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Madison School District Strategic Plan: Nirvana by 2014/2015?
The Madison School Board recently passed the District’s Strategic Plan. Superintendent Dan Nerad has now published a draft document outlining performance measures for the plan (this is positive). The 600K PDF document is well worth reading. Mr. Nerad’s proposed performance measures rely on the oft criticized – for its lack of rigor – state exam, the WKCE. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction recently stated that “Schools should not rely on only WKCE data to gauge progress of individual students or to determine effectiveness of programs or curriculum“.
A few highlights from the 600K PDF document:
- By 2014/2015 every Madison School District Student will be 100% proficient on the WKCE. “Flexible Instruction” is referenced for all students.
- The percentage of Madison School District high school students “participating in” advanced courses has declined over the past three years:
Grade 2006/2007 2007/2008 2008/2009 9 0.3% 0.4% 0.2% 10 5.5% 7.3% 1.9% 11 18.0% 18.1% 10.6% 12 34.1% 34.3% 24.3% Related: WKCE Scores Document Decline in the Percentage of Madison’s Advanced Students.
- The percentage of students scoring “C” or above for all courses will rise from 45 to 64% (6th to 12th grade; 2008/2009 school year) to all students (100%) in 2014-2015.
Related:
- Are MMSD Programs Effective, Who Knows?
When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before. - West High Math teachers on curriculum reduction.
Discussing these data is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, use of the WKCE does not instill much confidence, from my perspective.
via “Some States Drop Testing Bar” by John Hechinger.
Happy Halloween!
Commentary and Results of the Madison School District’s Maintenance Referendum Survey (3% Response)
Madison School District Administration (PDF):
MMSD received a total of 3,081 responses to the online survey. However, only Question #1 received the maximum number of responses; Questions #2-13 averaged around 2,200 respondents. Normally, a response rate is calculated by dividing the number of responses by the number of invitations to complete the survey. However, it is difficult to estimate an exact response rate to this survey, given that there was not a set number of invitations. The denominator, or number of possible respondents, could be calculated in a variety of ways, and that the survey allowed for an individual or family to take the survey multiple times. However, we have provided a couple possibilities for calculating a response rate, which should be considered very coarse estimates:
Per Housing Unit in MMSD Boundaries – According to ACS data, MMSD has about 100,000 occupied housing units, so about 3% of households within MMSD boundaries responded to any portion of the survey.
Per Households of MMSD Students – About 1,600 respondents reported having children in MMSD, and MMSD’s students as of October 2014 live in about 17,000 different households, so about 9% of households with MMSD students responded.
These response rates are high enough to be relatively certain about the survey results; the 2,200 responses to most questions out of 100,000 households would lead to a margin of error of about 2% with 95% confidence, and the margin of error relative to MMSD households would be similar.
Madison’s 2014/2015 budget includes a 4.2% property tax increase while spending between $15,000 and 16,000 per student – double the national average.
Related:
Madison’s long term disastrous reading results.
Substantial questions have been raised about the District’s last maintenance referendum. Unfortunately, we’ve not seen any additional information.
K-12 taxes and spending have increased substantially over the years, with little change in academic outcome.
