Abby Comerford:

Walker is a first-generation college student from the south side of Chicago. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio before becoming a K-12 English teacher in Florida. Even though Walker is no longer in the classroom, her ongoing passion for education is prevalent in her work.

Walker is joining the rigorous Studio 20 program at NYU to learn multimedia content creation and emerging media strategies. Eventually, she wants to become her own boss through creating her own publication or through freelance writing.

Keeping children and their families at the center of her journalism is very important to Walker. She enjoys hearing from members of the community who often don’t have a voice, so she’s willing to spend time in neighborhoods and uncover the truth.

NYU awarded Walker with a full-tuition scholarship; however, they did not provide financial assistance for any other expenses such as food, rent and course materials. A Go Fund Me page has been set up to help support her. Any donations are very appreciated.

We will be sad to see Walker go but we are very excited to see where her journey takes her.

Amber’s work, notes and links.

Amber Walker:

I sometimes wonder where I would be today if my kindergarten teacher hadn’t encouraged my mother to have me take the admissions exam for Chicago’s selective elementary schools.

That one test result earned me a coveted spot at Edward W. Beasley Academic Center, one of the city’s gifted and talented elementary programs, where I matriculated to one of the top-performing high schools in the country.

And that, in turn, set the foundation for me to become the first person in my immediate family to graduate from college, earn my master’s degree, travel the world, and earn a decent, fulfilling living. If I have children of my own, they will likely attend high-performing, well-funded community schools.

As an adult covering K-12 education, I find that my experience also shaped my belief that if students, no matter their backgrounds, are treated with dignity and are provided with educational spaces where they feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable, coupled with the tools and resources they need to absorb the curriculum, they will succeed academically.

It is not easy, but it is possible.  I’ve seen glimpses of it during my time learning in, teaching in, and writing about classrooms.

Amber spent a bit of time covering education in Madison.

Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled

Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).

Molly Beck and Madeline Heim:

which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.   

While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state. 

Channel3000:

The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.

The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.

“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”

Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.

All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.

Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Assembly against private school forced closure.

Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

Amber Walker and Negassi Tesfamichael:

“We were glad to see you attempt to rebuild trust with parents on your very first day on the job. MMSD cannot afford to lose any more trust from its parents, students or teachers.”

For the past decade, Wisconsin schools have consistently placed first or second in the nation for the broadest achievement gaps between Black and white students. MMSD’s Black students perform below the state average. For years, both state and national standardized test scores indicate that, despite sitting in the same classrooms, Black students do not perform as well as their white peers in reading and math, across grade levels.

Black students persistently face higher suspension and expulsion rates. Some Black students and parents have expressed frustration over the years that there seem to be different standards for them versus their white peers.

The more time students spend out of school, the more likely they are to fall even further behind, increasing their likelihood of court involvement and falling victim to the school-to-prison pipeline.

Virtual learning during COVID-19 further complicates your charge to tackle all of these issues. Know that you have allies during this stressful time. Organizations like Simpson Street Free Press have managed to successfully transition to an engaging online learning model.

For over 20 years, SSFP has worked with Madison students in some of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods who attend schools in vulnerable feeder patterns. Despite the odds, according to SSFP’s most recent annual report, over 80% of students increased reading comprehension based on MAP test results. Over 90% improved their overall GPA after two semesters in the program.

Amber Walker:

Critics were also concerned about Madison Prep’s operating costs — totaling $11,000 per student — and its reliance on non-union staff in the wake of Wisconsin’s Act 10, a state law that severely limited collective bargaining rights of teachers and other state employees which passed early in 2011.

Caire said despite the challenges, building Madison Prep would have been an opportunity for the district to respond to the longstanding concerns of African-American parents for better educational outcomes for their children.

“How could (the Madison School Board) question us like that? (They) hadn’t gotten this thing right in two to three decades,” Caire said.

“Black kids were not getting what they needed. Black community members felt that and it’s real,” he said. “White community members said we were trying to tell them that their system doesn’t support black kids… a whole lot of it was about that.”

In December 2011, hundreds of people on both sides of the Madison Prep debate crowded the auditorium at Madison Memorial High School to appeal to the Madison School Board. Ultimately, the Board voted 5-2 against the charter proposal.

“It actually made me feel like Madison was no longer my home, going through that,” Caire said. “A lot of friends I had, to this day, after that experience don’t hang out with me like they used to. I miss that… unfortunately, there were some casualties with that whole episode.”

Ed Hughes, former Madison School Board president who was one of the two members who voted in favor of Madison Prep [Incorrect], agreed.

“It was an eye-opening experience for me. I had been on the board for a few years, but there was not previously an issue like that, one that highlighted the school district’s failure to educate children of color,” Hughes said.

“It took someone like (Caire) to come in, request the data, put it out, and say, ‘The school district is failing in some really significant ways and no one is doing anything about it.’ It is a real credit to him that he got people talking about the issue and starting to focus on it.”

Current Madison School Board member T.J. Mertz is an instructor at Edgewood College who blogs extensively about K-12 education issues in the city. Before joining the board, Mertz voiced his concerns about Madison Prep’s funding structure and pedagogical approach in his blog.

In an interview with the Cap Times, Mertz acknowledged the Madison Prep debate illuminated MMSD’s shortcomings in serving low income, African-American students, but it bolstered the rift between black families and the district.

“I think the campaign around Madison Prep shed more heat than light on the issues. It certainly called attention to it, but also created difficulties in district and community members working together,” Mertz said.

“I implored him, ‘Don’t make it harder for African-American families to work with the school district,’” Mertz said regarding a conversation he had with Caire early on in the Madison Prep charter process.

Correction: Mr. Hughes voted against Madison Prep, along with Beth Moss, Mary Passman, Arlene Silveira and Maya Cole.

Lucy Mathiak and James Howard voted for it.

Much more on the 2011 Madison School Board’s rejection of Madison prep, here.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham: “without; being held accountable to district standards”. Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Finally, Madison spends far more than $11k per student….

Amber Walker:

Reese’s experience raises broader questions about what information is shared between MMSD and the Dane County Juvenile Court when it comes to youth in their care. While the district insists it was an isolated incident, juvenile court staff, like Smedema and her supervisor, Suzanne Stute, said collecting statements from school staff is a routine part of their work.

The case also illuminates communication issues and a lack of standardized procedures between MMSD and Dane County Juvenile Court employees. Such communication happens on an ad-hoc basis and varies from school-to-school, largely unmonitored by the district’s central office. A task force of both groups of employees has been working to correct this, and Madison schools Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham proposed adding $120,000 to next year’s budget to establish an office dedicated to court-involved and other “at-risk” youth.

After spending over a week in the Dane County Juvenile Detention Center, Reese’s son was ready to go.

“I want to go home,” he wailed as the court commissioner ruled to extend his stay for the second time, in an audio recording of a custody hearing reviewed by the Cap Times. The Cap Times is not identifying the student by name because juvenile court records are sealed.

The county’s Juvenile Court uses custody hearings to determine the best environment for a child before a delinquency hearing or trial. Custody hearings usually happen within 24 hours of a child’s apprehension by authorities. Options typically include secure detention, non-secure shelter, or returning home with a parent or other stable adult. If a child is not released after the initial hearing, they can request follow-up hearings. Custody hearings are not used to determine a child’s innocence or guilt when accused of a delinquent act.

Shortly before the commissioner made his decision in late February, the student’s public defender argued that he’d been doing well in his classes during detention, and both parents were committed to helping him stay in school and out of trouble.

Despite the student’s and his parents’ request for monitored release, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Miller and Melissa Tanner, a Dane County social worker assigned to the student, did not think it was the best option. Along with concerns about the student running away again, Tanner and Miller spoke about their perception of his experience at West.

When asked by the court commissioner whether or not they believed the student should be released from custody that day, both mentioned Pryor’s letter as a reason to think twice.

“I haven’t gotten confirmation about how West would feel about him coming back, but we do have this letter that was submitted to the court about their concern,” Tanner told the court.

“I strongly believe that if he stays at West or any of the large MMSD schools, his behavior will not change and he will progress to even more serious behaviors,” said Miller, reading a line from Pryor’s letter to the court.

“Returning (to West) is not a sure thing, it is by no means certain,” Miller told the commissioner.

An impressive piece of local journalism…

Gangs and School Violence Forum

They’re all rich white kids and they’ll do just fine – Not!

Amber Walker:

Nearly 7,500 students have earned the presidential scholar title since 1964. The other Wisconsin honorees this year are Xavier Lightfoot from Pius XI Catholic High School, Nabeel J. Quryshi from the University School of Milwaukee, Julian Rhee from Brookfield East High School and Sophia F. Sun from Brookfield Central High School.

The most recent presidential scholar from Dane County was Gabriel A. Saiz, also from West High School, who received the honor in 2016. In 2013, Hua’s sister Amy was also named a presidential scholar.

Amber Walker:

Love the squash curry from Lao Laan-Xang or the duck fat fries from A Pig in a Fur Coat? Some Madison middle school students are learning to prepare some of the city’s favorite dishes while raising money to improve their school.

On Thursday, Georgia O’Keeffe Middle School will host its third annual “Top Chef” fundraiser. The event is free and open to the public and takes place at the school, 510 S. Thornton Ave., from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Over 30 O’Keeffe students trained with local chefs to learn how to prepare a dish for the competition. Similar to the Bravo television show of the same name, a panel of celebrity judges will sample each dish and decide which group will earn the “Top Chef” title.

Amber Walker:

As the warmer, spring weather bought a much-needed reprieve to James Madison Memorial High School students this week, so did a fresh, fun option for school lunch.

This week, REAP Food Group and the Madison Metropolitan School District launched Uproot by Reap, a food truck that will serve healthy, locally sourced lunch options for Madison high school students. The truck will rotate between Madison’s four comprehensive high schools Tuesday through Friday, spending one day at each campus.

Students who qualify for free and reduced lunch are able to use their status for no-cost or discounted meals from the truck, just like in the school’s cafeteria.

Karen Rivedal:

“Sometimes we get to the point where it’s a detriment in our community because we are so scared of being called racist,” Reyes said. “We have to call that out, get over it and be able to move on as a community to help support all students. And we have to have a diverse representation on the school board. It’s important.”

Reyes has called for active-shooter response training for school staff and for beefing up school security infrastructure to help keep students safe. She also has supported keeping police officers in the four main high schools, an issue that has risen in prominence after a first semester in which disciplinary problems led to a 32 percent rise in high school suspensions locally and after a mass shooting in a Florida high school galvanized students nationwide in support of stricter gun controls.

As deputy mayor, Reyes handles issues related to public safety, civil rights and community services.

Amber Walker:

Before joining the mayor’s office in 2014, Reyes was a Madison Police detective. She started Amigos en Azul — Spanish for Friends in Blue — a group dedicated to improving relations among police officers and the Latino community. She also played a pivotal role in establishing the youth court system on the city’s south side.

During her campaign, Reyes supported keeping police officers in schools and advocated for restorative justice practices. As a Madison School Board member, Reyes said she plans to make school safety her “first priority” during the first few months of her term.

Much more on the 2018 Madison school board election, here.

Amber Walker:

In December 2017, Madison deputy mayor Gloria Reyes announced her candidacy for Madison School Board seat one. Incumbent Anna Moffit was elected to the seat in 2015 after running unopposed in her first election.

In February, Moffit and Reyes participated in their first candidate forum. The candidates discussed the state of arts education in Madison and fielded questions from music, visual, and multidisciplinary arts teachers across Dane County. Oscar Morales, director of Omega School and Madison’s poet laurate moderated the fourm, hosted by the Arts and Literature Lab.

A voter summary is available here.

Amber Walker:

Allison: The amount of principal and administrative support we got was astonishing.

Social media played a significant role in organizing this movement. Did you all communicate with the young people in Parkland during your planning process?

As Madison as it gets: Get Cap Times’ highlights sent daily to your inbox

Allison: As much as we would have liked to, I imagine they are swamped. We were swamped, so I can’t imagine what they’ve been dealing with. It would be awesome to meet and reach out to them in the future to try and organize national marches and events. For now, we’ve just been following their lead.

Amber Walker:

“Now, more than ever, we need someone that has the pulse of our community serving on the School Board to have a voice for all of our students,” Reyes said.

Moffit, who also grew up in Madison, said she has a lifelong commitment to education, teaching for seven years before joining the board in 2015.

“I truly believe that education is the greatest equalizer that we can have in society to transcend the many barriers that exist for students in our district,” Moffit said.

Amber Walker:

Out-of-school suspensions are up in the Madison Metropolitan School District at this point in the school year compared to last year.

On Monday, the Madison School Board received its midyear update on the Behavior Education Plan. District data shows 1,122 suspensions across the district so far this school year, compared to 892 at the same point last year, an increase of 230.

MMSD officials said the uptick in suspensions is isolated to four high schools and one middle school. The schools were not named, but represent half of all in-school and out-of-school suspensions. Freshman and sophomores account for 75 percent of all incidents at the high school level.

Realated: Gangs and school violence forum audio / video.

Police calls: Madison Schools 1996-2006.

Amber Walker:

Madison School Board Seat 1 candidates Anna Moffit and Gloria Reyes kicked off campaign season with a forum on arts education, the first of four discussions scheduled so far.

The forum, held at the Arts and Literature Lab in Madison’s Atwood neighborhood was moderated by Oscar Mireles, Madison’s poet laureate and director of Omega School.

Moffit seeks a second term on the board against challenger Reyes.

Moffit said the district as a whole needs to prioritize the arts across mediums, and called out a lack of spoken word and digital art programs available to students. Moffit said she would defer to educators to determine what mediums the district should focus on.

The next scheduled Madison School Board candidate forum — co-hosted by the Cap Times, Delta Sigma Theta Alumnae, Simpson Street Free Press and Mt. Zion Baptist Church — will take place on March 6 at Mt. Zion, 2019 Fisher St.

Amber Walker:

Whether gaining a specialized skill, navigating the college application process, or mastering high- level classes or a language, these four La Follette students are a part of key MMSD initiatives designed to help students succeed academically. Cap Times reporter Amber C. Walker shadowed the four over the course of several days throughout the first semester, which ended Jan. 22. The students were recommended by La Follette principal Sean Storch.

For all La Follette students, the semester had its wins — teachers asked tough questions, students stayed up late studying for exams and close bonds flourished. It also had its low points — tempers flared, police were called and student engagement fluctuated. And during the last two weeks of Feburary, La Follette made headlines for physical altercations involving students, and the discovery of a handgun on campus. As the La Follette community and MMSD administrators strategize to find solutions for the small group of students who need more support, these four students work to thrive despite the challenges.

Amber Walker:

Several dozen parents, students and community members from La Follette High School showed up to Monday evening’s Madison School Board meeting to address mounting concerns about safety at the school.

The outcry follows the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, earlier this month. In the last two weeks, Madison Police have responded to high profile incidents at La Follette, including disarming a student who brought a handgun to campus.

Parents like Jose Pacheco urged the School Board to do more to make students feel safe at school.

Related:

Gangs and school violence forum.

Police calls to Madison Schools: 1996-2006

Amber Walker:

Madison School Board member Kate Toews had a suggestion for the district at Monday night’s board meeting: an interior lock on every classroom door.

Toews’ idea came towards the end of a board discussion about the 2018-2019 school district budget. Toews said the Madison Metropolitan School District should install locks on all classrooms that teachers can secure from the inside of their rooms as a safety tool in case an emergency occurs on campus.

“I don’t want to derail the meeting, but I do feel the need to address (what happened) last week in Florida. I think families have a right to expect when they send their kids to schools here, we’ve done everything we possibly can to keep their kids safe,” Toews said.

Related: Police calls, Madison Schools 1996-2006 and

Gangs and School violence forum.

Amber Walker:

A physical education teacher at Madison East High School has left work after being accused of inappropriate behavior by a student and will not return to the school, according to an email sent to parents Tuesday.

East principal Michael Hernandez’ email to parents said an investigation was initiated into allegations against Gary Calhoun, a veteran East teacher. Calhoun obtained his permanent state teaching license in 1984 and was hired by the Madison Metropolitan School District in 1988. Calhoun graduated from East in 1975 and has served as the school’s baseball coach.

Amber Walker:

“Candidates graduating from new (teacher preparation) programs will be able to teach in all of the areas…(Teachers) that weren’t prepared in that manner retain the same ability to teach only in the narrow area, such as biology,” McCarthy said in an email to the Cap Times. “We will continue to support pathways for a currently licensed educator to demonstrate competence and add on additional subject areas.”

Earlier this month, DPI held a public hearing about the new rules, which is required before the rules become permanent. Several music teachers expressed concerns that consolidating subject areas would compromise teacher expertise and quality.

Brad Schneider, government relations chair for the Wisconsin Music Educators Association, said consolidating music licenses would lead to “condensed and diluted” music instruction. Schneider said the best way to recruit teachers is to address factors that discourage people from entering the classroom, like low pay, high stakes testing and a lack of teacher autonomy.

“The move to a single license area may be shortsighted and will discourage potential music educators,” Schneider said. “It doesn’t address the real problem of people choosing not to teach.”

Related:

Much more on Wisconsin’s teacher licensing requirements, here.

Wisconsin has long avoided teacher content knowledge requirements, adopting “MTEL” via the legislature some years ago, in an effort to improve elementary teacher capabilities.

Foundation of Reading Results (Wisconsin Education School Teacher Exam).

Amber Walker:

Several groups assembled at the state Capitol on Thursday to speak out against a bill that would require police departments to inform school administrators if a student is taken into custody for a felony or violent misdemeanor.

The bill would also give teachers the right to appeal directly to the school board if school administrators refuse to suspend a student, and terminate their teaching contracts without penalty if they are physically assaulted on the job.

Students, parents and representatives from the Madison School Board, Wisconsin Family Ties, Disability Rights Wisconsin and Kids Forward organized a press conference before the public hearing on Assembly Bill 693.

Related: Gangs and School Violence forum.

Amber Walker:

To determine where the most experienced teachers work in the Madison School District, the Cap Times analyzed staff data from the 2016-2017 school year collected by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. DPI’s all-staff report catalogs salary, position, experience level and demographic data of all faculty and staff in the state’s public schools.

The analysis found Madison’s most experienced teachers work at Metro High, the school housed inside the Dane County Jail. The five teachers at Metro High School have an average of 19.4 years of teaching experience. Badger Rock Middle School on Madison’s south side had the least experienced teachers with an average of 6.5 years in the classroom. Across the district, the average teacher has 12.18 years of experience. Statewide, the average is 14 years. The Cap Times excluded teachers who were not assigned to one school from our analysis.

Amber Walker:

To measure literacy, MEP compared students’ performance on the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening, or PALS, an assessment of students’ familiarity with literacy fundamentals like letter recognition, spelling and sound awareness.

On average, 4K students scored higher on PALS than 53 percent of their peers who did not enroll in 4K. Students of color, students from low-income families and students of non-college educated parents also benefited from 4K enrollment when compared to their peers of similar backgrounds. On average, the PALS scores of African-American and Latino students enrolled in 4K were higher than 58 percent of their peers of the same background who did not enroll in 4K.

Low-income 4K students also scored better on PALS than 58 percent of their peers from similar socioeconomic backgrounds.

The study found no appreciable difference in PALS performance for students enrolled in an MMSD school-based 4K program versus an MMSD early childhood center.

MEP’s study also compared MMSD’s 4K student performance to children enrolled in Milwaukee Public Schools’ 4K program. MPS was chosen as a peer district because of its urban setting, large size and diverse student body.

On average, Milwaukee 4K students outscored their non-4K peers on the PALS assessment 76 percent of the time, far ahead of Madison’s 52 percent average. The report did not conclude why the gap between MMSD and MPS student performance is so large but mentioned that MPS only offers full-day 4K, while MMSD students attend half-day programs.

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Much more on 4K, here.

Amber Walker:

Gloria Reyes, deputy mayor for the city of Madison, announced Wednesday that she will challenge Madison School Board vice president Anna Moffit for Seat 1 on the board.

Since 2014, Reyes has served as the mayor’s liaison to several city agencies including the Department of Civil Rights, the Madison Police and Fire departments and the city attorney’s office. Reyes also represents the mayor on the city of Madison’s education committee.

Reyes said her work in city government and law enforcement makes her a strong candidate for Madison School Board.

It is great to see competitive races for our $20k/student taxpayer supported school district.

Amber Walker:

Before she started teaching at Madison’s Black Hawk Middle School this year, Deidre Green developed an attribute all teachers need: eyes in the back of her head. She got them working as managing editor of the Simpson Street Free Press.

“From my desk in the back of the room, I could watch the entire newsroom and pay attention to everything,” she said. “I could notice if a kid was up and walking around, not on task. Now, as a classroom teacher …having that keen sense of what is happening with all of my kids is something that I’m used to.”

For 25 years, staff at the Simpson Street Free Press have refined what works to help kids become successful students, maintaining an innovative spirit in both education and journalism. They ground their work in academic outcomes, cultivating a pipeline where students write, learn to edit and sometimes return to work or volunteer as adults. In addition, they have adapted to changing demographics in Dane County and shrinking resources for print journalists.

Much more on the Simpson Street Free Press here.

Amber Walker:

As some of Madison’s high school students balance classes, jobs and home responsibilities, two local organizations are lending a hand to ease their burden this holiday season.

The Madison chapter of 100 Black Men, in partnership with the United Way of Dane County, organized “Christmas for Children With Responsibilities.” The toy drive is for Madison high school students who are the primary caregivers for their younger siblings.

Now in its second year, the drive collects gift cards, new toys, books and games for kids ages 0-12. Care packages are assembled and discreetly distributed to the high school students to give to their younger siblings.

Much more on the 100 Black men, here.

Amber Walker:

A report released this fall by the Madison Metropolitan School District said nearly nine percent of students with disabilities were restrained or secluded by staff during the last school year.

The report showed that 334 of the 3,804 students with disabilities, or 8.8 percent, experienced restraint and/or seclusion during the 2016-2017 school year. That number is up from 5.6 percent in the 2015-2016 school year.

The number was disproportionately high at Landmark Elementary Alternative Program (LEAP) West, a program at Olson Elementary School for students with emotional-behavioral disabilities. LEAP West reported 737 incidents of restraint and/or seclusion among 10 students last school year.

Amber Walker:

Students also suggested that schools develop a system for students to share feedback about their teachers’ performance. Kayvion James-Ragland, a junior at La Follette High School who is a member of the African-American Youth Council, said that feedback is usually top down, with teachers being able to express how they feel about students, but not the other way around.

“We think it is important to ask us directly because we are in the classroom every day,” he said.

Amber Walker:

The Madison School Board’s ad-hoc committee on educational resource officers is about halfway through its 15-month process to review, evaluate and make recommendations about the use of police in schools.

At its most recent meeting last Wednesday, committee members heard about 40 minutes of public comments. Most of the remarks were from members of Freedom Inc., a Madison-based organization focused on socioeconomic and political change for communities of color.

The group’s Freedom Youth Squad, made up mostly of Madison Metropolitan School District students and recent graduates, reiterated their demands from previous ERO committee meetings: No police in schools, community control over school discipline and more resources poured into youth advocates, counselors and teachers to work with youth of color in a culturally-specific way.

Logan Wroge:

The Madison School Board adopted a $393 million operating budget for the 2017-18 school year Monday.

Board members voted unanimously on a budget that will increase the tax bill on the median value Madison home of $263,000 by $24.48. The budget relies on a $297 million tax levy, an increase of 3.52 percent compared to the last school year’s levy amount.

Board members added $1.6 million to the budget Monday evening: $1 million for special-education staffing and $600,000 for building maintenance.

Madison has long spent far more than most, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Amber Walker:

“We made some (strategic choices) that we were going to invest more in teachers and shift the balance from SEAs,” she said. “I wonder if that is the pain we may be experiencing and hearing about in the district.”

Cheatham told the board that the special education team has a process for evaluating staffing needs in classrooms beyond the beginning of the year and a reserve of money is available to hire more staff. Cheatham suggested that the board wait until its November conversation around staffing to make those decisions.

“My concern is we have one week before the levy has to get established,” she said. “We agreed as a group that we were going to take a big step back and (assess) what are our goals when it comes to staffing… inclusive of special education.

Amber Walker:

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said the stories about shortages were “hard to hear” after the district continued investment in staffing.

“We made some (strategic choices) that we were going to invest more in teachers and shift the balance from SEAs,” she said. “I wonder if that is the pain we may be experiencing and hearing about in the district.”

Cheatham told the board that the special education team has a process for evaluating staffing needs in classrooms beyond the beginning of the year and a reserve of money is available to hire more staff. Cheatham suggested that the board wait until its November conversation around staffing to make those decisions.

“My concern is we have one week before the levy has to get established,” she said. “We agreed as a group that we were going to take a big step back and (assess) what are our goals when it comes to staffing… inclusive of special education.

Related links:

The Madison School District’s recent spending history

A District Administration 2017-2018 budget summary (PDF).

Enrollment history.

25,239 students were enrolled in the taxpayer supported Madison School District during 2016-2017. We plan to spend roughly $19,598 per student during the 2017-2018 school year.

This is far more than most K-12 organizations, and despite our long term, disastrous reading results.

Amber Walker:

MMSD highlighted the success of the new math curriculum in its annual report, released last July. The report said the first cohort of schools using Bridges saw an eight-point increase in math proficiency scores and nine-point gains in math growth in one school year on the spring Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) exam for third through fifth grade students.

By comparison, fifth grade MAP proficiency scores across the district increased eight points in the last four years.

“(Bridges) focuses on developing the students’ understanding of math concepts,” Davis said. “It is not about how students can memorize certain skills, but really around their ability to problem solve and look at math in more complex ways…and explain their reasoning to their teachers and peers.”

Related (deja vu):

Connected Math

Discovery Math

Math task force

Math forum

Singapore Math

Stretch targets

Amber Walker::

In 1982, the city of Madison annexed the land where The Crossings now sits from the town of Middleton. That same year, Wisconsin passed a law that no longer required school district boundaries to follow municipal boundaries. While the land was in Madison, it was still a part of the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District. There are 747 students — about 10.5 percent of the district’s total enrollment — who have a Madison address, but are zoned to MCPASD.

Real estate developer Gary Gorman built The Crossings, then called Elver Park Apartments, in 1989. Gorman said his initial vision for the project was to provide affordable rentals for working-class families.

In the early stages of development, Gorman filed a petition with MCPASD to have the property detached from the district and turned over to the Madison Metropolitan School District so the students could attend school in their city.

The Middleton-Cross Plains Area School Board rejected Gorman’s petition in August 1989. In a last-ditch effort, Gorman filed an appeal with the statewide School District Boundary Appeal Board, which also denied his claim in March 1990.

“I recognized there were a number of Madison schools that were much closer than the Middleton-Cross Plains School District,” Gorman said. “I made my case, fundamentally, that for the convenience and safety of the kids, they should go to the school that is closest to them, and I lost. There was no effective appeal, that was the end of it.”

Gorman said he believes the MCPASD decision was motivated by funding. The more students in a district, the more money a district receives in state aid.

Related: 2006 Swan Creek (Fitchburg) seeks to leave Madison schools for Oregon.

Amber Walker

Eighty-eight percent of MMSD fifth through 12th graders who are at-risk of not graduating are low-income students. The district report did not specify if the data includes students who have already withdrawn from school.

Before the At-Risk plan was developed, the district would only send a letter home to guardians. Caroline Racine Gilles, the director of multi-tiered systems of supports at MMSD, said the new approach allows schools to collaborate with students and families to develop a path forward.

Now, MMSD is taking a “proactive approach” using data and other early warning systems to identify students before they qualify as at-risk, Racine Gilles said.

“No one likes to get a bad news letter,” she said. “We want to make that personalized contact and really use it as an opportunity to build relationships with our families. We want to partner with them to understand what the barriers are to learning and ensure that we build support to address those barriers.”

Racine Gilles said that each plan will be tailored to the students’ individual needs and parents will receive a copy of the plan and dates to follow-up. Options range from tutoring and mentoring to alternative programs and extended graduation timelines.

They’re all rich white kids and they’ll do just fine – NOT!.

We have long spent far more than most government funded school districts (now nearly $20,000 per student), yet we’ve long tolerated disastrous reading results. Yet, Madison’s non diverse governance model continues unabated, aborting the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter school and more recently a quasi Montessori charter proposal.

Amber Walker:

Shorewood Hills Principal Anu Ebbe said a commitment to high expectations in the classroom and relationship building with students contribute to the school’s academic outcomes.

“When we look at our school-wide data around reading and mathematics we’ve shown consistent growth every year for every category of student. We have closed the gap for our English language learners and our African-American students in reading and math,” Ebbe said. “We are constantly looking at our data and saying ‘What is the next level of professional development and learning that needs to happen so we can ensure all our kids are growing?’ The staff is incredibly open to taking risks and trying new things. It is an amazing place.”

Ebbe said students, staff and families watched United States Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ announcement, delivered via YouTube, at the school on Thursday.

Ebbe said the Shorewood community tries to create a school culture that acknowledges and respects students for who they are and takes pride in its diverse student body.

Amber Walker:

The report also found that African-American students are 10.3 times more likely than white students to receive an out-of-school suspension, up from 8 times more likely before the BEP. The report indicated that the suspension risk ratio for African-American students outpaced the national average, where black students are 3 to 4 times more likely to be suspended than white students.

Might one might consider the District’s long term, disastrous reading results and our far above average spending, now nearly $20k per student?

Perhaps governance diversity might be worthwhile.

Amber Walker:

In a 5-2 decision on Monday, the Madison School Board voted to postpone the charter approval of Isthmus Montessori Academy.

The board wanted more clarity around the school’s proposed attendance area, financial and academic accountability standards at their three-year mark, and language in the proposal that asks for waivers that apply to early release and lesson planning time promised to all Madison Metropolitan School District teachers via the employee handbook.

IMA has until Aug. 21 to finish negotiations with the district to iron out the details. The board is expected to take up the vote again at its next regular meeting on Aug. 28.

If the board approves the charter, IMA, which is currently a private school, would cease operation and reopen as Isthmus Montessori Academy Charter School in the fall of 2018 serving students in 4K through ninth grade.

IMACS would be a free public charter school, operating under the authority of the Madison School Board.

Some history on (aborted) independent charter schools in Madison, including:

the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School and

the Studio School.

2009: “An emphasis on adult employment“.

Unfortunately, Madison continues to support a non diverse K-12 Governance model, this despite spending far more per student than most districts and tolerating long term, disastrous reading results.

Related: an Independent (!) Charter School RFP for Madison or Milwaukee.

Amber Walker

For math, the numbers were 46 percent for proficiency and 65 percent for growth. Over the past four years, students’ reading proficiency increased 10 percentage points in reading and 8 percentage points in math.

The largest achievement gap in elementary school reading exists between African-American and white students, with 18 percent of black third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders passing their reading MAP test in the last school year compared to 70 percent of their white peers. The numbers increased by 11 and 13 percentage points, respectively, over four years.

At the middle school level, 38 percent of eighth-graders passed the MAP reading exam, and 44 percent were proficient in math. The numbers represent a 4- and 5-percentage point increase, respectively, in the last four years.

Overall, eighth-grade students’ growth in both subject areas decreased over a four year period, with 48 percent of students reaching their individualized growth goals in reading, and 58 percent in math.

Karen Rivedal:

Black students and Hispanic students saw increases of 9 percentage points in reading proficiency for grades 3-5 over four years, white students and English language learners saw a 13 percentage-point rise, and multiracial students saw an 11 percentage-point increase.

But only white students and advanced learners of all races were more than 50 percent reading-proficient in grades 3-5, at 70 percent and 93 percent, respectively. Eighteen percent of black students in those grades were reading-proficient, as were 17 percent of special education students, 28 percent of English language learners and 23 percent of Hispanic students.

Math, graduation rates
Less progress was made in middle school math scores. For eighth-graders across the district, the report showed a four-year gain of 4 percentage points to 38 percent in reading proficiency, and a 5 percentage-point gain to 44 percent in math proficiency.

For grades 6-8, overall math proficiency was up 4 percentage points to 45 percent.

By student group, though, progress was far less strong and some groups saw drops. The four-year trend included 1 percentage-point gains in math proficiency for multiracial and white students and for English language learners, to 44 percent, 69 percent and 29 percent, respectively.

Much more on Madison’s reading challenges, here.

Amber Walker:

MMSD also implemented new interviewing practices that assess not only a potential teacher’s knowledge in her content area, but her culturally responsive practices, including setting high and clear expectations for all students, acknowledging all students and connecting to students’ lives and cultural identity.

Hargrove-Krieghoff said the new competency and performance measures were a “game changer” for the district.

“We designed our overall set of competencies with those things in mind,” Hargrove-Krieghoff said.

In an emailed statement to the Cap Times, Cheatham reiterated her commitment to diversifying the district’s teaching staff.

“It is important to us as a district to have a staff that represents the diversity of our student population. It is common sense that students will benefit from interacting with and learning from teachers who look like them at school, and research supports it,” she said. “The benefits for African-American students to have even one African-American teacher in elementary school are long-lasting.”

Although Cheatham’s administration aims to increase the number of teachers of color in the district overall, some teachers are worried that change is not happening fast enough, particularly for African-American students.

Amber walker:

Currently, I am the education specialist for The Road Home. Before, I was a housing case manager, but I spent a half of my time with homeless families trying to connect them to the schools, advocating for their kids in the schools, and helping them find resources in the neighborhood, community centers and other programs around the city. Other case managers were also doing a lot of work around education, too.

I just thought it would be great if we worked to have a holistic approach to end homelessness so our clients could have someone who navigated education full-time and be able to answer their questions.

I go to meetings (at schools) with parents, and if a parent can’t make it, they usually give me a release of information to go on their behalf. Attending meetings takes away a lot of time from a parent’s work day, especially if they don’t have flexible schedules. I hear a lot of educators thinking parents don’t want to be involved, but the reality is we don’t live in a society where every parent has a flexible schedule.

Amber Walker:

On Monday night, in a 7-0 decision, the Madison School Board approved the district’s $494,652,025 preliminary all-funds budget for the 2017-2018 school year.

The Madison Metropolitan School District highlighted it’s balanced operating budget — representing $390,045,697 of the total funds — will result in a $15 per hour minimum wage for the district’s lowest-paid employees, a teacher starting salary of $41,096, an average 3.25 percent increase in across-the-board raises for staff and $5 million dollars in priority actions aimed at narrowing achievement gaps and raising student achievement.

The remainder of the budget — $104,606,328 — is used to fund construction projects, debt service, and food service costs across the district.

Props to Amber for leading with total spending.

The “no flexibility” statement below is incorrect. One can (mostly) restructure debt, change facility requirements and food practices.

Taxpayers fund all of this, so a complete picture is useful.

Karen Rivedal:

The board on Monday also approved what’s known as its “all-funds” budget, at $494,652,025, which includes the proposed operating budget. This fund captures all budget activity, including construction, food service and debt service, for which there is no flexibility in spending.

Not counting Mertz’s amendment, the total spending plan representing a balanced budget raises property taxes by an estimated 3.97 percent. The owner of a $258,367 home — considered average by the district — will pay a projected $3,108, an increase of $74 over the prior year.

District budget director Mike Barry said the district could know by July how much the $74 average increase could rise, as a result of Mertz’s amendment.

Madison spends more than most ( budget details here ), despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin per student voucher data. 

Amber Walker:

After 13 years of dual-language instruction, the Madison Metropolitan School District’s first class of graduates walked across the stage this spring with Wisconsin’s new Seal of Biliteracy, certifying their mastery of a foreign language during high school.

Forty-five students from Madison La Follette High School earned the seal of biliteracy in Spanish. All of the students were a part of the first class of 50 kindergartners at Nuestro Mundo Elementary School’s dual-language immersion program. The majority of the cohort continued with the DLI program at Sennett Middle School and followed the required course of study at La Follette to earn the seal.

Starting next school year, students across the district will have the chance to earn the biliteracy seal with their high school diplomas. With the expansion, MMSD expects the number of qualified students to expand exponentially.

Amber Walker:

“It always feels like we are starting over instead of building. Where do you feel we are at in terms of preparing our kids now who are in K-5?” he said.

“It seems as though the pool (for advanced learners) will shrink if we haven’t prepared them early on.”

Cheatham pointed to the academic growth of elementary school students and the use of universal assessments that test all kids for advanced learning in second and fifth grades. She agreed with Howard’s sentiments, but believed developing accountability plans for individual schools will help the district better showcase progress.

“I do feel like we have made progress, but we are having a hard time capturing the progress,” she said. “The school-based plan seems like a small thing, but it does feel like an essential missing piece that has made it hard for us to measure where we are and capture our growth.”

Related:

TAG complaint

English 10

High School Redesign

Small Learning Communities

“They’re all rich white kids and they will do just fine, not!”

Madison’s long-term disastrous reading results.

Amber Walker:

Marie thought the “one-size-fits-all” model of public schools would not work for their kids.

“I wanted them to be able to explore their individuality and find out what they really love to do,” she said. “Schools tend to tell you what you are not good at and then make you work harder at that. I wanted to find out what they were good at first. Then, once you have that confidence, you can try to do the things that you need to work on.”

Michael Apple is a professor of educational policy and curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and wrote the book “Educating the Right Way,” which, in part, discusses religious home schooling. From his research, Apple estimates about 50 to 80 percent of students who receive a home-based education learn under a conservative, religious course of study.

“Home schooling is one of the fastest growing movements in education in the United States. There are many, many more children being home-schooled than being unschooled,” Apple said.

Although unschooling falls under the umbrella of home-based private education, its history and foundation differ from traditional home schooling.

“Unschooling, by and large, has its roots in progressive schooling, with student interests guiding what the learning should be,” Apple said. “A good deal of home schooling, for the majority, is much more cautious about that. It is a much more conservative sense about parental authority and the authority of churchly wisdom.

“Both of these groups are widely varied, but certainly, the home-schooling movement tends to be much more conservative in its pedagogy.”

Johnny and Marie Justice are entrepreneurs and own a film company, Justice Media. Their most recent documentary, “Walk a Mile in Their Shoes,” profiled Dane County residents as they navigated issues like rejoining society after incarceration and living with a spouse who is undocumented. Marie said that a part of the reason they decided to unschool their children was to show them an alternative path to success.

“We are modeling our lives as entrepreneurs,” she said. “We wanted our kids to be able to see that and know that there is more than one track. You can make your own way in this world.”

….

Apple said given the current state of public education — including the challenges of recruiting teachers, lack of funding, demands on teachers to focus on standardized tests and increasing class sizes — it is difficult for schools to meet the needs of parents who want a different experience for their children.

“Many teachers are under immense pressure to teach to the test,” Apple said. “But one of the things unschooling parents are saying is, ‘The tests don’t measure what my kid is interested in. We want to teach values, skills and knowledge that kids can learn by doing a lot of things that are not measurable.’”

“lack of funding?”. Madison spends more than most, now around $18k per student, annually.

“Plenty of resources“, despite this, we continue to tolerate long term, disastrous resding results.

Karen Rivedal:

Employees of the Madison School District will have one fewer health insurance provider to choose from, requiring just over 1,000 employees to find a new primary care doctor.

But the estimated $3 million the district will save from dropping Unity, its highest-cost provider, will help bankroll increased compensation for the district’s roughly 4,000 employees, while covering any additional premium costs the new state budget may require them to pay.

The changes, which Superintendent Jen Cheatham recommended last month in her budget proposal for next school year, were approved in a special board meeting Monday and will take effect July 1. Members will vote on the full budget June 26.

Officials said early action on the insurance portion of the budget plan and some of its compensation provisions was important to ease teacher recruitment and to ensure a smooth transition for employees forced to switch coverage to GHC or Dean, the remaining providers.

“We need to educate (employees), allow time to complete enrollment paperwork, transition care and allow sufficient time for the insurance carrier to process the applications and send out insurance cards,” Deirdre Hargrove-Krieghoff, executive director of human resources, said in briefing documents for board members. “This all would need to happen prior to the ‘go-live’ date (of July 1).”

Healthcare costs have long been a significant budget and governance issue for our $18,000/student K-12 institution.

Amber Walker:

The board eliminated the third provider to bring health care costs down across the board, and starting July 1, employees will pay 12 percent of their health care premiums.

The vote was 4-1 to eliminate Unity. Nicki Vander Meulen voted against the measure citing the need for more time to make the decision. Board members Anna Moffitt and TJ Mertz recused themselves since their spouses are district employees and covered by the plan.

The HMO restructuring will save MMSD $3 million each year in HMO costs and the increased employee contributions frees up $4.5 million.

Although district employees will pay more out of pocket for their health insurance, MMSD said it will protect take-home pay by reinvesting the money it saves into across-the-board salary increases.

Assistant superintendent of business Mike Barry said most employees will see a pay bump and no employee should lose money as a result of the changes.

MMSD’s budget also calls for a $15 hourly minimum wage for employees who currently make less than that, increasing summer school pay from $16 to $25/hour for MMSD employees, and increasing beginning teacher pay to $41,096. The Madison School Board also approved those budget items at Monday’s meeting.

Related: Most of Aetna’s revenue now comes from government programs; by Bob Herman:

Here’s a nugget that encapsulates the health insurance industry, despite all the noise surrounding the future of the Affordable Care Act: In the first quarter of this year, Aetna collected more premium revenue from government programs (namely Medicare and Medicaid) than it did from commercial insurance for the first time ever.

Why this matters: Most people get their health coverage from their employer, and that historically has been the bread and butter of the insurance industry. But the aging population and expansion of Medicaid managed care means insurers are investing more time and money in the lower-margin (but still lucrative) government programs. Aetna, in particular, has invested heavily in Medicare Advantage.

Amber Walker:

At Monday’s Madison School Board meeting, the board passed a resolution affirming its commitment to students and families who are immigrants, refugees or undocumented.

It was one of the first acts of service for the new School Board members, Kate Toews and Nicki Vander Meulen, who were sworn in at the beginning of the meeting.

The resolution declares that all schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District are a “safe place for its students and their families to seek help, assistance, and information if faced with fear and anxiety about immigration enforcement efforts.”

Hopefully, madison’s long-term disasters reading results will merit attention.

Amber Walker:

For the last 23 years, the Madison chapter of 100 Black Men of America has hosted the African-American History Challenge Bowl. Middle school students from across Madison participate in the quiz show-style, single-elimination tournament. Each team receives copies of the core text, “Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African-American History” by Henry Louis Gates, and an set of competition questions covering nearly 500 years of black history. The winning team will represent Madison in the national competition in New Orleans in June.

While the bowl fosters healthy competition between schools, it also gives participating students an opportunity to learn more about the rich history of African-American people.

Enis Ragland, founding president of 100 Black Men of Madison, said the African-American History Bowl offers a valuable supplement to the Madison Metropolitan School District’s standard American history curriculum for students who want to learn more about black culture. One of the core tenets of 100 Black Men’s platform is education, as well as mentoring, economic empowerment, leadership development and health and wellness.

Amber Walker:

The Madison Metropolitan School District will not add a second thematic learning community, or Personalized Pathway, at its high schools in the 2018-2019 school year as initially planned due to feedback from teachers, parents and community partners.

Alex Fralin, chief of secondary schools at MMSD, told the Madison School Board Monday night that pushing back the timeline will allow Pathways teams to evaluate the implementation process.

“We want to make sure that we are creating the space and the time for our teachers and our teams to go really deep, which is why we decided not to implement a second Pathway year two,” he said. “We also believe this will provide more time for a deeper study through an evaluation process.”

Personalized Pathways is a change to the current high school model. It emphasizes small learning communities where students take their core classes together, all tied to a central theme. The first theme, or Pathway, is health services. MMSD argues that the model will keep students engaged in their learning and allow them to graduate “college, career and community ready.”

Across MMSD, over 500 eighth graders applied to be a part of the health services Pathway when they enter high school in the 2017-2018 school year. Each high school has a cohort ranging in size from 112 to 130 students. Demand exceeded the amount of spaces available for Pathways at East and La Follette, where there are waitlists for students. Two-thirds of the Pathways cohort identify as students of color, and 58 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch. Students who are already in high school are not affected by the Pathways implementation.

Related: English 10

Amber Walker:

Though the Madison Metropolitan School District revised its advanced learner program in recent years, some schools are still struggling to provide tailored classroom instruction for qualified students.

The district defines advanced learners as students who demonstrate, or have the potential to demonstrate, high performance in one or more areas.

MMSD contracted with the consulting firm RMC Research to evaluate its advanced learner program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade during the 2015-2016 school year. That included surveying teachers, advanced learners and their parents about the effectiveness of the program.

Laurie Fellenz, interim director of advanced learning, and Lisa Kvistad, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, presented survey findings to the Madison School Board on Monday night.

The evaluation found that the district’s new process for identifying advanced learners decreased the number of students eligible for the program but provided enrolled students a more tailored experience. At the same time, the survey found an increase in the percentage of advanced learners from underrepresented populations, including African-American and Latino students.

Related: TAG Complaint, English 10 and Small Learning Communities.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Much more on the candidates, here: Seat 6 and Seat 7.

Nostalgic visitors might find past school board election links and videos of interest.

I’m glad that we’re blessed with choice. I’m also glad that several candidates mentioned our abundance of resources (we spend far more than most) and our longstanding disastrous reading results.

I appreciated seat 6 candidate Cris Carusi’s statement that she does not support relaxing teacher standards and Matt Andrzejewski’s comment on phonics and the District’s long term, disastrous reading results.

……

I was somewhat surprised to read current Madison Superintendent Cheatham’s words (I assume that she wrote this…) lamenting this or that:

It is absurd to me that some policymakers believe that the solution is simply to give parents “choice” — or in other words, drain more and more resources from public schools.

My key question to our legislators is this: What is your agenda for helping our public schools better serve the vast majority of students in the United States and in Wisconsin? How can you help us do more of what we know works in education?

What can you do to help us address gaps in students’ health and well-being, making it possible for every child to attend school daily and be fully attentive and ready to learn? Even if our academic strategies are perfect, if a child is not ready to learn, we won’t see better results. We have to find ways for our system to ensure those needs are met so that children are ready to excel.

Here in Madison, we are embracing the community school model. Community schools take our support of students and families to the next level through power sharing and integration of coordinated services into schools, where our students and families are every day.

Madison has “plenty of resources” (18k/student budget background), yet our long term disastrous reading issues continue…. I am surprised that the Superintendent, in light of these issues, spent time focusing on state and national rhetoric, rather than the real issues we face.

2013: Superintendent Cheatham: “What’s different, this time?” More, here.

2015: “Reverting to the mean“.

Nearly 12 years ago, on then Superintendent Rainwater’s achievement gap rhetoric.

Amber Walker’s event summary

Amber Walker:

As the Madison Metropolitan School District begins to introduce its Personalized Pathways program to students, it continues to face questions from parents and teachers about the plan.

As a new model for Madison’s four main high schools, pathways will be rolled out next fall. The program combines project-based learning with collaboration across multiple subject areas. MMSD officials have said the goal of pathways is to allow students to explore their interests and graduate from high school with a plan for their future.

On Monday, hundreds of middle school students and their parents gathered at the Alliant Energy Center to learn more about the new model. Staff from East, West, La Follette and Memorial high schools were on hand to meet them and talk about what pathways will look like at each school.

At the same time, the discussion at a Madison School Board work group meeting struck a different tone. In addition to its regular monthly meetings, the Madison School Board gathers for work groups to discuss instructional and operational issues. Typically, the crowd is small, with little to no public comment, but Monday’s meeting drew a larger than usual number of parents and teachers who expressed concerns about pathways. About 20 attended the meeting and more than a half-dozen spoke.

Amber Walker:

Isabel Rameker, a sophomore at West, addressed the elephant in the room with her question about representation.

“From what I’ve heard, a big goal of this is to close the achievement gap, specifically for African-Americans and students with disabilities. Looking around, it doesn’t look like this is a super diverse group of parents,” Rameker said. “As this goes on, now and in the future, where are you going to get input from those parents?”

Principal Thompson ensured Rameker that there are strategies in place to reach out to diverse communities.

“We are partnering with different facilities in our neighborhoods to make it more accessible for people who can’t make it here for this presentation,” she said.

Fralin stressed that Personalized Pathways is for all students.

“We actually want to create more options for more students, not a small group or a subgroup of students,” he said. “It is not designed to limit, but actually expand opportunities and choices for kids.”

Fralin pointed out that the district is partnering with institutions like Madison Area Technical College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison to expand opportunities for learning and advanced level coursework.

Treiber believes some of the backlash against Pathways by some of the parents who attended the meeting stems from unconscious bias.

“We have a serious issue in Madison that we are not interested in addressing. It is not intentional; it is not meant to be hurtful, but we cannot seem to get over the fact that if something is changing that somehow ‘I’m going to get less,’” she said. “I think we have that in our nation and we have that in our city. (Madison) is a microcosm of our country and we are not really interested in looking at that. We caveat it with ‘I’m worried about my kid.’ Your kid is going to be fine.”

Schools will continue to host informational sessions about Pathways. The list of upcoming meetings is available on the MMSD website.

Previous Madison High School initiatives include: English 10 (one size for all) and “small learning communities“.

– via a kind reader.

It is unfortunate two recent articles on the upcoming Madison School District tax & spending increase referendum lack data, such as:

• Total Spending for the current budget ($449,482,373.22 more) – about $18,000/student. Chicago spends about $14,336/student, Boston $20,707 and Long Beach $12,671/student.
• Historic Spending Changes (spending increases every year)
• Academic Outcomes vs. Spending
• Comparison with other Districts
• Middleton property taxes are about 13% less than a comparable Madison home.

Doug Erickson:

To offset cuts in state aid and the tightening revenue caps, Act 10 eliminated collective bargaining over benefits. State employees and other public workers without an existing contract were required to start contributing to their pensions. Once a district’s collectively bargained contract expired, the district also could do things such as switch insurance providers, increase employee benefit contributions, and change work rules — all without needing union approval.

“It took the handcuffs off school boards,” Nygren said.

In Madison, Act 10 ushered in significant changes. Faced with the state-imposed cuts but before Act 10 took effect, employee unions agreed during contract negotiations to major concessions in 2011-12. That included a salary freeze (saving $4 million) and a requirement that employees begin contributing 5.8 percent of their salary toward their state pensions (saving $11 million).

The union also agreed to drop Wisconsin Physicians Service as an insurance provider in 2012, a $5 million savings. WPS was the most costly plan the district offered, and employees who had opted for it had been paying a portion of their monthly premiums.

Union members also had agreed back then to begin paying a percentage of the premiums for the three other insurance options, although the School Board chose not to go that route at that point. That changed this year. The School Board is, for the first time, now requiring all employees to pay something toward their monthly health insurance premiums.

The percentage varies by employee group, with teachers paying 3 percent (6 percent if they don’t participate in the district’s wellness program). This followed the expiration of the district’s final union contract over the summer.

Doug Keillor, executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., the district’s teachers union, said Act 10 alienated public employees and took a “wrecking ball” to public schools.

“The district could keep cutting pay and could keep increasing health insurance contributions, so from that standpoint, the district has not transferred as much of the costs onto the backs of employees as they could,” he said. “But you have to first back up and say, ‘How do you build a quality public school district?’ A district needs to attract people into this profession and keep them. The Legislature didn’t give school boards the tools to do that.”

Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Brookfield, a member of the Senate Education Committee, argues that most of the discussions about public school funding are wrongly framed from a perspective that more money automatically means higher student achievement.

“Our reforms are working,” she said. “We’ve given the school districts through Act 10 the tools to do more with the resources they have. Those districts that have embraced that are doing really well.”

Amber Walker:

Public education advocates are organizing in support of the upcoming K-12 operational referendum for the Madison Metropolitan School District, which is necessary to maintain a quality education for local students, they say.

On Nov. 8, the district is asking voters to permanently raise its revenue limit authority by $26 million.

The district proposes that this change happens incrementally over the next four school years. MMSD seeks an additional $5 million per year for the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years and an additional $8 million per year for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years.

Commentary on redistributed state tax collections and spending.

Madison School District 2016 tax & spending increase referendum content. Channel 3000.

I’ve not seen total Madison School District spending data, much less history, amongst the referendum content.

Madison 2005 (reflecting 1998):

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
On November 7, Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As he did last fall, the superintendent made some interesting claims about the district’s success in closing the academic achievement gap “based on race”.

According to Mr. Rainwater, the place to look for evidence of a closing achievement gap is the comparison of the percentage of African American third graders who score at the lowest level of performance on statewide tests and the percentage of other racial groups scoring at that level. He says that, after accounting for income differences, there is no gap associated with race at the lowest level of achievement in reading. He made the same claim last year, telling the Wisconsin State Journal on September 24, 2004, “for those kids for whom an ability to read would prevent them from being successful, we’ve reduced that percentage very substantially, and basically, for all practical purposes, closed the gap”. Last Monday, he stated that the gap between percentages scoring at the lowest level “is the original gap” that the board set out to close.

Unfortunately, that is not the achievement gap that the board aimed to close.

In 1998, the Madison School Board adopted an important academic goal: “that all students complete the 3rd grade able to read at or beyond grade level”. We adopted this goal in response to recommendations from a citizen study group that believed that minority students who are not competent as readers by the end of the third grade fall behind in all academic areas after third grade.

As of 2013, the situation has not changed, unfortunately.

Madison, 2014, the view from Milwaukee:

The largest state teachers union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, gave $1.3 million last month to the Greater Wisconsin Committee, a liberal group that has been running ads critical of Walker. Two of WEAC’s political action committees have given a total of $83,128 to Burke directly.

On the other side, the American Federation for Children said last year in a brochure that in the 2012 elections in Wisconsin, including the recalls that year, it had spent $2.4 million supporting pro-voucher candidates.

Along with family members, Dick and Betsy DeVos have given about $343,000 to Walker since 2009. The Grand Rapids, Mich., couple made their fortune in the marketing firm Amway and now support the voucher school movement.

The elections are critical because in general, each candidate’s stance on the issue of vouchers is largely dictated by their political party affiliation. If Republican candidates maintain control of both houses and the governor’s seat, voucher-friendly legislation is more likely to pass.

Democrats are trying to take control of the state Senate. Republicans hold the chamber 17-15, with one GOP-leaning seat vacant. Republicans have a stronger majority in the Assembly and the election is unlikely to change that.

Senate Democrats would oppose the expansion of voucher schools until standards and requirements are established that put those private schools on the same footing as public schools, Senate Minority Leader Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said.

…….

Walker on Wednesday also challenged Burke’s record on the Madison School Board.

He noted that the graduation rate for black students in Madison is lower than the graduation rate for black students in MPS.

Walker said Burke has had a chance to use his Act 10 law to save the taxpayers millions in Madison, and put those dollars toward alleviating the achievement gap.

“She’s failed to do that,” Walker said.

Burke responded that Madison is a fiscally responsible district that is one of the few in the state operating under its levy cap.

Madison still has a contract because the teachers union there challenged the Act 10 law in court, and a circuit court judge ruling initially swung in its favor. The teachers union subsequently bargained a contract this year and next year with the district.

Then this summer, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Walker’s Act 10 law.

Madison 2014, gazing into the mirror:

Gov. Scott Walker took the campaign against Democratic opponent Mary Burke to her front door Wednesday, accusing the one-term Madison School Board member of not doing enough to improve black students’ graduation rates in Madison.

Walker argued that the Madison School Board could have put more money toward raising graduation rates and academic achievement if it had taken advantage of his controversial 2011 measure known as Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers, instead of choosing to negotiate a contract with its teachers union for the 2015-16 school year earlier this summer.

“Voters may be shocked to learn that the African-American graduation rate in Madison (where Mary Burke is on the board) is worse than in MKE,” Walker tweeted Wednesday morning.

Burke shot back that Walker’s comments were “short sighted” and showed “a lack of knowledge” of how to improve student academic achievement.

In 2013, 53.7 percent of black students in Madison graduated in four years. In Milwaukee, the rate was 58.3 percent, according to state Department of Public Instruction data. That gap is smaller than it was in 2012, when the 4-year completion rate among black students was 55 percent in Madison and 62 percent in Milwaukee.

Overall, the 2013 graduation rates for the two largest school districts in Wisconsin was 78.3 percent in Madison and 60.6 percent in Milwaukee.

Under Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham, the district has made progress in the last year toward improving overall student achievement, Burke said in a call with reporters. School Board president Arlene Silveira also said Wednesday the district has started to move the needle under Cheatham.

“Is it enough progress? No. We still have a lot of work to go, and whether you’re talking about African-American (graduation rates) in Madison or talking about (rates) in Milwaukee, they are too low,” Burke said. “But the key to improving student learning, that anyone who really looks at education knows, is the quality of the teacher in the classroom.”

Decades go by, yet the status quo reigns locally.

A few background links:

1. http://www.wisconsin2.org

2. Wisconsin K-12 Spending Dominates “Local Transfers”.

3. Mandarins vs. leaders The Economist:

Central to his thinking was a distinction between managers and leaders. Managers are people who like to do things right, he argued. Leaders are people who do the right thing. Managers have their eye on the bottom line. Leaders have their eye on the horizon. Managers help you to get to where you want to go. Leaders tell you what it is you want. He chastised business schools for focusing on the first at the expense of the second. People took MBAs, he said, not because they wanted to be middle managers but because they wanted to be chief executives. He argued that “failing organisations are usually over-managed and under-led”.

Mr Bennis believed leaders are made, not born. He taught that leadership is a skill—or, rather, a set of skills—that can be learned through hard work. He likened it to a performance. Leaders must inhabit their roles, as actors do. This means more than just learning to see yourself as others see you, though that matters, too. It means self-discovery. “The process of becoming a leader is similar, if not identical, to becoming a fully integrated human being,” he said in 2009. Mr Bennis knew whereof he spoke: he spent a small fortune on psychoanalysis as a graduate student, dabbled in “channelling” and astrology while a tenured professor and wrote a wonderful memoir, “Still Surprised”.

2009: The elimination of “revenue limits and economic conditions” from collective bargaining arbitration by Wisconsin’s Democratically controlled Assembly and Senate along with Democratic Governer Jim Doyle:

To make matters more dire, the long-term legislative proposal specifically exempts school district arbitrations from the requirement that arbitrators consider and give the greatest weight to revenue limits and local economic conditions. While arbitrators would continue to give these two factors paramount consideration when deciding cases for all other local governments, the importance of fiscal limits and local economic conditions would be specifically diminished for school district arbitration.

A political soundbyte example:

Candidate Burke’s “operating under its levy cap” soundbyte was a shrewd, easily overlooked comment, yet neglects to point out Madison’s property tax base wealth vs. Milwaukee, the District’s spending levels when state revenue limits were put in place and the local referendums that have approved additional expenditures (despite open questions on where the additional funds were spent).

I hope that she will be more detailed in future comments. We’ve had decades of soundbytes and routing around tough choices.

Madison’s challenges, while spending and staffing more than most, will continue to be under the political microscope.

I hope that we see a substantive discussion of K-12 spending, curriculum and our agrarian era structures.

The candidates on Education:

Mary Burke:

Education has always offered a way up to a good job and a better life. It’s the fabric of our communities, and it’s the key to a strong economy in the long term.

As co-founder of the AVID/TOPs program, a public-private partnership that is narrowing the achievement gap for low income students, Mary knows that every Wisconsin student prepared to work hard can realize their dreams if given the support they need. By bringing together area high schools, the Boys & Girls Club, technical colleges, businesses and the University, Mary made a real difference for students, many of whom are the first in their family to attend college. The first class graduated last spring, and in September, over 90% of those students enrolled in post-secondary education.

Mary believes Wisconsin schools should be among the best in the nation—and she knows that making historic cuts isn’t the way to do it. She’ll work every day to strengthen our public education system, from K-12 to our technical colleges and university system. Mary strongly opposed the statewide expansion of vouchers—as governor, she’ll work to stop any further expansion, and ensure that all private schools taking public dollars have real accountability measures in place.

Scott Walker:

“We trust teachers, counselors and administrators to provide our children world-class instruction, to motivate them and to keep them safe. In the vast majority of cases, education professionals are succeeding, but allowing some schools to fail means too many students being left behind. By ensuring students are learning a year’s worth of knowledge during each school year and giving schools the freedom to succeed, Wisconsin will once again become a model for the nation.” — Scott Walker

For years, Wisconsin had the distinction of being a national leader in educational reform. From the groundbreaking Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to policies aimed at expanding the role of charter schools in communities across the state, Wisconsin was viewed as a pioneer in educational innovation and creativity.

Wisconsin used to rank 3rd in fourth grade reading, now we’re in the middle of the pack at best with some of the worst achievement gaps in the nation.

Fortunately, Wisconsin has turned a corner and is once again becoming a leader in educational excellence by refocusing on success in the classroom. This has been done by pinpointing the following simple but effective reforms:

• Improving transparency
• Improving accountability
• Creating choice

We are working to restore Wisconsin’s rightful place as an education leader. Our students, our teachers, and our state’s future depend on our continued implementation of reform.

A look at District spending:

Per student spending: Milwaukee’s 2013-2014 budget: $948,345,675 for 78,461 students or $12,086/student. Budget details (PDF).

Madison plans to spend $402,464,374 for 27,186 students (some pre-k) this year or about $14,804/student, 22% more than Milwaukee. Details.

And, finally, 2010: WEAC: $1.57 million for four senators.

Mike Ivey:

Wisconsin is among the top 10 states for people moving out, according to the annual survey from United Van Lines. Forbes reported the story recently and it has been widely circulated — although probably not by many chambers of commerce.
The moving company United Van Lines has been doing the survey for 36 years and analyzed some 125,000 residential moves in the continental U.S. last year. While not scientific, it does provide a nice snapshot of migration patterns, along with fodder for social media chatter.
“I think people see Wisconsin as a dead end,” says George Dreckmann, longtime city of Madison recycling coordinator. “The paper industry is near death, the auto industry is gone. Our flagship university is closed to most of the state’s kids. The government under both Walker and (former Gov. Jim) Doyle showed no initiative or imagination. If I wasn’t 62, I’d be leaving, too.”
At No. 10 with 55 percent of 2,405 United Van Lines moves considered “outbound,” Wisconsin isn’t alone as a Great Lakes state seeing residents flee. Illinois is No. 2 and Michigan is No. 6. New Jersey was No. 1 with 62 percent of moves outbound. The top 10 also includes West Virginia (No. 3), New York (No. 4); New Mexico (No. 5); Connecticut (No. 7); Maine (No. 8) and Kentucky (No. 9).

Madison Teachers, Inc., via a kind Jeanie Bettner email:

Given MTI’s leadership during last year’s protests over Governor Walker stealing public employees’ rights and negating 46 years of MTI’s gains through collective bargaining, and because of MTI members’ leadership in the recall campaigns of anti-public employee Senators and the Governor, the Union has received and continues to receive requests for guidance.
Currently MTI President Peggy Coyne (Black Hawk) and MTI Faculty Representative & Recall Committee member Kathryn Burns (Shorewood) are in Osaka, Japan, where they will be presenters at a meeting of 200 to prepare for the Osaka Social Forum to be held in September. The public employees in Osaka City advise that they are facing the same kind of attacks by the new Mayor of Osaka City, who was formerly the Governor of Osaka Prefecture. The theme of this fall’s conference is how to organize resistence to the harsh attacks on union rights and public education.
In April, MTI Board of Directors’ Secretary Liz Wingert (Elvehjem) will travel to Edmonton, Alberta, where she will engage in a very similar meeting to that described above in Osaka, Japan. Similar to Wisconsin, Koch Industries registered last spring as lobbyists in Alberta. Their subsidiary, Flint Hills Resources, is among Canada’s largest crude oil purchasers, shippers and exporters. Koch Industries‘ [open secrets 2008 Senate Democrat contributions, including Obama, 2008 Republicans] Flint Hills Resources operates a crude oil terminal in Hardisty, and has offices in Calgary. Charles and David Koch are reportedly the 24th richest people in the world, with holdings worth $17.5 billion. It was David Koch who Governor Walker thought he was talking with last spring, only to have the caller being an impersonator. The New York Times reported that the Koch brothers were among Walker’s largest contributors. The Capital Times reported last Monday that David Koch said, “What Scott Walker is doing with public employee unions in Wisconsin is critically important.” The Koch brothers “Americans for Prosperity” has bought about $700,000 in TV ads in support of Governor Walker.
In Alberta, like Wisconsin, conservative legislators argue that public sector collective bargaining should be curtailed and that alternate means of delivering public services should be enabled. Alberta conservatives call it “privatization” and “managed competition”, where the lowest price gets the contract.