Search Results for: Strings
Mission Vs Organization: Shades Of Cutting Strings….
Valerie Strauss: “Their priorities are distorted. We need to make a decision to put kids first. Especially when they’re savings is about $500,000 to $750,000, when they’re paying out a million dollars on, on public relations specialists and on lobbyists, a million dollars.” Former Superintendent Art Rainwater frequently attempted to kill Madison’s strings program. Like […]
Strings are making a comeback for fifth-graders at Sandburg Elementary
Amanda Finn: Fifth-graders will soon be coming out of Sandburg Elementary fiddling happy tunes thanks to a major instrument donation making it possible for strings to be part of the fifth-grade curriculum. The VH1 Save the Music Foundation and Madison-based Musicnotes.com teamed up to provide Sandburg with 36 new instruments, worth about $35,000, to fill […]
Madison’s Strings Program….. All Quiet?
For my family, one of the unexpected assets of the Madison School District was the Strings Program. Perennially under attack during the Superintendent Rainwater reign, I’ve seen little mention of the District’s String’s program, now available from grades 5 to 12. I only found this snippet on the Madison School District’s website:
Music opportunities continue to expand in Grades 5 through 12. Strings instruction is available to students starting in 5th grade and the curriculum is based on the Wisconsin Model Academic Standards for Instrumental Music. Students in grades 6 and 7 choose to participate in Band, Chorus, General Music, or Orchestra, which also have curriculum based on the Wisconsin Model Academic Standards. In grades 8-12, students may elect to enroll in one of these classes or the additional elective courses at our high schools. These course in connection with the community musical offerings, provide a breadth of experiences to help build student skills and knowledge of music.
Is there more?
Pulling strings into a top school: More parents are getting their children to play the harp as a way into prestigious institutions
More Hong Kong youngsters are following in the footsteps of Botticelli angels by learning the harp, with parents encouraging this special option as a way to secure a spot in a prestigious school.
Demand for harp lessons had steadily increased in the last three years and its appeal was multi-faceted, said professional harpist Joan Lee Wai-ying, who opened a home-based harp school in Sha Tin in 2008.
“Many parents want to widen the musical knowledge of their children but it’s also because of the school admission test which requires a basic instrument like the piano but also a very special instrument like the harp,” Lee said, with the number of students at her school increasing fivefold since opening.
Playground politics: Devolving power over schools while tightening purse strings requires guile
THE success of the government’s bid to create new “free schools”–funded by the state, but able to set conditions for staff, pick and choose from the national curriculum, and so on–rests on its ability to wrest power from local authorities and give it to community groups. The policy is a key element of David Cameron’s “Big Society”, but suffers from the same difficulty as the overall project: pushing through devolution in a time of austerity is tricky.
The aim of free schools, which are based on American and Swedish models, is to give parents more choice and promote competition. New schools can be established by parents, teachers, charities, religious outfits, universities, private schools and not-for-profit groups. They will be given public funds based on how many pupils enroll, with those from poor families attracting a premium.
14 Quirky College Donations (and the Strings Attached)
For most of us, college donations entail little more than occasionally dropping a small check in the mail after receiving repeated pleas for cash from our alma maters. Some people, though, tend to be a bit more individualistic with their generosity. Let’s take a look at some of the quirkier donations schools have received:
1. Bequest Puts Jocks on the Ropes
swarthmoreIn 1907, fledgling Swarthmore College received a bequest that was estimated to be worth somewhere between $1 and $3 million. If the school wanted the cash, though, it would have to stop participating in intercollegiate sports. Swarthmore badly needed the cash–its entire endowment was only in the $1 million range–but in the end, the school turned down the gift and the sports survived.
Who’s Pulling the Milwaukee Public School Takeover Strings?
National pro-privatization organizations led by former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel education reporter Joe Williams and backed by Wall Street hedge fund managers are emerging as a driving force behind the mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).
Williams is the executive director of the affiliated groups named Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and Education Reform Now (ERN), based in New York City. ERN has a nine-month-old chapter in Wisconsin, and DFER has branches in Wisconsin, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri and New Jersey.
The Wisconsin state director of both groups, Katy Venskus, has been lobbying in support of the pro-mayoral takeover Senate Bill 405, authored by state Sen. Lena Taylor and state Rep. Pedro Colon.
Venskus also has organized a group of Milwaukee business leaders–including Julia Taylor of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, Tim Sheehy of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and Tim Sullivan of Bucyrus International–to push for a mayor-appointed superintendent of MPS with enhanced executive powers.
2008 Madison Memorial / West Area Strings Festival Photos / Video
Watch a 15 minute video excerpt here and check out the event photos.
Incoming Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad made a few remarks [video], as did Madison Symphony Orchestra Conductor John DeMain [video].
John DeMain’s Remarks at the 2008 Memorial / West Strings Festival
Madison Symphony Orchestra Conductor John DeMain made a few remarks at Saturday’s Memorial / West area Strings Festival. Watch the video. Much more about John DeMain.
Incoming Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad’s remarks. Event photos and video.
Dan Nerad’s Remarks at the 2008 Madison Memorial/West Area Strings Festival
Incoming Madison Schools’ Superintendent Dan Nerad made a few remarks at Saturday’s Memorial / West area Strings Festival. Watch the video. Much more on Dan Nerad here.
Music Event Benefitting Madison’s Elementary Strings Program
Wednesday night, May 23, local band Marvin’s Gardens, will be playing at the King’s Club (114 King Street). There will be jazz from 6-9 p.m. All proceeds will go to benefit Grade 5 Strings! Strings players invited to bring their instruments to play with the band. $5 at the door.
Grade 5 Strings – How you can help
Grade 5 elementary string students need your help. There are ways you can support the hundreds of ten-year olds who are in Grade 5 strings and this year’s Grade 4 students who would like the chance to take the course next year: A. Bring your child to play his/her instrument at Thursday’s Budget Hearing – […]
Grade 5 Strings – Letter to School Board
Please write the School Board about what is important to you and your state legislature about funding our public schools. Following is a copy of my letter to the school board on Grade 5 strings: Dear School Board Members (comments@madison.k12.wi.us), I am happy to serve as a member of the newly created Fine Arts Task […]
Maintain and Grow Madison’s Art Programs: Support Elementary Strings
Parents and Students distributed to attendees of the recent Spring 2007 Strings Festival the following information in a flier: Madison Community Asks the MMSD School Board: Don’t Cut, Work with the Community to Strengthen and Grow Madison’s Elementary String Program Superintendent Rainwater has proposed cutting Grade 5 strings, which would eliminate the nearly 40-year old […]
2007 West Area Strings Festival Photos, Audio & Video
The Madison Strings Festival was held Saturday. Check out the photos here. A 20 minute video clip: (CTRL click to download) mpeg-4 ipod video | mp3 audio. Call to action: [PDF] [Petition PDF]
Elementary Strings: Update and Community Appeal
Action and Help Needed: I am beginning to work with some parents and others in the community to raise awareness and possibly financial support for all fine arts education. If you are interested in learning more, or would like to help, let me know (schrank4@charter.net or 231-3954). I will be posting on the blog more […]
Kobza, Mathiak, Robarts and Vang Vote Yes to Support Elementary Strings: Carstensen, Silveira and Winston Vote No And Support Cutting Elementary Strings
Thank you to students, parents and community members who wrote to and spoke before the School Board in support of elementary strings. It may seem, at times, that your letters or statements fall on deaf ears, but that is not the case. Each and every letter and each and every statement of support is critical […]
Continue Elementary Strings – 550 Low-Income Children Deserve the Opportunity to Proudly Play Their Instruments
On Wednesday, May 31st, the MMSD School Board will consider amendments to the 2006-2007 school budget proposed by the Superintedent. In his proposal, the Superintendent proposed cutting Grade 4 strings this year and Grade 5 strings the end of next year. One amendment to be discussed on Wednesday would have Grade 4 strings 1x per […]
A Parent’s Note to the Madison School Board on Strings
Ann O’ Brien: Every year when I attend my children’s strings concerts, I am so amazed by the broad and diverse participation of students in strings. How moving to see so many students playing instruments often stereotyped as only for the rich who can afford lessons. The cacophony of sounds coming from the 100’s of […]
Speak Up For Strings – Thanks for Emailing the School Board: Keep The Emails Coming
MMSD’s School Board meets tonight to discuss the 2006-2007 school budget. There are no public appearances on tonight’s agenda, but the Madison community can continue to email the School Board in support of elementary strings at: comments@madison.k12.wi.us. Thank you to the parents and community who have attended the public hearing and who have sent emails […]
Cutting Elementary Strings Hurts Children From Families With Low and Moderate Incomes
Members of the Board of Education, I am writing to urge you all to vote in support of continuing the strings program in elementary schools. I am a parent of a 6th grader at Hamilton Middle School, and I am fortunate to have been able to afford private and group violin lessons outside the school […]
Speak Up for Strings Tonight: Public Appearances at Board Public Hearing On the Budget – 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 9th at Memorial High School
Dear Madison Community, Children and parents are encouraged to speak in support of elementary strings and to bring their instruments to tonight’s School Board public hearing on the budget if they would like to play. My husband, Fred Schrank, who is the principal bassist with the MSO and who teaches orchestra to elementary and middle […]
Speak Up For Strings – Monday At Midnight? Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
In my previous post on Speak Up for Strings, I wrote about two ways to contact the School Board – one way is by speaking to the School Board at public appearances; which,is normally after the minutes of a meeting – at the beginning, before the board begins it’s business. A special Board meeting is […]
Strings Program – Why is it So Important?
Reader Andrea Cox emails: I don’t understand why it’s so important to keep the elementary strings program. Some things have to go because of the budget constraints imposed upon the schools. Strings strikes me as much less important than, say, class size, mathematics, or reading. We can’t have everything without major changes in how the […]
Speak Up For Strings – Starting May 9th
Please Help Save Elementary Strings!!! How: Ask the New School Board – Work with the Community to Build Fine Arts Education! When: Starting May 9th Other districts facing fiscal and academic achievement challenges have had successes maintaining and growing their fine arts education – through strategic planning, active engagement and real partnerships with their communities. […]
The Madison Community – Students, Parents, Professionals, Citizens – Can Help Elementary Strings: Here’s How
The community CAN HELP elementary strings and fine arts education in MMSD. Please write the School Board – comments@madison.k12.wi.us – ask them a) to establish a community fine arts education advisory committee beginning with a small community working group to put together a plan for this, b) develop a multi-year strategic and education plan for […]
Fifth Verse – Same, Sorrowful Tune: Superintendent Proposes to Elminate Elementary Strings
Other districts facing fiscal and academic achievement challenges have had successes maintaining and growing their fine arts education – through strategic planning, active engagement and real partnerships with their communities. In Tuscon, AZ, with a large low income and hispanic population, test scores of this population have climbed measurably (independent evaluations confirmed this). This state […]
2006 West Side Strings Festival: Photos & Video
Check out the photos and video from this great event. [Download a video ipod compatible file here.]
Revisit and Evaluate a Strings Change
I know this topic is discussed every year but I want to re-visit the success of the administrative change to 4/5 strings based on budgetary demands versus academic demands. The 4/5 strings was changed to once a week this year from twice a week last year. The choices the board juggled was no strings in […]
Elementary Specials: Funding Restored for All Elementary Special Classes Except Strings? Can That Be Correct?
At the Monday June 20, 2005 MMSD School Board meeting, funding was restored for music, art and gym elementary specials for a total of about $550,000. Can it be possible that all elementary specials, except elementary strings, would be restored? I can’t believe this. Isn’t the elementary string course an elementary music special (part of […]
Gilmore: Add Elementary Strings to the Curriculum
Andrea Gilmore (This opinion piece was published in the Wisconsin State Journal): I am lucky. I have been playing the violin since I was in the fourth grade. I was exposed to music at an early age and music has helped me gain skills that have enhanced my school career. Through music, I learned self-confidence, […]
Strings Program – A Response
I would like to be perfectly clear. I want a Madison Metropolitan School District strings program in elementary schools. I have been very clear about this since my first televised board meeting last year, where I exclaimed, “I want a strings program in the budget!” However, with unfunded mandates, revenue caps, additional academic testing requirements […]
My Proposal for 4th & 5th Grade Strings
Tonight (May 10, 2005) the Board of Education will discuss proposed amendments to the budget. This discussion will include a discussion of the 4th & 5th grade strings programs. I support offering students the opportunity to take strings in 4th and 5th grade. Currently, 4th and 5th grade students who elect to take strings have […]
Cutting Elementary Strings Will Cost MMSD Millions – Not Save Money
I agree whole heartedly with Mr. Pay’s comments to Johnny Winston Jr., that the MMSD School Board is not taking a long-term financial or educational look at elementary strings that shows increased numbers of middle and high school children taking orchestra and band will save money for the district while providing immeasurable personal and educational […]
Elementary Strings – It Doesn’t Affect You Bill Keys Tells Student
An East High Student wrote Bill Keys, MMSD School Board president. In her letter she wrote: “The reason I am involved in the high school orchestra today is because I was able to participate in the elementary strings program in elementary school….I am the oldest child of thirteen children. The youngest is about two months […]
Open Letter to the Community Regarding Strings
Dear Community Members: Thank you for your heartfelt comments regarding the 4th & 5th grade strings program. I know first hand about the program. I was a strings program participant at Lindbergh Elementary School in 1977. I know that strings are a very beloved program within our district. However, I don’t believe that our community […]
Benefits of Strings More Than Music
Pat Kukes, MMSD teacher, wrote the following opinion piece that appeared in the WI State Journal on Friday, April 29, 2005: Having already received my termination notice, I write this not as a teacher trying to save his job, but rather as an experienced educator who knows the value of a good educational system and […]
Elementary Strings Cut is Punitive and Too Much
Cuts of 10% to elementary music and art and 100% to elementary strings are being proposed by the administration. The overall MMSD budget cut needed is 2%. The School Board has not discussed or asked questions about the proposed cut list at any public meeting since they received the list on March 3rd – that’s […]
5 Reasons Why the Madison School Board Should Continue the Elementary Strings Program
In the May 24 referendum for the operating budget, voters will determine whether the Madison schools will have an additional $7.4 million to spend next year and for all the years thereafter. Superintendent Art Rainwater and the management team issued a cut list in March. According to Rainwater, the board should cut the programs, staff […]
Strings Festival Video/Audio Now Available
Video & MP3 Audio here.
Strings Festival Photos (Madison West High School)
Strings Festival PhotosWest High SchoolApril 2, 2005 Video/Audio (MP3)(thanks to Denny Lund for taking these pictures)
Super Strings Festival
The Memorial Strings Festival was a wonderful collection of children from forth to twelve grade, every color, every size, and all abilities. As I sat proudly and watched my daughter play, along with so many parents who were sitting and standing (as there were no seats left so many showed up)I was sad. The director […]
School Board Candidate Lawrie Kobza Says Don’t Cut Elementary Strings – Offers Suggestions
VOTE TUESDAY, APRIL 5 I support offering students the opportunity to take strings in 4th and 5th grade, and oppose the administration’s proposed cuts to the program. Fourth and fifth grade strings is a well-established, much-loved, and much-supported program. There is also significant research demonstrating a high correlation between playing an instrument and achievement. Given […]
Elementary Strings is Academic Music Education – Parents and Madison Citizens Need to Ask School Board Why Supt. Is Not Supporting an Academic Curriculum with Direct Postive Benefits on Student Achievement
Madison parents and citizens need to ask the School Board a) why they continue to allow the Superintendent to treat elementary strings separate from the music education curriculum, b) why there is a continued delay in getting a committee together for fine arts, c) why the delay in seeking federal funding for fine arts for […]
Carol Carstensen Says I’m Angry and Threatens Elementary Strings: Raises Confidence and Governance Issues for Me
Carol Carstensen told me last night that I’ve been “angry” over elementary strings for the past four years. I learned many years ago never to “tell” people what they are feeling – 90% of the time you’re wrong, and in this case Ms. Carstensen is dead wrong about me. Her comment to me came after […]
Axing the Arts: District (again) proposes cutting popular strings program
Jason Shephard, writing in the 3.11.2005 Isthmus: Music teachers, parents and community activists are already agitating against Madison schools Superintendent Art Rainwater�s call to eliminate the elementary strings program, as part of a proposed slate of budget cuts. �This creates a very disturbing environment in the community,� says Marie Breed, executive director of the Wisconsin […]
School Strings Cut Plan Blasted by Lee Sensenbrenner, The Capital Times
Strings Plucked: Once again, District administrators attack elementary music and art to the tune of nearly $800,000, including total elimination of the elementary string progam. Their pitch is off and their song is out of tune. Keys and Carstensen have no plans to reach out to fine arts students and teachers for their support – […]
Budget Hearing – Elementary Strings Update
At the May 13th MMSD Budget Hearing parents and community representatives spoke against the proposed elementary string fee, calling it outrageous and equivalent to cutting the program. “We are not a good-things-come-to-those-who pay town,” said parent Maureen Rickman, adding that the proposed fee would “cut out a big chunk of the students [in the middle […]
Strings Fee – Summary of Discussion at Monday, May 10th School Board Meeting
School Board President Bill Keys is proposing that elementary strings students will have to pay $460 to take strings next year. There has been no proposal to cut the program, administrators and Board members alike say. However, a $460 fee would have the same effect.
School Board Budget Amendments – Keys Proposes Elementary Strings Students Pay for Custodians and Building Maintenance
On Wednesday, May 5th, six of seven Madison School Board members turned in their budget amendments to the Superintendent’s proposed 04-05 MMSD School Budget. Along with their budget amendments, school board members handed in recommendation on how they would “fund” their recommended changes to the Superintendent’s proposed budget.
MMSD Administration’s Cost Analysis of Elementary Strings is Out of Tune – A Critique
If the City of Madison is to have confidence in the School Board’s decisions, a fair and equitable budget process that is clear and understandable to the public is essential. In late April 2004, the District Administration responded to the Bill Keys’ question about the cost of the District’s elementary strings program. The following letter […]
String ’em up – Strings Hits the Isthmus
In an article by Vikki Kratz in the Isthmus, published on May 7, 2004, the author wonders if the MMSD is tone deaf. “Bill Keys, president of the Madison Board of Education, recently asked for a budget analysis of the popular 4th and 5th grade strings program. … The move by Keys was the last […]
Elementary Strings Rally A Success
About forty elementary string students serenaded the School Board members as they entered the McDaniels Auditorium Monday evening, May 3rd. Nearly 200 parents and children filled the auditorium to demonstrate to School Board members their support for the academic program. If you have not written the School Board about the strings program, take a moment […]
Strings Action – Photos & Video
Barb Schrank published a Strings Call to Action last week. This evening, many parents and children attended, demonstrated and performed at a School Board Meeting. Click to View Photos 3.9MB Performance Movie
Parent Comments on Strings Program
“The strings program has been very valuable to my son. It has built up his confidence, and the musical performances have really shown him how his hard work pays off. Strings are an asset to his education that benefits him beyond the musical arena.”
Strings Community Action
A. Introduction: There’s no need for community action if the MMSD Administration and BOE state support for the current elementary strings academic curriculum. They don’t. When the Board members don’t say yes, it means no, given their recent history with this curriculum. The MMSD Board of Education adopted and approved the elementary strings program as […]
Elementary Strings – Call to Action
Who: Students, Parents, Teachers and Citizens � Elementary Strings Kids Need Your Help! What: Rally in Support of the Elementary Strings Program � Grades 4 & 5. When: Monday, May 3, 2004 � Meet at 6:30 p.m. to organize/picket before the 7:15 p.m.regular School Board Meeting and personal appearances. String teachers will organize children who […]
Colleges must give up federal funding to achieve true intellectual freedom
Oskar Ghate & Sam Weaver And a private university like Harvard could choose to ignore the administration’s demands — but that means forfeiting federal research funding, which puts it at an unfair disadvantage when competing for students, faculty and donors with universities that continue to receive massive federal payouts. If Harvard and other private universities […]
Hillsdale College, unlike state schools that formed a “defense compact” against Trump, is not reliant on government funds for anything.
Karen Mulder: Hillsdale is the only college in Michigan that does not accept federal funding, operating completely independently of government handouts and subsidies. Schools like Michigan State University and the University of Michigan are learning that federal dollars come with strings, and those strings are taught. The two colleges—the biggest in the state—are both members […]
Notes on “information security” and international arrangements
Bytes & Borscht: In the following paragraphs I want to examine the issues with regulating cyberspace in cooperation with Russia, showing that agreements on Moscow’s terms could legitimize authoritarian control over information and bind others without truly constraining Russia. I’ll explore how autocratic regimes have used disarmament talks for self-interest in the past (and yes, […]
k-12 Tax & $pending climate: Dane county board election and property tax growth
Danielle DuClos: Ratzlaff: Property tax relief. With the median home value in Dane County at $304,700, the typical annual property tax bill reaches $7,324 — far exceeding the national median of $2,690. There is no way that this can or will sustain itself. Plus, you add in the two referendums that the city of Madison has passed and […]
What Is Fingerprinting
Lukasz Olenjik: Device fingerprinting involves collecting information about user devices, such as smartphones or computers, to create a unique identifier, often to track people or their activities as they browse around the web. This data may include IP addresses, browser user-agent strings, screen resolution, or even details like battery discharge rate. Fingerprinting is particularly concerning because it can […]
Madison tax & $pending growth and November 2024 referendum rhetoric
Dave Zweifel: I remember writing a column a couple of years after the pool opened chiding a group of Madison alders who, during budget deliberations, were upset that the pool’s admission charges didn’t cover 100% of its annual costs. My column declared that a city that had just been given a first-class swimming pool for […]
The Origins of Woke
Misha Saul: Tucked away half-way through Richard Hanania’s quietly acerbic and ambitious how-to-overthrow-this-regime handbook is this jaw-dropping portrait of civil rights law’s totalitarian impulse. Why has race and sex lunacy eaten at American life? It’s the law, says Richard. When half the economy is fueled by government spending which comes with race and sex strings […]
Another court finds Biden Administration censored the public
US Fifth Circuit: For the last few years—at least since the 2020 presidential transition—a group of federal officials has been in regular contact with nearly every major American social-media company about the spread of “misinformation” on their platforms. In their concern, those officialshailing from the White House, the CDC, the FBI, and a few other […]
“A compound denial like that often means that portions or slight variations of the statement are true”
Stewart Baker: But there is a provision of federal law that allows electronic service providers to volunteer information to law enforcement. To do so, they need to believe “in good faith … that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay of communications relating to the […]
Google is working on a fix for the Camera app randomly changing QR code URLs on Android 12
Manuel Vonau: As reported and investigated by German publication Heise, Google Camera routinely runs into at least three distinct errors. The first one revolves around a few country-code top level domains (ccTLD), and it doesn’t matter if a QR code only directs you to an affected domain (like the non-existent Austrian https://fooco.at) or if it […]
Letter to Wisconsin Governor Evers on His Roadmap to Reading Success Veto
State Senator Kathy Bernier and State Representative Joel Kitchens: Literacy in Wisconsin is in crisis: 64% of Wisconsin 4th graders can’t read at grade level, with 34% failing to read at even the basic level. As co-chair of Governor Walker’s Read to Lead Task Force, you know that high quality universal literacy screening is the […]
Mathematician Hurls Structure and Disorder Into Century-Old Problem
Erica Klarreich: The mathematician Ben Green of the University of Oxford has made a major stride toward understanding a nearly 100-year-old combinatorics problem, showing that a well-known recent conjecture is “not only wrong but spectacularly wrong,” as Andrew Granville of the University of Montreal put it. The new paper shows how to create much longer disordered strings of colored […]
Requiring Preschool Teachers to Earn a B.A. Would Hike Costs for Parents
Noah Diekemper: A key piece of the massive “Build Back Better” legislation under consideration in Congress is the institution of “universal, high-quality, free, inclusive, and mixed preschool services” funded by the federal government but administered by the states — with strings attached. For example, the bill would require that “at a minimum, [States] requir[e] that […]
Requiring Preschool Teachers to Earn a B.A. Would Hike Costs for Parents
Noah Diekemper A key piece of the massive “Build Back Better” legislation under consideration in Congress is the institution of “universal, high-quality, free, inclusive, and mixed preschool services” funded by the federal government but administered by the states — with strings attached. For example, the bill would require that “at a minimum, [States] requir[e] that […]
Read the Letter GOP Legislators Sent to Superintendents Pressuring Them to Reopen Schools
Upnorthnews: A still unknown number of school superintendents across Wisconsin are receiving a letter from top Assembly Republicans –the people who control the purse strings to state education funds – strongly urging them to consider reopening their schools rather than opting for virtual learning this fall, according to a copy of the letter obtained by […]
How one woman’s stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud
Yvette Tan: This week around 10 million students across China have sat the Gaokao – a college entrance exam which determines their entire future. Hanging over their heads, though, is the recent revelation that hundreds of other students before them were victim to an identity theft scandal which saw them robbed of their results. For […]
Civics: US Government-funded Android phones come preinstalled with unremovable malware
Dan Goodin: An Android phone subsidized by the US government for low-income users comes preinstalled with malware that can’t be removed without making the device cease to work, researchers reported on Thursday. The UMX U686CL is provided by Virgin Mobile’s Assurance Wireless program. Assurance Wireless is an offshoot of the Lifeline Assistance program, a Federal […]
String quartet brings classical music to area elementary schools
Scott Girard: “So for some kids here this is their first experience with orchestral string instruments,” Moran said. “Getting to see them live is a really exciting and big deal for them. “I feel really lucky to have it at our school.” That excitement was clear as the students listened to the four members of […]
New jersey Teachers Union and Dark Money
Sunlight policy center: So we can now confirm what many of us already assumed: NDNJ would not exist if not for the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA). With almost 70 percent of the $6.5 million raised coming from New Jersey’s most powerful special interest, and with Governor Murphy appearing in NDNJ’s TV ads, it sure […]
I Was a Low-Income College Student. Classes Weren’t the Hard Part.
Anthony Abraham Jack: Now, as a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I teach a course I’ve titled C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) — borrowing the title of that still-relevant Wu-Tang Clan track — in which we examine how poverty shapes the ways in which many students make it to and through […]
Stanford CS Education Library
Stanford: This online library collects education CS material from Stanford courses and distributes them for free. Update 2006 For learning code concepts (Java strings, loops, arrays, …), check out Nick’s experimental javabat.com server, where you can type in little code puzzles and get immediate feedback.
Many Families Aren’t Sending Their Kids to Small Liberal Arts Colleges Anymore. Mine Isn’t, Either. Here’s Why
Laura McKenna: n January, two small liberal arts colleges, Green Mountain College in Vermont and Hampshire College in Massachusetts, announced that they were going to close or merge with other schools. They joined the ranks of other small schools that have closed in recent years, such as Mount Ida College in Massachusetts, St. Gregory’s University […]
The Tragic Decline of Music Literacy (and Quality)
Jon Henschen: Throughout grade school and high school, I was fortunate to participate in quality music programs. Our high school had a top Illinois state jazz band; I also participated in symphonic band, which gave me a greater appreciation for classical music. It wasn’t enough to just read music. You would need to sight read, […]
How The US Pushed Sweden to Take Down The Pirate Bay
Ernesto: In some countries they’ve actively helped write copyright law. Elsewhere, U.S. authorities provide concrete suggestions for improvement, including in Sweden. After The Pirate Bay was raided for the first time, more than ten years ago, the media highlighted that the U.S. Government and Hollywood pulled strings behind the scenes. However, little was known about […]
Symmetry, Algebra and the Monster
Scott Martin: You could forgive mathematicians for being drawn to the monster group, an algebraic object so enormous and mysterious that it took them nearly a decade to prove it exists. Now, 30 years later, string theorists — physicists studying how all fundamental forces and particles might be explained by tiny strings vibrating in hidden […]
Giving All NYC Families the Same School Choice That The Deputy Mayor Has
Alina Adams: On April 3, 2017, The New York Post broke the story of how Deputy Mayor Richard Buery, with the help of Chancellor Carmen Fariña, pulled strings to get his son into Park Slope’s top middle school. This is a blatant violation of rules that all families, connected or not, are expected to follow. […]
Commentary on Education Federalism
Kim Schroeder (President of the Milwaukee Teacher Union: Critics may say that not all charter schools are bad, which may be true. But only a small percentage of private charters outperform traditional public schools. And private schools serve fewer English-language learners and children with special needs; expel a disproportionate number of minority students; and, even […]
Dual enrollment growing in popularity and frustration
Ron French: Dual enrollment is suffering growing pains. The popular program allows high schoolers to take college courses free, with the incentive that they will apply to a degree program. But opportunities still vary widely between counties, and credits earned come with strings attached at many Michigan universities. There is no state office assuring that […]
Private Goods, from Florence Nightingale to Wendy Brown
Corey Robin: Yesterday, Berkeley political theorist Wendy Brown gave a once-in-a-lifetime talk at the Graduate Center—the kind that reminds you what it means to be a political theorist—about the way in which financialization—not just privatization or corporatization—had transformed the academy. Through a deft re-reading of Max Weber’s two vocation lectures, Brown showed how much the […]
“K-12 spending under the U.S. Department of Education and its predecessor agencies rose from $4.5 billion in 1965 to $40.2 billion in 2016, in constant 2016 dollars”
Neal McCluskey: Despite the large increases in federal aid since the 1960s, public school academic performance has ultimately not improved. While scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have improved for some groups and younger ages, math and reading scores for 17-year-olds—essentially, the school system’s “final products”—have been stagnant. In addition, America’s performance on […]
Clinton’s $350 billion College Spending Growth Plan
Wall Street Journal The plan—dubbed the “New College Compact” and estimated to cost $350 billion over 10 years—would fundamentally reshape the federal government’s role in higher education by offering new federal money, but with strings attached. States would have to increase their own spending on higher education, and universities would be required to control spending, […]
Vassar president: Institutions must reallocate for core educational missions
Tara Garcia Mathewson: Vassar College has proven it is possible to substantially increase the portion of low-income students on a selective campus. And the college did it right through the Great Recession, committing to its income diversity model at a time when finding extra money for financial aid was especially difficult. The college’s success with […]
Arts Rich School Blueprint (Madison)
Madison School District Why is it important for all of our children in Madison to have equitable access to a comprehensive arts education and to thrive in an arts rich school? Through creating, presenting, responding, and connecting in multiple art forms, students can come to recognize and celebrate their own unique ways of seeing, doing, […]
Music Education Needs to Be a Click Away
David Gelernter Most children learn nothing about serious music in school and don’t expect to learn anything. Outside school, the music world is being upended and shaken vigorously. The ways we choose music and listen to it are being transformed by iTunes and Spotify and other such sites. For most young people, music is a […]
The Fine Art of Tough Love
Joanne Lipman: What does it take to achieve excellence? I’ve spent much of my career chronicling top executives as a business journalist. But I’ve spent much of the last year on a very different pursuit, coauthoring a book about education, focusing on a tough but ultimately revered public-school music teacher. And here’s what I learned: […]
Arne Duncan, Larry Summers, and the Higher Education Myth
Bob Samuels: I am currently working on a book, The Politics of Higher Education, Jobs, and Inequality. One of my main arguments is that there is a bipartisan consensus that higher education is the solution to all of our economic and social problems. There are several problems with this stance: 1) producing more people with […]
Get a College-Level Computer Science Education with These Free Courses
Melanie Pinola: We’re lucky to have access to so many excellent free online courses for just about anything you want to study, including computer science. Here’s a curriculum list that strings various free computing courses into the equivalent of a college bachelor’s degree. aGupieWare, an independent app developer, surveyed the curricular requirements for computer science […]
Checking My Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege
Tal Fortang: There is a phrase that floats around college campuses, Princeton being no exception, that threatens to strike down opinions without regard for their merits, but rather solely on the basis of the person that voiced them. “Check your privilege,” the saying goes, and I have been reprimanded by it several times this year. […]
Upton Sinclair on college presidents
Thus the college president spends his time running back and forth between Mammon and God, known in the academic vocabulary as Business and Learning. He pleads with the business man to make a little more allowance for the eccentricities of the scholar; explaining the absurd notion which men of learning have that they owe loyalty to truth and public welfare. He points out that if the college comes to be known as a mere tool of special privilege it loses all its dignity and authority; it is absolutely necessary that it should maintain a pretense of disinterestedness, it should appear to the public as a shrine of wisdom and piety. He points out that Professor So-and-So has managed to secure great prestige throughout the state, and if he is unceremoniously fired it will make a terrific scandal, and perhaps cause other faculty members to resign, and other famous scientists to stay away from the institution.
The president says this at a dinner-party in the home of his grand duke; and next morning he hurries off to argue with the recalcitrant professor. He points out the humiliating need of funds-just now when the professor’s own salary is so entirely inadequate. He begs the professor to realize the president’s own position, the crudity of business men who hold the purse-strings, and have no understanding of academic dignity. He pleads for just a little discretion, just a little time-just a little anything that will moderate the clash between greed and service, the incompatibility of hate and love.
Education that’s not to the point
My belief that the PowerPoint presentation is the worst thing that ever happened to modern education was verified a few months ago while I was observing a training session on the art of marketing complex technology. At one point, the teacher stopped his PowerPoint presentation to rant about the tyranny of PowerPoint presentations.
The trainer bemoaned the skull-numbing effect that an endless stream of bullet points and images has on a listener.
He painstakingly detailed the absolute no-nos of trying to impart important information through such a limited method: Keep the number of slides to a minimum, use as little text on each slide as possible and never, ever, recite your bullet points verbatim.
Then he told us that the newest trend in high-level salesmanship is to perform important presentations without electronic aides. Apparently, top sales professionals have started learning to sketch so they can hand-illustrate their most important concepts on whiteboards during a talk in front of clients.
Such an effort demonstrates two things, the trainer said. “First, it shows the customer that you know your stuff, that you’re not just regurgitating strings of facts because you need to have slides and fill them. And second, it shows your audience that you are tailoring how you impart information in a way that is relevant to them in the moment.”
“Wow!” I thought. “That’s exactly how teaching used to be.”
Well, that’s how it used to be a long time ago when teachers were masters of their subject areas and they shared their wisdom by lecturing and maybe making a few notes on a chalkboard. Back when students were — gasp! –expected to listen and even — double-gasp! — take notes.
That method died sometime after I graduated from college and before I began my graduate-level teacher training nearly a decade later.
The Decline and Fall of the English Major
In the past few years, I’ve taught nonfiction writing to undergraduates and graduate students at Harvard, Yale, Bard, Pomona, Sarah Lawrence and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Each semester I hope, and fear, that I will have nothing to teach my students because they already know how to write. And each semester I discover, again, that they don’t.
They can assemble strings of jargon and generate clots of ventriloquistic syntax. They can meta-metastasize any thematic or ideological notion they happen upon. And they get good grades for doing just that. But as for writing clearly, simply, with attention and openness to their own thoughts and emotions and the world around them — no.
That kind of writing — clear, direct, humane — and the reading on which it is based are the very root of the humanities, a set of disciplines that is ultimately an attempt to examine and comprehend the cultural, social and historical activity of our species through the medium of language.
The teaching of the humanities has fallen on hard times. So says a new report on the state of the humanities by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and so says the experience of nearly everyone who teaches at a college or university. Undergraduates will tell you that they’re under pressure — from their parents, from the burden of debt they incur, from society at large — to choose majors they believe will lead as directly as possible to good jobs. Too often, that means skipping the humanities.
A bit of History on The Madison School District’s at large board seats
Since Sarah Manski dropped out of the Madison School Board race two days after winning her primary, she’s been pilloried not only by the school district’s smattering of conservatives but by the same liberal, pro-democracy folks she once epitomized.
Leaving the race effectively left voters with little choice in who will get the seat she briefly coveted. It will either be second-place primary finisher T.J. Mertz or whomever the board appoints should Manski — whose name will remain on the April general election ballot — get the most votes.
Sure, Manski deserves the criticism.
But in creating the current mess, she had quite a bit of help from people pulling the district’s strings back when she was just a kid.
Until 1985, if one candidate dropped out of a school board race it mattered less because candidates weren’t required to run for particular, numbered seats.
Instead, they filed as candidates, primaries were held if the number of candidates was more than twice the number of seats up for election and, in the general election, voters voted for their top two or three choices, depending on whether there were two or three seats on the ballot.
Under that system, the people who actually got the most votes were assured of winning seats. And if one person dropped out of a six-person race — say, after a primary — you still had five to choose from.Much more on the 2013 Madison School Board election, here.
Curse of Cursive Handwriting: It’s absurd to teach children this way
There’s something deeply peculiar about the way we teach children to play the violin. It’s a very difficult skill for them to master–getting their fingers under control, holding the bow properly, learning how to move it over the strings without scratching and slipping. But just as they are finally getting there, are beginning to feel confident, to hit the right notes, to sound a bit like the musicians they hear, we break the news to them: we’ve taught them to play left-handed, but now it’s time to do it like grown-ups do, the other way around.
Alright, I’m fibbing. Of course we don’t teach violin that way. We wouldn’t do anything so absurd for something as important as learning an instrument, would we? No–but that’s how we teach children to write.
It’s best not to examine the analogy too deeply, but you see the point. The odd thing is that, when most parents watch their child’s hard-earned gains in forming letters like those printed in their storybooks crumble under the demand that they now relearn the art of writing “joined up” (“and don’t forget the joining tail!”), leaving their calligraphy a confused scrawl of extraneous cusps and wiggles desperately seeking a home, they don’t ask what on earth the school thinks it is doing. They smile, comforted that their child is starting to write like them.
