical artifact.

At the start of the spring semester, as with every semester, I told my students that while this was a history course, the most important thing I could teach them in 15 weeks was not the nature of the French revolutionary tradition, but instead to be better writers. Channeling George Orwell, I told my students that slovenliness of writing leads to foolish thoughts. Referring to France's "mission civilisatrice," I declared that to write well is not just a crucial skill: It is also a moral duty. They could not hope to think clearly, I intoned, if they could not write clearly. Failing this, I continued, we will also fail as citizens.

As I climbed into higher dudgeon, I said I would hold them to the highest standards--that if their writing was as sloppy at the end of the semester as it was at the start, I would have failed as a teacher. And...well, you get the idea.

To be honest, I've mostly failed. It is not, I think, for want of effort. I urge students to hand in rough drafts. Invariably, few take me up on the offer, and those rough drafts I receive I cover in red ink. As for the first batch of papers, I'm no less generous with corrections and suggestions. And just as my comments are in red, so too is the red line of grades: A's are rare, C's are common. I've drawn the line, and I mean business!

But, to be honest, I mean mostly funny business. Many of the final papers are as garbled as the first papers. As for the good papers, they are mostly the work of students who knew how to write when they arrived. And yet, an odd alchemy begins to crackle and pop. While the tenor of my comments remains as sharp as ever, the paper grades begin to rise toward the heavens. Or, more accurately, the grading standard--the one supposedly locked in that empyrean place--begins to sink earthward.

This has little to do with the papers, and everything to do with me.

I've discovered I'm weaving a fairy tale that will let me sleep at night. Not only must I believe I can repair failing writing skills and push against the tides of an increasingly post-literate popular culture, but I must also believe in my relevance as a teacher. But the future of my relevance is yoked to my students' immediate pasts in our national high schools. By the time my students reach my classes, they've been deeply handicapped by a secondary-school system that teaches testing, not writing, and a culture that discourages what we once understood to be thinking.

Our mad rush to testing is, of course, the perverse consequence of our laudable determination to hold schools responsible for our children's education. But the tests do little more than transform our schools into educational Potemkin villages. Our administrators affirm the necessity of standards, but when they are not lowering the bar, they are busily stripping from their curricula a sustained and serious apprenticeship in writing. As the graduation rate becomes the bottom line for our high schools, the pressure to pass grows irresistible--this is perhaps the most decisive factor in the "grade" the schools in turn receive every year.

Is there a similar logic at work with university professors? That the "grade" we receive in student evaluations, based on the grades we distribute, determines the making or breaking of our classes? Short of transforming my upper-level history classes into writing-composition courses--a class that my history majors do not need for their major any more than my Ph.D. in history trained me to teach--I become the students' accomplice, not their instructor, and society's enabler, not its critic.

Yes, this means that truth is a casualty. But we must not lose sight of who is really suffering: our students. Last year the National Assessment of Educational Progress released its "report card" on the performance in 2011 of our nation's schools. They are flunking. Less than a quarter of high-school students performed at a proficient level of writing; only 3 percent rose to an advanced level. Increasingly, professors are called upon to teach remedial English, but often in courses based on the student's ability to write (and read) at a proficient or advanced level. Neither student nor professor is willing to confront that truth, so we join hands in ignoring it.

The result, of course, is not the shattering of the illusions fostered by our testing culture, but their reinforcement. As Orwell sighed, we are all complicit in making lies sound respectable.

Robert Zaretsky, a professor of French history at the University of Houston Honors College, is the author of Albert Camus: Elements of a Life (Cornell University Press, 2010). His next book, A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning, will be published this fall by Harvard University Press.

A Quick Look At "Best High School" Rankings

Matthew DiCarlo:

Every year, a few major media outlets publish high school rankings. Most recently, Newsweek (in partnership with The Daily Beast) issued its annual list of the "nation's best high schools." Their general approach to this task seems quite defensible: To find the high schools that "best prepare students for college."

The rankings are calculated using six measures: graduation rate (25 percent); college acceptance rate (25); AP/IB/AICE tests taken per student (25); average SAT/ACT score (10); average AP/IB/AICE score (10); and the percentage of students enrolled in at least one AP/IB/AICE course (5).

Needless to say, even the most rigorous, sophisticated measures of school performance will be imperfect at best, and the methods behind these lists have been subject to endless scrutiny. However, let's take a quick look at three potentially problematic issues with the Newsweek rankings, how the results might be interpreted, and how the system compares with that published by U.S. News and World Report.

Self-reported data. The data for Newsweek's rankings come from a survey, in which high schools report their results on the six measures above (as well as, presumably, some other basic information, such as enrollment). Self-reported data almost always entail comparability and consistency issues. The methodology document notes that the submissions were "screened to ensure that the data met several parameters of logic and consistency," and that anomalies were identified and the schools contacted for verification. So, this is probably not a big deal, but it's worth mentioning briefly.

The 21st century skill students really lack

Daniel Willingham:

Most teachers t think that students today have a problem paying attention. They seem impatient, easily bored.

I've argued that I think it's unlikely that they are incapable of paying attention, but rather that they are quick to deem things not worth the effort.

We might wonder if patience would not come easier to a student who had had the experience of sustaining attention in the face of boredom, and then later finding that patience was rewarded. Arguably, digital immigrants were more likely to have learned this lesson. There were fewer sources of distraction and entertainment, and so we were a bit more likely to hang in there with something a little dull.

I remember on several occasions when I was perhaps ten, being sick at home, watching movies on television that seemed too serious for me--but I watched them because there were only three other TV channels. And I often discovered that these movies (which I would have rejected in favor of game shows) were actually quite interesting.

Students today have so many options that being mildly bored can be successfully avoided most of the time.

Debunking Five Common Myths About School Choice

Christian D'Andrea:

Recently, Step Up for Public Schools (SUPS) released a pamphlet titled "The Truth about Vouchers and Privately Run Charters." Unfortunately, a better title for their flier would have been "Half-Truths." SUPS raises several tired talking points about school choice in Wisconsin that have been repeatedly debated, disproven, and regurgitated over more than two decades of voucher discussion.

Today, we'll break down their "Fast Facts" on how the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and the Parental Private School Choice Program (Racine) have affected education in the Badger State. While there are also some interesting statements about non-instrumentality charter schools (the same schools that regularly outscore both regular public schools and instrumentality charter schools in Milwaukee, we'll save that for another day. Let's look at what the SUPS has to say about Wisconsin's voucher programs.

1. Students in the taxpayer-funded private school voucher program do not perform better than their peers in neighborhood public schools.

A: In more than 20 years of operation, there has only been one apples to apples comparison of student growth between similarly matched students from MPS and the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). That study - the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) - showed very few statistically significant differences between the two groups of pupils. What they did find was that voucher students were 4-7 percent more likely to graduate, attend a four-year college, and stay in that college than their peers. While factors like parental involvement may have played a role, the study strongly suggests that these schools were a significant force behind the improved attainment of the students that chose vouchers.

One thing is clear - there's no evidence that these voucher schools are hurting students, despite having only 50 percent or less of the funding that their traditional public school peers have had in Milwaukee. As the state's data collection and standards improve and we learn more about student growth and the impact that individual teachers have, we'll develop a better understanding of where MPS and MPCP schools stand in terms to serving students on a year-to-year basis.

The IQ Test Jason Richwine's friends warned him about researching connections between race and intelligence years ago. The Heritage Foundation scholar should have listened.

David Weigel:

Four years ago, long before he'd join the Heritage Foundation, before Marco Rubio was even in the Senate, Jason Richwine armed a time bomb. A three-member panel at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government accepted Richwine's thesis, titled "IQ and Immigration Policy." In it, Richwine provided statistical evidence that Hispanic immigrants, even after several generations, had lower IQs than non-Hispanic whites. Immigration reformers were fools if they didn't grapple with that.

"Visceral opposition to IQ selection can sometimes generate sensationalistic claims--for example, that this is an attempt to revive social Darwinism, eugenics, racism, etc," wrote Richwine. "Nothing of that sort is true. ... an IQ selection system could utilize individual intelligence test scores without any resort to generalizations."

This week, Heritage released a damning estimate of the immigration bill, co-authored by Richwine. The new study was all about cost, totally eliding the IQ issues that Richwine had mastered, but it didn't matter after Washington Post reporter Dylan Matthews found the dissertation. Heritage hurried to denounce it--"its findings in no way reflect the positions of The Heritage Foundation"--and Richwine has ducked any more questions from the press.

The Voucher Lobby: Lobbying for school choice provides big money for Republicans

Bruce Murphy:

The word was out last year that Republican Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald intended to retire and make the big money working as a lobbyist. Two days after his term was up, he signed up as a lobbyist for School Choice Wisconsin.

Fitzgerald's decision underlined the ironic facts of life in Wisconsin. Choice Schools may be badly underfunded, getting just $6,442 per pupil in public funding (about half of what public schools get), and may often pay lousy salaries to teachers. But those who lobby for school choice are doing just fine, thank you. Indeed, the pay is so good that three former Republican Assembly Speakers now do lobbying and advocacy for school choice.

The first to jump aboard the gravy train was former Speaker (and key figure in the legislative caucus scandal) Scott Jensen, who works for two Washington D.C.-based groups that work to increase School Choice funding: the American Federation for Children and the Alliance for School Choice, two sister organizations located at the same address, 1660 L Street NW, Suite 1000. Both groups have a key consultant, Chartwell Strategic Advisors, the one-man consulting company run by Jensen from his Brookfield home. In 2011, the most recent for which these groups filed federal income tax forms, Jensen earned $202,972, including $102,7346 from the American Federation for Children and $100, 236 from the Alliance for School Choice.

These groups have often worked to influence issues and elections in Wisconsin. A report by the American Federation for Children bragged that "With expenditures of $2,392,000, [AFC] engaged in hard-fought, successful battles to ensure educational choice majorities in both chambers of the Legislature" in Wisconsin, as the the Badger Herald reported.

Related: WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators.

One of the few things educators and administrators agree on: charter schools need multiple authorizers

Laura Waters:

One of the few things educators and administrators agree on: charter schools need multiple authorizers
Here's a rarity within New Jersey's education reform community: consensus. The NJ Education Association, Gov. Chris Christie, Commissioner Chris Cerf, Education Law Center, and NJ Charter Association concur that the state's charter school law is broken. In response, several members of the state Legislature are working on overhauls, and last week a draft of the bill Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan (D-Middlesex) is putting together was leaked to NJ Spotlight.

Critics of our 14-year-old charter school law are buttressed by various national research organizations that evaluate state charter school legislation and find ours lacking. The National Alliance of Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), for example, ranks New Jersey 31st out of 42 states with charter school laws.

We lose points on funding inequities between traditional (district) and independent (charter) public schools and a certain lack of transparency. Most critically, New Jersey relies on a single entity to authorize new charters (the education commissioner), despite mounds of data that proves that effective laws invest "multiple authorizers" with approval authority.

A major school reformer's 'Nixon goes to China' moment

Valerie Strauss:

A discussion on school reform in New York took a surprising turn this week when Paul Vallas, a pioneer of the current era of school reform, said, "We're losing the communications game because we don't have a good message to communicate."

That's something for Vallas, who is now superintendent of the public schools in Bridgeport, Conn., (earning $234,000 a year, according to this article). As a reputed expert in turning around failing school systems, he led the school districts in Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans and was a champion of many of the reforms that critics believe are leading to the privatization of public education and doing nothing to actually improve schools.

Vallas has been at the forefront of modern school reform. For example, back in 2002 when he was in charge of Philadelphia's schools, he oversaw what at that time was the largest exercise in allowing private managers -- including for-profit companies -- to run public schools. In New Orleans, where he was hired after Hurricane Katrina to supervise the reconstruction of the ravaged school system, he oversaw the creation of a collection of charter schools. Many of them were staffed with Teach For America recruits, who are given five weeks of summer training before being sent into classrooms with high-needs students.

Local Political Commentary on Vouchers

Melissa Sargent, D-Madison, represents District 48 in the Assembly:

By now, most people have heard about Scott Walker's proposal to expand the voucher school system to new districts, including Madison, yet many people aren't clear as to what this means for our students as well as the administrators, teachers and parents. I've been asked by numerous constituents to give an explanation of how this would apply, in real terms, to our public education system.
The best way to break this down is in three parts: the fiscal effect on taxpayers and our public schools; a comparison between public school and private school accountability; and a comparison of the performance of students in voucher schools and public schools.

FINANCES: Madison currently has 4,202 private school students. Based on a conservative assessment of income levels, 1,387 of these students would be eligible for the voucher program. So what does this mean for Madison taxpayers?

If 1,387 private school students become voucher students, Madison taxpayers would subsidize private schools for about $3.8 million and see a reduction in state aid of that amount. The Madison district's taxpayers would have to pay more to replace the $3.8 million, or the district would have to make $3.8 million worth of cuts in services for public school students. One thing that has been made abundantly clear to me by my constituents and other community members is Wisconsinites don't like the idea of their taxpayer dollars going toward private education.

State Senator Fred Risser, Representative Jon Erpenbach, Representative Mark Miller:

As legislators, we hear about many important issues that will impact our state's future. No issue we face has an impact as far reaching as the education of Wisconsin children. Providing future generations with the skills to be productive and successful must be a top priority.

Unfortunately, in the proposed state budget, corporate special interests won out over Wisconsin children.
In the proposed budget, the governor has chosen to increase voucher program funding by $94 million. The proposal also expands the voucher program to school districts with two or more "failing schools."

Based on this language, the Madison School District would as failing, and therefore open to voucher expansion. As a result, Madison tax dollars would be invested in private, unaccountable schools, rather than its public schools.
We believe that just isn't right. Every time a student leaves the public school and enters the voucher program, the state withholds $2,200 in funding from the public school. While it may mean one fewer student to educate, the school's fixed costs remain the same, and the district is forced to raise property taxes to cover the difference.

Much more on vouchers, here. Madison's long-term, disastrous reading scores.

Who Rises to the Top? Early Indicators

Harrison J. Kell, David Lubinski, and Camilla P. Benbow:

Youth identified before age 13 (N = 320) as having profound mathematical or verbal reasoning abilities (top 1 in 10,000) were tracked for nearly three decades. Their awards and creative accomplishments by age 38, in combination with specific details about their occupational responsibilities, illuminate the magnitude of their contribution and professional stature. Many have been entrusted with obligations and resources for making critical decisions about individual and organizational well-being. Their leadership positions in business, health care, law, the professoriate, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) suggest that many are outstanding creators of modern culture, constituting a precious human-capital resource. Identifying truly profound human potential, and forecasting differential development within such populations, requires assessing multiple cognitive abilities and using atypical measurement procedures. This study illustrates how ultimate criteria may be aggregated and longitudinally sequenced to validate such measures.

Learn English, Kids

The British Council:

Hickory dickory dock

"Hickory, dickory dock, The mouse ran up the clock". Listen to a traditional children's song.

Energizing Education literacy program expanding to Michigan Center schools next year

Leanne Smith:

Energizing Education strives to have all students reading at grade level by third grade in an effort to boost their success for the future. It's produced success at Jackson's Frost Elementary School this year, and now Michigan Center schools want to use it too, said Kriss Giannetti, the program's grant coordinator.

"The intent always was to take the program countywide," Giannetti said. "We know to make a real difference, we have to reach out to all children."

An Energizing Education presentation is part of the Monday, May 13 Michigan Center School Board meeting. The district plans to offer it to students at Arnold Elementary School in the 2013-14 school year, said Superintendent Scott Koziol.

"We believe this program will offer confidence and support for our students who might be struggling a little bit," Koziol said. "We believe once they are in this program, which offers positive adult support, their learning will take off."

Related: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed...and not before
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Are Universities Above the Law?

Peter Berkowitz:

Corporate governance is a much-discussed topic, and the operation of corporations has proven a fertile field for investigative journalism. But even though many colleges and universities are multibillion-dollar-a-year operations, the subject of university governance has been largely neglected. This is unfortunate because university governance raises fascinating questions of great public interest involving the complex intersection of law, morals, and education. Nasar v. Columbia is a case in point.

On May 6, Columbia University submitted a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against it in mid-March in the Supreme Court of New York by Sylvia Nasar, the John S. and James L. Knight professor of business journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Nasar's complaint alleges, among other things, that "from 2001-2011, Columbia illegally misappropriated and captured for its own purposes income generated by a $1.5 million charitable endowment" established by the Knight Foundation. Columbia contends that Nasar's suit is without merit and that even if all her allegations were true, the university could not be found to be in violation of the law. But if all of Nasar's allegations are true and the courts of New York are unable to grant relief, it would mean that New York state law permits university administrations to disregard their written agreements with impunity and behave deceitfully when called to account.

A distinguished New York Times journalist and author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated biography A Beautiful Mind (made into a major Hollywood film), Nasar was appointed in 2001 to the Knight chair as a tenured Columbia professor. She has built an esteemed program in business journalism at Columbia and in 2011 published the bestselling Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius.

Nasar learned of irregularities in Columbia's management of Knight chair funds in 2010. She protested to Columbia and alerted the Knight Foundation, which promptly initiated an audit performed in the autumn of 2010 by Big Four accounting firm KPMG. According to the KPMG audit, "it appears that the Graduate School of Journalism did not abide by the original terms and spirit of the grant agreement." The audit concluded that at least $923,000 of expenditures were "unallowable" and claims against Columbia could total as much as $4.5 million.

A road map for education reform

Frederick Hess & Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj:

As much as any city in America, Milwaukee has played a pioneering role in educational choice. More than two decades after establishing the nation's first urban school voucher program, Milwaukee offers families a raft of options, including district schools, charter schools and publicly funded private school scholarships.

Yet, this dramatic expansion of options has not yet translated into dramatic improvement. Student performance and graduation rates have not moved as reformers once hoped, and the achievement of low-income students continues to languish. On the 2011 urban National Assessment of Educational Progress, just 10% of Milwaukee eighth-graders were judged proficient in math and just 12% in reading. Especially disturbing is that the vast majority of public and private high school graduates who go on to attend the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee do not complete college.

But this should be cause for renewed energy, not despair. After all, the Milwaukee Public Schools district has displayed a willingness to find ways to turn around struggling schools and to tackle long-standing fiscal challenges. Milwaukee's charter school authorizers have shown themselves willing to hold low-performing schools accountable. Schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program increasingly have embraced accountability for performance. Across all three sectors, there are instances of high-performing schools where even Milwaukee's most challenged pupils can excel.

Lauren Pongan discusses Stoughton High School's fab lab on WORT's In Our Backyard

Isthmus:

Stoughton High School is only the second high school in the country to have a state-of-the-art digital fabrication laboratory that can supposedly create anything. The $206,000 facility will debut with formal classes this fall, and features a computer-controlled large and small milling machines, laser and vinyl cutters, and a 3D printer.

Isthmus contributor Lauren Pongan reports on the project in the May 9 issue and discussed her story on the May 8 installment of WORT's In Our Backyard.

Listen to the interview.

Understanding School Finance in Wisconsin: A Primer

Michael Ford:

A fundamental tension between state and local control lies at the heart of Wisconsin's school finance system. For much of Wisconsin's history, schools boards were responsible for deciding how much to spend on education, and how much revenue to raise via the property tax levy to fund spending. However, the balance tipped in favor of the state in the 1993-'94 school year, when the state imposed revenue limits.

Revenue limits cap how much additional money school districts can raise for each pupil through a combination of state aid and property tax. Since their inception, revenue limits have increased annually at roughly the rate of inflation. The imposition of revenue limits defined one basic attribute of education finance in Wisconsin: Maintaining the status quo. Consider:

Increases in revenue limits use the previous year as a base, ensuring that the largest predictor of spending is how much a district spent in the previous year.

Revenue limits increase at roughly the rate of inflation, keeping overall school finance formula revenues, in inflation-adjusted dollars, relatively constant.

The distribution of total state and local spending by school district remained steady between 1999 and 2012.

In 1999 the 100 districts receiving the most state and local revenue per student received 117% of the state average of state and local revenue. In 2012 that number was 119%. Similarly, the 100 districts receiving the least state and local revenue received 88% of the state average of state and local revenue. In 2012 that number was 87%.

A state aid program called special adjustment aids ensures districts cannot receive less than 85% of the state aid they received in the previous year.

The enrollment number used to generate payments to schools is a three-year average. It is designed to cushion districts against sudden increases and decreases in enrollment.

Related:

Madison Schools' Budget Updates: Board Questions, Spending Through 3.31.2013, Staffing Plan Changes
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Wisconsin K-12 Tax Spending Dominates Local Transfers

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity newsletter, via a kind Jeannie Bettner email (PDF):

What's the first ingredient necessary to address workplace concerns? The opportunity to talk with colleagues to identify areas of common concerns and brainstorm about possible solutions. That' s the conclusion reached by the clerical and technical employees who attended the March 20 SEE-MTI General Membership meeting. In response, SEE-MTI President Kris Schiltz and MTI staff rep Doug Keillor agreed to schedule monthly membership organizing workshops to provide: 1) an opportunity to get together to talk and 2) to further develop an organizing approach to problem-solving. The first workshop was held on April 24, and the next workshop will be held soon with notice in MTI Solidarity!.

The organizing workshops are structured to provide a brief update on what is happening across the district relative to SEE unit concerns (e.g. surplus declarations, budget proposals, etc.) and then those present breakout (e.g. elementary, middle, high, administration) to discuss their concerns, facilitated by their unit rep. Following the small group discussions the participants reconvene to report on topics of discussion and organizing relative to the identified issues.

While MTI has used similar organizing models on a smaller scale for years, the monthly SEE-MTI member organizing workshops are an attempt to further institutionalize this approach, engaging more Union members in the process and leading to better potential outcomes.

All SEE-MTI members are welcome and encouraged to attend. Join your fellow Union members in working for positive change in the District!

A worthwhile look at the global education market

avichal:

Why they are wrong

The average person in a developed country does not think about education the way a well educated VC or entrepreneur thinks about education.

VCs and entrepreneurs tend to be well educated. Well educated people think about education as an investment. You put as many of your resources in to an investment as you can. It may take 20 years to pay off, but if the return-on-investment is high (which it is for education) then you invest. This group of people -- if you're reading this, you fall into this group -- generally understand that education is an investment, and as a result are price insensitive and will optimize for quality (a higher return on investment). For this group of people, quality is the primary driver of a purchasing decision, not cost.

The average, middle class person thinks about education as an expenditure, not an investment. It's something they have to do because it's mandated and the lack of the highest quality education hasn't negatively impacted their lives in a meaningful way. Step back for a second before you judge. Imagine it's 2005, and you live in a small town in the middle of Ohio (where I grew up) and you don't get a college degree. If you get a factory job and make $25k/year and your wife gets a factory job and makes $25k/year, you're making $50k/year. But houses only cost $90,000 and food is affordable and you can get a loan for a car for $300/month. So you're not doing terribly and the default state for your children is the same life. You can afford a house, food, have a car, and have weekends off.

So, what has the lack of an education done to the typical American's life? It's removed job security, screwed your retirement, and maybe set you up to go bankrupt if you get sick. There are no immediate consequences, there are no immediate consequences for your children, but there is an immediate cost. So the average person thinks of education as an expenditure. If you get sick when you're 70, you're screwed. Or if you don't save in your 401k, you may have to work till you're dead. Or maybe your children won't be as competitive in a global workforce 30 years. Don't believe me? Only 15% of kids taking the SAT pay for an out of school test prep course like Kaplan. Over 50% of Americans don't have beyond a high school degree.

This fundamental investment vs. expenditure mindset changes everything. You think of education as fundamentally a quality problem. The average person thinks of education as fundamentally a cost problem.

To the Class of 2013: Resist Simplicity

Stephen Carter:

Members of the Class of 2013, I salute you.

As everyone keeps telling you, you are graduating at a difficult and even frightening time. I wish it were otherwise -- that my generation was bequeathing you a finer world. We aren't. The world into which you are entering is rich with challenges. Many are scary.

This does not make your generation unique. Through the nation's history, America's colleges and universities have sent forth graduates in times of war, of fear, of economic risk. Eighty years ago, the world was mired in a four-year-old economic depression. Seventy years ago, many schools skipped commencement exercises entirely because their graduates were all heading off to World War II. Fifty years ago, Bull Connor was setting fire hoses and police dogs on civil-rights marchers in Birmingham, Alabama. And 45 years ago, today's exercises would have been sandwiched between the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

In short, there was never a golden age -- a period when new graduates could step into the world and simply start building careers and families without worry.

So what is the great challenge of your generation? Protecting the environment? Increasing equality? Abating poverty? Achieving world peace?

U.S. Students Rank Worst in New Sleep Study

Mackenzie Yang:

It's hard to master math when you're too tired to keep your eyes open in class. While nutrition and family income have previously been associated with academic performance, now quantity of sleep has also been shown to play a role, according to a Boston College analysis reported on by the BBC. The study, which draws on data culled from tests taken by more than 900,000 students in 50 countries, found that the U.S. has the greatest proportion of students whose academic performance, particularly in math and science, suffers due to poor sleep, with 73% of 9 and 10-year-olds and 80% of 13 and 14-year-olds affected. Those rates are significantly higher than the international average of 47% and 57%, respectively.

The top 5 countries where poor sleep hampers learning are:

United States
New Zealand
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
Australia

Another look at University of Wisconsin system finances

John Torinus:

The flap in Madison over the appropriate level of reserves for the UW System tees up an opportunity for a broader look at the financing of what may be the state's finest asset.

First, an observation: if the auditors had found deficits or fund shortages, the flap would be a lot more serious and even more politically combustible. So, at least we have a problem of too much money on the books, not too little.

Further, there is even more money floating around the system than the Legislative Fiscal Bureau discovered in an audit of its general accounts. It's in the off-balance sheet accounts of organizations like the UW Foundation, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and other foundations like the UW Madison Hospital Foundation and University Research Park.

Take WARF as an example. It has assets of $2.5 billion, not counting the present value of its flow of royalty income. Those assets are included on the balance sheet of other major universities, but not in Wisconsin.

WARF brings in royalty income from patents
of more than $50 million per year, and, at a modest 5% return on its portfolio, another $125 million per year. That's $175 million per year. (It probably does better than 5% in most years.)

Its mission is to support UW - Madison, so it gave $48.3 million in research awards on the campus in 2010-11. The question arises as to where the rest of the dollars go. Some supports its staff, and some gets plowed back to build its principal. That's how it got to $2.5 billion.

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Money to burn The muddle-headed world of American public-pension accounting

The Economist:

SLOWLY but surely the cost of America's public-sector pension promises is becoming clear. Last year the best estimate of the shortfall was more than $4 trillion. To deal with its deficit, a giant Californian pension fund, CalPERS, recently announced plans that will increase contributions by employers (in effect, taxpayers) by up to a half, starting in 2015-16.
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Final-salary pension costs have risen for decades because workers are living longer and the retirement age has barely budged. The bill was disguised in the 1980s and 1990s by good asset returns. But dismal equity markets have since forced many private providers to close final-salary schemes to new members and switch to less lavish defined-contribution plans.

Testing California's Commitment to Education

Michael Malone:

Just a generation ago, California's schools were the pride of American education (it's one of the reasons my parents moved with me to California in the early 1960s). Today, tracking with the economic woes of the rest of the Golden State, California's schools rank 30th in the country . . .and falling.

Now it could get much worse - and quickly -as one of the few bright spots of California public education is at risk of disappearing. The implications to the state's high education enclaves, such as Silicon Valley, are frightening. But for California's low-income, high-unemployment regions in places like the Central Valley and the state's urban centers, the impact could be devastating. Indeed, what lingering hope there is that California can recover its old luster in less than a generation may evaporate as well.

The program is called the International Baccalaureate. If you haven't heard of it it's probably because the program has done a far better job at helping elementary and high school students than it has at promoting itself or its confusing name. In retrospect, it probably should have spent more time on the latter, because now as California cuts its educational budget the program - at least its California operation of more than 200 schools across the state - is facing a dangerous shortfall of its $2.5 million annual budget.

International Baccalaureate is actually a huge operation. Founded in 1968, IB is (as its name suggests) a global program, well-established in nearly 150 countries, serving more than a million students. Everywhere the goal is the same: to take young students from every economic level and bring them to the highest levels of analytical thinking in order to prepare them for college and a successful career This has been true for IB students in Botswana and Bangladesh, in Canada and - at least until now, in California.

Biting commentary A new company is trying to make school meals healthier

The Economist:

THE day a girl fainted from hunger was the final straw for Emmanuel George, the principal of Democracy Prep charter school in Harlem. She had refused to eat the "nasty food" served at his school. Her distaste was shared widely: many went hungry, and those who did eat mostly chose junk food. So in January Mr George switched to a supplier of healthy lunches called Revolution Foods. Since then the proportion of children choosing to accept free meals has gone from less than half to over 85%. Visits to the school nurse plummeted, and complaints of stomach-ache and headaches have almost vanished. Teachers say everyone works better in the afternoons.

Everyone from Michelle Obama to Jamie Oliver is trying to improve children's diets, but doing so has proved difficult. It is, then, particularly interesting that a solution is emerging from the private sector. Revolution Foods, which is based in Oakland, California, serves 1m meals a week in nearly 1,000 schools across America. Most of its customers are public schools.

Why parents should leave their kids alone

Jay Griffiths:

I felt as if I were an unwilling accomplice to torture. Echoes of the victim's screams rang off the varnished walls. The door, tight shut though it was, could not block the cries of panic. A baby, alone and imprisoned in a cot.

The baby's mother was visibly disturbed, too, pale and tearful. She was a victim herself, preyed on by exponents of controlled crying, or Ferberisation - that pitiless system, cruel to them both.

Controlled. Crying. The words speak of the odious aim: a bullying system controlling the feelings of a baby. The mother had been told the situation was the reverse, that the baby was trying to force her will on the mother, but all I could see was a one-year-old demented by abandonment. One American mother wrote poignantly on the internet: "Is Ferberisation worth my heartache or am I truly torturing my child? It seems like cruel and unusual punishment."

Education struggle goes on for Howard Fuller

Alan Borsuk:

After the Louisiana Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down the financing of a far-reaching private school voucher program, Howard Fuller sent a message to his 2,855 Twitter followers:

"THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!!"

The Louisiana decision, important as it may be, is not my subject today. Fuller is. I suggest that, in a couple ways, "The struggle continues" is a great motto for Fuller's career and an important way to get a handle on understanding the person who I suggest has been the most significant figure on Milwaukee's education scene over the last generation.

There are two important ways to apply the word "struggle" to Fuller, and, more broadly, to Milwaukee and national efforts to improve education.

One is to look at Fuller's continuing deep involvement in education and his refusal to give up. Like him or not - and there are long lists for each - you have to be humbled by the fact that he's 72, still intense about education, still traveling the country frenetically as an advocate, and still deeply involved in the school he has made his special project, CEO Leadership Academy, an independent charter school at 3222 W. Brown St. Fuller knows intimately every reason to be pessimistic. But, for him, the struggle continues.

In the other definition, "struggle" means how hard it has been to make general progress, especiall

Against optimism about social science

Andrew Gelman:

I agree with Marcus and Rojas that attention to problems of replication is a good thing. It's bad that people are running incompetent analysis or faking data all over the place, but it's good that they're getting caught. And, to the extent that scientific practices are improving to help detect error and fraud, and to reduce the incentives for publishing erroneous and fradulent results in the first place, that's good too.

But I worry about a sense of complacency. I think we should be careful not to overstate the importance of our first steps. We may be going in the right direction but we have a lot further to go. Here are some examples:

1. Marcus writes of the new culture of publishing replications. I assume he'd support the ready publications of corrections, too. But we're not there yet, as this story indicates:

Recently I sent a letter to the editor to a major social science journal pointing out a problem in an article they'd published, they refused to publish my letter, not because of any argument that I was incorrect, but because they judged my letter to not be in the top 10% of submissions to the journal. I'm sure my letter was indeed not in the top 10% of submissions, but the journal's attitude presents a serious problem, if the bar to publication of a correction is so high. That's a disincentive for the journal to publish corrections, a disincentive for outsiders such as myself to write corrections, and a disincentive for researchers to be careful in the first place. Just to be clear: I'm not complaining how I was treated here; rather, I'm griping about the system in which a known error can stand uncorrected in a top journal, just because nobody managed to send in a correction that's in the top 10% of journal submissions.

Voucher Commentary from Madison's new School Board President

2013-2014 Madison School Board President Ed Hughes:

The proponents of the proposed expansion of Wisconsin's private-school voucher program have run out of substantive arguments. Governor Walker's "This is about children" illustrates how vacuous their efforts at persuasion have become.

When Governor Walker's budget was first announced, his initial talking points in support of his voucher expansion plan featured the claim that schools in the nine targeted school districts were failing and vouchers were necessary to provide a lifeline to students who needed help to pursue other schooling options. Neither the governor nor his supporters are pushing that argument any more. It seems that they got the point that it is not a smart move politically for the governor to go around trashing the public schools in some of the larger urban areas of the state.

While proponents have claimed that students in voucher schools do better academically, the wind has gone out of the sails of that argument as well. DPI has reported that students in voucher schools in Milwaukee and Racine performed worse on the WKCE than students in the public schools in those communities. Voucher school advocates can point to data that supposedly support their view, opponents can counter with contrary figures, and at best the evidence on improved student performance is a wash. There is no reason to think that students in the nine districts targeted for voucher expansion would do any better in the private schools in their area than they would in their neighborhood public schools. No one has offered an argument to the contrary.

Voucher proponents sometimes try to construct a cost-savings argument around the fact that the per-pupil amounts that voucher students would receive are less than the average per-pupil expenditures by their school districts. But this argument goes nowhere because no one is proposing that the public schools shut down as voucher schools expand. Consequently, there's really not much of a response to the observation credited to former Governor Tommy Thompson that "We can't afford two systems of education."

Additionally, voucher schools have not discovered a magic bullet that allows them to educate students across the spectrum of needs more economically. Here's a telling excerpt from an op ed by the Choice Schools Association advocating for much higher voucher payments and posted on line by the right-wing MacIver Institute:

Vouchers are hardly an existential threat to the Madison School District. Rather, the District's long term disastrous reading scores are the essential issue, one that merits endless attention and improvement.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed...and not before.