Keep fighting for school success

Wisconsin State Journal editorial
Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Madison should take a bow and be proud of its decade-long effort to improve early reading skills and boost school achievement for all racial groups.

Yet the hard work isn't over and may be getting harder.

UW-Madison education researchers hailed Madison this week for shrinking its racial achievement gap more than probably any urban area in the country. And at the same time, test scores for white students in Madison kept improving.

More young students of all backgrounds can read.

More older students of all backgrounds are graduating.

Madison's formula for success, according to the researchers, is largely the result of three things:

One-to-one tutoring by trained volunteers.

The Wisconsin State Journal and WISC-TV (Ch. 3) helped launch a decade ago the Schools of Hope civil journalism project that stressed the recruitment and training of volunteer reading tutors. The United Way now oversees the effort and counts about 1,000 tutors working with 2,000 struggling students on reading and math in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Organizers say the effort will continue and possibly expand until at least 2011.

Small class sizes in the earliest grades.

The state is contributing millions to Madison schools for poor children to benefit from the extra attention smaller class sizes allow during kindergarten through third grade.

Better teacher training.

This might be the hardest element of Madison's success to maintain, much less improve. With relatively flat school enrollment and high property values in Madison, the state steers a lower percentage of aid our way. And voters have shown they're skeptical of approving higher operational spending than a state cap otherwise allows.

That means other areas of school spending should be cut before teacher training is reduced. Or perhaps the district can develop creative, lower-cost ways to train those teachers who most need it.

Madison just might become a national model for closing the racial achievement gap if existing trends continue. But that won't be easy given financial constraints and a growing influx of students who lack English skills.

But hope is high. Volunteers are energetic. Educators passionately want students to succeed.

Let's stay at it, Madison, and show the nation the way.

Posted by at May 3, 2006 11:47 AM
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