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The state of education “investigative” reporting
Andy had been an investigative journalist at the Wisconsin State Journal, where he and Dee both worked back in 2006. But he, nearing 50 at the time, he was reassigned to cover education.
“It was a time at which I took a deep breath and considered what really mattered to me,” he said.
He wanted to be an investigative reporter again. He wanted to teach new generations of investigative reporters. And he and Dee wanted to stay in Madison.
Fascinating, given Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most, around $18k per student annually.
Ironically, The Madison School District’s 2005 maintenance referendum expenditures were the subject of a potential audit… Stillborn, apparently.
Andy Hall notes and leaks.
KINDERREADY GRADS CHEERED\ PROGRAM THAT GETS CHILDREN READY FOR KINDERGARTEN CELEBRATES ITS FIRST GRADUATES.
Andy Hall, via a kind reader:
Two dozen children donned homemade mortarboards Wednesday for a commencement ceremony marking their graduation from a program designed to help them be ready for kindergarten this fall.
As many of their parents snapped photos, the children received certificates and were cheered by a crowd that included the graduates’ siblings and officials from government and nonprofit agencies.
The ceremony and a picnic at Madison’s Vilas Park celebrated the end of the first year of the KinderReady program, which served 320 children ages 3 to 5, far exceeding its goal of 200.
The surge was largely credited to a weekly call-in program, “Families Together,” on La Movida, 1480-AM, a Spanish-language station, that includes learning activities for children, said Andy Benedetto, who is directing KinderReady for the nonprofit Children’s Service Society of Wisconsin.
Although data measuring KinderReady’s effects won’t be available until next year, interviews with parents and officials suggest the program is helping prepare children for kindergarten.
Dane County schools tighten security measures
The Verona School District is planning to become the first in Dane County to lock all doors at some schools and require visitors to appear on camera to receive permission to enter, and the first to require that high school students display identification badges at all times. Many students support the moves, even as others question whether they’re really needed in the community that calls itself “Hometown, USA.”
In Middleton, educators are deep into discussions that could lead to asking taxpayers for $3.5 million for cameras, other equipment and remodeling projects to tighten security at their 10 schools. Madison school officials have begun a major review of security measures that by spring could lead to proposals to control the public’s access to that district’s 48 schools.
These are signs that despite tight budgets, Wisconsin educators are pushing ahead in their efforts to keep schools safe — efforts that took on added urgency with the 2006 slaying of Weston High School principal John Klang by a student, and other tragedies across the nation.
Related: Gangs & School Violence forum and police calls near Madison high schools: 1996-2006.
Nature Makes a Comeback on Wisconsin School Classes
Geeta Dawar takes her seventh grade science students outside their Madison school to examine cracks in the sidewalk.
David Spitzer gets his Madison elementary students to notice flocks of migrating geese overhead as the kids walk to school.
And David Ropa has his seventh graders, even on an arctic morning, use their bare hands to dip testing vials into Lake Mendota.
Nature is on the rise in many schools across Wisconsin, as educators strive to reverse a major societal shift toward technology and indoor activities. Today’s students are the first generation in human history raised without a strong relationship with the natural world, said Jeremy Solin, who heads a state forest education program at UW-Stevens Point for students in kindergarten through high school.
The phenomenon of “nature deficit disorder” — a term coined by author Richard Louv in his 2005 book “Last Child in the Woods” — is contributing to childhood obesity, learning disabilities, and developmental delays, experts say.
Madison School District seeks input on proposed math changes
A series of potentially controversial proposals will be outlined next week as residents are invited to help shape how math is taught in the Madison School District.
Among the recommendations from a task force that recently completed a one-year study:
• Switch to full-time math teachers for all students in grades five through eight.
• The math task force’s executive summary and full report
• Substantially boost the training of math teachers.
• Seriously consider selecting a single textbook for each grade level or course in the district, rather than having a variety of textbooks used in schools across the district.
The task force was created in 2006 by the Madison School Board to independently review the district’s math programs and seek ways to improve students’ performance.
Related links:
- Math Forum
- UW-Madison Math Faculty open letter about the Madison School District’s Math Coordinator position.
- West High School Math Teacher letter on curriculum
Schools of Hope project aims to improve Madison students’ algebra performance
Three weeks after its launch, the program at La Follette is operating smoothly, according to officials and students at the school.
Joe Gothard, who is in his second year as La Follette principal, said he sought to bring the tutoring program to the school to involve the community in raising achievement levels.
“We’re not going to settle for our students of color to be unsuccessful,” Gothard said.
Over the past several years, the school’s African American students have been less likely than their peers to complete algebra by 10th grade, although in some years the rate still exceeds the overall average for African American students in the Madison School District.
Gothard is troubled by the patterns on another measure of student achievement, the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination, which show that the proportion of 10th graders demonstrating math proficiency ranks lower at La Follette than at any other major high school in Dane County. Just 53 percent of La Follette students received ratings of proficient or advanced on the test, compared to 65 percent in the district and 69 percent in the state.
“Initially there’s that burning in your stomach,” Gothard said, describing his reaction to such data, which was followed by a vow: “We are not going to accept going anywhere but up.”
Another Look at the Madison School District’s Use of “Value Added Assessment”
The analysis of data from 27 elementary schools and 11 middle schools is based on scores from the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE), a state test required by the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Madison is the second Wisconsin district, after Milwaukee, to make a major push toward value-added systems, which are gaining support nationally as an improved way of measuring school performance.
Advocates say it’s better to track specific students’ gains over time than the current system, which holds schools accountable for how many students at a single point in time are rated proficient on state tests.
“This is very important,” Madison schools Superintendent Daniel Nerad said. “We think it’s a particularly fair way … because it’s looking at the growth in that school and ascertaining the influence that the school is having on that outcome.”
The findings will be used to pinpoint effective teaching methods and classroom design strategies, officials said. But they won’t be used to evaluate teachers: That’s forbidden by state law.
The district paid about $60,000 for the study.
Much more on “Value Added Assessment” here.
Ironically, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction stated the following:
“… The WKCE is a large-scale assessment designed to provide a snapshot of how well a district or school is doing at helping all students reach proficiency on state standards, with a focus on school and district-level accountability. A large-scale, summative assessment such as the WKCE is not designed to provide diagnostic information about individual students. Those assessments are best done at the local level, where immediate results can be obtained. Schools should not rely on only WKCE data to gauge progress of individual students or to determine effectiveness of programs or curriculum.”
Related:
- Wisconsin, Mississippi have “easy state K-12 exams” – NY Times
- Much more on Wisconsin’s state exam; the WKCE, here.
- The Fordham Foundation gave Wisconsin’s standards a “D”.
- The Death of WKCE? Task Force to Develop “Comprehensive Assessment System for Wisconsin”
- Alan Borsuk has more
Madison School District’s November 2008 Referendum Passes, 68% in favor
Preliminary voter results. Tamira Madsen:
The tumultuous state of the economy was a nagging concern for supporters of the $13 million Madison Metropolitan School District referendum, but it passed Tuesday night with a surprisingly large 68 percent of the vote.
A handful of wards were still uncounted after midnight, but the totals then were 84,084 in favor and 39,116 opposed to the measure that will allow the school district to raise its taxing limits.
Voters approved an operating referendum to maintain current services, which district officials say shows that the community places a high value on quality education.
“We also knew this was not an easy time for people and that was not lost on us,” Superintendent Dan Nerad said late Tuesday night. “We are heartened by this response, and what this will allow us to do is to maintain our existing programs as we move into a new discussion about what should our priorities be going forward, and involving the community in that discussion in regard to the strategic planning.”
The referendum allows the district to exceed its tax limits by $5 million during the 2009-10 school year, then by an additional $4 million in each of the following two years. The referendum will add $27.50 onto the taxes of a $250,000 home in the first year, district officials say, and add an extra $43 to that tax bill in 2010-11 and an additional $21 to the bill in 2011-12.
The recurring referendum will increase the current tax limit by $13 million in 2011-12 and in every year after that.
The measure, a “recurring referendum,” gives the district permission to build on the previous year’s revenue limit increase by additional amounts of $4 million in 2010-11 and another $4 million in 2011-12. The measure permits a total increase of $13 million — a change that will be permanent, unlike the impact of some other referendums that end after a specified period.
By comparison, the district’s total budget for the current school year is $368 million.
Referendum backers hoped voters would set aside concerns about the economy to help the district avert multimillion-dollar budget cuts that would lead to larger class sizes and other changes in school operations.
The measure faced no organized opposition.
A big thanks to those who voted in support of the school referendum. Your support is appreciated.
To those who chose not to support the referendum, please let us know why. This feedback is very important to us.
So…what are the next steps? As we have been saying throughout the referendum campaign, the referendum is really only one piece of a bigger picture. A couple of things about the bigger picture. On November 10 we continue our discussions on board-superintendent governance models. How can we best work together to strengthen our focus on student achievement?
My sense of these local questions after observing them for a number of years is that:
- 33 to 40% of the voters will always vote yes on school related issues, and
- 30 to 35% will always vote no, or anti-incumbent and,
- elections are won or lost based on the remaining 25 to 35% who will vote “independently”.
A look at Madison Memorial’s Small Learning Communities
In 2000, Memorial became the first Madison school to land one of the U.S. Department of Education grants. It was awarded $438,000 to create its neighborhood social structure. West High School became the second, winning a $500,000 grant in 2002 and reorganizing its ninth and 10th grades around core courses.
In August, district officials were thrilled to learn the district was awarded $5.5 million over five years for its four major high schools — Memorial, West, La Follette and East — to build stronger connections among students and faculty by creating so-called “small learning communities” that divide each high school population into smaller populations.
Officials cite research showing that schools with 500 to 900 students tend to be the most effective, and recent findings suggest that students at schools with small learning communities are more likely to complete ninth grade, less likely to become involved in violence and more likely to attend college after graduation. However, the latest federal study failed to find a clear link between small learning communities and higher academic achievement.
Each Madison high school will develop its own plan for how to spend the grant money. Their common goals: Make school feel like a smaller, friendlier place where all students feel included. Shrink the racial achievement gap, raise graduation rates, expand the courses available and improve planning for further education and careers.
The high schools, with enrollments ranging from 1,600 to 2,000 students, are being redesigned as their overall scores on state 10th grade reading and math tests are worrisome, having declined slightly the past two years.
Madison November 2008 Referendum Updates
In Oregon, if the referendum passes, it’ll mean $10 more a year for property tax payers.
In Madison though, the bill is higher, over the three years of the referendum the average cost to taxpayers is about $65.
Some parents told WISC-TV if it means more money out of their pocket, then they’re saying no to a referendum.
But most Madison parents WISC-TV spoke with facing those tough cuts say they’ll support it.
There are other issues on ballots in the area including, the MMDS asking to exceed revenue limits by $13 million.
A clerical mistake in the Madison city clerk’s office means about 20 voters within the Madison School District got absentee ballots that do not have the district’s $13 million referendum question on it, city and district officials said Tuesday.
Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said six of those voters have come forward, and she urged other district residents who aren’t sure if they voted on the question to call her office so her staff can destroy their old ballots and issue new ones.
Witzel-Behl said the mistake occurred because one of her employees created mailing labels for the absentee ballots’ envelopes that did not identify the voter as a resident of the School District.
“My best guess is we’re looking at less than 20 ballots total,” she said.
There was plenty of food and equally as much information at the Goodman Community center.
The Tenny Lapham Neighborhood Association held a spaghetti dinner to help community members understand the madison school districts recurring referendum on the November ballot.
“The school referendum us a complicated issue especially in the times that we are in– people are concerned about something that is going to increase their tax bill,” says association member Carole Trone.
Here’s how the referendum works.
The referendum asks to exceed the revenue limit by $5 five million next school year.
Much more on the November, 2008 Madison referendum here.
Interactive whiteboards bring technology to students’ fingertips
Dane County school districts with interactive whiteboards include Madison, Sun Prairie, Waunakee, Middleton-Cross Plains, Verona, Oregon, McFarland, Stoughton, Cambridge, Mount Horeb and Monona Grove.
Many students have a natural affinity for interactive whiteboards, which are a hybrid between an old-fashioned chalkboard and a computer.
Whatever can be shown on a computer can be projected onto the whiteboard, about six feet wide and four feet tall.
“It’s got that technological kind of buzz to it that really attracts them,” said Jeff Horney, learning coordinator at Cherokee on the city’s West Side. The school has four interactive whiteboards and more are on the way, thanks to help from foundation grants and the school’s Parent Teacher Organization.
And West High School has received a $91,000 grant from the California-based Tosa Foundation to replace dusty chalkboards with interactive whiteboards.
In Aegerter’s classroom, seventh-grader Clayton Zimmerman showed his classmates every step of a science experiment, tapping his finger on the screen’s images to remove a stopper from the top of a bottle and drag it off to the side.
Madison School District Facing Class-Action Lawsuit Over Open Enrollment
he Madison Metropolitan School District is facing a federal class-action lawsuit.
An East High School parent claims a request to transfer her daughter out of the district was been denied based on race.
The class-action lawsuit, filed in federal court on Wednesday, claims the Madison school district discriminated against a white, female student who wanted to transfer from East High School using open enrollment.
At the time, in the 2006-2007 school year, the transfer request was denied because it would increase the racial imbalance in the district. It was the district’s policy at the time, but that policy was changed earlier this year after a Supreme Court ruling involving school districts in Seattle and Louisville, WISC-TV reported.
“I believe this district had a policy that was absolutely consistent with state law,” Madison Schools Superintendent Daniel Nerad said. “When there was a legal decision by the highest court of the land… that was no longer a factor. I believe the district responded very responsibly in making a change in the policy.”
Much more on open enrollment here.
More:
- Madison Schools’ Using race to deny white student transfers to be topic for the School Board
- Race out as reason to deny Madison school transfers
Andy Hall has more:
In the 2006-07 school year, Madison was the only one of the state’s 426 school districts to deny transfer requests because of race, rejecting 126 white students’ applications to enroll in other districts, including online schools, records show.
A Look at Madison’s Multi-age Classrooms
A third of the elementary classrooms in the Madison School District are multi-age. That figure, which has held steady for more than five years, makes Madison one of the biggest users of multi-age classrooms — some educators say the largest user — in Dane County.
Also, Madison’s Sennett Middle School is in its 33rd year of offering a unique multi-age classroom setting that blends sixth, seventh and eighth graders.
“I think it really does foster that sense of family,” said Sennett Principal Colleen Lodholz, who said the arrangement is so popular that several former students have returned to teach at the East Side school.
There’s nothing new about putting children of more than one grade level into a single classroom.
“Look at the one-room schoolhouse. That was all multi-age. That’s where we started in the United States,” said Sue Abplanalp, the assistant superintendent overseeing Madison’s elementary schools.
Accounting change may aid November 2008 Madison referendum
More than 60 Wisconsin school districts got an earlier start than Madison did in instituting a bookkeeping change that potentially saves local property owners millions of dollars in taxes.
But led by a new superintendent and business manager, Madison last month adopted the accounting measure — a move that school officials hope will strengthen community support for a Nov. 4 referendum.
The referendum will ask voters for a three-year series of permanent tax increases to generate $13 million to avert multimillion-dollar budget cuts.
Much more on the November 2008 referendum here.
Madison School District & Teacher’s Union Near “Comprehensive Settlement” of Old Grievances
The Madison School District and Madison Teachers Inc., the teachers union, may be nearing a wide-ranging settlement on staffing issues that have divided them for up to eight years.
“I would say it is a big deal and that’s about all I can tell you at the moment,” MTI Executive Director John Matthews said Friday afternoon. “I just feel compelled to keep my mouth shut. That’s the agreement I reached with the superintendent so I’m not going to violate it.”
Matthews said he expects to announce details at a news conference early next week with Madison schools Superintendent Daniel Nerad.
Stained-glass window will honor school library aide
One year ago today, as she walked across Cherokee Drive to her job, school library assistant Becky Sue Buchmann was killed by a motorist dropping off his son at Cherokee Middle School.
Buchmann, 48, parked across the street from the Near West Side school on Cherokee Drive — a common practice for staff at the school — and was hit as she walked across to the school mid-block.
Since then, students and staff have raised thousands of dollars to build a stained glass window in her honor, but the traffic patterns outside the school remain unchanged.
Madison Edgewood senior gets a perfect ACT, almost on SAT
6 Dane County Students Score a Perfect 36 on the 2007 ACT
Edgewood High School senior Matthew Everts recently learned he’s just about perfect — when it comes to the two major college-entrance exams, anyway.
Matthew, who hopes to attend a university on the West Coast, received a 36, the highest possible composite score, on the ACT.
He remembers feeling focused when he took the ACT in June, a week before tackling the SAT.
“I knew that if I did well I wouldn’t have to take the test again,” Matthew said Tuesday. “Not having to take a four-hour test is always a good thing.”
On the SAT, Matthew received a perfect 800 on critical reading and math, two of the three SAT Critical Reasoning Tests, along with a 740 out of a possible 800 on the writing test.
Matthew also took the SAT in three subject areas — chemistry, math level two and U.S. history — and received a perfect score on all three tests.
(Adam) Schneider, who plays trumpet in the Middleton school band and is a member of the ecology club, expects to attend college and study biology at UW-Eau Claire or St. Olaf College, a liberal arts college in Minnesota. He also plans on working toward a graduate degree in botany, doing field research and teaching once he finishes school.
Schneider is one of six Dane County students to post perfect marks on the ACT test during the 2007-08 school. Others who earned perfect marks were Mary Kate Wall and Matthew Everts from Edgewood High School, Axel Glaubitz and Dianna Amasino from Madison West High School and Alex Van Abel from Monona Grove High School. All the students were juniors when they took the test.
At the state level, 22 students received perfect scores on the ACT test last school year. On the national level, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of students that take the ACT test earn a perfect mark.
Meanwhile, six Madison Metropolitan School District students earned perfect test scores in 2006.
Madison School District Goes to Court Over Athletic Directors
On June 19, Rainwater told the Wisconsin State Journal that the district wouldn’t appeal Flaten’s decision, saying, “The standard to overturn an arbitrator’s ruling is just really, really high.”
“It is,” Bob Nadler, the district’s executive director of human resources, agreed in an interview Friday.
The district, Nadler said, filed the suit because Friday was the deadline for filing a challenge to Flaten’s decision, and the district needed to preserve that option in case ongoing talks break down.
The district and union will continue to negotiate, outside of court and the WERC, to seek a settlement, Nadler said. The next session is Tuesday.
Nadler said the suit shouldn’t be viewed as a signal that Daniel Nerad, who succeeded Rainwater as superintendent on July 1, is taking a harder line with the union.
“I think this is just a very specific case that we feel we may have to challenge in the future,” Nadler said.
But John Matthews, executive director of the teachers union, called the filing of the suit “a stupid waste of money because there’s absolutely no way that they can succeed.
Certainly a change from past practices.
Madison School Board OKs Nov. referendum
Members of the Madison School Board will ask city taxpayers to help finance the Madison Metropolitan School District budget, voting Monday night to move forward with a school referendum.
The referendum will be on the ballot on Election Day, Nov. 4.
Superintendent Dan Nerad outlined a recommendation last week for the board to approve a recurring referendum asking to exceed revenue limits by $5 million during the 2009-10 school year, $4 million for 2010-11 and $4 million for 2011-12. With a recurring referendum, the authority afforded by the community continues permanently, as opposed to other referendums that conclude after a period of time.
Accounting initiatives that would soften the impact on taxpayers were also approved Monday.
One part of the initiative would return $2 million to taxpayers from the Community Services Fund, which is used for afterschool programs. The second part of the initiative would spread the costs of facility maintenance projects over a longer period.
Madison School District voters on Nov. 4 will be asked to approve permanent tax increases in the district to head off projected multimillion-dollar budget shortfalls.
In a pair of 7-0 votes, the Madison School Board on Monday night approved a proposal from Superintendent Daniel Nerad to hold a referendum and to adopt a series of accounting measures to reduce their effect on taxpayers.
Nerad said the district would work “day and night” to meet with residents and make information available about the need for the additional money to avert what school officials say would be devastating cuts in programs and services beginning in 2009-10, when the projected budget shortfall is $8.1 million.
“I understand this goes to the community to see if this is something they support. We’re going to do our best to provide good information,” said Nerad.
Some citizens who spoke at Monday’s meeting echoed the sentiments of board members and school officials.
“Our schools are already underfunded,” said one man.
However, others spoke against the plan. “This is virtually a blank check from taxpayers.
Superintendent Dan Nerad had to act quickly to put the plan together, facing the $8 million shortfall in his first few days on the job.
“I will never hesitate to look for where we can become more efficient and where we can make reductions,” said Nerad. “But I think we can say $8 million in program cuts, if it were only done that way, would have a significant impact on our kids.”
The plan was highly praised by most board members, but not by everyone who attended the meeting.
“This virtually gives the board a blank check from all of Madison’s taxpayers’ checkbooks,” said Madison resident David Glomp. “It may very well allow the school board members to never have to do the heavy lifting of developing a real long-term cost saving.”
“We need to respect the views of those who disagree with us and that doesn’t mean they’re anti-school or anti-kids,” says board member Ed Hughes.
Board members stressed, the additional money would not be used to create new programs, like 4-year-old kindergarten.
“What’s a miracle is that our schools are continuing to function and I think that’s the conversation happening around Wisconsin, now, says board vice president Lucy Mathiak. “How much longer can we do this?”
The referendum question will appear on the November 4th general election ballot.
The board will discuss its educational campaign at its September 8th meeting.
Much more on the planned November, 2008 referendum here.
TJ Mertz on the “blank check“.
Madison’s superintendent seeking balance, gaining fans
One of the biggest differences between Nerad and Rainwater, according to School Board members, is that Nerad provides the board with more information about what’s happening in the district. Silveira said Nerad’s weekly memos help board members feel engaged, and she’s hopeful that after the current financial questions are settled, the board can turn its focus to improving student achievement.
Mathiak said she was thrilled last week after hearing Nerad’s plan. “I think there is a honeymoon period and I think we’re still in it.”
Winston said after watching Nerad at work, “I’m convinced we made the right choice. I think he’s here for the long haul, too.”
Notes and links on Dan Nerad, the planned November, 2008 referendum and Active Citizens for Education Memo: Taxpayers should NOT be asked to give the Madison School Board a blank check!.
Madison Superintendent Recommends Three Year Recurring Spending Increase via a November, 2008 Referendum
Nerad told school board members on Monday night that he’s recommending a three-year recurring referendum.
It’s part of what he called a partnership plan to address the budget shortfall.
The plan would put a referendum on the November ballot for $5 million and would ask voters for $4 million in the two following years.
Nerad said to make up the remaining $3 million gap the district would move $2 million from the district’s fund balance, eliminate $600,000 in unallocated staff, which are positions set aside in case of additional enrollment, and make up the remaining $400,000 through other reductions, which he has not yet named.
“We’re working both sides of this and in the end our kids need things from us, our taxpayers need us to be sensitive and all I can say is we tried every step of putting these recommendations together to be responsive on both fronts,” said Nerad.
The measure, a “recurring referendum,” would give the district permission to build on the previous year’s spending limit increase by additional amounts of $4 million in 2010-11 and another $4 million in 2011-12. The measure would permit a total increase of $13 million — a change that would be permanent, unlike the impact of some other referendums that end after a specified period.
Approval of the referendum would cost the owner of a home with an assessed value of $250,000 an estimated $27.50 in additional taxes in the 2009-10 school year. That represents an increase of 1.1 percent of the School District’s portion of the tax bill.
But for at least the next two years, the schools’ portion of that homeowner’s tax bill would decline even if the referendum is approved, under the plan developed by Nerad and Erik Kass, assistant superintendent for business services.
They estimate the tax bill for 2010-11 would be $27.50 lower than it is now, and the bill the following year would be about $100 below its current level if voters back the referendum and the School Board implements proposed changes in accounting measures.
In the first year, the referendum would add an additional $27.50 onto the tax bill of a $250,000 home. Another initiative in Nerad’s recommendation, drawn up along with Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Erik Kass, is to enact changes to help mitigate the tax impact of the referendum. Nerad and Kass said these changes would decrease taxes for homeowners in the second and third year of the referendum.
One aspect of the proposal would return $2 million of an equity to the taxpayers in the form of a reduced levy in the Community Services Fund (Fund 80) for the 2009-10 school year. The second part of the tax impact referendum would be implementation of a Capital Expansion Fund, called Fund 41, in an effort to levy a property tax under revenue limits to spread the costs of facility maintenance projects over a longer period.
Nerad said the referendum process has been a deliberative process, and he’s been cognizant of weighing board members and community questions.
Links:
- Proposed 2008-2009 $367,806,712 budget
- 2007-2008 $339,685,844 Citizen’s Budget
- 2006-2007 $333,101,865 Citizen’s Budget
Links:
- Transcript: 7/28/2008 Madison School Board Referendum Discussion
- Don Severson: Memo to the Madison School Board on the District’s Financial Situation
- Capital Times Editorial advocating a November, 2008 referendum vote.
- Madison Cast: Supporting a referendum
- Wisconsin’s per student K-12 spending ranks 17th nationwide.
Creating classroom rosters for Wisconsin schools “an art form”
An annual matchmaking ritual is nearly complete in hundreds of elementary schools around Wisconsin.
Next week, elementary students in Madison and most Wisconsin school districts will learn the names of their classroom teachers — a culmination of one of the most important and least-understood processes in education.
Richard Halverson, a UW-Madison education researcher and an expert in school leadership, said his research has found that coming up with those classroom rosters “turns out to be quite an art form.”
Referendum or no referendum? First school forum draws dozens
On Aug. 18 Nerad will present his recommendations to the board on whether a referendum is the way to trim an $8.2 million hole in the budget, and the board likely will vote Aug. 25 to formulate referendum questions for the Nov. 4 election. In addition, the gap is expected to be $6 million in the 2010-11 school year and $5.1 million in 2011-12.
Since a state-imposed revenue formula was implemented in 1993 to control property taxes, the district has cut $60 million in programs, staffing and services. The district did not have to make budget reductions during the 2008-09 school year after it benefited from a one-time, $5.7 million tax incremental financing district windfall from the city. The district will spend approximately $367.6 million during the 2008-09 school year, an increase of about 0.75 percent over the 2007-08 school year budget.
In addition to exploring reductions, Madison officials are researching how much it would cost to begin offering kindergarten to 4-year-olds in the district — a program offered by two-thirds of the school districts in Wisconsin.
Resident William Rowe, a retired educator, urged school officials to generate excitement by offering 4K, which research has shown can help improve academic achievement.
“I believe this is the time to go for it,” said Rowe, who proposed that a 4K referendum be offered separately from a referendum that would help avert budget cuts.
Don Severson, president of Active Citizens for Education, a district watchdog group, praised district officials for making the process so open to the public. However, he urged officials to provide more information about the costs and benefits of specific programs to help the public understand what’s working and what’s not. He predicted a referendum is “going to be very difficult to pass” but said he still hasn’t decided whether one is needed.
Much more on the budget here.
Madison High School “Redesign”: $5.5M Small Learning Community Grant for Teacher Training and Literacy Coordinators
A $5.5 million federal grant will boost efforts to shrink the racial achievement gap, raise graduation rates and expand the courses available in the Madison School District’s four major high schools, officials announced Monday.
The five-year U.S. Department of Education grant will help the district build stronger connections to students by creating so-called “small learning communities” that divide each high school population into smaller populations.
Many of those structural changes already have been implemented at two high schools — Memorial and West — and similar redesigns are planned for East and La Follette high schools.
Under that plan, East’s student body will be randomly assigned to four learning communities. La Follette will launch “freshman academies” — smaller class sizes for freshmen in core academic areas, plus advisers and mentors to help them feel connected to the school.
“The grant centers on things that already are important to the school district: the goals of increasing academic success for all students, strengthening student-student and student-adult relationships and improving post-secondary outlooks,” Nerad said.
Expected plans at Madison East include randomly placing students in one of four learning neighborhoods, while faculty and administrators at La Follette will create “academies” with smaller classes to improve learning for freshmen in core courses. Additional advisors will also be assigned to aid students in academies at La Follette.
Related:
- More Than English 10: Let’s REALLY Talk About Our High Schools
- Madison Schools Superintendent Art Rainwater Halts East High School “Redesign”
- Madison School District Small Learning Community Grant Application
- Examining the Data from Earlier Grants, Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
- US Department of Education Response to Madison’s 2007 Small Learning Community Grant Application
- Where Does the MMSD Get its Numbers From?
- More Than English 10: Let’s REALLY Talk About Our High Schools
- Evaluation of the Small Learning Community Project at Madison West High School
- Links on West High School’s English 10
- High School “Redesign” notes and links
The interesting question in all of this is: does the money drive strategy or is it the other way around? In addition, what is the budget impact after 5 years? A friend mentioned several years ago, during the proposed East High School curriculum change controversy, that these initiatives fail to address the real issue: lack of elementary and middle school preparation.
Finally, will this additional $1.1m in annual funds for 5 years reduce the projected budget “gap” that may drive a fall referendum?
Two Forums Set on a Potential Madison School Referendum
At this juncture, several board members won’t say if they favor a referendum, instead choosing to wait to hear what the public has to say and to discover what Nerad’s recommendations are. But it is widely expected that a referendum will be the path they will take in order to close a gaping hole in the budget.
One other topic of discussion that was brought up at Monday’s meeting was Nerad’s stance on implementing 4-year-old kindergarten. Nerad and Eric Kass, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services, are working on a cost analysis of bringing 4K to the district. Fully exploring the options of how the program can be funded until it generates revenue is Nerad’s main concern, and though Kass is gathering the data, the district won’t be ready to present the data in time for a possible fall referendum.
“My preference would be to see if there are any other options short of a referendum to address the first two years of the funding,” Nerad said. “I will also say that I haven’t closed my mind at all because if those other options don’t work, then we need to have the discussion about addressing this in any other way.”
Related:
- Much more on the local referendum climate here.
- Andy Hall:
The property tax effect of a potential referendum will be unveiled in two weeks, Madison schools Superintendent Daniel Nerad said Monday.
At the Madison School Board’s meeting on Aug. 18, Nerad plans to recommend whether the School Board should ask voters for additional money to avoid deep budget cuts.
The district’s budget shortfall is projected to be $8.2 million in the 2009-10 school year and about $5 million each of the following three years.
The referendum could appear on the Nov. 4 ballot. - TJ Mertz
- Madison School District: Current Financial Condition.
School Board to Focus on Money
In the first major test for newly hired Superintendent Daniel Nerad, Madison school officials this week will begin public discussions of whether to ask voters for additional money to head off a potentially “catastrophic” $8.2 million budget gap for the 2009-10 school year.
The Madison School Board’s meetings in August will be dominated by talk of the possible referendum, which could appear on the Nov. 4 ballot.
The public will be invited to speak out at forums on Aug. 12 and 14.
Related:
- Madison School District Budget history. The current 2008-2009 budget is $367,806,712, up from $339,685,844 in 2007-2008 (the 08/09 budget includes $17M for a new far west side school). The “final” budget numbers typically change a number of times throughout the year as new tax revenues appear (schools receive tax dollars via local property taxes, redistributed state income and sales taxes and some federal income taxes. Formulas, legislation and grants often change, including those based on enrollment).
- Listen to Monday evening’s referendum discussion via this 28MB mp3 audio file
- There has been some progress in addressing the district’s much discussed health care costs
- Tax & spending referendum climate.
Props to the District for finding a reduced spending increase of $1,000,000 and looking for more (The same service budget growth, given teacher contract and other increases vs budget growth limits results in the “gap” referred to in Hall’s article above). Happily, Monday evening’s referendum discussion included a brief mention of revisiting the now many years old “same service” budget approach (28mb mp3, about 30 minutes). A question was also raised about attracting students (MMSD enrollment has been flat for years). Student growth means additional tax and spending authority for the school district.
The Madison school board has been far more actively involved in financial issues recently. Matters such as the MMSD’s declining equity (and related structural deficit) have been publicly discussed. A very useful “citizen’s budget” document was created for the 2006-2007 ($333M) and 2007-2008 ($339M) (though the final 2007-2008 number was apparently $365M) budgets. Keeping track of changes year to year is not a small challenge.
156 Wisconsin Schools Fail to Meet No Child Left Behind Standards
The number of Wisconsin schools that didn’t meet standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act and could face sanctions increased from 95 to 156 this year, including the entire Madison Metropolitan School District.
Of the 156 schools on the list released Tuesday by the state Department of Public Instruction, 82 were in the Milwaukee Public School district. Seven of the schools on the list were charter schools.
Besides individual schools on the list, four entire districts made the list for not meeting the standards. That lists includes the school districts of Beloit, Madison, Milwaukee and Racine.
Bill Novak (Interestingly, this Capital Times article originally had many comments, which are now gone):
Superintendent Art Rainwater told The Capital Times the list is “ludicrous,” the district doesn’t pay attention to it, and the district will do what’s best for the students and not gear curriculum to meet the criteria set by the federal government.
“As we’ve said from the day this law was passed, it is only a matter of time before every school in America is on the list,” Rainwater said. “It’s a law that impossible to meet, because eventually if every single student in a school isn’t successful, you are on the list.”
No Child Left Behind allows states to set their own standards. The Fordham Institute has given Wisconsin’s academic standards a “D” in recent years. Neal McCluskey has more on states setting their own standards:
NCLB’s biggest problem is that it’s designed to help Washington politicians appear all things to all people. To look tough on bad schools, it requires states to establish standards and tests in reading, math and science, and it requires all schools to make annual progress toward 100% reading and math proficiency by 2014. To preserve local control, however, it allows states to set their own standards, “adequate yearly progress” goals, and definitions of proficiency. As a result, states have set low standards, enabling politicians to declare victory amid rising test scores without taking any truly substantive action.
NCLB’s perverse effects are illustrated by Michigan, which dropped its relatively demanding standards when it had over 1,500 schools on NCLB’s first “needs improvement” list. The July 2002 transformation of then-state superintendent Tom Watkins captures NCLB’s power. Early that month, when discussing the effects of state budget cuts on Michigan schools, Mr. Watkins declared that cuts or no cuts, “We don’t lower standards in this state!” A few weeks later, thanks to NCLB, Michigan cut drastically the percentage of students who needed to hit proficiency on state tests for a school to make adequate yearly progress. “Michigan stretches to do what’s right with our children,” Mr. Watkins said, “but we’re not going to shoot ourselves in the foot.”
Madison’s Leopold and Lincoln elementary schools were among the list of schools failing to attain the standards, marking the first time that a Madison elementary school made the list.
Three Madison middle schools — Sherman, Cherokee and Toki — also joined the list, which continued to include the district’s four major high schools: East, West, La Follette and Memorial. Madison’s Black Hawk Middle School, which was on the list last year, made enough academic progress to be removed from it.
Dane County, WI Schools Consider MAP Assessement Tests After Frustration with State WKCE Exams
Waunakee Urges that the State Dump the WKCE
Andy Hall takes a look at a useful topic:
From Wisconsin Heights on the west to Marshall on the east, 10 Dane County school districts and the private Eagle School in Fitchburg are among more than 170 Wisconsin public and private school systems purchasing tests from Northwest Evaluation Association, a nonprofit group based in the state of Oregon.
The aim of those tests, known as Measures of Academic Progress, and others purchased from other vendors, is to give educators, students and parents more information about students ‘ strengths and weaknesses. Officials at these districts say the cost, about $12 per student per year for MAP tests, is a good investment.
The tests ‘ popularity also reflects widespread frustration over the state ‘s $10 million testing program, the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination.
Critics say that WKCE, which is used to hold schools accountable under the federal No Child Left Behind law, fails to provide adequate data to help improve the teaching methods and curriculum used in the classrooms.
They complain that because the tests are administered just once a year, and it takes nearly six months to receive the results, the information arrives in May — too late to be of use to teachers during the school year.
The testing controversy is “a healthy debate, ” said Tony Evers, deputy state superintendent of public instruction, whose agency contends that there ‘s room for both WKCE and MAP.
….
“It ‘s a test that we feel is much more relevant to assisting students and helping them with their skills development, ” said Mike Hensgen, director of curriculum and instruction for the Waunakee School District, who acknowledges he ‘s a radical in his dislike of WKCE.
“To me, the WKCE is not rigorous enough. When a kid sees he ‘s proficient, ‘ he thinks he ‘s fine. ”
Hensgen contends that the WKCE, which is based on the state ‘s academic content for each grade level, does a poor job of depicting what elite students, and students performing at the bottom level, really know.
The Waunakee School Board, in a letter being distributed this month, is urging state legislators and education officials to find ways to dump WKCE in favor of MAP and tests from ACT and other vendors.
- More on WKCE scores – Missing Students
- 2006 MMSD WKCE Scores: A Closer Look
- “Schools should not rely on only WKCE data to gauge progress of individual students or to determine effectiveness of programs or curriculum”
- The Fordham Foundation has given Wisconsin’s state standards a “D”.
- Imperial College Ditches A Levels and Sets its own Entrance Exam
Ruling: Madison district must reinstate athletic directors
The Madison School District must reinstate four high school athletic directors and “make them whole for any financial loss, ” according to an arbitrator ‘s ruling made public Monday.
Arbitrator Milo Flaten ruled the district violated its contract with Madison Teachers Inc. a year ago when it replaced the four athletic directors — who were union members — with two managers hired from other school districts.
In the decision, dated Friday and released by MTI on Monday, Flaten wrote that under its existing contract with MTI, the district promised that “athletic directors in the four schools would be represented by the union and that they would be members of the bargaining unit. No amount of reassignment of duties or creation of superficial boundaries can change that.”
MTI Executive Director John Matthews on Monday estimated the decision could cost the district more than $230,000.
Of that amount, each of the four former athletic directors would receive about $8,000 apiece — the extra compensation the four, who still work for the district, would have received this school year as athletic directors.
Madison schools to end agriculture program
When students return to classes in the fall, it’ll mark the first time in six decades the Madison School District hasn’t offered a program in agricultural education.
And that leaves Mary Klecker, who is retiring after three decades of leading the program, feeling angry.
“As I retire, I feel a strong sense of betrayal by this School District,” Klecker wrote in a letter last week to members of the School Board and top state officials.
“It will be a sad end to a wonderful program that provides our students learning and career opportunities for a lifetime.”
Fifty-three students are enrolled in agricultural education courses this year at East High School.
The program, which has included courses in introduction to agriculture, animal science, conservation and environmental science, leadership skills with the FFA, and horticulture, attracted more than 200 students at three high schools during its heyday in the mid-1990s.
In her letter and an interview, Klecker railed against district leaders, whom she said “lack a grasp of our state’s agricultural heritage” and the importance of agribusiness and “are totally clueless” about related, outstanding programs at Madison Area Technical College and UW-Madison.
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Releases Latest State Test Results, Madison Trails State Averages
380K PDF Press Release [AP’s posting of DPI’s press release]:
Results for statewide testing show an overall upward trend for mathematics, stable scores in reading, and a slight narrowing of several achievement gaps. This three-year trend comes at a time when poverty is continuing to increase among Wisconsin students.
The 434,507 students who took the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations (WKCE) and the Wisconsin Alternate Assessment for Students with Disabilities (WAA-SwD) this school year showed gains over the past three years in mathematics in six out of seven grades tested. Reading achievement at the elementary, middle, and high school levels was stable over three years. An analysis of all combined grades indicates a narrowing of some achievement gaps by racial/ethnic group.
“These three years of assessment data show some positive trends. While some results point to achievement gains, we must continue our focus on closing achievement gaps and raising achievement for all students,” said State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster.
Andy Hall notes that Madison Trails State Averages [Dane County Test Result Comparison prepared by Andy Hall & Phil Brinkman – pdf]:
But in the Madison School District, just two of the 23 proficiency scores improved, while five were unchanged and 16 declined, according to a Wisconsin State Journal review of the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school year data from the state Department of Public Instruction.
Madison’s scores trail the state average in 22 of the 23 scores. Typically the percentage of Madison students attaining proficient or advanced ratings trails the state average by several percentage points.
“The fact that we’re able to stay close to the state average as our demographics have made dramatic changes, I think is a positive,” said Madison schools Superintendent Art Rainwater, who added that the district’s “strong instructional program” is meeting many of the challenges of immigrant and low-income students while ensuring that “high fliers are still flying high.”
A district analysis shows that when the district’s students are compared with their peers across the state, a higher percentage of Madison students continue to attain “advanced” proficiency scores — the highest category.
Madison students who aren’t from low-income families “continue to outperform their state counterparts,” with higher percentages with advanced scores in reading and math at all seven tested grade levels, the district reported.
Rainwater said he’s long feared that the district’s increasingly needy student population, coupled with the state’s revenue limits that regularly force the district to cut programs and services, someday will cause test scores to drop sharply. But so far, he said, the district’s scores are higher than would be expected, based on research examining the effects of poverty and limited English abilities on achievement.
This school year, 43 percent of Madison students are from low-income families eligible for free and reduced-price lunches, while 16 percent of students are classified as English language learners — numbers that are far above those of any other Dane County school district.
Rainwater noted that students with limited English abilities receive little help while taking the reading and language arts tests in English.
Reading test scores for Madison students changed little compared to 2006-07, but math results decreased in six of the seven grades tested. Of 23 scores in five topics tested statewide, Madison lagged behind state peers in 22 of 23 of those scores.
Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater attributes the district’s performance and trends to the growing population of English language learners in the district.Officials now are able to draw upon three years of results since Wisconsin began administering testing to students in grades three through eight and grade 10 in reading and mathematics. Based on state regulations, students in fourth, eighth and 10th grade were also tested in language arts, science and social studies.
Alan Borsuk on Milwaukee’s results:
But there is little room for debate about what the scores say about the need for improvement in the outcomes for Milwaukee Public Schools students: The gaps between Milwaukee students and the rest of the state remain large, and school improvement efforts of many kinds over the years have not made much of a dent.
The problem is especially vivid when it comes to 10th-graders, the highest grade that is part of Wisconsin’s testing system. The gap between sophomores in Milwaukee and those statewide has grown larger over the last two years, and, once again, no more than 40% of 10th-graders in MPS were rated as proficient or better in any of the five areas tested by the state. For math and science, the figure is under 30%.
Amy Hetzner notes that Waukesha County’s test scores also slipped.
Notes and links regarding the rigor of Wisconsin DPI standards. DPI academic standards home page. Search individual school and district results here. The 2006 Math Forum discussed changes to the DPI math test and local results.
TJ Mertz reviews Wright Middle School’s results.
Chan Stroman’s June, 2007 summary of Madison WKCE PR, data and an interesting discussion. Notes on spin from Jason Spencer.
Jeff Henriques dove into the 2007 WKCE results and found that Madison tested fewer 10th graders than Green Bay, Appleton, Milwaukee and Kenosha. There’s also a useful discussion on Jeff’s post.
Advocating a Standard Grad Rate & Madison’s “2004 Elimination of the Racial Achievement Gap in 3rd Grade Reading Scores”.
Madison School District’s Press Release and analysis: Slight decline on WKCE; non-low income students shine
Transition School Wins Reprieve
A Dane County alternative high school that faced possible shutdown over finances has won a reprieve that will keep the school open for at least one more year.
“The good news is we got it to stay open. And we got some time to recommit ourselves to how we might keep it open, ” said Belleville School District Superintendent Randy Freese, who worked with the superintendents of the Mount Horeb and Oregon school districts to recommend measures approved Friday at a meeting of Dane County superintendents.
Under the plan to save Dane County Transition School, 10 school districts in and around Dane County will purchase at least 24 slots at $13,690 apiece for high school students who struggle academically or socially in traditional schools.
On Madison’s Lack of a 4K Program
In Madison, where schools Superintendent Art Rainwater in a 2004 memo described 4K as potentially “the next best tool” for raising students’ performance and narrowing the racial achievement gap, years of study and talks with leaders of early childhood education centers have failed to produce results.
“It’s one of the things that I regret the most, that I think would have made a big impact, that I was not able to do,” said Rainwater, who is retiring next month after leading the district for a decade.
“We’ve never been able to get around the money,” said Rainwater, whose tenure was marked by annual multimillion-dollar budget cuts to conform to the state’s limits on how much money districts can raise from local property taxpayers.
A complicating factor was the opposition of Madison Teachers Inc., the teachers union, to the idea that the 4K program would include preschool teachers not employed by the School District. However, Rainwater said he’s “always believed that those things could have been resolved” if money had been available.
Starting a 4K program for an estimated 1,700 students would cost Madison $5 million the first year and $2.5 million the second year before it would get full state funding in the third year under the state’s school-funding system.
In comparison, the entire state grant available to defray Wisconsin districts’ startup costs next year is $3 million — and that amount is being shared by 32 eligible districts.
One of those districts, Green Bay, is headed by Daniel Nerad, who has been hired to succeed Rainwater in Madison.
“I am excited about it,” said Madison School Board President Arlene Silveira, who is envious of the 4K sign-up information that appears on the Green Bay district’s Web site. “He’s gone out and he’s made it work in Green Bay. That will certainly help us here as we start taking the message forward again.
Madison’s inability to start 4K has gained the attention of national advocates of 4K programs, who hail Wisconsin’s approach as a model during the current national economic downturn. Milwaukee, the state’s largest district, long has offered 4K.
“It’s been disappointing that Madison has been very slow to step up to provide for its children,” said Libby Doggett, executive director of Pre-K Now, a national nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., that campaigns for kindergarten programs for children ages 3 and 4.
“The way 4K is being done in your state is the right way.”
Related:
- Marc Eisen: Missed Opportunity for 4K and High School Redesign
- MMSD Budget History: Madison’s spending has grown about 50% from 1998 ($245,131,022) to 2008 ($367,806,712) while enrollment has declined slightly from 25,132 to 24,268 ($13,997/student).
Madison’s Two New School Board Members
Marj Passman is so excited she ‘s having trouble sleeping.
Ed Hughes is sleeping just fine — so far, he adds with a chuckle.
Monday evening, Passman and Hughes will be sworn in as members of the Madison School Board. It will mark the first time either has held public office.
Their path to the board was easier than expected — both ran unopposed — and their arrival comes at an unusually quiet moment in Madison ‘s public school system. Thanks to a one-time windfall from special city of Madison taxing districts, the schools are averting budget cuts for the first time in 14 years.
But Passman, 66, a retired teacher, and Hughes, 55, a lawyer, know that by summer ‘s end the board will be deep into discussions about asking voters to approve millions of dollars in extra taxes to avoid budget cuts for coming years.
They ‘ve been doing their homework to join the board — an act that will become official with a ceremony at the board ‘s 5 p.m. meeting at the district ‘s headquarters, 545 W. Dayton St.
Passman and Hughes fill the seats held by retiring board members Carol Carstensen, the board ‘s senior member who gained detailed knowledge of issues while serving since 1990, and Lawrie Kobza, who developed a reputation for carefully scrutinizing the district ‘s operations during her single three-year term.
Related Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
Few jobs are as difficult and thankless as serving on a local school board.
Just ask Lawrie Kobza and Carol Carstensen.
The two Madison School Board members chose not to seek re-election this spring after years of honorable and energetic service.
Their replacements — Ed Hughes and Marj Passman — were sworn in Monday evening.
The fact that no one in Madison, a city steeped in political activism, chose to challenge Hughes or Passman for the two open board seats suggests increasing wariness toward the rigors of the task.
The job comes with token pay, a slew of long meetings, frequent controversy and angry calls at home. On top of that, the state has put public schools into a vise of mandates and caps that virtually require unpopular board decisions.
Wisconsin Heights among districts looking at consolidation
Wisconsin Heights, a cash-hungry school district on the western edge of Dane County, is among a growing number of area school systems considering consolidation to deal with financial pressures.
Kay Butcher, a Wisconsin Heights School Board member who backed two referendums rejected by voters this year and last year, said it’s important to start discussions with other districts.
“I brought up the issue of consolidation because I feel if we can’t pass a referendum, we have to find an alternative,” said Butcher, who raised the issue at an April 14 board meeting.
“I wouldn’t say that there’s anybody out there that’s gung-ho about the idea, but we have to talk about what are we going to do.”
The board is scheduled to continue that discussion tonight as part of a wide-ranging look at options for the district, which faces a budget shortfall estimated at $500,000 to more than $700,000 in the 2008-09 school year and larger deficits in later years.
An interesting “District” oriented perspective. The real question: what’s best for the students?
Dane County Transition School Fights for Survival
To try to save his high school, student John Kiefler took an unusual approach this month that revealed both his commitment to the school and his level of desperation.
He contacted Oprah.
“Now I know that because I am a student that had problems in a normal school that if this place closes down that I will have problems getting a diploma,” wrote John, a junior who rides a van 45 minutes north from Milton to Dane County Transition School in Madison.
“I hope you can help us.”
After 15 years of educating students with fragile futures, Transition School itself faces a test of survival.
The publicly funded alternative school is in danger of closing as early as this summer.
“Our school system was set up for a factory model that has not changed in 100 years and it’s growing more and more distant from what we need,” said Deedra Atkinson, United Way of Dane County senior vice president of community building and an Oregon School Board member. Her daughter, Audra, is a graduate of Transition School.
Alternative education programs are part of United Way’s countywide strategy to curb dropout rates, which according to the state Department of Public Instruction ranged from 1 percent in Belleville to 15 percent in Madison during the 2006-07 school year.
“The Factory Model” of Education via Frederick Taylor’s “Scientific Management”. A teacher friend lamented some time ago that we’re still stuck in this model, making sure that our students are in and out of school around the milking and field work schedule….
Dane County Transition School Website.
Toki Middle School Security/Safety Update
This school year some parents, teachers and staff have complained about increasing safety and violence issues at Toki, including bad behavior at the school.
Last March, after a packed PTO meeting, school district officials added another security guard and a “dean of students” to help keep the peace. A positive behavior curriculum program was initiated as well.
“We certainly have a greater comfort level with where the school is headed at this point,” Yudice said.
However, some said that a couple of recent fights at the school posted on YouTube.com show the problems haven’t gotten any better.
PTO President Betsy Reck said teachers have told her things have not improved, despite the extra efforts the last month or so. She said many believe more needs to be done.
“It’s a typical, almost daily, occurrence, the fights at Toki,” Reck said. “It’s a very sad sort of affairs over there right now that they cannot get that under control.”
Last week, police were called to the school for two fights, which apparently were caught on video by students and posted recently on YouTube.com. They have since been removed from the site.
More here and here.
Andy Hall & Karen Rivedal review local school policies on video capture and internet access.
Schools ignored abuse warnings for 2 decades
Seattle Public Schools will pay $3 million for failing to act on dozens of warnings that a popular teacher was molesting some of his fifth-grade students, a pattern that lasted two decades.
The most abused girl will receive $2.5 million, which her attorney said will be the largest reported settlement paid by a school district in Washington to a single victim in a sex-abuse case.
Under the settlement, approved Monday in King County Superior Court, the district acknowledged negligence in failing to protect two girls from Laurence “Shayne” Hill, 58, who has admitted to molesting at least seven girls while teaching at Broadview-Thomson Elementary in North Seattle.
The girls’ lawyers said the district protected Hill even though at least 15 teachers and staff members made at least 30 reports to administrators that he was grabbing girls’ buttocks and having them sit on his lap, sometimes in darkened classrooms, since the mid-1980s.
Related by Doug Erickson & Andy Hall: Former Waunakee educational assistant wasn’t reported by the Madison Schools.
New report card for Madison middle schoolers draws praise, criticism
Congratulations, dear seventh grader, for nailing science class.
Your science grade this quarter is A, 4, 3, 3, M, S, R.
Now, let’s take a look at your English grade…
That’s a preview of how, beginning in the fall, parents of middle school students might read a new type of report card coming to the Madison School District.
The change will make Madison one of the first districts in Dane County to adopt middle school report cards based directly upon how well students are mastering the state’s standards that list what they’re supposed to learn in every subject.
In some ways, Madison’s change isn’t radical. The district is retaining traditional report card letter grades. And the district’s elementary students, like many around the state, already receive report cards based upon the state’s academic standards.
The shift is being met, however with a mixture of criticism and hope.
Related: Madison Middle School Report Card/Homework Assessment Proposed Changes.
Officials increase security at Toki Middle School
Madison school officials on Tuesday said they ‘re strengthening security at Toki Middle School to calm concerns from staff members and parents that the building is becoming too chaotic.
Beginning today, Toki will get a second security guard and also will get a dean of students to assist with discipline problems. The guard is being transferred from Memorial High School, while the dean of students is an administrative intern who has served at La Follette High School.
“I think very shortly Toki will get back on its feet, ” said Pam Nash, the Madison School District ‘s assistant superintendent overseeing middle and high schools.
The moves come a week after about 100 parents, school staff members and top district officials attended an emotional, three-hour Parent Teacher Organization meeting at which speakers expressed fears about safety and discipline at the West Side school.
via Madison Parents’ School Safety Site.
Channel3000:
Police were called to Toki 107 times last school year for incidents that included 17 disturbances, 11 batteries, five weapons offenses and one arson, WISC-TV reported.
So far this year, police have been called to 26 incidents. The district security chief said the school is safe, though, and he warned the numbers can be misleading.
There was no way to compare those numbers to police calls at other Madison middle schools because the district doesn’t keep that data itself. But the district security chief said they are working on that.
Toki PTO President Betsy Reck said “it’s a start,” but she said she believe there needs to be a clearly defined “behavior plan” posted immediately that shows appropriate behaviors and the consequences if they are not followed.
Reck said she wants consistent consequences applied to negative behavior.
Madison School Board Approves West Side Boundary Change
ome disappointed Madison parents said they will try to find the words to tell their children that they’ll be moving to another school next year.
In a unanimous decision, the Madison Metropolitan School District’s Board of Education voted to approve Plan F, which will move dozens of students from Chavez Elementary School to Falk Elementary next year. The affected area is referred to by the district officials as the “Channel 3 area,” which is the neighborhood that basically surrounds WISC-TV studios on the West Side of the city.
The district’s Long Range Planning Committee recommended Plan F, which will move 65 children in those neighborhoods to another elementary school for the fourth time in the last 15 years.
After hearing from about 30 speakers, a few of whom were moved to tears, the Madison School Board on Monday night approved controversial plans to redraw elementary and middle school attendance boundaries on the West Side.
Two hours of public testimony and 90 minutes of discussion by board members resulted in six unanimous decisions to approve changes in the Memorial High School attendance area to accommodate population changes and an elementary school that will open in the fall on the Far West Side.
Several speakers said the changes, which also affected Jefferson and Toki middle schools, will cause them to consider enrolling their children in private school.
Susan Troller also covered Monday’s meeting.
Another kind of teaching
In the Lone Rock classroom of elementary teacher Lisa Bowen, hand puppets were all the rage last week. Study them. Borrow six from a library. Write a play. Perform.
The scene was quite different in another elementary classroom in the River Valley School District, where teacher Mike McDermott placed homemade yellow Post-it checklists on students ‘ assignments to help them assess the fluency of their writing. Oh, and the room in Plain Elementary contained a lean-to of 12-foot trees — a representation of a scene in a novel being read by students.
In River Valley High School in Spring Green, echoes of the Holocaust and warnings that it could happen again filled a line of display cases — a project that brought together regular and special education students from several classes throughout the school.
“Overall, we ‘re just really lucky, ” sophomore Rakelle Noble said as she and five classmates reflected upon recent examinations of the Holocaust and teenage health issues such as eating disorders and self-cutting.
“We have a lot of things other kids don ‘t get to experience. “
Former Waunakee educational assistant wasn’t reported by the Madison Schools
A former Waunakee educator now facing sexual assault and child pornography charges was allowed to quietly resign from the Madison School District in 2006 after a female student accused him of inappropriately touching her leg, according to interviews and public records.
And a May 2006 agreement forbade Madison officials from notifying the state Department of Public Instruction of the girl ‘s accusations against Anthony Hirsch, who was a special education assistant at La Follette High School.
Hirsch, 32, of DeForest, was charged last month with possessing child pornography he allegedly bought and downloaded from Web sites and with having a sexual relationship with a student about five years ago while working at La Follette.
The charges — one count each of repeated sexual assault of a child and possession of child pornography — carry a maximum sentence of 85 years in prison and extended supervision.
Hirsch was an educational assistant for special education students at Waunakee Middle School until he submitted his resignation on Jan. 9 after he was arrested, Waunakee Superintendent Chuck Pursell has said. Hirsch worked at La Follette from 1998 until April 2006.
Students in Madison’s Alternative School
Alan is one of about 200 Madison middle and high school students who, having previously struggled in traditional school settings, now are thriving in the new homes of alternative education programs in elementary schools and in an office building.
Halfway through the school year, a controversial relocation of four alternative education programs appears to have been completed smoothly.
Some parents feared there’d be problems when the alternative programs for older students were moved to buildings with elementary students — the first time in at least a decade such an arrangement has been tried in Madison.
Students in the alternative programs long have assisted in the schools as part of their program requirements, but there were concerns that basing the programs’ classrooms there could expose young children to older students’ harsh language, smoking and violence.
Race out as reason to deny Madison school transfers
Madison School Board members voted Monday night to halt the practice of using race as a reason to deny transfers by white students to other school districts for the current open enrollment period, which began Monday and continues through Feb. 22. [About open enrollment: Part and Full Time]
The decision was made by unanimous vote during the board’s regular meeting, following a closed-door session with district superintendent Art Rainwater and the district’s legal staff.
Last year, the portion of the district’s open enrollment policy focusing on achieving racial balance in district schools affected about 120 students whose requests for transfer were denied, Rainwater said in a short interview following the meeting.
He said he had no idea how many students might be affected during the current enrollment period.
He also said that the Madison district has been closely following state statute regarding open enrollment, although it is the only district in the state to have denied transfers based on race.
“We take the laws of the state of Wisconsin very seriously,” Rainwater said. “I guess I’d question why in the past the other districts weren’t following the law as it’s written.”
Background: Madison Schools’ Using race to deny white student transfers to be topic for the School Board by Andy Hall
Madison Schools’ Using race to deny white student transfers to be topic for the School Board
As families’ application deadline looms, many are wondering whether the Madison School District will halt its practice of using race as the reason for denying some white students’ requests to transfer to other districts.
The answer could begin to emerge as early as Monday, the first day for Wisconsin families
to request open-enrollment transfers for the coming school year.
Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater and the district’s legal counsel will confer Monday night with the School Board. It’s possible that after the closed-door discussion, the board will take a vote in open session to stop blocking open-enrollment requests on the basis of race, School Board President Arlene Silveira said.
“This is a serious decision for our school district, ” Rainwater said.
“It is our responsibility to take a very careful look at legal issues facing our school district. ”
Last year, Madison was the only of the state’s 426 school districts to deny transfer requests because of race, rejecting 126 white students’ applications to enroll in other districts, including online schools. Many of the affected students live within the district but weren’t enrolled in public schools because they were being home-schooled or attended private schools.
Related articles:
- Wisconsin Attorney General Says Race Can’t Stop Student Transfers from Madison
- Wisconsin Open Enrollment Closed to White Madison Students
- Open Enrollment Denied
- Madison Parents Seek Court Order to Open Enroll into Monona Grove School District
- Wisconsin Open Enrollment: Part or Full Time
- Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau Informational Paper 28 School Integration (Chapter 220) Aid, January 2007
- Wisconsin Attorney General Opinion on constitutionality of Section 118.51(7)(a), requiring denial of transfer based on race
Notes and Links on Madison’s New Superintendent: Daniel Nerad
“Certainly I feel excitement about this possibility, but I also want you to know that this has not been an easy process for me, ” Nerad told reporters Monday night at a Green Bay School Board meeting as he confirmed he was ending a 32-year career in the district where his two children grew up.
“My hope is that I have been able to contribute to the well-being of children in this community — first and foremost, regardless of what the role is. ”
Nerad conditionally accepted the position Monday, pending a final background check, successful contract negotiations and a visit by a delegation from the Madison School Board, President Arlene Silveira said at a news conference in Madison.
Green Bay schools Superintendent Daniel Nerad has been chosen to succeed Art Rainwater as head of the Madison Metropolitan School District.
School Board President Arlene Silveira said Monday night that Nerad, 56, was the board’s unanimous top choice. She said they offered him the job on Saturday, following board interviews with finalists last week and deliberations on Saturday morning.
Silveira said Nerad asked the board to delay announcing its choice until he was able to meet with members of the Green Bay School Board Monday at 6 p.m. Silveira made the announcement at 7 p.m. in Madison.
“This is a very, very exciting choice for the district, and for the Board,” Silveira said.
“Dr. Nerad overwhelmingly met every one of the desired superintendent characteristics that helped guide the hiring process,” she added.
Many of Nerad’s challenges as Madison schools chief will mirror those he has faced in Green Bay, Silveira said, including changing student demographics and working within the confines of the current state funding formula.
Both the Green Bay and Madison school districts are members of the Minority Student Achievement Network, a nationwide coalition of schools dedicated to ensuring high academic achievement for students of color.
Network membership is one way Nerad and Rainwater became acquainted, Rainwater said in an interview earlier this month.
Nerad said Monday he regrets that more progress hasn’t been made in advancing the achievement of minority students during his tenure. But he believes it will happen, he said.
The next head of the Green Bay schools also will inherit the aftermath of a failed 2007 referendum for a fifth district high school and other projects.
A community-based task force charged with next steps has been working since summer, and its work will continue regardless of who’s at the helm, School Board vice president and task force member Katie Maloney said Monday.
Still, Maloney said it won’t be easy to see him go.
Audio, video, notes and links on Daniel Nerad’s recent Madison public appearance.
I wish Dan well in what will certainly be an interesting, challenging and stimulating next few years. Thanks also to the Madison School Board for making it happen.
Gallon drops out of Madison superintendent race
Andy Hall, via a reader’s email:
high-ranking Miami-Dade Public Schools official says he withdrew his candidacy to become superintendent of the Madison School District, leaving just two educators from Green Bay and Boston in the running to head Wisconsin’s second-largest school district.
“My withdrawal is in no fashion any reflection on the people of Madison or the school district,” Steve Gallon III, who oversees Miami-Dade’s alternative education schools and programs, said Monday afternoon.
Gallon said he believes the School Board was notified of his decision before it began its deliberations Saturday to name its top pick to succeed Superintendent Art Rainwater, who is retiring on June 30.
Gallon, a Miami native, said “people in Wisconsin were great” last week during his visit. He said it would be “presumptuous” of him to discuss his reasons for stepping aside, and Board President Arlene Silveira “would be a better position to share” the details.
Silveira said according to the school board’s consultant Gallon took another superintendent’s job.
Related: WKOW-TV report on the MMSD’s offer to Dan Nerad.
Endgame: Madison Superintendent Candidate Summary
The Madison School Board will meet behind closed doors this morning to begin determining which of the three finalists it’d like to hire to replace Superintendent Art Rainwater, who retires June 30.
Three men from Miami, Boston and Green Bay who share an obsession for education but offer sharply differing backgrounds visited Madison this week to compete for the job of heading Wisconsin’s second-largest school district.
Candidate details, including links, photos, audio and video:
We’ll soon see what the smoke signals from the Doyle building reveal.
Parents Fight Plan To Shift Kids To Falk
The new elementary school being built on Madison’s Far West Side, already mired in controversy over its name, now is part of a second emotional debate: Which students should be uprooted from their current schools when school attendance boundaries are redrawn this year to accommodate the new school and recent population changes?
A well-organized group of dozens of Stephens Elementary parents is fighting the Madison School District’s proposal to move 83 students from Stephens to Falk Elementary. The students would be among 524 at seven elementary and middle schools affected by the proposal, which is known as Plan A.
Parents in the Valley Ridge neighborhood contend their children, most of whom are from middle-class backgrounds, would receive an inferior education at Falk because the school already has an extraordinarily high number of low-income and other students who need extra attention.
Fifty-three percent of Falk’s students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, compared to an average of 36 percent at elementary schools in the Memorial High School attendance area.
Sparring over (Wisconsin) online schools
Key Republican and Democratic leaders launched competing efforts on Thursday to rewrite Wisconsin ‘s laws for online schools, just weeks before families begin filling out applications to transfer from their traditional home school districts.
Their proposals, described as attempts to clarify confusion after a recent court ruling, quickly came under attack from the opposing party.
Rep. Brett Davis, R-Oregon, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee, proposed that online schools, also known as virtual schools, be allowed to continue operating with few restrictions. About 3,000 Wisconsin students attend online schools.
Sen. John Lehman, D-Racine, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he ‘s introducing a measure restricting online schools to half of the approximately $6,000 in state aid they currently receive for each student who transfers from a home district.
“I really believe it ‘s important to wring the profits out of these operations, ” said Lehman, who contends that Davis ‘ approach forces taxpayers to pay too much to online schools such as the Northern Ozaukee School District ‘s Wisconsin Virtual Academy. The district north of Milwaukee, with curriculum from a Virginia-based firm, K12 Inc., operates the online school that was the focus of the recent court ruling.
Madison middle schoolers learn to be entrepreneurs
Demetrius Sims’ quest to become an entrepreneur began one day after school, when he joined 36 other middle school students — triple the number expected — for a workshop aimed at helping them land jobs during this winter’s holiday break.
“Babysit. Shovel. Melt ice. Christmas gift wrapping,” Demetrius, 11, wrote as instructor Sara Winter, career development specialist for the Urban League of Greater Madison’s Careers Program, told the students to list jobs they could perform.
“What else can I do?” Demetrius said softly to himself as Winter pressed the students to come up with as many types of jobs as possible.
Wisconsin Attorney General Says Race Can’t Stop Student Transfers from Madison
The future of the state’s voluntary school integration program in Madison was thrown into doubt Thursday by a formal opinion from Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen declaring it unconstitutional to use race to block students’ attempts to transfer to other school districts.
The 11-page opinion, issued in response to a Sept. 17 request by Deputy State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers, isn’t legally binding. However, courts consider interpretations offered by attorneys general, and the opinions can carry weight among lawmakers, too.
Madison is the only one of the state’s 426 public school districts that invokes race to deny some students’ requests to transfer to other districts under the state’s open enrollment program, the Wisconsin State Journal reported on Sept. 9.
In response to Van Hollen’s opinion, Madison schools Superintendent Art Rainwater said he and the district’s legal staff will review the document and confer with DPI officials before commenting.
“As we always have, we have every intention of obeying the law,” Rainwater said.
Figures compiled by the State Journal showed the Madison School District cited concerns over increasing its “racial imbalance” in rejecting 140 transfer requests involving 126 students for this school year. There are more applications than students because some filed more than one request.
All of the students involved in those rejected transfer requests were white.
The number of race-based rejections represents a 71 percent increase over the previous year, according to data supplied by the district. The number of rejections has nearly tripled since the 2004-05 school year.
This is an interesting paradox, a District that takes great pride in some area rankings while at the same time being resistant to such movements. Transfers can go both ways, of course. Redistributed state tax dollar transfers and local property tax & spending authority dollars are tied to enrollment.
Todd Richmond has more along with Alan Borsuk:
According to DPI spokesman Patrick Gasper, Madison is the only district in the state that could be directly affected. The Madison district has refused to allow students, almost all of them white, to enroll in other districts because of racial balance issues. This year, about 125 students were kept from transferring, Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater said.
Milwaukee Public Schools followed a similar practice in the late 1990s but changed policies about eight years ago, allowing students to attend suburban schools under the state’s open enrollment law regardless of the impact on school integration in Milwaukee.
Madison School Board Votes for More Security Funds
Listen to the discussion [47MB MP3 Audio].
Andy Hall & Brittany Schoep:
“This is one of the most important things we’ve brought before you,” Rainwater told the board. “It is critically needed to ensure our schools continue to be safe.”
“We’re walking a really fine line right now,” School Board President Arlene Silveira said. “I think these positions will really help keep us on the positive side of that line.”
The high school positions are designed to help students with behavior, academic, social, transitional and other problems who can hurt themselves and the learning environment, Memorial High School Principal Bruce Dahmen said.
In an interview before Monday night’s meeting, Pam Nash, assistant superintendent for high schools and middle schools said, “The number of incidents I deal with in the high schools and middle schools is going up every year. We want to get a proactive handle on it. It’s as simple as that.”
“This is not only important but critical to the future of our schools,” Superintendent Art Rainwater said as he recommended an initial proposal to spend $720,500 for security measures. The money is available through the recently signed state budget, a windfall Madison schools did not know they would get when the Board inked the final budget in October.
The board approved hiring four case managers at East, West, Memorial and La Follette and five positive behavior coaches will be brought on board at O’Keeffe, Sherman, Jefferson, Black Hawk and Whitehorse middle schools.
Related:
- Police calls and discipline rates – Madison middle schools | High Schools
- Discipline / School Violence Posts
Schools of Hope Tutoring Program Expanded to Madison High Schools
After more than a decade of aiding younger students, the Schools of Hope project is heading to high school.
The Schools of Hope Leadership Team, a 27-member community group, decided Wednesday to establish a tutoring program for ninth graders in the Madison School District.
More than 50 volunteer adult tutors — and possibly many more — will be sought to serve at least an hour a week in high schools.
Madison parents can track kids’ grades, records online
By Friday, the system, known as Infinite Campus, will be available to all parents of Madison School District middle and high school students. Those students, and parents of elementary students, will be able to tap in sometime after the first of the year.
Parents and students receive individual passwords. Parents can e-mail teachers and see whether their children owe any fees. They also can view, on a single calendar, a summary of important upcoming assignment deadlines and school events for all of their children.
With the arrival of Infinite Campus, Madison becomes the 13th of Dane County’s 16 school districts to offer around-the-clock electronic access to student information.
Officials at the three remaining districts — Marshall, Deerfield and Stoughton — plan to install similar systems soon and Stoughton already permits parents to receive frequent e-mail summaries of their children’s grades. More than 80 percent of Stoughton parents have signed up for the e-mail updates.
The Madison School District should be quite pleased with this effort. Initiatives on this scale are never easy. Certainly, much remains to be done, but lifting off, getting a great deal of staff buy in and opening it up to parents is a significant win.
Madison’s charter schools offer unique options
n its fourth year, the Madison school district’s Spanish-English charter school is so popular that the parents who helped found the East Side school are having trouble getting their children in and there’s talk of expanding the program.
The district’s other charter school, Wright Middle, is one student above capacity and this year has a waiting list for the first time.
A growing number of residents say Madison needs more places, like charter schools Nuestro Mundo and Wright, that offer unique options to students. In response, the School Board has begun probing possibilities.
“The critical issue is, ‘What do we need to do to engage a broader range of students in what’s happening in school?'” board member Carol Carstensen said at an Oct. 22 Performance and Achievement Committee meeting that examined ways the district could create programs or schools.
In Dane County, charter schools operate in the Madison, Verona, Middleton-Cross Plains, Monona, Marshall and Deerfield districts.
Madison School Board Forum – Today
The Members of the Madison School Board have agreed to attend and participate in the Northside Planning Council and the East Attendance Area Parent/Teacher Organization Coalition (NPC/EAAPTO) Forum to be held on Sunday, October 21, 2007 (3:00p.m. at the UW Memorial Union’s Tripp Commons). This joint meeting of the NPC/EAAPTO Coalition and the members of the School Board constitutes an open meeting of the members of the Madison School Board for which public notice must be given pursuant to Wisconsin Statute § 19.82 through § 19.84.
Map & Directions to the UW Memorial Union. Maya Cole has more.
Andy Hall:
But do small, neighborhood schools really lead to higher achievement levels for students?
“I don ‘t think there ‘s any hard-core answer to that, ” said Allan Odden, a UW-Madison education professor and nationally recognized expert in education policy and reform.
Research so far, Odden said, fails to show a clear link between achievement and school size, particularly within the range of sizes in Madison.
The district ‘s smallest elementary school is Nuestro Mundo, with 181 students, and largest is Leopold, with 718.
Odden does offer an opinion, though, of Madison ‘s turmoil over neighborhood schools.
“What I would say is the city has too many schools in some neighborhoods and it costs too much to keep some of them open, ” Odden said. “The issue to me here is not effectiveness (of small schools compared to larger schools). The issue to me is budget and politics. ”
The other trade-off, in some neighborhood schools, is that students may be packed into classrooms or have inferior bathrooms or gyms, compared to their peers in larger, newer buildings.
This is an issue. The classroom fixtures in new school structures (far west elementary building) are quite different than those found in most facilities.
Madison schools’ lunch period isn’t what it used to be
And somehow, in a time window one third the size that many adults take for lunch, 215 young children crowd around picnic-style tables, consume chicken nuggets — or whatever they brought from home — and hustle outside to play.
Squeezed by tight school budgets, the federal No Child Left Behind law and Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction rules on instructional time, the school lunch period isn’t what it used to be in many school districts.
ver the years,” said Frank Kelly, food services director of the Madison School District, who estimates that overall, school lunch periods in the district have been trimmed about 10 minutes over the past 10 years.
“I don’t think people are going to accept anything less than this.”
In fact, in response to complaints from parents four years ago, Madison officials eased the lunch crunch a bit for elementary students by using the last five minutes of the class period before lunch to move students to the cafeteria.
There was talk four years ago of expanding the elementary lunch period to 35 minutes. But the idea was dropped after officials estimated it might cost more than $2 million to pay teachers and lunch supervisors.
“We don’t have much flexibility in extending that,” said Sue Abplanalp, an assistant superintendent who oversees Madison’s elementary schools.
While DPI leaves it up to local officials to determine the length of lunch periods, Madison educators say they believe they attain a decent compromise by giving:
•Elementary students 20 minutes.
•Middle school students 30 to 34 minutes.
•High school students about 35 minutes (except at West High School, where most students get 55 minutes under a plan initiated last year).
Those schedules are typical of what’s found around Wisconsin, said Kelly, who has worked in food service for 31 years.
“For most of our people, it works very well,” Madison schools Superintendent Art Rainwater said.
City, School District get $9 million windfall
An unprecedented windfall is on the horizon for the city of Madison and Madison School District, promising to relieve some budget pressures and affect major issues such as the city ‘s hiring of 30 police officers and the School Board ‘s debate over whether it still needs to ask voters for more money in a referendum.
Under a proposal from Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, the city would receive $3.7 million and the School District would get $5.4 million in money flowing from two fast-developing special taxing districts created years ago by the city. In addition, Dane County and Madison Area Technical College would receive a little less than $1 million apiece.
“It ‘s significant news, and very good news, for the School District and the city, ” Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said Wednesday. “The amount is unprecedented. ”
The one-time payouts would occur by the end of next year if the City Council votes to close the two tax incremental financing districts as recommended by city staff members who say the move is necessary under state law.
What do you want in a Madison schools superintendent?
Wanted: Superintendent for Madison School District, Wisconsin’s second-largest school system, responsible for about 24,000 students, 3,700 employees and a $340 million budget.
Pay negotiable. Current superintendent, Art Rainwater, receives a salary of $190,210.
Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. While historical records are incomplete, district observers believe that except for Cheryl Wilhoyte, who served from 1992 to 1998, the superintendents who have served since the position was created in 1855 have been white males.
Provide your input here.
Kobza decides to not run for school board next year
Madison School Board Vice President Lawrie Kobza announced Monday that she won’t seek re-election, and retired teacher Marj Passman immediately jumped into the race to succeed her.
Kobza’s move guarantees that the board will gain two new members in the April 1 election.
“I’ve very much appreciated the opportunity to serve on the School Board, but I have a number of other personal and professional interests which I would like to explore and I just need more time in the week to do so,” Kobza wrote in an e-mail to Board President Arlene Silveira, schools Superintendent Art Rainwater and reporters.
Kobza, a lawyer, will leave the board after serving a single three-year term.
Madison School Board Vice President Lawrie Kobza announced this morning that she will not seek re-election in next spring’s School Board race.
Elected to her first term on the board in 2005, Kobza joins longtime board member Carol Carstensen in announcing that she will not run again.
In an e-mail this morning, Kobza said she has a number of personal and professional interests that she hopes to explore and needs the time to do so.
Two candidates, Marj Passman and Ed Hughes, have announced that they will seek slots on the seven-member School Board.
Wisconsin Open Enrollment Closed to White Madison Students
Andy Hall covers a potent issue:
If he lived anywhere else in Wisconsin, Zachary Walton, 12, wouldn’t have this problem.
If he were black, Asian, Hispanic, or American Indian, Zachary wouldn’t have this problem, either.
But he’s in Madison, where growing numbers of white students are discovering that because of their race, the state’s open enrollment program actually is closed.
“I feel like I’m left out,” said Zachary, who wants to attend a public online school — one like his big brother Daniel, 15, enjoys.
Last week, when most students across Wisconsin began a new school year, Zachary began his second year of home schooling in his family’s East Side apartment.
Madison officials, supported by the state Department of Public Instruction, have ruled that Zachary and 125 other students living in the district must stay put this year in the name of racial integration.
The policy is enforced even for dozens of students, such as Zachary, who don’t attend public school but instead go to private schools or receive home schooling.
Laura and Mike Starks, Zachary’s mother and stepfather, believe that Madison and DPI are going overboard. And that it’s depriving Zachary of one-on-one attention needed for him to catch up academically.
“If we had the money, we would have aggressively fought this,” Mike Starks said.
Much more on Wisconsin’s Open Enrollment Law here.
Gloria Ladson-Billings:
The headline in Sunday’s paper – “You can’t transfer, white kids told” – could just as easily have been “School district refuses to re-segregate” or “School district complies with spirit of Brown decision.” Of course, that would not be nearly as provocative as the one designed to sell more papers and allow members of the white community to believe they have fewer privileges than families of color.
School district officials are not ignorant. They know that if every transfer request is granted, some of our schools will become even more racially segregated and inequitable.
Also, it is interesting that your story focuses on the 140 denials rather than the 286 acceptances and, more specifically, on the 77 out of 140 denials that used racial balance as a reason for the denial.
Incidentally, my own daughter was denied a transfer in 1999. I guess if she were white we could have had a feature story about it.
Madison’s enrollment policy racist
I was appalled by the front page of Sunday’s State Journal. Madison, the supposed bastion of progressive thought, has the only school district in the state that is working under a racist policy when it comes to open enrollment.
Even worse, District Administrator Art Rainwater believes his hands are tied. His “we are powerless” statements when facing a blatantly in-your-face racist policy indicate poor leadership.
Please recall Dr. King’s message that it’s not the color of one’s skin, and I believe he meant any color. Come on, get out of the kids’ way!
Madison Parents Seek Court Order to Open Enroll into Monona Grove School District
Madison resident Allison Cizek, 5, is about to enter kindergarten, but a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that restricts the use of race in assigning children to schools may influence which school district she attends.
Allison ‘s parents, Jeff and Jennifer Cizek, filed a petition in Dane County Circuit Court on Thursday seeking an immediate court order that would allow her to attend Taylor Prairie School in the Monona Grove School District this fall.
“I wouldn ‘t be spending money on this if it wasn ‘t important to me, ” Jeff Cizek said Friday evening.
“The color of a person ‘s skin doesn ‘t matter. They should all be treated the same. ”
The family ‘s attempts to transfer Allison from Madison to Monona Grove have been rejected by Madison School District officials who ruled that because she is white, her departure would increase racial imbalance in her Madison school.
Allison ‘s family lives on Madison ‘s Southwest Side in the 2800 block of Muir Field Road. The home is in the Madison School District ‘s Huegel Elementary attendance area.
But her mother teaches in the Monona Grove School District, and last year Allison attended a pre-kindergarten program in that district east of Madison.
Supreme Court Limits Use of Race to Achieve Diversity in Schools
A splintered Supreme Court today threw out school desegregation plans from Seattle and Louisville, but without a majority holding that race can never be considered as school districts try to ensure racially diverse populations.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. authored the most important opinion of his two terms leading the court. He held that both plans, which categorize students on the basis of race and use that in making school assignments, violate the constitution’s promise of equal protection, even if the goal is integration of the schools.
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Roberts wrote.
He was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who agreed with the four in striking down the desegregation plans, would not go as far as Roberts in ruling out racial considerations.
“Parts of the opinion by the Chief Justice imply an all-too-unyielding insistence that race cannot be a factor in instances when, in my view, it may be taken into account,” Kennedy wrote. “The plurality opinion is too dismissive of the legitimate interest government has in ensuring all people have equal opportunity regardless of their race.”
The court’s four liberals delivered a scathing dissent — twice as long as Roberts’s opinion. It said the plurality’s decision was, in the words of Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who read his opposition from the bench, a “cruel distortion” of the court’s landmark decision more than 50 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education, which demanded an end to segregated schools.
Links & Commentary:
- David Stout:
n the hours after the ruling, reaction varied greatly, with some groups denouncing it as virtually inviting a return to the days of segregation, and others asserting that it need not be seen that way, in view of Justice Kennedy’s unwillingness to fully embrace Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion.
The rationale of the chief justice’s opinion relied in part on the historic 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education that outlawed segregation in public schools — a factor that the dissenters on the court found to be a cruel irony, and which they objected to in emotional terms.
Chief Justice Roberts said the officials in Seattle and in Jefferson County, Ky., which includes Louisville, had failed to show that their plans considered race in the context of a larger educational concept, and therefore did not pass muster.
“In the present cases,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, recalling words from an earlier Supreme Court ruling, “race is not considered as part of a broader effort to achieve ‘exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints.’ ” - Robert Tomsho: More Schools Likely to Spur
Diversity via Income.By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court struck down voluntary school desegregation efforts in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle. The vote “will encourage districts now using race to shift to income,” says Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a New York-based think tank. (See related article.)
Income-based plans began spreading in the 1990s as race-based policies came under growing pressure in the federal courts. Most seek to limit the percentage of low-income students in any one school by dispersing them beyond their neighborhood schools and assigning higher-income students to schools with a lower-income profile. The programs generally identify low-income students as those qualifying for the federal free- and reduced-price lunch program. - Sherrilyn Ifill: Supreme Disappointment
- TJ Mertz: “Sad Day, the End of an Era”
- Joanne Jacobs
- Andy Hall notes some local commentary:
Art Rainwater, superintendent of Madison’s public schools, said none of the district’s school-assignment policies would be directly affected by Thursday’s decision, because the district relies upon criteria other than race — particularly poverty — when drawing school boundaries. And it uses poverty and concentrations of special-education students and students with limited English proficiency when staffing the schools.
“In general, we don’t do anything based on race in our district,” Rainwater said. - Nina Totenberg:
In a decision with profound implications for the nation’s public schools, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated two voluntary desegregation plans because they used race in some students’ school assignments in an effort to end racial isolation or prevent re-segregation.
- Wall Street Journal Opinion
- Cato:
“Racial integration advocates will be frustrated and discouraged by today’s Supreme Court ruling striking down the racial assignment programs of Louisville and Seattle. They shouldn’t be. These were not only the right rulings constitutionally, they were also right educationally and socially. The belief that involuntary, race-based student assignment promotes socially and educationally valuable interaction among white and minority students finds little empirical support.”
More city children get extra help for kindergarten
Record numbers of Madison children — and their parents — this summer are enrolled in programs aiming to make sure children are ready when they begin kindergarten.
The significant rise in publicly and privately funded kindergarten-readiness efforts is an investment that will pay off, educators and parents say, in students’ higher rates of success in school and as adults.
“My daughter needs to learn lots of things,” said Claudia Diaz, who has signed up for a new privately funded program called KinderReady with her daughter, Michelle Villegas-Diaz, 3.
“And if I learn these, in the future Michelle is going to be a better person.”
While Diaz and her daughter are receiving help at home and at a day-care center, record numbers of incoming kindergartners are heading off to summer school across Madison.
Madison Schools MTI Teacher Contract Roundup
Conversation regarding the recent MMSD / MTI collective bargaining agreement continues:
- Andy Hall wrote a useful summary, along with some budget numbers (this agreementi s56% of the MMSD’s $339.6M budget):
District negotiators headed by Superintendent Art Rainwater had sought to free up money for starting teachers’ salaries by persuading the union to drop Wisconsin Physicians Service, a health-care provider that offers open access to medical treatment with no need for referrals.
The district wanted MTI members to choose from among three health-maintenance organizations that limit coverage to specific providers in return for lower costs.
But the union kept the current mix — WPS plus one HMO, Group Health Cooperative — after members in a survey indicated support for maintaining those options.
Matthews is a paid member of the Wisconsin Physicians Service board of directors — an arrangement he defends as a means of advocating for members and the district. Critics contend it represents a conflict of interest.
“Our plan is cheaper than almost any in town,” said Matthews, referring to a union comparison of Wisconsin Physicians Service coverage, used by half of the members, to coverage offered to employees of state and local governments.
“The teachers were willing to pay more, they were willing to move money from wages to health insurance, in order to preserve those kinds of rights.”
Among the new costs facing teachers: A $75 co-pay for emergency room visits and a $10 co-pay for office visits.
Premiums for WPS, which is favored by many members with a serious illness in the family, will cost 10.4 percent more beginning July 1. But the premiums will decrease slightly beginning Jan. 1 as the co-pays take effect. For example, the WPS family premium will cost the district $1,711 per month while the employee’s share will be $190, falling to $187 on Jan. 1.
The GHC premium will increase by 5.7 percent — to $974 monthly for family coverage, paid entirely by the district — beginning July 1. That amount will decrease to $955 on Jan. 1. - Don Severson & Brian Schimming discuss the agreement and the school board: 5MB mp3 audio file.
- 2005 / 2007 Agreement 528K PDF.
- The Madison School Board will vote on the Agreement Monday evening, June 18, 2007.
- Additional links and notes.
- Don Severson: 3 Simple Things.
- MMSD / MTI contract negotations beginCarol Carstensen: An alt view on Concessions Before Negotiations.
- Going to the Mat for WPS
- What’s the MTI Political Endorsement About?
- Some MMSD unions have addressed health care costs.
NCLB Adequate Yearly Progress & Wisconsin Schools
The number of Wisconsin schools failing to meet federal No Child Left Behind standards this year grew from 87 to 95 and includes all four Madison high schools and three middle schools in the Madison, Middleton-Cross Plains and Mount Horeb school districts.
None of the Madison high schools attained the goal for reading proficiency, according to annual data released Tuesday by the state Department of Public Instruction.
Thirty-two Wisconsin schools — all in Milwaukee — receive Title I funds to assist low-income students and are subject to sanctions imposed by the No Child Left Behind law because they’ve missed the same goal for two or more consecutive years.
Jamaal Abdul-Alim has more as does WEAC President Stan Johnson.
Susan Troller:
“I don’t see this as a reflection on the effectiveness of our high schools,” Madison School Board President Arlene Silveira said this morning. La Follette, East and Memorial have been rapped in past years, as well as this year, for not reaching proficiency standards in some categories.
“There are problems with the inflexibility of the testing methods applied to every student. It uses just one way to measure everyone and doesn’t actually measure what they are learning,” Silveira said.
For example, she said, testing students who are just learning English with an English-only test or requiring students with disabilities who don’t perform well on standardized tests to be part of the testing process affects the results, especially in big, diverse schools.
Pao Vowed to Lead the Hmong Home
Tony Barboza and Ashley Powers:
Vang Pao, a key figure among those arrested Monday on suspicion of plotting the overthrow of the communist Laotian government, is so well-known in the local Hmong community that his family always keeps fruit, soda and water on the living room coffee table to greet the constant stream of visitors who drop by his Westminster home.
An aging Pao would often regale them with war stories while seated under portraits of the former Laotian king and other royalty — and one of himself in military dress from his younger days.
But in addition to the nationwide image of patriarch and benefactor, Pao also has another reputation — that of a tough leader who worked for the CIA in its “secret war” in Laos during the Vietnam War more than 30 years ago.
Brittany Schoepp and Andy Hall have more, as does Susan Troller.
Vang Pao Elementary School Groundbreaking
A windswept field on Madison’s Far West Side became a place of reverence Wednesday for 60 Hmong residents who attended the groundbreaking ceremony of Vang Pao Elementary, a $12.9 million school whose funding was embraced by taxpayers but whose name remains controversial.
“I just want to take this as a memory,” explained Bee Vang, 47, as he held a softball-sized clod of warm, moist earth. “This will be a really great school.”
Vang said he will show his four children the dirt and tell them that school leaders spoke of giving all people, including Hmong, the opportunity to learn.
Wisconsin State Student Test Scores Released
Wisconsin students’ performances improved in math and held steady in reading, language arts, science and social studies, according to annual test data released today.
Dane County students generally matched or exceeded state averages and paralleled the state’s rising math scores, although test results in Madison slipped slightly on some measures of reading, language arts and science.
Madison educators touted the overall performance of their students, noting that the portion of students scoring proficient or advanced — the two highest of four grading levels — has grown or held steady over the past seven years on reading and math exams even as the district’s populations of students with limited English skills and low-income backgrounds have increased.
Limited English proficiency and poverty are two of the strongest predictors of poor academic performance in Madison and schools across the nation.
Improved scores in math led state and local school officials to put generally positive faces on the picture painted by student test results being made public today by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Higher percentages of students in every grade from third through eighth were rated as “proficient” or “advanced” in math in this year’s round of statewide testing than in the previous year. The 10th-grade figure remained the same.
In reading, the statewide percentage of proficient or better students was steady or slightly improved at every grade level.
“We are on the right track,” Elizabeth Burmaster, state superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement. “Despite increased poverty in Wisconsin, we saw gains at nearly every grade level in mathematics and rising or stable scores for reading.”
Overall, better than 4 out of 5 fourth-graders in Wisconsin were proficient or advanced in reading, and about 3 out of 4 met those standards in math. For 10th-graders, 3 out of 4 were proficient in reading, and 7 out of 10 in math.
Madison schools’ improved math scores might seem to defy some of the laws of logic or probability.
The Madison district, like its counterparts across the state, saw a generally positive trend on math scores, according to data released today regarding scores from the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations that students took last November.
“Our students continue to perform well despite a number of challenges that would normally predict falling scores. We’re pleased, of course, but not surprised that has not been the case here,” Superintendent Art Rainwater noted in an interview this morning.
Rainwater said that changing demographics that include increasing numbers of children from low-income families and those who have limited proficiency in English generally go hand-in-hand with falling scores, but that has not been true in Madison, where test results in reading generally have been holding steady, or in mathematics, where almost all grade levels have improved.
Related:
- MMSD: Despite Changes and Cuts, Madison Students Test Well.
- Wisconsin’s “Broad interpretation of how NCLB progress can be “met” through the WKCE”
- Alan Borsuk’s followup article, including DPI comments.
- UW Math Professor Dick Askey’s comments on “Madison and Wisconsin Math Data, 8th Grade”.
- Fordham Foundation: Wisconsin DPI Academic Standards = D-
- Sandy Cullen: State Test Scores Adjusted to Match Last Year: State Officials Realized They Had Made The Test Too Hard And Lowered Passing Scores.
- A discussion of NAEP (National Assessment of Academic Progress) scores in Wisconsin and Minnesota along with school finance issues.
Madison School Board Votes to Keep Marquette School Open
Two weeks after voting to close Marquette Elementary, the Madison School Board bowed to public pressure Monday evening and decided to keep the school open.
The board’s 5-2 vote was greeted by cheers and a standing ovation from about 50 parents, children and activists who campaigned to save the school at 1501 Jenifer St. on Madison’s Near East Side.
Susan Troller has more.
Madison Schools’ Special Ed Reductions
But when students resume classes in the fall, fewer special education teachers like Bartlett will be available to work with Karega and 228 other of the Madison School District’s 3,600 special education students.
That’s because the School Board last week voted to save $2.2 million in the 2007-08 school year — by far the largest single amount cut and one-fourth of the total budget reduction — by making a major change in the way special education teachers are allocated to the district’s schools.
There’s been little public outcry about the cut, compared to the howls over the board’s decision to close Marquette Elementary and end free busing for private-school students. But some think those affected by the budget maneuver, which is generating a mixture of concern and praise, don’t fully realize the effect yet.
2007 – 2008 MMSD $339M+ Citizens Budget [72K PDF] [2006 – 2007 $333M+Citizen’s Budget]
Consolidated Madison Golf Team Causes Controversy
The Madison School District may have “opened a big door” by authorizing the consolidation of golf teams at its four high schools into two programs as a tiny part of its $7.9 million in budget cuts, a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association official said Tuesday.
The Madison School Board included that measure as it balanced the district’s $339.6 million budget late Monday night because, as in most school districts, costs have grown faster than the state allows the district to raise property taxes.
If the merger of the golf teams gains Big Eight Conference and WIAA approval before a June 1 deadline, Madison Memorial will combine with Madison West, and Madison La Follette will combine with Madison East, beginning with the boys seasons in 2008.
The projected $14,895 savings to the district – all in the form of coaching salaries – was the smallest of the last-minute additions to the district’s budget cuts.
2007 / 2008 Budget Approved: School Board keeps Lindbergh open
Board members tussled over dozens of suggestions to try to find money to return various programs and services to the district that had been cut by the administration in an effort to balance the $339.6 million budget.
The administration had originally proposed about $8 million in cuts, including $2 million from special education aimed at helping students with speech or language problems, increased class size at the elementary level and closing Lindbergh Elementary and Black Hawk Middle School, and consolidating Marquette and Lapham.
The board also approved a district proposal to eliminate busing for five Catholic schools in the district, and offer parents a $450 subsidy to transport their children themselves, to save about $230,000. State statutes require that public schools provide transportation for all students in their district. Parents of students at other area private schools take the subsidy in lieu of busing.
Board member Lucy Mathiak and Superintendent Art Rainwater had several testy exchanges as Mathiak grilled administrators on their programs and expenses.
“I’m trying to understand why our district requires so many more people in teaching and learning than other districts,” Mathiak said.
“Our priorities since I’ve been superintendent are highly trained, highly skilled teachers in a small class. After that, we believe in highly trained, highly skilled teachers in front of a large class. We don’t believe in poorly trained teachers in small classes,” Rainwater said sharply as he defended the Madison district’s focus on professional development.
Board members also disagreed on how aggressively to use projected salary savings, an accounting method that predicts how many teachers will leave the district. Any shortfall would have to come out of the district’s equity fund, which some board members feel is dangerously low.
In a six-plus-hour meeting punctuated by flaring tempers, the board also found ways to stave off most proposed increases in elementary class sizes by raising fees and increasing projected savings in salaries for the 2007-08 school year.
The board also spared the district’s fifth-grade strings program from elimination.
The moves came as the board balanced the district’s $339.6 million budget by cutting $7.9 million from existing services and programs.
The budget finally was approved just after midnight on a 6-1 vote. Lucy Mathiak was the lone dissenter.
Board members voted 4-3 to consolidate Marquette and Lapham at Lapham, 1045 E. Dayton St., into a kindergarten through fifth-grade school, while rejecting a proposal from Superintendent Art Rainwater to close Lindbergh, 4500 Kennedy Road. Currently, Lapham hosts K-2 students while Marquette hosts grades three through five.
Rainwater also had proposed consolidating Black Hawk Middle School into Sherman and O’Keeffe middle schools, but that proposal wasn’t adopted.
Voting for the consolidation of Marquette and Lapham, to save $522,000, were Lawrie Kobza, Arlene Silveira, Beth Moss and Maya Cole. Opposing the measure were Johnny Winston Jr., Carol Carstensen and Mathiak.
The Madison school board approved the consolidation of Marquette and Lapham elementary schools under next year’s budget. The two schools will combine under Lapham’s roof, reported WISC-TV.
Under the budget, Marquette will be used for alternative education programs.
The school board also approved combining all high school boys golf teams into two and elminated bussing to Wright and Spring Harbor charter schools.
The moves are all a part of cutting the budget by more than $7 million.
Many of those linked to affected schools have loudly spoken out in opposition to the closings, and Monday was no exception. Parents and students put their concerns in writing outside the Doyle Administration Building — children writing in chalk on the ground — hoping to catch the eye of board members before the meeting inside.
Brenda Konkel, TJ Mertz and Paul Soglin have more. Paul mentioned:
“From the debate, the motions and the votes, it seems that all of the rancor over ideological splits in the Madison Metropolitan School Board is irrelevant” given the vote to consolidate Marquette and Lapham schools
I think the current diversity of viewpoints on the Madison School Board is healthy. Rewind the clock three years and imagine how some of these issues might have played out. Would there have been a public discussion? Would the vote have been 6 – 1, or ? One of the reasons the “spending gap” in the MMSD’s $339.6M+ budget was larger this year is due to the Board and Administration’s public recognition of the structural deficit. The MMSD’s “equity” has declined by half over the past 7 years. More from Channel3000.com.
MMSD / MTI Contract Negotiations Begin: Health Care Changes Proposed
The district and Madison Teachers Inc. exchanged initial proposals Wednesday to begin negotiations on a new two-year contract that will run through June 30, 2009. The current one expires June 30.
“Frankly, I was shocked and appalled by the school district’s initial proposal because it was replete with take-backs in teachers’ rights as well as the economic offer,” John Matthews, executive director of MTI, said in an interview Thursday.
But Bob Butler, a staff attorney with the Wisconsin Association of School Boards who is part of the district’s bargaining team, said he believed the district’s proposal was fair and flexible.
He said the administration’s proposal on health care provides two new HMO plans that could bring savings to the district and new options to employees, while still providing an option for the more expensive Wisconsin Physicians Service plan for employees who want it.
The district is proposing that teachers accept language that would allow two new HMO insurance plans, provided by Dean Care and Physicians Plus, to be added to the two plans currently offered.
Slightly more than 53 percent of the employees represented by the teachers’ bargaining unit use the less expensive Group Health Cooperative plan, which is a health maintenance organization, or HMO. The district’s costs for the GHC plan for next year are $364.82 per month for singles and $974.08 for families. Employees who opt for the GHC do not pay a percentage of the premium themselves but are responsible for co-pays for drugs that range from $6 to $30.
If about the same number of district employees — 1,224 — use the GHC plan next year, it would cost the district about $11.6 million.
The other option currently available to teachers is provided by Wisconsin Physicians Service. A preferred provider organization plan, it provides health insurance to just under 47 percent of the district’s teacher unit.
A more flexible plan that allows participants to go to different doctors for different medical specialties, the WPS plan next year will cost the district $747.78 per month for singles and $1,961.13 for families. Under the current contract, employees pay 10 percent of the cost of the WPS plan, which this year is $65.65 per month for singles, and $172.18 per month for families.
The cost estimate for the school district’s share of the WPS plan under the current contract would be about $19 million. Employees, who pick up 10 percent of the cost as their share of the premium, would pay another $2 million under the current structure.
It’s important to remember that a majority of the Madison School Board voted several months ago to not arbitrate with MTI over health care costs. Andy Hall has more:
But with the Madison School Board facing a $10.5 million budget shortfall, is the board giving away too much with its promises to retain teachers’ increasingly pricey health insurance and to discard its legal mechanism for limiting teachers’ total compensation increase to 3.8 percent?
Yes, School Board Vice President Lawrie Kobza said Saturday, “I feel very strongly that this was a mistake,” said Kobza, who acknowledged that most board members endorse the agreement with Madison Teachers Inc., the teachers union.
State law allows districts to avoid arbitration by making a so-called qualified economic offer, or QEO, by boosting salaries and benefits a combined 3.8 percenter a year.
“To agree before a negotiation starts that we’re not going to impose the QEO and negotiate health care weakens the district’s position,” Kobza said. She contended the district’s rising health-care costs are harming its ability to raise starting teachers’ salaries enough to remain competitive.
The “voluntary impasse resolution” agreements, which are public records, are used in only a handful of Wisconsin’s 425 school districts, according to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.
Carol Carstensen posted an alt view on Concessions before negotiations. Related: What a sham(e), Sun Prairie Cuts Health Care Costs & Raises Teacher Salaries – using the same Dean Healthcare Plan and “Going to the Mat for WPS“. TJ Mertz says Susan neglected to mention the QEO (note that the a majority of the MMSD school board agreed not to arbitrate over the QEO or health care casts in “Concessions before negotiations”.
2007 / 2008 $339M+ MMSD Budget: “School Shuffle is Losing”
A controversial plan to close and consolidate schools on Madison’s North and East sides appears dead a week before the Madison School Board’s self- imposed deadline for determining $7.9 million in spending reductions.
Four of the board’s seven members plan to vote against Superintendent Art Rainwater’s proposal to save $1 million by closing tiny Lindbergh Elementary and reshuffling hundreds of other students in elementary and middle schools, according to interviews with all board members.
The plan could be revived, however, if board members fail to find a comparable amount of cost savings elsewhere in the district’s 2007-08 budget.
Related 2007-2008 MMSD Budget (07/08 budget is either $339M or $345M (- I’ve seen both numbers used); up from $333M in 06/07) Posts:
- “Bitter Medicine for Madison Schools”: 07/08 budget grows 3.6% from 333M (06/07) to $345M with Reductions in the Increase (I”ve also seen a $339M 07/08 budget number)
- MMSD $6M Structural Deficit Publicly Revealed
- Larger than typical reductions in the annual budget increases
- Concessions made in advance of MTI negotiations by a majority of the Madison School Board [alt view]
- Salary & Benefit budget increases: The dog that didn’t bark
- Active Citizens for Education Budget Proposal Documents
- We support a multi-year operating referendum
- MMSD spending, staffing and attendance history
- Madison area school student population numbers
Record year for school referendums
Andy Hall reports on the record 52 of 425 WI school districts that on Tuesday will ask voters to approve referendums to borrow money for construction or for permission to raise taxes above the amounts allowed by the state’s revenue limits.
Parents Balk at Proposed Cuts
The Madison School District’s struggle to handle a $10.5 million budget shortfall moved into a new stage Monday night, as 17 people spoke out against proposed cuts and a School Board member urged her colleagues to turn to voters for more money.
The School Board began struggling with the budget cuts following Superintendent Art Rainwater’s announcement Friday of his plans for addressing the shortfall, including consolidation of schools on the city’s East Side, increases in kindergarten through third-grade class sizes at seven elementary schools and changes in how services are delivered to students with speech and language problems.
The district’s budget next year will rise 1.9 percent to $339.1 million. But cuts are needed because that increase, which is limited by state revenue caps, isn’t enough to allow the district to continue all current services.
At the School Board meeting, five parents of Crestwood Elementary students protested Rainwater’s proposal to remove the school next year from the state’s Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) program, which limits class sizes in grades K-3 to 15 students in order to aid low-income students.
Wisconsin’s School Finance Climate
Andy Hall on local referendums:
Layoffs and pay cuts are looming in a western Dane County school district, and officials in the Adams-Friendship area are contemplating closing two elementary schools after voters rejected two school referendums last week.
Voters also approved referendums Tuesday for a $14.68 million elementary school in Sun Prairie and $2.48 million to avert school cuts in Pardeeville 30 miles north of Madison.
But ballot measures were narrowly defeated in the Wisconsin Heights School District, which includes Mazomanie and Black Earth, and Adams-Friendship, 75 miles north of Madison.
Student population, expense and tax revenue growth all affect local school district budgets.
Andy also posted an article on a survey conducted by the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators:
Twenty-seven percent of superintendents said their school boards have held discussions during the past few years about the possibility of dissolving or consolidating their school districts. Among those districts, more than 90 percent said the talks were prompted by financial problems.
Increasing portions of districts report changes that could reduce the quality of educational services. Since the 1998-99 school year, for example, the percentage of districts increasing class sizes grew from 48 to 74 percent. The percentage laying off teachers during that period rose from 36 to 62 percent.
Wistax reported recently that Wisconsin residents paid 33.4% of income in taxes, up from 30.7% in 2003. Decisions like this do not help pass referendums, much less build confidence in our $331M+ local school district.
Concessions Made in Advance of MTI Negotiations by a Majority of the Madison School Board
It will be interesting to see how voters on February 20 and April 3 view this decision by a majority of the Madison School Board: Should the Board and Administration continue to give away their ability to negotiate health care benefits ($43.5M of the 2006/2007 budge) before MTI union bargaining begins? Read the 2005 MMSD/MTI Voluntary Impasse Agreement [1.1MB PDF; see paragraph’s 2, 10 and 11]. The 2007 version, alluded to in Andy Hall’s article below, will be posted when it sees the light of day.
This is an important issue for all of us, given the MMSD’s challenge of balancing their growing $331M+ budget, while expenses – mostly salaries and benefits – continue to increase at a faster rate. Mix in the recent public disclosure of the district’s $5.9M 7 year structural deficit and I doubt that this is the best approach for our children.
Recently, the Sun Prairie School District and its teachers’ union successfully bargained with DeanCare to bring down future costs for employee health insurance.
Andy Hall, writing in the Wisconsin State Journal asks some useful questions:
But with the Madison School Board facing a $10.5 million budget shortfall, is the board giving away too much with its promises to retain teachers’ increasingly pricey health insurance and to discard its legal mechanism for limiting teachers’ total compensation increase to 3.8 percent?
Yes, School Board Vice President Lawrie Kobza said Saturday, “I feel very strongly that this was a mistake,” said Kobza, who acknowledged that most board members endorse the agreement with Madison Teachers Inc., the teachers union.
State law allows districts to avoid arbitration by making a so-called qualified economic offer, or QEO, by boosting salaries and benefits a combined 3.8 percenter a year.
“To agree before a negotiation starts that we’re not going to impose the QEO and negotiate health care weakens the district’s position,” Kobza said. She contended the district’s rising health-care costs are harming its ability to raise starting teachers’ salaries enough to remain competitive.
The “voluntary impasse resolution” agreements, which are public records, are used in only a handful of Wisconsin’s 425 school districts, according to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.
Four of the 7 current Madison School Board Members were backed by MTI during their campaigns (Arlene Silveira, Carol Carstensen, Shwaw Vang and Johnny Winston, Jr.). Those four votes can continue this practice. Independent School Board members Lawrie Kobza and Ruth Robarts have spoken publicly against the concessions made in advance of negotiations. If you support or oppose this approach, let the board know via email (comments@madison.k12.wi.us), or phone.
Related links, media and transcripts:
- What’s the MTI Political Endorsement about?:
In 2006-07 the Madison School district will spend $43.5M on health insurance for its employees, the majority of the money paying for insurance for teachers represented by Madison Teachers, Inc. (MTI) That is 17% of the operating budget under the revenue limits.
In June of 2007, the two-year contract between the district and MTI ends. The parties are now beginning negotiations for the 2007-09 contract.
The Sun Prairie School district and its teachers union recently saved substantial dollars on health insurance. They used the savings to improve teacher wages. The parties joined together openly and publicly to produce a statement of the employees health needs. Then they negotiated a health insurance package with a local HMO that met their needs. - The MMSD Custodians recently agreed to a new health care plan where 85% of the cost savings went to salaries and 15% to the MMSD.
- Ruth Robarts discussed concessions in advance of negotiations, health care costs and the upcoming elections with Vicki McKenna recently. [6.5MB MP3 Audio | Transcript]
- What a Sham(e) by Jason Shephard:
Last week, Madison Teachers Inc. announced it would not reopen contract negotiations following a hollow attempt to study health insurance alternatives.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but anyone who suggests the Joint Committee on Health Insurance Issues conducted a fair or comprehensive review needs to get checked out by a doctor.
The task force’s inaction is a victory for John Matthews, MTI’s executive director and board member Wisconsin Physicians Service.
Losers include open government, school officials, taxpayers and young teachers in need of a raise.
From its start, the task force, comprised of three members each from MTI and the district, seemed to dodge not only its mission but scrutiny.
Madison’s Kindergarten Climate & Student Support
A drop in Hispanic children’s scores is largely responsible for fewer students beginning kindergarten with the skills needed to succeed in Madison schools.
Just 26 percent of Hispanic children in this year’s kindergarten class passed a screening test designed to show whether they were ready to start school, down from 29 percent four years ago, according to Madison School District data.
That drop led to a decline in the overall percentage of Madison students ready for kindergarten – from 62 percent to 58 percent.
While educators across the country focus on helping such children catch up with their classmates, two emerging efforts in Dane County will aim to get at the root of the problem by helping children be ready to enter kindergarten:
February 20, 2007 Madison School Board Primary Election Summary
Three Hopefuls Say Close Examination Of School Budget Is Needed Before Any Cuts Are Made.
In the lone primary race for Madison School Board, three candidates are competing for a chance to confront the district’s chronic budget shortfalls and help pick a successor to Superintendent Art Rainwater when he retires next year.
The two top vote-getters in the Feb. 20 primary election will face off in the April 3 general election. The seat is being vacated by Shwaw Vang.
School Finance: K-12 Tax & Spending Climate
School spending has always been a puzzle, both from a state and federal government perspective as well as local property taxpayers. In an effort to shed some light on the vagaries of K-12 finance, I’ve summarized below a number of local, state and federal articles and links.
The 2007 Statistical Abstract offers a great deal of information about education and many other topics. A few tidbits:
| 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | |
| US K-12 Enrollment [.xls file] | 40,878,000 | 41,216,000 | 47,203,000 | 47,671,000 | 48,183,000 | 48,540,000 | NA |
| US K-12 Deflated Public K-12 Spending – Billions [.xls file] | $230B | 311.8B | $419.7B | $436.6B | $454.6B | $464.8B | $475.5B |
| Avg. Per Student Spending | $5,627 | $7,565 | $8,892 | $9,159 | $9,436 | $9,576 | NA |
| US Defense Spending (constant yr2000 billion dollars) [.xls file] | $267.1B | $382.7B | $294.5B | $297.2B | $329.4B | $365.3B | $397.3B |
| US Health Care Spending (Billions of non-adjusted dollars) [.xls file] | $255B | $717B | $1,359B | $1,474B | $1,608B | $1,741B | $1,878B |
| US Gross Domestic Product – Billions [.xls file] | 5,161 | 7,112 | 9,817 | 9,890 | 10,048 | 10,320 | 10,755 |
Wisconsin School Finance: QEO, Revenue Caps and Sage
The revenue caps and QEO are transforming the operations of public schools, pushing school officials and the public into a never-ending cycle of cuts, compromises and referendums.
Most districts reduced the number of academic courses, laid off school support staff and reduced programs for students at the highest risk of failure, according to a survey of 278 superintendents during the 2004-05 school year by groups representing administrators and teachers.
Public schools, the most expensive single program in Wisconsin, account for about 40 cents of every dollar spent out of the state’s general fund.
In the old days, school boards wanting more money for school operations could simply raise taxes, and risk retribution from voters if they went too far.
Revenue caps stripped school boards of that power, requiring them instead to seek the permission of voters in ballot questions.
“We’re literally governing by referendum,” complained Nancy Hendrickson, superintendent of the Pecatonica Area School District in Blanchardville, 35 miles southwest of Madison.
Much more on the Madison School District’s $331M+ budget here and here.
State Legislative Panel Supports Increased School Spending Limits & Property Tax Authority
Madison school officials were heartened Monday by a bipartisan state study panel’s backing of a measure that would allow the School Board to raise more than an additional $2 million a year.
That would cost the owner of an average city home about $25 a year.
If approved by the Legislature, the proposal would essentially allow school boards to boost their revenue limits by up to 1 percent, which in Madison would be $2.2 million next year. Boards would need to OK such moves by a two-thirds vote, and the spending would be in effect for just one year at a time.
Madison and some other districts with relatively high levels of spending and property values have strong financial disincentives against exceeding the revenue caps. Madison taxpayers, for example, pay $1.61 for every $1 the district exceeds the revenue cap due to the school funding formula, which works to equalize the tax burden between richer and poorer districts.
But the measure that advanced Monday wouldn’t subject Madison and similar districts to that financial penalty.
An additional tax of $2.2 million would mean the owner of an average Madison home valued at $239,400 would pay about $25 more per year, said Doug Johnson, a Madison School District budget analyst. The district’s property tax levy is $209.2 million.
The Madison School Board’s Communications Committee recently released a list of spending increase authority changes they would like to see the State enact. More on the School District’s $331M+ Budget.
David Callendar has more.
Madison School Board: Superintendent’s High School Redesign Presentation & Public Comments [Audio / Video]
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Four citizens spoke at Monday evening’s school board meeting regarding the proposed “high school redesign”. Watch or download this video clip. |
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Superintendent Art Rainwater’s powerpoint presentation and followup board discussion. Watch or download the video. |
Links:
- Susan Troller: MMSD to study high schools before “redesigning” them
- Joan Knoebel comments.
- East High School Principal Allen Harris’s letter to parents.
- On, off and on again School Board High School Redesign discussion.
- Marc Eisen: Superintendent Halts High School Redesign.
- Laurie Frost: More Than English 10: Let’s REALLY Talk About Our High Schools.
- Comments from East High Parents on Proposed Curriculum Changes
- Ruth Robarts: On Monday, November 27, the Madison School Board will begin to address rumors about major changes coming to our high schools. There are some realities behind the rumors.
- Andy Hall: East High Student Insurrection over Proposed Curriculum Changes?
- A timeline of West High School’s March Toward One Size Fits all English 10.
- Bruce King’s report on West High School’s English 9 Program.
- Carrie Lynch: One big happy classroom?
- Superintendent Art Rainwater’s presentation.
- Madison United for Educational Excellence hosted a conversation with Art Rainwater Wednesday evening .
On, Off and On Again 11/27/2006 Madison School Board High School Redesign Discussion
Susan Troller wrote this on Tuesday, 11/21/2006:
A presentation on the redesign of Madison’s high school curriculum scheduled for next week’s School Board meeting has been scrapped for the immediate future, School Board President Johnny Winston Jr. confirmed late this morning.
“We’ll hold off on changes until we get a better feel for how the process will work,” Winston said.
Winston, other School Board members and members of the administration met this morning to discuss high school curriculum proposals, including changes in accelerated classes for freshmen and sophomores at East High.
Andy Hall wrote this on 11/22/2006:
Madison School Board President Johnny Winston Jr. said community outcry and confusion over East’s plans to restructure its classes likely will dominate the board’s discussion of reforming operations in the district’s high schools. The meeting is set for 8 p.m. Monday in the auditorium at the Doyle Administration Building, 545 W. Dayton St.
“I’m sure we’re going to hear a lot from the community,” Winston said. “Board members want to hear it. They want it now.”
Winston said he expects people riled about potential or recent changes at La Follette and West high schools also will attend.
The board, Winston said, needs to set direction for the district’s schools and needs to be kept informed. He’s opposed to eliminating classes for talented and gifted students. “We need to be enhancing them,” he said.
It’s essential, Winston said, for parents, students, teachers and the community to have a voice in any talks about changing the way schools are run.
“I really hope we can get this thing, whatever it is, in order,” Winston said.
Indeed, a look at the School Board’s calendar for Monday, 11.27.2006 reveals that the High School Redesign discussion is scheduled for 8:00p.m. that evening.
The Board has been criticized over the years for simply not discussing some of the tough issues such as health care, the District’s rejection of $2M in federal Reading First funds (the politics and implementation of Reading First have been controversial. However $2m is $2m and it at least deserved a public conversation) and West High’s full speed ahead on a one size fits all curriculum (See also “the Fate of the Schools“.
I’m glad to see the Board take this up Monday. A recent discussion of the District’s quiet policy change regarding credit for non-madison school district courses appeared, disappeared and now is on a 12/11/2006 Performance and Achievement committee agenda.
East High Student Insurrection Over Proposed Curriculum Changes?
“This is a discussion killer and it’s an education killer because it’s going to make kids feel uncomfortable,” Collin said Monday of the emerging plan, which would take effect in the fall.
This morning, Collin and other students – he says it may involve 100 of the school’s 1,834 students – plan to protest the planned changes by walking out of the school at 2222 E. Washington Ave. Some may try to meet with Superintendent Art Rainwater at his Downtown office.
East Principal Alan Harris said he’s heard talk of a student protest. Students refusing to attend class would be dealt with for insubordination, he said, and could face suspension, particularly if he determines their conduct is unsafe.
Harris said he’s met with parents, staff members and students, and more private and group meetings are planned, to hear their concerns.
However, Harris said he believes he remains on the right track. East, he said, must change.
Read the extensive discussion on the Madison School District Administration’s High School redesign plans here. The Madison School Board will meet to discuss the proposed high school changes on November 27, 2006.
Related Links:
- A timeline of West High School’s march toward one size fits all English 10.
- Bruce King’s report on West High School’s English 9 program
More on the 11/7/2006 Madison Schools Referendum
The outcomes of previous ballot measures have varied.
Voters approved six of seven referendums offered from 1995 to 2003.
In May 2005, district voters approved a referendum exempting $29.2 million in maintenance and equipment expenses from state revenue limits through 2010.
Voters rejected two other measures, though, that would have exempted $7.4 million in operating costs from revenue limits and would have approved $14.5 million for renovations and a second school on the Leopold site.
The School Board then decided to press ahead with a scaled-down project at Leopold, paying for it — at least for now — out of the operating budget.
More on the referendum here. Meanwhile, Janesville has a $70M question for voters.
City Students Endure Traumatic Day
tudents, parents, police and educators throughout Madison were rattled Monday but no significant injuries were reported in three unrelated incidents that included a lockdown at East High School, a pellet gun attack outside West High School and a car crash triggered by two O’Keeffe Middle School students.
Tensions were high because of recent violence and threats in schools in Wisconsin, Colorado and Pennsylvania, officials acknowledged. Monday’s chaos ended peacefully, they said, because of an unnamed community tipster, good security planning and quick police work.
Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater said about 1,800 students at East High School were restricted to their third-period classrooms, except for a quick trip to the cafeteria and bathroom breaks, from 11 a.m. until classes were dismissed at 3:30 p.m. because of a “credible threat” against a student.
Special Education Funding
Pressure on schools has intensified because the state has paid a decreasing share of special education costs. This year, the state is reimbursing schools 29 percent of the $1.16 billion cost. In 1993, the state paid 45 percent of the $585.9 million cost of special education.
Educators say they have been forced to cut so deeply into overall school budgets that in many cases, the educations of regular and special education students are jeopardized.
Terry Milfred, superintendent of the Weston district, 75 miles northwest of Madison, said administrators had to eliminate a school counseling position, slice the music program in half, eliminate cooking and sewing portions of home economics classes, outsource drivers’ education to a private company and reduce library staffing to balance the budget in recent years.
“Those things aren’t required by law, and consequently that’s where the services tend to be reduced to the point that we feel we can,” said Milfred, who sympathizes with the Legislature’s desire to hold down taxes but hopes for reforms.
Meanwhile, he said, the bill for one of the district’s special education students is $30,000, and another is transported 160 miles a day to receive specialized services.
A Recipe to Fix School Funding
Andy Hall
Wisconsin State Journal
October 4, 2006
On a moonlit autumn evening, talk turned Tuesday to a “perfect storm” that might actually help Wisconsin fix its school-funding mess.
“Everything is coming together in an election year,” Thomas Beebe, outreach specialist for the nonprofit Institute for Wisconsin’s Future, told 17 Madison School District parents and activists who gathered at the Warner Park Community Recreation Center to discuss why Wisconsin schools always seem to be running out of money, and what to do about it.
The Institute for Wisconsin’s Future helped establish the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools, a coalition of 122 organizations and school districts, including Madison’s, focusing on school-finance reform.
Beebe, a former official at the state Department of Public Instruction, who served on the Fort Atkinson School Board, said prospects are brighter now than any time in the past decade because increasing numbers of the state’s 425 public school districts are reporting serious financial problems because of state revenue limits imposed since 1993.
In addition, Beebe said, a state task force headed by UW-Madison researcher Allan Odden soon will recommend major changes in how Wisconsin pays for its schools, and a bipartisan Wisconsin Legislative Council panel is exploring school financing for the first time in a decade.
A top goal, Beebe said, would be to radically shift Wisconsin’s philosophy. The education budget would be based on what’s needed to adequately educate all children, including those with special needs, rather than forcing schools to make do with whatever amount of money is available through a formula.
But to make the storm happen, Beebe said, the public will need to push political candidates and public officials into taking stands – including support of controversial proposals to boost school funding by raising the sales tax, eliminating some sales tax exemptions, raising corporate income taxes, and other means.
“I think Tom is exactly right,” Barbara Arnold, a former Madison School Board president who two years ago served on a governor-appointed task force on education reform, said after the session sponsored by the East Attendance Area PTO Coalition.
Matt Calvert, a parent of a Lapham Elementary first- grader and a Marquette Elementary third-grader, said he’s pleased with the schools and their teachers, but he’s troubled by discussions of reducing a music program and increasing class sizes.
“It’s getting to the point now that it’s pinching,” Calvert said.
Madison School Board member Carol Carstensen agreed that prospects for reform are brightening, but she also warned that big changes will require sacrifice.
“There’s no real solution without additional funds,” she said.
Robarts Confirms She Won’t Seek Re-Election
Andy Hall (who’s been busy this week):
Madison School Board member Ruth Robarts confirmed Friday that she won’t seek re-election, ending her sometimes-stormy tenure that over the past decade earned her praise for being a watchdog but also the label of “public enemy No. 1.”
“It is primarily for personal reasons. A decade is a long time to meet every single Monday night,” Robarts said.
Also, she said, governments benefit from the energy of newcomers.
Ruth announced her intention to not seek re-election in Jason Shephard’s spring 2006 article: “The Fate of the Schools“. Ruth has done a tremendous service for the community via her strong, independent voice on the Board. She will be missed. Ruth was instrumental in getting this site rolling.
Johnny Winston, Jr. confirmed that “he’ll be in their swinging” next April. Check out these video interviews of Ruth, Johnny and others in the April, 2004 election.
6 city students get perfect ACT score
They began by seeking balance, and wound up finding perfection.
An unprecedented six Madison School District students attained a perfect score on recent ACT college entrance exams, district officials said Friday.
Just 11 Wisconsin students received a score of 36, the top possible mark, out of 45,500 tested in April and June.
During that period, 178 of 837,000 students nationwide received a perfect composite score in the assessment of English, mathematics, reading and science skills.
“I want to start by saying, ‘Wow!’ ” Pam Nash, the assistant superintendent overseeing Madison’s middle and high schools, told the students, their parents and educators Friday at a celebration at West High School.
More on the ACT scores here and here.
The Badger Herald has more:
Though Nash argued the quality of Madison’s public high schools contributed to the scores, she added natural talent, intelligence and hard work from the six students was also crucial to their success.
“Reading is important, and Madison emphasizes that,” Nash said. “But the kids themselves … chose the academic route.”
But Poppe, a Madison West senior surprised with the outcome of the test, attributes his perfect score to a healthy breakfast and a little practice.
“I did one of the practice tests and made sure to get a good breakfast,” he said. “I think a lot of the classes I took earlier in high school helped, but I think some people are more comfortable in a testing environment.”
Freshman Closed Campus: Praise & Scorn at East
Chiengkham Thao says it’s working.
Anna Toman and Moises Diaz think it’s got problems.
They and the 420 or so members of their Madison East High School freshman class find themselves part of a grand experiment — the first Madison high school in at least a dozen years to close its campus.
The school’s 1,400 older students still are allowed to lounge outside during their 30-minute lunch break.
Better yet, they’re able to jump into cars for a dash from 2222 E. Washington Ave. to Burger King, McDonald’s or Taco Bell.
But for East’s freshmen, there’s one choice for lunch — the cafeteria — as school officials attempt to reduce the school’s truancy rate.
More Funding for Adult Literacy Education
America is heading for an explosion in the number of immigrant children who grow up unable to read, write or fit into society, a national literacy expert says.
Robert Wedgeworth, president of ProLiteracy Worldwide, a nonprofit agency based in Syracuse, N.Y., plans to tell an audience in Madison today that the nation must sharply increase support for adult education programs.
Work on education gap lauded
From the Wisconsin State Journal, May 2, 2006
ANDY HALL ahall@madison.com
Madison made more progress than any urban area in the country in shrinking the racial achievement gap and managed to raise the performance levels of all racial groups over the past decade, two UW- Madison education experts said Monday in urging local leaders to continue current strategies despite tight budgets.
“I’ve seen districts around the United States, and it really is remarkable that the Madison School District is raising the achievement levels for all students, and at the same time they’re closing the gaps,” Julie Underwood, dean of the UW- Madison School of Education, said in an interview.
Underwood said she’s heard of no other urban district that reduced the gap so significantly without letting the test scores of white students stagnate or slide closer to the levels of lower-achieving black, Hispanic or Southeast Asian students.
“The way that it’s happened in Madison,” she said, “is truly the best scenario. . . . We haven’t done it at the expense of white students.”
Among the most striking trends:
Disparities between the portions of white and minority students attaining the lowest ranking on the state Third Grade Reading Test have essentially been eliminated.
Increasing shares of students of all racial groups are scoring at the top levels – proficient and advanced – on the Third Grade Reading Test.
Graduation rates have improved significantly for students in every racial group.
Underwood commented after one of her colleagues, Adam Gamoran, director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, presented a review of efforts to attack the racial achievement gap to the Schools of Hope Leadership Team meeting at United Way of Dane County.
Gamoran told the 25- member team, comprised of community leaders from the school system, higher education, nonprofit agencies, business and government, that Madison’s strategy parallels national research documenting the most effective approaches – one-to-one tutoring, particularly from certified teachers; smaller class sizes; and improved training of teachers.
“My conclusion is that the strategies the Madison school system has put in place to reduce the racial achievement gap have paid off very well and my hope is that the strategies will continue,” said Gamoran, who as director of the education-research center oversees 60 research projects, most of which are federally funded. A sociologist who’s worked at UW-Madison since 1984, Gamoran’s research focuses on inequality in education and school reform.
In an interview, Gamoran said that Madison “bucked the national trend” by beginning to shrink the racial achievement during the late 1990s, while it was growing in most of America’s urban school districts.
But he warned that those gains are in jeopardy as Wisconsin school districts, including Madison, increasingly resort to cuts and referendums to balance their budgets.
Art Rainwater, Madison schools superintendent, said Gamoran’s analysis affirmed that the district and Schools of Hope, a civic journalism project of the Wisconsin State Journal and WISC-TV (Ch. 3) that grew into a community campaign to combat the racial achievement gap, are using the best known tactics – approaches that need to be preserved as the district makes future cuts.
“The things that we’ve done, which were the right things to do, positively affect not just our educationally neediest students,” Rainwater said. “They help everybody.”
John Matthews, executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., the teachers union, and Rainwater agree that the progress is fragile.
“The future of it is threatened if we don’t have it adequately funded,” Matthews said.
Leslie Ann Howard, United Way president, whose agency coordinates Schools of Hope, said Gamoran’s analysis will help focus the community’s efforts, which include about 1,000 trained volunteer tutors a year working with 2,000 struggling students on reading and math in grades kindergarten through eight.
The project’s leaders have vowed to continue working until at least 2011 to fight gaps that persist at other grade levels despite the gains among third- graders.
“I think it’s critical for the community to know that all kids benefited from the strategies that have been put in place the last 10 years – the highest achievers, the lowest achievers and everybody in between,” Howard said.
“To be able to say it’s helping everyone, I think is really astonishing.”
1 Of 7 City Children Needs Mental Help
Our school staff certainly cannot meet the needs of children with mental illness. As a society we need to staff schools with mental health experts or examine new alternatives for educating children who pose challenges beyond our schools’ capabilities.
Read Andy Hall’s troubling story in the Wisconsin State Journal from October 25, 2005.
