Two sources close to the process of selecting a new Madison Schools Superintendent tell 27 News the position has been offered to Green Bay School District Superintendent Daniel Nerad.
Green Bay School District spokesperson Amanda Brooker told 27 News Nerad, 56, would not comment Monday on the selection process.
Madison School Board President Arlene Silviera also declined comment.
School Board members had identified Nerad, Miami-Dade Public Schools administrator Steve Gallon, and Boston Public Schools Budget Director James McIntyre as the three finalists for the position.
Educating Teen Parents; Keeping Them In School
It’s difficult to juggle homework and parenthood. More than 6,000 Wisconsin teens gave birth in 2006. Nationally, about half of teenagers who get pregnant will drop out of school.
Teen moms in Madison have another option.
The School Age Parent Program or SAPAR was founded almost four decades ago to help teen moms stay in school.
The full-day program allows teen moms to successfully juggle class, doctor’s appointments and motherhood.
Texas School District Challenges State “Robin Hood” Finance System
Protests from this small school district nestled in the Texas Hill Country are reverberating across the state’s school finance landscape.
School board members – backed by parents and local business owners – have decided to say “no” when their payment comes due next month under the state’s “Robin Hood” school funding law.
Wimberley is one of more than 160 high-wealth school districts – including several in the Dallas area – that are required to share their property tax revenue with other districts. But residents here insist that their students will suffer if they turn the money over to the state.
“We’re not going to pay it,” said Gary Pigg, vice president of the Wimberley school board and a small-business owner. “Our teachers are some of the lowest-paid in the area. Our buildings need massive repairs. We keep running a deficit – and they still want us to give money away.
“It’s unconstitutional – and I’m ready to go to jail if I have to.”
Mr. Pigg and the rest of the Wimberley school board voted last fall to withhold the payment of an estimated $3.1 million in local property taxes – one-sixth of the district’s total revenue – that was supposed to be sent to the state under the share-the-wealth school finance law passed in 1993. The law was passed in response to a series of court orders calling for equalized funding among school districts.
Wisconsin’s school finance system takes a similar approach: High property assessement values reduce state aids. Unlike Texas, Wisconsin simply redistributes fewer state tax dollars to Districts with “high” property values, such as Madison. Texas requires Districts to send some of their property tax receipts to the state to be redistributed to other districts. School finance has many complicated aspects, one of which is a “Robin Hood” like provision. Another is “Negative Aid“: If Madison increases spending via referendums, it loses state aid. This situation is referenced in the article:
Regarding the possibility of a tax hike, Mr. York noted that an increase would require voter approval – something that is not likely to happen with residents knowing that a big chunk of their money will be taken by the state.
One of the many ironies in our school finance system is that there is an incentive to grow the tax base, or the annual assessment increases. The politicians can then point to the flat or small growth in the mill rate, rather than the growth in the total tax burden.
Finally, those who strongly advocate for changes in Wisconsin’s school finance system must be ready for unintended consequences, such as reduced funding for “rich” districts, like Madison. Madison’s spending has increased at an average rate of 5.25% over the past 20 years, while enrollment has remained essentially flat (though the student population has changed).
School For Autistic Children Raising $250,000 For Operational Costs
WISC-TV first told the story of Common Threads back in October when the school opened.
Common Threads is a place where children can learn to overcome some of the communications challenges of autism.
It also provides support and services for families who aren’t able to get it anywhere else.
“I don’t know what else we’d do,” said mother Krysia Braun. “Honestly I’d probably have to go to preschool with him in order to make sure that he was getting the most out of it. If you’re going to spend money to go to private school, the kids need the support, and we find it at Common Threads”
On Sunday, the school held a fundraiser hoping to raise the $250,000 needed for the school’s operational costs.
“It’s necessary to help with our operating expenses during the first year of startup,” said Common Threads executive director Jackie Moen. “We are assimilating the children in slowly so they are fully supported and then they feel comfortable and understood and then we’ll bring in perhaps one to two children a week.”
Nuestro Mundo’s Principal Leaving School
Nuestro Mundo Principal Gary Zehrbach, who has headed the Madison School District’s only English-Spanish charter school since its opening in 2004, is leaving his post at the end of this school year.
District officials hope to name his replacement in April.
“It has been a very difficult decision to make, and yet the time has come for me to return to Arizona to be closer to my family,” Zehrbach said Tuesday in a letter to parents.
Bill Strickland: Rebuilding America, one slide show at a time
With subtle accompaniment by longtime friend Herbie Hancock, and a slide show that has opened the minds (and pocketbooks) of CEOs across the country, Bill Strickland tells a quiet and astonishing tale of redemption through arts, music and unlikely partnerships.
Why you should listen to him:
Bill Strickland’s journey from at-risk youth to 1996 MacArthur ‘genius’ grant recipient would be remarkable in itself, if it were not overshadowed by the staggering breadth of his vision. While moonlighting as an airline pilot, Strickland founded Manchester Bidwell, a world-class institute in his native Pittsburgh devoted to vocational instruction in partnership with big business- and, almost incidentally, home to a Grammy winning record label and a world class jazz performance series. Yet its emphasis on the arts is no accident, as it embodies Strickland’s conviction that an atmosphere of high culture and respect will enervate even the most troubled students.
With job placement rates that rival most universities, Manchester Bidwell’s success has attracted the attention of everyone from George Bush, Sr. (who appointed Strickland to a six year term on the board of the NEA) to Fred Rogers (who invited Strickland to demonstrate pot throwing on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood). And though cumbersome slide trays have been replaced by PowerPoint, the inspirational power of his speeches and slide shows are the stuff of lecture circuit legend.
The Boy in The Window
By the end of the 2007 school year, he had grown faint. The wide toothy smile and copper-colored skin less defined, the baseball cap diminishing into the background of the poster-sized photograph. Dead for more than a year, Juan Carlos Ramos greets everyone from the window at the corner of Portland and Masonic streets in Albany. As August rolled around and parents began buying new backpacks and school supplies, readying their children for the 2007 school year, the family of Juan Carlos Ramos looked for a new picture to replace the one from which he had begun to fade. In September mylar balloons floated from the railing in front of the window and a colorful Feliz Cumpleaños banner hung across the window celebrating the birth of a young man who will never grow older, who will always be 19.
News of the February 2006 stabbing at the unsupervised party held by an Albany High School student at her parents’ home in the Berkeley Hills arrived on Saturday, a day after the stabbing. Ron Rosenbaum, then principal of Albany High School, sent an e-mail to the AHS e-tree that described in very general terms what had happened. At the time, my older son was a junior at AHS. He was on a camping trip with the Student Conservation Association, a group he volunteers with. When he returned on Sunday, I talked with both of my sons, the youngest a ninth-grader, telling them what had happened, asking them if they knew either Juan Carlos Ramos or the Oppelt children who had held the party. The answer was no to both.
They were not interested in discussing the event in any length, and I had little information. But I reminded them that if they were ever to find themselves in a similar situation that they had an obligation to call 911, whether or not they were implicated in any wrongdoing. I imagined that students would be talking about the party, and I warned my sons against participating in gossip. What I did not anticipate was that on Monday morning, the grassy median in front of Albany High School would be covered with local news vans and reporters, no doubt because the murder had happened in the Berkeley Hills and not in Richmond or Oakland, where similar events rarely attract such attention.
A Look At Alexandria’s Superintendent Search
School Board Chairman Claire M. Eberwein said that 18 people have formally applied for the job Perry left Jan. 18 and that search consultants indicate eight are highly qualified. More possible candidates have been identified from a pool of 141 people who expressed interest. The application deadline is Feb. 19.
Experts aren’t surprised that the job is drawing interest despite Perry’s abrupt exit after more than six years. They credit the attractiveness of Alexandria and the surrounding region as a place to work and live.
In May, the board voted 5 to 4 to seek a new schools chief. The way Perry was suddenly removed caused consternation among some residents. Minutes after she left, a locksmith changed the locks.
“There was widespread dismay at how the process went,” said Kitty Porterfield, a 29-year employee of Northern Virginia school systems and author of a new book, “Getting It Right: Why Good School Communication Matters.” She said, “The community is very wary now.”
Looking ahead, William Campbell, a PTA president and a member of the superintendent advisory search committee, said he wants a superintendent who did not rise through the traditional school ranks, perhaps a chief executive of a business.
Houston said some school systems have recruited such candidates recently with mixed results. “Some of them have been a disaster,” Houston said. “The jury’s still out on that model.”
Finding a superintendent these days isn’t easy, despite the hefty salary the position commands, experts say. For the Alexandria job, the board is advertising an annual salary of about $230,000 and a “comprehensive and competitive” benefits package.
“The superintendency has lost a lot of its luster,” said Jay P. Goldman, editor of the school administrator association’s magazine. “There was a time, not that long ago, when the pinnacle of one’s career would be to rise to superintendent. That day is gone.”
Goldman said many educators now view the top job in a school district as “an impossible, can’t-win position. They’re often brought in as the knight in shining armor. Expectations are unreal. Communities expect overnight success and every ill solved in a year or two.”
Cram to Pass Online School Bill
Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
The Legislature may actually complete an important assignment quickly and on time, earning high marks from voters.
Yes, we are talking about the Wisconsin Legislature, the same group of truants who logged one of the longest and latest budget stalemates in state history last year.
Maybe the Capitol gang is finally learning the importance of punctuality and cooperation.
Let ‘s hope so.
Key lawmakers announced a compromise bill Thursday that will keep open a dozen online schools in Wisconsin. The proposal also seeks to improve the quality of learning delivered via computer to educate more than 3,000 students in their homes.
The state Court of Appeals had put the future of virtual education in jeopardy last month. The District 2 Court in Waukesha ruled that the Wisconsin Virtual Academy, based in suburban Milwaukee, violates state laws controlling teacher certification, charter schools and open enrollment.
At Elite Prep Schools, College-Size Endowments
When Curtis Thomas, a 14-year-old from a poor family living in St. Rose, La., arrived here two years ago to attend Phillips Exeter Academy, he brought little more than a pair of jeans and two shirts. That would hardly do at a 227-year-old prep school where ties are still required for boys in class.
So Curtis’s history teacher, armed with Exeter funds, took him shopping for a new wardrobe.
That outlay was just a tiny fraction of what Exeter spends on its students. With its small classes, computers for students receiving financial aid, lavish sports facilities and more, Exeter devotes an average of $63,500 annually to house and educate each of its 1,000 students. That is far more than the Thomas family could ever afford and well above even the $36,500 in tuition, room and board Exeter charges those paying full price.
As a result, like the best universities to which most of its students aspire, Exeter is relying more and more on its lush endowment to fill the gap.
Despite Exeter’s expanding commitments, which include a new promise to pay the full cost for any student whose family income is less than $75,000, the school’s endowment keeps growing. Last year — fueled by gifts from wealthy alumni and its own successful investments — it crossed the $1 billion mark, up from just over $500 million in 2002.
Endgame: Madison Superintendent Candidate Summary
The Madison School Board will meet behind closed doors this morning to begin determining which of the three finalists it’d like to hire to replace Superintendent Art Rainwater, who retires June 30.
Three men from Miami, Boston and Green Bay who share an obsession for education but offer sharply differing backgrounds visited Madison this week to compete for the job of heading Wisconsin’s second-largest school district.
Candidate details, including links, photos, audio and video:
We’ll soon see what the smoke signals from the Doyle building reveal.
Child Tax Credit #3
Regardless of whether one supports a stimulus package, the agreed-upon package by the House leadership and the White House could almost rival AMT in terms of the amount of complexity it adds to the 2008 tax system. Not only do we have the government sending out checks to those who have no income tax liability (thereby requiring some method to reduce their tax liability), the proposal calls for yet another child tax credit. Yes. Make it three child tax credits.
We have the regular child tax credit, which gives everyone $1,000 per child with a floor at zero income tax liability (which is phased-out at $110,000). Then we have the additional child tax credit for those who are hit by that floor, thereby making the child tax credit refundable. But now we have a new child tax credit for $300 per child available to all, which is subject to different phase-out ranges than the current child tax credit. Furthermore, this is in addition to the personal exemption that a tax return gets for each child (which for someone in the 15 percent bracket is worth $525 for 2008) and other credits that are linked to children such as education credits, the credit for child and dependent care expenses, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
nd if last night’s Republican debate is any guide to the future of child tax credit policy, it may someday be the case that if you have a child, you just won’t have to file a tax return at all. In all seriousness, though, what is the difference between these child tax credits and the government establishing a program called “Paying You to Have Kids” whereby HHS would write out checks to every family, paying each one $2,000 per child?
Democracy works for virtual schools. Hallelujah
Congratulations to virtual school students, virtual school families, forward-thinking school districts around the state**, and to all Wisconsinites dedicated to high quality education for all. As reported in several news outlets yesterday, legislators have agreed to a compromise that guarantees the survival of virtual schools in Wisconsin.
**Thank you Lee Allinger, AASD Superintendent, and your staff, for preparing testimony in support of continuation of Wisconsin Connections Academy.
Thank you and congratulations to the Coalition of Virtual School Families, who issued this press release of thanks (and relief) yesterday.
But mostly, hallelujah! for democratic process and to kids and families who made a difference. Kids and families – 1100 of whom showed up in Madison last week to plea for their cause. Wow.
And congratulations to State Rep. Brett Davis and Senator John Lehman, who were able to reach across the aisle (political pressure didn’t hurt – see above) and find a solution.
Parents Fight Plan To Shift Kids To Falk
The new elementary school being built on Madison’s Far West Side, already mired in controversy over its name, now is part of a second emotional debate: Which students should be uprooted from their current schools when school attendance boundaries are redrawn this year to accommodate the new school and recent population changes?
A well-organized group of dozens of Stephens Elementary parents is fighting the Madison School District’s proposal to move 83 students from Stephens to Falk Elementary. The students would be among 524 at seven elementary and middle schools affected by the proposal, which is known as Plan A.
Parents in the Valley Ridge neighborhood contend their children, most of whom are from middle-class backgrounds, would receive an inferior education at Falk because the school already has an extraordinarily high number of low-income and other students who need extra attention.
Fifty-three percent of Falk’s students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, compared to an average of 36 percent at elementary schools in the Memorial High School attendance area.
New York Measuring Teachers by Test Scores
New York City has embarked on an ambitious experiment, yet to be announced, in which some 2,500 teachers are being measured on how much their students improve on annual standardized tests.
The move is so contentious that principals in some of the 140 schools participating have not told their teachers that they are being scrutinized based on student performance and improvement.
While officials say it is too early to determine how they will use the data, which is already being collected, they say it could eventually be used to help make decisions on teacher tenure or as a significant element in performance evaluations and bonuses. And they hold out the possibility that the ratings for individual teachers could be made public.
“If the only thing we do is make this data available to every person in the city — every teacher, every parent, every principal, and say do with it what you will — that will have been a powerful step forward,” said Chris Cerf, the deputy schools chancellor who is overseeing the project. “If you know as a parent what’s the deal, I think that whole aspect will change behavior.”
“Some People Never Learn”
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany have found a genetic factor that affects our ability to learn from our errors. The scientists demonstrated that men carrying the A1 mutation, which reduces the amount of dopamine D2 receptors in the brain, are less successful at learning to avoid mistakes than men who do not carry this genetic mutation. This finding has the potential to improve our understanding of the causes of addictive and compulsive behaviors.
Madison Superintendent Candidate Dan Nerad’s Public Appearance
Watch a 28 minute question and answer session at Monona Terrace yesterday, download the .mp4 video file (168mb, CTRL-Click this link) or listen to this 11MB mp3 audio file. Learn more about the other candidates: Steve Gallon and Jim McIntyre.
I spoke briefly with Dan Nerad yesterday and asked if Green Bay had gone to referendum recently. He mentioned that they asked for a fifth high school in 2007, a $75M question that failed at the ballot. The Green Bay Press Gazette posted a summary of that effort. The Press Gazette urged a no vote. Clusty Search on Green Bay School Referendum, Google, Live, Yahoo.
Related Links:
- Dr. Daniel Nerad, Superintendent of Schools — Green Bay Area Public School District, Green Bay, Wisconsin [Clusty Search / Google Search / Live Search / Yahoo Search ]
- Desired Superintendent Characteristics
- Five Candidates Named
- Learn more about the three candidates
- NBC15
- Hire the best
- Susan Troller:
Dan Nerad believes it takes a village to educate a child, and after three decades of being a leader in Green Bay’s schools, he’d like to bring his skills here as the Madison district’s next superintendent.
Nerad, 56, is superintendent of the Green Bay public school system, which has just more than 20,000 students.
At a third and final public meet-and-greet session for the candidates for Madison school superintendent on Thursday at the Monona Terrace Convention Center, Nerad spoke of his passion for helping students and his philosophies of educational leadership.
Speaking to a crowd of about 70 community members, Nerad began his brief remarks by quoting Chief Sitting Bull, “Let us put our minds together and see what kind of life we can make for our children.”
“I believe the ‘us’ must really be us — all of us — working to meet the needs of all children,” he said. Several times during his remarks, he emphasized that education is an investment in work force development, in the community and in the future.
He also said that he believes it’s a moral commitment.
Nerad talked about his efforts to create an entire district of leaders, and the importance of a healthy, collaborative culture in the schools. He said he saw diversity as “a strong, strong asset” because it allows kids to learn in an atmosphere that reflects the world they are likely to live in.
Emma Carlisle and Cora Wiese Moore provided music during the event. Both attend Blackhawk Middle School.
Wis. Lawmakers Announce Deal to Keep Virtual Schools Open
AP:
Wisconsin lawmakers announced a compromise Thursday that would allow virtual schools to remain open and receive the same amount of state aid.
The breakthrough potentially resolves an emotional debate over online education that has been watched closely in national education circles. A court ruling and a stalemate in the Legislature had threatened to close a dozen Wisconsin schools starting as early as next year.
The compromise rejects a Democratic plan that would have cut the schools’ funding in half, after an outcry from school superintendents and other advocates. Instead, they would continue to get nearly $6,000 for each open-enrollment student.
The plan announced by Democratic and Republican lawmakers at an afternoon news conference also would add new regulations to ensure quality education at the schools. Rep. Brett Davis, R-Oregon, said the state’s dozen virtual schools would be allowed to continue operating with few changes.
“Allowing parents to choose virtual schools helps keep Wisconsin a national leader in education policy,” said Davis, chair of the Assembly education committee.
Students flocking to online study as a flexible way to work for degree
Forget those uncomfortable, plastic classroom chairs and their 12-inch, fold-down, wannabe-desk extensions.
Millions of college students around the country attend class from living-room sofas, kitchen tables, home offices and even park benches — part of an ever-escalating trend of attending school online.
The trend is being set largely by community colleges, with their propensity for nontraditional students who need an easier, more flexible way to earn degrees. The number of students taking online classes in Washington has jumped 75 percent in just four years.
In Seattle, North Seattle Community College is leading the way with a course catalog that lists an increasing number of online options.
Sabrina Hutchinson, a busy staffing account manager and recruiter who works as an event planner on the side, enrolled at North Seattle this quarter to see whether she could juggle two jobs and college classes. It had been more than a decade since Hutchinson attended college. She decided on the high-tech option: an online course examining how the study of dinosaurs overlaps with a number of scientific fields.
Wisconsin Governor Doyle on Teacher Pay
It was definitely not one of his spotlighted points, but Gov. Jim Doyle, in his State of the State address this week, said he wants to see the overall pay structure of teachers in Wisconsin improved and he will make proposals in that direction when the next round of the state budget process starts a year from now. From the text released by the governor’s office, here is what Doyle said:
“We need high standards for our students and our teachers, but we have a compensation system that rewards neither. The system is broken. It’s a relic from a political fight a half a generation ago. From Waukesha to Wausau, school districts, parents, and taxpayers have all had enough.
Virginia Parents Resist Math “Investigations” Curriculum
A group of Prince William County parents is mounting a campaign to repeal a new elementary school math curriculum, using an Internet discussion group and an online petition to gather support and fuel criticism.
The group, whose members include parents from such elementary schools as Westridge, Ashland and Springwoods as well as teachers from various schools, plans to present the Prince William County School Board in February with its petition, which has about 500 names. Parents in the group, whose Web site ( http://www.pwcteachmathright.com) lists several of their complaints, say that the Investigations curriculum is putting their children behind grade level and is too convoluted.
The group’s formation comes right after the school system presented a year-long study of the curriculum that showed 80 percent of second-graders and 70 percent of first-graders are proficient on all 10 subtests of the Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Test. The school system wants to continue studying the program and incorporate data from student performance on the state Standards of Learning exams.
School Board member Julie C. Lucas (Neabsco) said in an interview that she wants to examine the program inside a classroom to assess its effectiveness. She added that she has been hearing positive reviews from at least one principal in her district but that she wants to withhold making public comments until she visits schools.
The Investigations program has been undergoing a phased-in implementation since the School Board adopted its materials in 2006. In the 2006-07 academic year, kindergarten through second grade started the program; this year, third-graders began it; and next year, fourth-graders will use the material.
Investigations teaches children new ways of learning mathematics and solving problems. For instance, a student may not need to learn how to add 37 and 23 by stacking the figures on top of each other, and carrying the numbers. They may learn to add up the tens and then combine the seven and three to arrive at 60.
Related:
- Math Forum Audio / Video
- Madison School District’s Math Task Force
- Clusty Search: Math Investigations
- Teaching Math Right website:
Why this website?
…Because our children – ALL children – deserve a quality mathematics education in PWCS!!
In 2006 PWCS directed mandatory implementation of the elementary school mathematics curriculum TERC – “Investigations in Number, Data, and Space” in all PWCS elementary schools. The traditional, proven, successful mathematics program was abandoned for a “discovery learning” program that has a record of failure across the country.
Of all the VA Department of Education approved elementary math text/materials, “Investigations” least adequately supports the VA Standards of Learning. Yet it was somehow “the right choice” for PWCS children. Parents of 2nd and 3d graders are already realizing the negative impact of this program in only a year and a half’s worth of “Investigations.” Children subjected to this program end up two years behind where they should be in mathematics fluency and competency by the end of 5th grade. PWCS is committed to experimenting with our children’s future. We think our children and our tax dollars deserve better.
Madison Superintendent Candidate James McIntyre’s Public Appearance
Watch a 28 minute question and answer session at Monona Terrace yesterday, download the .mp4 video file (195mb, CTRL-Click this link) or listen to this 12.3MB mp3 audio file. Watch [64MB mpeg4 download – CTRL-Click]or listen to a short, informal chat. Learn more about the other candidates: Steve Gallon and Dan Nerad
Related Links:
- Dr. James McIntyre, Chief Operating Officer – Boston Public Schools, Boston, Massachusetts [Clusty Search / Google Search / Live Search / Yahoo Search]
- Desired Superintendent Characteristics
- Five Candidates Named
- Learn more about the three candidates
- WKOW-TV
- NBC15
- Hire the best
- Susan Troller:
The students in an alternative high school in East St. Louis inspired Jim McIntyre when he was their teacher and continue to inspire him today as an administrator in the Boston public school system.
McIntyre, 40, spoke late Wednesday afternoon at Monona Terrace to a crowd of around 50 people at the second of three public meet-and-greet sessions for the final candidates vying for the job of Madison school superintendent.
“Teaching in East St. Louis was a life-changing experience,” McIntyre explained.
“Many of my students were children who lived under very, very difficult circumstances. When you were able to eliminate some of the distractions they faced and get them engaged in school, they were smart, talented students,” he said.
But for some, the odds were so difficult, and their lives so daunting that hope was hard to maintain.
“My brightest student, my best student, took his own life because he just didn’t see any future. It’s with me every day,” McIntyre said.
McIntyre, 40, is currently the chief operating officer of the Boston public school system, which has an operating budget of about $800 million. Before becoming chief operating officer about two years ago, McIntyre was budget director of the district, which serves about 57,000 students, for 8 years.
He says he tries to bring a student-centered focus to his job managing facilities, food service, safety, transportation and all other aspects of his job.
Money Matters: Raising Money Smart Kids by Janet Bodnar
It’s the time of year, with holiday bills still coming in, taxes not far ahead, not to mention the market going down like a deflating party balloon, that money is on the minds of us grownups more than we’d like.
But how about our kids? Do they have a grasp on the concept of cash flow? Janet Bodnar’s much hailed Raising Money Smart Kids: What They Need to Know about Money and How to Tell Them (Kiplinger’s Personal Finance) takes on those money matters–the thorny issues of teaching kids to respect, spend, save, and ultimately earn money sensibly. Bodnar, who writes Kiplinger’s “Money Smart Kids” column, begins with a tough test for parents, “Test Your Money Smarts.” Here’s a sample:
Your 14-year-old son has been saving half of his allowance and mony earned from neighborhood jobs. Now he wants to use the money to buy an expensive iPod.
Chromosomal Abnormalities Play Substantial Role In Autism
Genome-wide scans of families affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have revealed new evidence that previously unknown chromosomal abnormalities have a substantial role in the prevalent developmental disorder, according to a new report. Structural variants in the chromosomes were found to influence ASD with sufficiently high frequency to suggest that genomic analyses be considered in routine clinical workup, according to the researchers.
Employers Want New Way to Judge Graduates Beyond Tests, Grades
Colleges have been scrambling over the past year to respond to recommendations from a national commission that they be clearer to the public about what students have learned by the time they graduate.
Sometime in the next several weeks, for example, a national online initiative will be launched that allows families to compare colleges on measures such as whether they improve a student’s critical-thinking skills.
Tools for such measurements were recommended by the national commission, which was created by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. The group released its recommendations in late 2006.
Now, a sampling of the nation’s employers have weighed in. And they are not terribly impressed.
Madison Superintendent Candidate Steve Gallon’s Public Appearance
Watch a 28 minute question and answer session at Monona Terrace yesterday, download the .mp4 video file (175mb, CTRL-Click this link) or listen to this 11.3MB mp3 audio file. Learn more about the other candidates: Jim McIntyre and Dan Nerad.
Related Links:
- Dr. Steve Gallon, District Administrative Director – Miami/Dade Public Schools, Miami, Florida [Clusty Search / Google Search / Live Search / Yahoo Search]
- Desired Superintendent Characteristics
- Five Candidates Named
- Learn more about the three candidates
- WKOW-TV
- NBC15
- Hire the best
- Susan Troller:
As a life-long resident of southern Florida, school superintendent candidate Steve Gallon III grimaced, then grinned, when asked about how he liked Wisconsin weather.
Known as a motivational speaker as well as a top teacher, principal and administrator in the Miami/Dade County public school system, Gallon quickly got back on message: He sees his experiences as an educator and a leader as a good match for the school district here, especially given its rapidly changing demographics and challenges in funding.
He said the issue of underperforming students is not so much one of ethnicity but of economics.
“What we have to do is embrace the reality that gaps in achievement exist,” Gallon said. Much of it, he said, has to do with economic disadvantage.
“It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room. You must acknowledge that work needs to be done before you’re going to be successful in dealing with it,” he said.
Gallon, 39, is one of three finalists for the position of school superintendent here. He talked with community members and the media in a meet and greet session late Monday afternoon at Monona Terrace. There will be similar sessions today and Wednesday for candidates James McIntyre, chief operating officer for the Boston public schools and Daniel Nerad, superintendent of the Green Bay district.
In responses to questions from the audience, Gallon applauded the notion of working closely with the resources of the University of Wisconsin, said he believed in the least restrictive environment for special education students and cautioned that problems facing schools in terms of funding weren’t likely to be solved easily.
More Students Head Overseas In Freshman Year
Callie Broughton had an eventful freshman year at Florida State University — in Spain.
Ms. Broughton, now a 20-year-old junior, opted to study abroad in Valencia through a program for first-year students at Florida State. For one year, she lived in an apartment and took classes with other FSU students at the university’s Valencia Study Center. In her spare time, she explored Europe.
There were downsides to going abroad the first year of college. “Missing Thanksgiving and stuff I had never missed in 18 years was definitely weird,” she says. But the benefits outweigh the disadvantages: “You’re getting to see the world at such a young age,” she says. Ms. Broughton, an education major, is now a student recruiter for the program.
Freshman year has typically been considered a time for students to settle in and try living on their own for the first time, plan their course schedules and decide on a major. Now, a growing number of schools are expanding their study-abroad options for first-year students. “This was something that was very rarely done at all up until a few years ago,” says Brian Whalen, president and chief executive of the Forum on Education Abroad and executive director of the Office of Global Education at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.
Spending freshman year abroad presents challenges for younger students: easy access to alcohol, lack of supervision and, given the weak dollar, surprisingly high prices for basic goods and services.
Why Arts Education Matters
For years, we have watched arts classes give way to the seemingly more “practical” courses that politicians and policymakers assume have a direct link to professional and economic success. But in an increasingly globalized economy, one in which an ability to innovate and to imagine new possibilities is critical to America’s ability to compete, we still train our young people very narrowly to work in an industrialized society.
As the country contemplates reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, political and policy leaders must recognize that an education in and through the arts, as a central part of a total school program, allows schools to better address these challenges than a curriculum that defines success as aptitude in literacy and math only.
Top Issue For D.C. Schools? Parents.
David Nakamura and Jennifer Agiesta:
Seven in 10 D.C. residents believe the city’s public schools are performing inadequately, with the lack of parental involvement still cited as the biggest problem facing the nearly 50,000-student system, a Washington Post poll has found.
Monona Grove Student Targeted In Racially Motivated Incident
On Friday, several students got into an altercation, stemming from what some are describing as racially driven harassment.
Renee Roach said that her son, LeBraun, has been the targeted by a group of white students because of his race. LeBraun Roach is black. Roach said that her son has been taunted with racial slurs at school.
The day before the altercation at the school, several white students allegedly dropped a deer carcass on the windshield of a car at Roach’s home. The family said this wasn’t the first incident directed at their son. They said their driveway was blocked with Christmas trees just days earlier.
“My wife and kids are scared. That’s understandable when you find a dead deer in your driveway; you kind of wonder what else could be next. Are they going to throw something through the window?” said Arthur Roach, who found the deer carcass.
Second Sun Prairie school to use geothermal system
The Sun Prairie School District is set to once again tap into the Earth’s natural body temperature to warm and cool its newest elementary school.
Creekside Elementary, located on the city’s south side, will be the second of three Sun Prairie schools the district plans to heat and cool using a geothermal system.
Geothermal technology has seen “an explosion of growth in the last seven years or so in Wisconsin,” said Manus McDevitt, principal with Sustainable Engineering Group in Madison. “It’s coming to a point now where electricity and gas prices are so high … that really the argument for geothermal becomes stronger and stronger. For school districts it makes a lot of sense.”
The systems can cut schools’ energy use by 10 percent to 40 percent, McDevitt said.
Wisconsin State Tax Receipt Growth Slows from 3% to 1%
Collections of the three most important Wisconsin taxes increased less than 1% in the second half of 2007 – falling far short of the 3% assumed growth needed to cover state expenditures this year and raising fears that deep spending cuts will be necessary.
Preliminary state Department of Revenue totals show the personal and corporate income tax and the sales tax brought in $5.13 billion from July through December, an increase of only 0.8% over the same period in 2006.
Those three taxes account for $9 out of every $10 in general-fund taxes.
Every unexpected 1% drop in collections from those taxes means state government will have $120 million less a year to spend. If tax collections don’t pick up, the shortfall would quickly wipe out the projected $67 million surplus Capitol leaders had hoped for this fiscal year and force reductions across state government.
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle said he will warn of the economic downturn in his sixth “state of the state” message Wednesday. Many states are facing economic slowdowns, and California must fix a $14.5 billion shortfall, Doyle noted.
In his speech, Doyle said, “I’m going to talk pretty directly that this is a challenge that we have ahead of us, and we have to face up to it. Unless the national economy just totally goes into the tank, this is something we can manage and get through. But it’s going to be pretty tough.”
A reduction in the rate of State tax receipt increases makes it unlikely that there will be meaningful reform in redistributed state tax dollars flowing back to local school districts.
Milwaukee School Board board objects to federal provisos
With millions of dollars in aid to schools at stake, the Milwaukee School Board has put the brakes on a main element of a plan to get MPS off the list of districts not measuring up under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
“I dare them to take money out of kids’ classrooms,” board member Jennifer Morales said. She has led the charge to oppose two steps required under a plan the board agreed to in September for dealing with MPS’ label of District Identified for Improvement under the federal law.
Morales said she had reached the point of refusing to cooperate any further with the requirements of what she called a failed law distracting MPS from doing things that actually improve student achievement.
“Now is the moment when we just say ‘enough,’ ” she said. “If we don’t hold the line and say, ‘No way, we’re not going to play this stupid game and waste the taxpayers’ money,’ who is?”
At a meeting Thursday night, board members reluctantly approved one of the steps in the DIFI plan, but halted the other. The board voted to delay hiring required under the plan, yet a disputed reading program will begin.
Rethinking Principal Priorities of Training
Cities across America have long hunted for tougher, better-trained principals to turn around struggling schools full of impoverished children. A major university and an influential group of educators in Texas are proposing a provocative way to meet the demand: They say urban principals of the future can skip the traditional education school credentials and learn instead about business.
The nascent movement toward an alternative path to school leadership is driven by the troubles facing schools in the District and elsewhere as would-be reformers argue that a key to raising student achievement is to overhaul personnel, from the central office down to the classroom. The change also comes amid growing debate over which of a principal’s many duties are most important. School leaders often feel like the combined mayor, police chief and schoolmaster of a town with a population of 1,000 or more.
Education schools, where most principals are trained, emphasize teaching and managing children. But organizers of a new Rice University program for “education entrepreneurs,” and some top education officials in the Washington area, say an inner-city principal cannot succeed without enough business smarts to manage adults. For example, they say, principals need to know how to recruit great employees and fire bad ones.
Rice, which has no education school, is launching a master’s of business administration program this year to prepare principals for several Houston schools.
A Discussion on School Models (Traditional, Charter and Magnet)
Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater and Rafael Gomez held an interesting discussion on school models recently [Announcement].
Read the transcript
Watch the Video
or listen to the event (41mb mp3 audio)
Related:
- Madison School Board Discussion of School Models, Including Basic and Alternative Approaches
- Where have all the students gone, an update.
- Competition in Public Education
- A History of the Madison Studio School Initiative
Martin Luther King Photo Essay
King’s unique vision reshaped the landscape of American politics and society. In his brief life, he redefined what it means to be black in the United States, and, by extension, what it means to be an American.
State of US science report shows disturbing trends; challenges
The National Science Board this week said leading science and engineering indicators tell a mixed story regarding the achievement of the US in science, research and development, and math in international comparisons.
For example, US schools continue to lag behind internationally in science and math education. On the other hand, the US is the largest, single, R&D-performing nation in the world pumping some $340 billion into future-related technologies. The US also leads the world in patent development.
The board’s conclusions and Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 are contained in the group’s biennial report on the state of science and engineering research and education in the United States sent to the President and Congress this week.
While the report is massive, the board came up with 13 prime observations on the report or what it calls leading Science and Engineering Indicators 2008.
Relive Edmund Hilary’s Trek to the Top of the World
Welcome to the historic Mt. Everest expedition. The team is attempting to climb up the world’s tallest mountain and reach the summit — a place no human has ever been before. It has taken 16 days for Edmund Hillary, 13 other climbers, and 350 porters to reach the Tengpoche Monastery and set up a rear camp. Why are there so many people taking part in this journey? Find out by checking the interview with Whitney Stewart, our expert on Sir Edmund Hillary and his work.
In order to reach the monastery, the team has already trekked 170 miles up the hot and humid Katmandu Valley. The terrain is smooth, and everyone is in high spirits. The Sherpas, a clan of Nepalese, watch the team curiously, and join them in celebration when they reach this first stop at Tengpoche Monastery.
Online school offers fine, flexible education
Our public education system should be designed to meet the needs of all students. For the last few years, online schools have provided an important public school option for many of Wisconsin’s families, proving to be a perfect fit for a wide range of students requiring the freedom and flexibility to set their own pace and learn on their own time.
Unfortunately, the recent state Court of Appeals decision regarding the Wisconsin Virtual Academy has created some ambiguity. This has directly affected WiVA, and some have suggested it has broader implications for all virtual education. However, we don’t believe the ruling affects iQ Academy Wisconsin, an online high school that is part of the Waukesha School District, and other schools that operate like us.
Unlike WiVA, iQ Academy relies solely on state-certified public school teachers to provide formal instruction. Our teachers are employed by and largely located inside the Waukesha School District. We are confident that iQ Academy complies with all relevant state laws.
Nevertheless, as a strong advocate of online education options, I urge our government officials to clarify any ambiguity and set virtual education on a firm footing.
If there is a positive from this ruling, it is the additional attention focused on online education. Many who may not have been aware of the high quality of education being provided online are taking a closer look. We welcome that.
Seattle school parents pressured to pay
It’s time to call attention to a key issue plaguing Seattle Public Schools — class size. Despite public comments from district officials challenging the relevance of class size to academic achievement, every teacher I’ve spoken with has cited large class size as one of the biggest impediments to effective pedagogy.
In 2000, voters approved Initiative 728 by nearly 72 percent. This measure provided state funding to reduce class sizes. But, our state’s piecemeal approach to education funding has proved ineffective. Seven years later, class sizes in Seattle remain high.
The district’s response to underfunded schools has been larger classes and leaner services. Frustrated by inadequate state funding and district allocation of these limited funds, parents who “believe” in public schools are put in the difficult position of having to subsidize them.
Though we’re supposed to pay for enhancements, PTAs routinely “buy down” class size by supporting volunteer and paid-tutor programs so that the adult-student ratio in the classroom can be reduced and teachers are able to work with smaller groups, thus meeting the needs of students at both ends of the spectrum and in-between. At our school, “academic support” makes up roughly 50 percent of our PTA budget.
Pioneering research shows “Google Generation” is a myth
- All age groups revealed to share so-called “Google Generation” traits
- New study argues that libraries will have to adapt to the digital mindset
- Young people seemingly lacking in information skills; strong message to the government and society at large
A new study overturns the common assumption that the “Google Generation” – youngsters born or brought up in the Internet age – is the most web-literate. The first ever virtual longitudinal study carried out by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an apparent ease and familiarity with computers, they rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web.
Two-Year Colleges Go Courtin’ Overseas
Marketing an obscure Wyoming community college to Vietnamese high schoolers presents special challenges. Many have never heard of Wyoming, and, if they have, it’s usually thanks to the movie Brokeback Mountain. So when recruiter Harriet Bloom-Wilson from Northwest College in Powell, Wyo., visits the International High School in Ho Chi Minh City, she focuses on the college’s nurturing, small-town environment. That’s what sold “Grace” Thienan Nguyen, 19. The business major also notes she can transfer to a full-fledged university.
An American Ivy League education has long been prized by wealthy families in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Now more and more middle-class kids, whose English-language skills won’t pass muster at universities, are discovering two-year programs. Keen to attract these kids and stand out in a crowded field, schools are ramping up their global marketing efforts.
It’s no secret why Nguyen and her peers are descending on community colleges. Besides being easier to get into than universities, they also cost far less. “The notion of smart shopping for international education has really begun to spread,” says Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice-president of the Institute of International Education.
Education Push Yields Little for India’s Poor
With the dew just rising from the fields, dozens of children streamed into the two-room school in this small, poor village, tucking used rice sacks under their arms to use as makeshift chairs. So many children streamed in that the newly appointed head teacher, Rashid Hassan, pored through attendance books for the first two hours of class and complained bitterly. He had no idea who belonged in which grade. There was no way he could teach.
Another teacher arrived 90 minutes late. A third did not show up. The most senior teacher, the only one with a teaching degree, was believed to be on official government duty preparing voter registration cards. No one could quite recall when he had last taught.
Baltimore Battles Childhood Obesity
Baltimore should improve access to fresh produce and recreational activities in low-income neighborhoods to stem childhood obesity, according to a City Council task force report released yesterday.
“This is more serious than smoking,” said City Councilwoman Agnes Welch, who has overseen the issue in the council. “Let this be a movement: We’re going to stop childhood obesity in the city of Baltimore.”
The report recommends creating health zones in which city officials would work with schools, food stores and churches in three- to four-block areas to ensure that healthy food is available and that children have safe places to be physically active.
And Then There Were 3: Finalists for the Madison Superintendent Job
Madison Board of Education:
Following a first round of interviews with the five semifinalists, the Board of Education has selected three candidates as finalists for the position of Superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District.
In alphabetical order, the three candidates are:
Dr. Steve Gallon, District Administrative Director – Miami/Dade Public Schools, Miami, Florida [Clusty Search / Google Search / Live Search / Yahoo Search]
Dr. James McIntyre, Chief Operating Officer – Boston Public Schools, Boston, Massachusetts [Clusty Search / Google Search / Live Search / Yahoo Search]
Dr. Daniel Nerad, Superintendent of Schools – Green Bay Area Public School District, Green Bay, Wisconsin [Clusty Search / Google Search / Live Search / Yahoo Search ]
The Board interviewed the candidates last evening and today.
Each of the three finalists will spend a day in Madison on January 22, 23 or 24. In addition to a second interview with the Board, the candidates will visit some schools and see parts of Madison, talk to attendees at the Community Meet and Greet, and speak with district administrators.
The community is invited to the Meet and Greets scheduled from 4:00 to 5:15 p.m. at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center on January 22, 23 and 24. In the first hour, attendees will be able to briefly meet and greet the candidate as part of a receiving line. From 5:00 to 5:15 p.m. each day, the candidate will make a brief statement and might take questions. The session will end promptly at 5:15 p.m.
The schedule for visits by the finalists:
Tuesday, January 22 Steve Gallon
Wednesday, January 23 James McIntyre
Thursday, January 24 Daniel Nerad
On January 26 or 27, the Board will identify a preferred finalist. To ensure the Board’s research will be as comprehensive as possible, a Board delegation is expected to visit the finalist’s community during the week of January 28. The announcement of the appointment of the new Superintendent is scheduled for early February.
Related:
Madison School Superintendent Finalists Named Later Today
And then there will be three.
Members of the Madison School Board will narrow the field of candidates for the next superintendent of the school district from five to three late today. School Board President Arlene Silveira said she expected that the three final candidates would be named sometime late this afternoon or early evening, following three candidate interviews today and two on Friday.
The five candidates are: Bart Anderson, county superintendent of the Franklin County Educational Service Center in Columbus, Ohio; Steve Gallon, district administrative director of the Miami/Dade Public Schools; James McIntyre, chief operating officer of the Boston Public Schools; Daniel Nerad, superintendent of schools, Green Bay Public Schools and Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, chief academic officer, Racine Public School District.
The Capital Times asked candidates why they would like to come to Madison and what accomplishments have given them pride in their careers. Anderson, McIntyre and Vanden Wyngaard were interviewed by phone, and Nerad responded by e-mail. Steve Gallon did not respond to several calls asking for his answers to the two questions.
Related:
Parents have new tool to help choose among MPS schools
Olusanya is one of thousands of parents scrambling to find good school fits for their families during MPS’ three-week enrollment period, through next Friday.
A new tool in the search this year is the Milwaukee School Chooser, a 100-plus-page directory of MPS schools and charters, independent charters and private schools, published this month by the local affiliate of the San Francisco-based Great Schools organization.
Milwaukee is at the front of the national conversation about parental choices largely because of its charter schools and the Milwaukee Parental Choice voucher program, said Jodi Goldberg, who directs Great Schools’ local office, which opened in November.
“It seemed like a great opportunity to come in and work on behalf of parents so that no matter what their needs are, they know what’s available to them,” said Goldberg, a longtime Milwaukee education activist who is married to MPS School Board member Danny Goldberg.
Great Schools’ efforts in Milwaukee are funded by the Walton Family, Joyce and Robertson foundations.
Suspending Students is Exactly the Wrong Idea
We talk so much about the value of education and the need to do something to reduce dropouts that it may surprise some people that nearly half of all the freshmen in the Milwaukee Public Schools have been ordered not to come to school.
In fact, beginning in the sixth grade, more than a third of every grade level until senior year is suspended and told to stay away from school for up to three days at a time. Many are repeatedly told not to attend school.
The good news is that Milwaukee Superintendent William Andrekopoulos, after more than five years on the job, has finally noticed the destructive practice he has been presiding over and decided to do something about it.
Andrekopoulos says Milwaukee may have the highest suspension rates in the country. He has asked outside educational experts, the Council on Great City Schools, to examine Milwaukee’s suspension policies and recommend ways to keep more kids in school.
The highest in the country. Hmmm. That sounds familiar. What else have we read recently about Milwaukee Public Schools leading the country? Oh, we remember now. MPS also had the lowest reading scores in the country.
History Enrichment Opportunies and Summer Programs
In writing this blog, I quite often find that I get a question for which I am not the best person to compose an answer. This was the case here; so I turned to Sandra L. Berger, the author of our recently published, The Ultimate Guide to Summer Opportunities for Teens.
I’ll post Sandra’s Response below. Because the parent posing the question was from Michigan, that state is slightly more represented in the response.
The following programs will have information and/or sponsor courses that may interest your son. This is not a complete list, but it should give you a good start. Please do not be put off by the word “gifted” in the program titles. The term describes a program, not a child. These programs often include a diversity of children who are interested in advanced topics.
Health and safety restrictions making geography history in schools
Children are being denied the chance to take part in geography field trips because of fears over health and safety, Ofsted has warned.
Inspectors warned of signs that geography is in decline in England’s schools as growing numbers of pupils abandon a subject they find “boring and irrelevant”.
Ofsted called for a revamp of geography, with more fieldwork and lessons on climate change and fair trade. Chief inspector of education Christine Gilbert said: “Geography is at a crucial period in its development.
“More needs to be done to make the subject relevant and more engaging for pupils.”
One key way to make lessons more exciting is through field trips, Ofsted said in a new report.
Migration has once again become a touchy political issue
UNTIL recently, politicians who inveighed against immigration could expect support from an angry minority of voters in many Western countries. Some, like Australia’s Pauline Hanson, won moments in the limelight and then faded away. Others got closer to political power: in France in 2002 the anti-immigrant Jean-Marie Le Pen reached the run-off stage of the presidential election; Denmark’s centre-right government has been kept in office with support from an anti-migrant party; and in Austria in 2000 Jörg Haider’s far-right party joined a coalition government. On each occasion this was controversial, but could be explained as a quirk of the electoral system, not a reflection of widespread anti-migrant sentiment.
Today, however, hostility to immigration is becoming mainstream. Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, whose Labour government has allowed remarkably high rates of immigration for years, recently called for “British jobs for British workers”, a meaningless slogan previously used by the far-right National Front. The opposition Conservatives’ leader, David Cameron, says he wants to see “substantially lower” immigration. Both government and opposition say they will keep out workers from Bulgaria and Romania, along with those from any other new EU members, for as long as possible.
Teaching assistant charged with student sexual assault
A Waunakee teaching assistant, put on unpaid leave recently after being caught up in a federal investigation into child pornography, was charged today with repeated sexual assault of a child for having an affair with a freshman student while he was working at Madison La Follette High School.
Anthony Hirsch, 32, admitted to police during the child porn investigation that he had a year-long affair with the girl, which included sexual activity. The girl, now 19, confirmed that for police.
Hirsch, along with the sexual assault charge, was also charged today with knowingly possessing child pornography. He faces a possible maximum term of prison and extended supervision of 60 years on the sexual assault charge, and a maximum of 25 years of prison and extended supervision on the child pornography charge.
The criminal complaint filed today does not say how police determined that Hirsch and the La Follette student were having an affair, but during the course of the investigation into the child pornography allegations police asked Hirsch if he had ever had a sexual relationship with a child. Documents filed in support of obtaining search warrants for the residences of those thought to be involved in child pornography often quotes studies which show those who are involved in viewing child pornography are likely to have assaulted children in the past.
Urban Schools Aiming Higher Than Diploma
At Excel High School, in South Boston, teachers do not just prepare students academically for the SAT; they take them on practice walks to the building where the SAT will be given so they won’t get lost on the day of the test.
In Chattanooga, Tenn., the schools have abolished their multitrack curriculum, which pointed only a fraction of students toward college. Every student is now on a college track.
And in the Washington suburb of Prince George’s County, Md., the school district is arranging college tours for students as early as seventh grade, and adding eight core Advanced Placement classes to every high school, including some schools that had none.
Those efforts, and others across the country, reflect a growing sense of urgency among educators that the primary goal of many large high schools serving low-income and urban populations — to move students toward graduation — is no longer enough. Now, educators say, even as they struggle to lift dismal high school graduation rates, they must also prepare the students for college, or some form of post-secondary school training, with the skills to succeed.
Pennsylvania Acts to Bolster High School Requirements
A requirement that students pass a series of state exams before being allowed to graduate from Pennsylvania’s public high schools was unanimously approved Thursday by the State Board of Education.
The requirement faces a yearlong review process involving, among other groups, the state House and Senate Education Committees. If the measure survives, Pennsylvania will join 22 other states with similar requirements, according to the Center on Education Policy, an advocacy group in Washington.
Four additional states — Arkansas, Maryland, Oklahoma and Washington — will require graduation exams by 2012, two years before the Pennsylvania requirement would take effect. Connecticut is debating the idea.
Policy makers like the requirement because “communities are telling them that American kids are leaving high school without adequate skills,” the education center’s president, John F. Jennings, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Empowering School Principals
The Hartford school district is poised to make a dramatic shift in the way school budgets are prepared to give principals control over just about everything, including the composition of their staff, the length of their school days and years, and more.
“This is a fundamental change,” Superintendent Steven Adamowski told the school board Tuesday night.
Historically, the central office has set school budgets, determined how many teachers, social workers and other employees would work in a school, hired those employees and paid for books and programs for the classrooms.
The system made it difficult to hold schools and their principals accountable for student achievement because they had so little control of their own, Adamowski said. “In the past, we said, ‘come up with school improvement plans.’ But we gave schools exactly the same amount of money and the same way of doing things.”
To make the switch this spring to the new “student-based budgeting,” Adamowski formed a committee of teachers, principals, parents and budget office employees. What they found in their study, said Ebbie Parsons III, one of the project leaders, was that under the old system of budgeting, funding was uneven and unfair throughout the district.
MAINE PROGRAM BRIGHTENS COLLEGE PROSPECTS – AT BIRTH
Foundation offers $500 grants to all newborns – provided their parents open a college-savings account.
Just a few days into the new year, Laurie and Keenan Farwell welcomed their daughter Hadley into the world. The hospital staff at MaineGeneral Health in Augusta had the pleasure of delivering not just the baby, but also her first birthday gift: $500 toward her future education.
Hadley is a beneficiary of the new Harold Alfond College Challenge, a first-in-the nation philanthropic program that will give families statewide a $500 starter grant – and assistance with paperwork – to set up 529 college savings accounts for infants.
“It was very exciting to think she’s not even a couple hours old, and she’s already looking at her college fund,” Ms. Farwell said in a phone interview as Hadley patiently sucked on her tiny hand, awaiting a feeding.
Harold Alfond founded Dexter Shoe Co. in Maine in 1958 and shared millions of dollars to promote health and education in the state. After giving many scholarships to college-age students, “he wanted to help build aspirations for college at the front end of life,” says Greg Powell, chairman of the board of the Harold Alfond Foundation. Mr. Alfond laid the groundwork for this legacy before he died in November.
Racine school board wants residents’ input on superintendent search
The Racine Unified School Board wants to have a new superintendent in place by early May, and will host a series of community forums this month to gauge what district residents want in the new hire.
Five forums are scheduled for the mornings and evenings of Jan. 29 and Jan. 30, and the board is hoping that parents, students, staff and other district residents show up.
One of the 5 candidates for Madison’s Superintendent position is from Racine: Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard.
More on Wisconsin Virtual Schools
A Reader’s comment:
The article about Virtual Schools seems a bit tabloidish. It certainly paints a very different picture than the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal article. 15% local enrollment is very different from the 100% local enrollment that this author says will be enforced. She also doesn’t seem to consider the fact that it’s not surprising that WEAC would strongly support a former teacher regardless of the Virtual Schools issue. Maybe she was being sarcastic? Maybe she was trying to make a point about the $500 thing (which I agree is ridiculous)? All I know is that John Lehman was a good teacher who did all the extra stuff like coaching groups of high schoolers in the Model U.N. competitions. I also support Virtual Schools. I just don’t know what the exact right way to do that is. Should they get exactly the same amount as a brick and mortar school? Probably not. What is the right percentage? I dunno. Does a requirement on percentage local enrollment help or hinder the students? I dunno. Please describe why 15% local enrollment is harmful. Please describe why 50% of the usual dollar amount is too little. Facts will convince me. Bashing a good teacher and really nice guy does nothing to convince me.
The march on Madison to restore Wisconsin Virtual Academy and protect Wisconsin’s schools had over 1100 people participate today. I received this note from Brian Fraley that I thought I would pass along. It sounds like turnout even exceeded Brian’s hopes and expectations:
We had to cut off pre-rally registration at the concourse ballroom before all of three Milwaukee Buses arrived. WE had 975 registered on site today, 140 on Milwaukee buses. So we easily had a crowd of more than 1100 thats not including walk ups. In 6 days!
Out of a safety concern we asked 150 or so to head back to the Concourse and head to capitol at 2 instead. And it still took 15 minutes for the throng to enter the Capitol!
Dropout Solutions That Work
am starting this column with a chart, something journalists are never supposed to do. I found it on page 179 of a new book with one of those titles, “The Price We Pay: Economic and Social Consequences of Inadequate Education,” that scholars consider necessary but discourages readers. I beg you to stay with me, because this particular chart is surprising and important (I have changed the formatslightly to make it easier to absorb).
Table 9-1. Interventions that Demonstrably Raise the High School Graduation Rate
(Intervention — Extra high school graduates if intervention is given to 100 students)
1. Perry Preschool Program (1.8 years of a center-based program for 2.5 hours per weekday, child-teacher ratio of 5:1; home visits; group meetings of parents.) 19 extra graduates.
2. First Things First (Comprehensive school reform based on small learning communities with dedicated teachers, family advocates and instructional improvement efforts.) 16 extra graduates.
WEAC wins hands down. What else is new?
Unbelievable nerve. One Wisconsin Now, one of many mouthpieces for the state teachers union is badmouthing Assembly Education Committee Chair Rep. Brett Davis. Davis authored legislation that would make minor modifications to state statutes, allowing virtual schools to operate without question (and without continuous challenge in the courts by WEAC).
So One Wisconsin Now wants to discredit Rep. Davis by citing 2 contributions – totaling all of $500 – from officers of the company that operates the Wisconsin Virtual Academy.
So Rep. Brett Davis can be bought off for $500. That’s ridiculous on its face. The sophomoric effort by One Wisconsin Now to question Davis’ integrity – and apparently thereby question the validity of his legislation is whining in the school yard.
$142,525. Now that’s serious money.
A FoxPolitics piece last week summarized WEAC’s repeated challenges – and current court victory over Wisconsin’s public virtual schools. The issue is competing bills – corrective legislation introduced by Rep. Davis, mentioned above, and a bill introduced by Sen. John Lehman that would slash funding for online schools by 50% and would disallow open enrollment from outside a school district.
So just how badly does WEAC want to shut down virtual schools? For his 2006 Senate race, WEAC made independent expenditures favoring Senator Lehman in the amount of $142,525. Wow. That’s huge.
Hundreds of Wisconsin students ask lawmakers to save virtual schools.
Additional Commentary here and here.
On Parenting: Reassuring Autism Findings
Parents of children with autism don’t get much good news: It’s still not clear what causes the often devastating disorder, which affects as many as 1 in 150 children and for which there is no cure. As a result, theories abound on potential causes, the most notorious being the 1960s-era notion of “refrigerator mothers.”
In recent years, much energy has been expended on arguing whether vaccines could cause autism: Some parents think that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine or thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in other vaccines, is the culprit. Scientists, on the other hand, think autism is largely genetic, and have focused on looking for genes that could be at fault. That disconnect has been frustrating to parents and sometimes dangerous; an unproven treatment known as chelation therapy, which leaches heavy metals such as mercury from the body, resulted in the death of a 5-year-old boy in 2006 after he was administered the wrong drug.
The best evidence to date that vaccines are not responsible is published today in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Researchers with the California Department of Public Health found that the number of new cases of autism reported in California has risen consistently for children born from 1989 through 2003, which includes the period when thimerosal was phased out. Studies in other countries, including one from Canada published in 2007, have also exonerated vaccines and thimerosal.
Toki Middle School Child Enticement Case
On Tuesday January 15th around 9:24 Madison Police were called to Toki Middle School to take a report of an attempted child enticement. Two girls, ages 13 and 11, said they were followed by a man in a car as they walked to school along Raymond Road from Mckenna Blvd. to Whitney Way. At a couple of points in time the students say the man spoke to them through an open passenger’s side window. First he told the girls, “You guys are going to be late for school.” Following this comment the students quickened their pace. The man in the car continued to follow slowly behind them. After another block or two the man said, “I know your Dad, it’s okay, I can give you a ride … hop in.” One of the girls replied, “You don’t know my Dad.” They walked even more quickly eventually crossing from the south side of Raymond to the north side at Whitney Way where they cut in to the Walgreen’s parking lot. They then observed the man in the car speed up and continue eastbound on Raymond. The girls immediately contacted a guidance counselor
Meet and Greet the 3 Madison Superintendent Candidates
Via a Ken Syke email:
You are invited to meet and greet each of the three finalists for the Superintendent position of the Madison School District.
The Board of Education has scheduled a Community Meet and Greet for each of the finalists on January 22, 23 and 24. The sessions will be from 4:00 to 5:15 p.m. at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center [Map] in rooms on Level 4.
One finalist will be present each day.
In the first hour, you will be able to briefly meet and greet the candidate as part of a receiving line. From 5:00 to 5:15 p.m. each day, the candidate will make a brief statement and might take questions. The session will end promptly at 5:15 p.m.
No RSVP is necessary.
This weekend, the Board will select the three finalists from among five semifinalists named on January 7.
The community is invited to this Meet and Greet so please forward this to anyone who might be interested in attending.
The announcement of the new Superintendent is scheduled for early February. For more information about the Superintendent selection process, see the MMSD Today article at http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/today/756.htm.
Thanks for your interest in and support of the Madison School District.
Related:
Racine Sophomores Discover Asteroid
Three Racine sophomore students were notified on Monday that a celestial body they discovered during a science project had been verified as an asteroid.
The students at Racine’s Prairie School will be able to name the asteroid, temporarily identified as “2008 AZ28,” in about four years, according to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., the international authority on known objects in the solar system.
Sophomores Connor Leipold, Tim Pastika and Kyle Simpson were able to make the discovery thanks to technology provided from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., which is also the alma mater of the science teacher, Andrew Vanden Heuvel, school spokeswoman Susan Paprcka said.
The students operated a telescope located in New Mexico remotely over the internet.
State Education and School District Data
The State Education Data Center (SEDC) is a new service of the Council of Chief State School Officers, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the Council’s National Education Data Partnership. The SEDC will position itself as a leading voice on public education data and will focus on two work strands: (1) serving as a national advocacy leader for quality education data collection, standards, and use; and (2) serving as the nation’s provider of a free, easy-to-use website featuring state education data and analytic tools.
The Translators: The Media and School Choice Research
The Media play a pivotal role in determining how and why research influences public opinion with regard to policy. Political scientists Shanto Inyengar and Donald Kinder have shown through experimental research involving televised news how the presentation of news stories can have a powerful impact on what Americans think about issues.1 Prominent columns and articles, especially in the big East Coast papers, influence political behavior among the policy and political elites and offer signals about elite thought and opinion on key issues. The debates about the research on school choice illustrate the broader challenges the media face when translating research for public consumption.
At a superficial level, school choice is a relatively easy debate for the media to cover. It can be simplified into arguments for and against vouchers, charter schools, and altering the definition of “public” schooling, and these arguments are often boiled down to an easy framework of “public” versus “private.” Likewise, the question of increases in test scores fits readily into a debate about whether school choice is “working” or not. While such framing greatly oversimplifies the issues, it nonetheless drives much of the coverage precisely because it offers easy contrasts.
In Praise of Nerds
“AND then, just to show them, I’ll sail to Ka-Troo, and bring back an It-Kutch, a Preep, and a Proo, a Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too!” That typically nifty passage comes from Dr Seuss’s “If I Ran the Zoo”. The book was published in 1950 and contains the first use of the word “nerd”. How very unfortunate that Dr Seuss, whose verbal pyrotechnics have given so much pleasure to so many children, should also have given them, however innocently, the ghastly label “nerd”.
The precise meaning of the word (in its post-Seuss sense) is hard to pin down, as David Anderegg, a child psychologist and academic, argues in this thoughtful and warmly sympathetic book. It denotes a bundle of different qualities: “some combination of school success, interest in precision, unselfconsciousness, closeness to adults and interest in fantasy.”
But the word is no less powerful for its vagueness. Children intuitively understand what a nerd is, with terrible clarity. The bottom line, Mr Anderegg reckons, is that American kids grow up knowing that “nerds are bad and jocks are good”. (His focus is exclusively American: in many other countries academically high-achieving children are revered by their peers.) And this matters because these stereotypes become the basis for choices that children make about their identity and future.
Striving to do badly
Mr Anderegg draws on scores of interviews with his young patients to show what being called a nerd can do to a child. Some are driven to despair or suicide. But most cope by bending to peer pressure. “The kids who will really be hurt by the nerd/geek stereotypes are the kids who will shut down parts of themselves in order to fit in.” When these bright children start switching off their own lights to avoid being branded nerds, it is bad news for everyone—and for the economy. Mr Anderegg points to declining school performance and college enrolment in science subjects in America, and to the fact that employers in certain fields are now having to look abroad to find the best graduates.
Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them @ Amazon. Clusty.
Wisconsin at Center of National Debate Over Virtual Schools
Seventh grader Marcy Thompson is caught in the middle of a national policy debate that could close her school and help determine the future of online education.
Thompson is one of a growing number of students nationwide trading home schooling and public schools for virtual ones where licensed teachers oversee her progress from afar.
She is enrolled in the Wisconsin Virtual Academy, a charter school based north of Milwaukee, but spends her days 130 miles away at home studying everything from literature to algebra under her mother’s guidance and a curriculum provided by the school district.
Colleges Turn to Web Tools in Hunt for ’08 Freshmen: Interactive sites aid recruiters, school-shoppers
Once dominated by glossy brochures, college fairs, and campus tours, the college admissions landscape is rapidly shifting toward online social media, as schools blanket the Internet with podcasts, blogs, and videos to recruit wired high school students.
With virtual campus tours, live chats with college students, professors, and admissions officers, and videos about campus life, colleges and universities are increasingly turning to interactive and multimedia technology as recruiting tactics to connect with prospective students who are far more likely to scroll down a Web page than thumb through a college viewbook.
Think of it as College Admissions 2.0, college officials and consultants say.
“Higher ed is really trying to embrace it on all fronts,” said Nora Barnes, director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. “There’s no doubt that’s where their audience is.”
Teen girls’ popularity predicts weight change, study shows
Adolescent girls who placed themselves low on the ladder of popularity were more likely to gain weight later in their teen years than girls who saw themselves as having higher social standing, Boston-area researchers say.
Depression and low self-esteem have been identified as contributing to the burden of obesity in adolescents, but Adina R. Lemeshow of the Harvard School of Public Health and her colleagues wanted to know whether girls’ perception of their social standing predicted changes in their weight.
The study, which appears in the current Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, is the first to ask questions about social status before weight change, the authors say, making a stronger case for linking the two than previous work by others that looked at only one point in time.
Racine academic chief Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, eyes two superintendent posts
Racine Unified’s academic director heads into her next round of interviews for the Madison Schools superintendent job on Friday.
Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, who joined Racine Unifed in November 2006 after a stint as an assistant superintendent in Ann Arbor, Mich., is one of five semi-finalists for the Madison job, she said Monday.
Vanden Wyngaard and Green Bay Schools Superintendent Daniel Nerad are the two Wisconsin-based educators in the running, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported last week. Schools officials from Miami, Fla. and Boston have also made it to the semi-final round. The Madison school board will next narrow the field to three candidates, Vanden Wyngaard said.
Sue Kutz, vice president of Racine Unified’s school board, said she was shocked to hear that Vanden Wyngaard was interested in the Madison job. Racine Unified is on the hunt for a replacement for interim superintendent Jackson Parker, who stepped in after Tom Hicks resigned in August.
“She has expressed to me several times that she wanted to be superintendent of Racine Unified, so I was kind of surprised,” said Kutz, who is chairing the search committee for the district’s new leader.
Vanden Wyngaard said she still plans to throw her hat in the ring for the Racine job and will meet the February 20 application deadline. She acknowledged that her interviews in Madison could be viewed as a lack of commitment to her current employer, but said she’s trying not to worry much about whatever speculations might be afloat.
“I have a mission for urban education, so I’m looking to be in a place that will help me fulfill that goal,” Vanden Wyngaard said Monday. “If the community and the board believe that my candidacy here is important and that I can lead the district toward strategic change, then it won’t matter. If I’m the person for the job in Racine, it’ll happen.”
Vanden Wyngaard is one of five candidates for the Madison Superintendent postion.
Latest MMSD Today
Kids Count Update on Children’s Well-Being
The Annie E. Casey Foundation:
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT online database has a whole new look and feel. Now featuring child well-being measures for the 50 largest U.S. cities, this powerful tool contains more than 100 indicators, including the most recent data available on education, employment and income, poverty, health, and youth risk factors for the United States as a whole, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
What is the Evidence that Acceleration Works?
Belin-Blank Center @ the University of Iowa:
The international educational community needs a comprehensive collection of articles on research and policy in acceleration. To fulfill IRPA’s mission to serve as that clearinghouse, we will use this Web site to organize, reflect on, and make available research on acceleration.
As a starting point, we make available the 11 articles that form the research core of Nation Deceived, provide links to National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) studies on acceleration options for high school students, and list titles of books, handbooks, and book chapters that touch on some aspect of acceleration.
This site is in its infancy. As it matures, it will encompass extant research as well as new work from IRPA and researchers dedicated to providing answers about acceleration.
Madison police respond to gun call at Sherman Middle School
All is well after an incident earlier today when police responded to a “gun” call at Sherman Middle School. According to the Madison Police Department “an 11-year-old student discharged a cap gun inside the boy’s locker room.” While the gun was lime green students passing by only heard the sound of the cap gun discharging. Full report below:
New Jersey Overhauls School Finance
Over the objections of big-city Democrats and suburban Republicans, Gov. Corzine’s sweeping overhaul of how New Jersey pays for public education passed the Legislature last night.
Corzine and his allies in the Legislature say the measure would more fairly distribute nearly $8 billion in annual state education aid.
The bill would hike this year’s state education funding by 7 percent. Some districts would see an increase of as much as 20 percent, and all would get at least a 2 percent increase.
But urban lawmakers bitterly predicted the bill would harm 31 disadvantaged school districts, including those in Camden, Newark and others that have received tens of millions in extra school aid in recent years.
Republicans, meanwhile, criticized a part of the law that would for the first time allocate a big chunk of state special-education aid based on the relative wealth of communities.
As a result, affluent schools would get less per handicapped student, under the theory that local taxpayers can more easily pick up that cost.
As Corzine pushed to get the bill through yesterday on the last day of the lame-duck legislative sessions, its passage became a cliff-hanger in the Senate.
There, Democratic leaders initially could only muster 20 “yes” votes – one short of a majority – after the chamber’s six African American senators, all Democrats, linked up with Republicans to vote against the measure.
Math 234 at the University of Wisconsin Madison for High School Students
Via Ted Widerski’s email:
The UW Math dept has decided to offer a section of Math 234 (3rd semester Calculus) at 7:45 am in the fall of 2008. This course will be taught by Professor Andreas Seeger and will meet at 7:45 – 8:35 on MWF for 3 credits. The UW has chosen this time as being somewhat convenient for high school students, as many students can take this course and return to their high school in time for 2nd period.
Madison Schools have 26 students in grades 11 or below that will be completing Calculus II this year. Combined with students in neighboring school districts, there is a possibility that a large percentage of the class will be made of area high school students.
For those students that plan to elect this course, each District has a deadline for accessing the Youth Options [Clusty | Google] program. In Madison, that deadline is March 1. Therefore, I would encourage you to speak with students and parents in your building and make them aware of this opportunity. Also, please pass on this info to other key people in your building such as guidance counselors, math department chairs and Calculus teachers.
If you have questions or concerns, feel free to contact me.
Ted Widerski
Talented and Gifted Resource Teacher
Madison Metropolitan School District
545 W Dayton Street
Madison, WI 53703
(608)442-2152
Related: Credit for non-mmsd courses.
Sun Prairie High group supports black students
Alisha Berns ‘ enthusiasm for the Sun Prairie Scholar Society speaks volumes.
“I really get excited. I don ‘t sleep well the night before, ” said the Sun Prairie High School junior. “It ‘s a nice getaway. I ‘m very comfortable being here. ”
Sarah Benish, a school counselor at Sun Prairie High School, wanted to increase black students ‘ participation in advanced level courses, so she did some research and started the Sun Prairie Scholar Society last year. The student members are selected on academic success.
The society, which is called S Cubed for short, supports the academic success of high-achieving black students through group advising, supporting individual student goals, providing a space for students to connect, assisting students in reaching their highest academic potential and helping students find purpose in their learning.
“I really wanted to support these students and help them access opportunities, ” said Benish, who is in her third year at the high school. “This group has been a highlight of my work here and I have learned so much from the students. “
The Early Bird Gets the Bad Grade
Via a reader’s email: Nancy Kalish:
IT’S Monday morning, and you’re having trouble waking your teenagers. You’re not alone. Indeed, each morning, few of the country’s 17 million high school students are awake enough to get much out of their first class, particularly if it starts before 8 a.m. Sure, many of them stayed up too late the night before, but not because they wanted to.
Research shows that teenagers’ body clocks are set to a schedule that is different from that of younger children or adults. This prevents adolescents from dropping off until around 11 p.m., when they produce the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, and waking up much before 8 a.m. when their bodies stop producing melatonin. The result is that the first class of the morning is often a waste, with as many as 28 percent of students falling asleep, according to a National Sleep Foundation poll. Some are so sleepy they don’t even show up, contributing to failure and dropout rates.
Many of our presidential candidates have been relatively silent on how they plan to save our troubled education system. For those still searching for a policy that might have a positive impact, here’s an idea: stop focusing on testing and instead support changing the hours of the school day, starting it later for teenagers and ending it later for all children.
Where Have all the Students Gone? An Update
An update to Barb Schrank’s November, 2005 post:
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Comments from a reader:
At $6,000 per child that’s about $16 million per year. At $9,000 per child, that’s about $23 million per year. If we kept 332, that would be $2-3 million more per year.
Also, MMSD not only lost students, which has a negative effect on what the district gets under revenue caps, we’ve increased our low-income population, which means that for every dollar the district gets, more of those dollars need to be spent on non-instructional services.
If the district does not consider the economic development implications of its decisions, we’re likely to
- see more go to school outside MMSD, or
- for the non-low income students who go to school here increased family dollars will be spent on private aspects of education- lessons, tutoring, etc.
Madison’s population in 2000 was 208,054 and is estimated to be 223,389, according to the census bureau. Madison’s poverty rate is estimated to be 13%, according to the Small Area Estimates Branch [Website].
| District | Enrollment 2000-2001 |
Enrollment 2006-2007 |
Per Student Spending (06/07 Budget) | Administrators | Total Staff | ACT % Tested (05-06) | ACT Comp Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Madison | 25,087 | 24,755 | $12,422 | 91.5 | 3544.6 | 61.1 | 24.2 |
| Verona | 4222 | 4540 | $12,113 | 22 | 603.4 | 69.6 | 23.6 |
| Middleton-Cross Plains | 5125 | 5640 | $12,822 | 21 | 756.3 | 73 | 24.5 |
| Waunakee | 2836 | 3357 | $11,987 | 14 | 427.6 | 70.7 | 23.3 |
| Sun Priarie | 4776 | 5946 | $11,238 | 20 | 741.3 | 62.6 | 23 |
| McFarland | 1951 | 2017 | $11,853 | 9.5 | 251.2 | 64 | 23.7 |
| Monona Grove | 2702 | 2885 | $12,289 | 13 | 388 | 71.4 | 22.6 |
| Oregon | 3430 | 3588 | $11,572 | 15 | 465.1 | 59.2 | 23.2 |
Data sources:
- Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
- Wisconsin School District Poverty Estimates (2005)
- WISTAX SchoolFacts07
Thanks to a number of readers for the updated information.
Principals’ Life Lesson 23: Why new programs don’t work
Here’s the point: administrators either respect their teachers and staff as professionals, or they don’t. Professionals are given the tools they need to succeed by their management. Time, support and responsibility are three of the most important tools managers give to those they supervise. Administrators, you are managers for your teachers and staff. You would think I wouldn’t have to say that, either, but I DO.
Indeed.
To the Superintendent Selection Committee of Madison Metropolitan Schools
via email (with an opportunity to sign on below):
As you make your selection for the next Superintendent of MMSD, we ask you to choose a candidate that will be able to address the needs of all students, including those of gifted and talented (GT) students. We strongly urge you to hire a candidate that is knowledgeable of and open to the special needs of gifted learners.
The following are reasons this is necessary. References for these points are attached.
Approximately 1 out of every 5 drop-outs is gifted.
Giftedness occurs in all racial and socioeconomic groups. It is short-sighted to ignore the needs of the gifted as we increase in low-income enrollment, and creates even more disparity as those who have resources have other choices.
The statistics for Madison’s gifted low-income and minority student drop-outs may be significantly higher than 1 out of 5.
GT students may learn poorly when taught at standard grade level and rate.
It may be thought that the experience of gifted in heterogeneous classrooms is that of the pleasure of excelling above everyone. However, as one GT teacher at Appleton’s gifted school observed, it is the experience of a 5th grader whose teacher inexplicably teaches 1st grade curriculum.
Tutoring the 3-Rs and developing other “literacies”
This site is about literacy–basic reading and writing and numeracy, and other “literacies:” celestial, geographic, economic, biological, nutritional, etc.
I am a retired resident of San Francisco with a long-time interest in child and adult literacy. I am offering my free program on the Web to help parents and tutors teach children to read, write, spell, and reckon. I have also included a program on English grammar and composition for good measure. In addition I have Web pages reflecting my interest in other subjects in which I want to be “literate.”
If you have an interest in any these subjects, I invite you to check them out:Tutoring for Mastery of Reading and Writing and Arithmetic
Tutoring English Grammar and Composition
Finding and Reading eBooks
Beginning Urban Skywatching
Physical Geography of the U.S.
Economic Literacy
Global Warming and Warning
Approaching the Bible
Islam: One American’s Findings
DNA: Life’s Common Denominator
Nutrition: What should we eat?
Help for Microsoft Windows XP
Bread Machine Baking
Tips for No-Knead Bread Baked in a Pot
Links to Video Performances of Great Arias
The Home Library, an electronic home reference library
Recollections of an Old Farm Boy
‘Anne Frank’ star is special
Slender and smiling, Emma Geer bounces into an interview in the offices of Madison Repertory Theatre wearing jeans, wool clogs and a turtleneck sweater the same smoky color as her deep gray eyes.
The Madison eighth-grader is on a break from rehearsals for the Rep ‘s “The Diary of Anne Frank, ” in which she plays the title role. And if that job ‘s not ambitious enough for a 13-year-old, Emma also knows what a lot of audience members will have in the back of their minds when the play continues tonight at Overture Center ‘s Playhouse: That this Anne Frank is also the daughter of Richard Corley, the Rep ‘s artistic director.
When Corley hired Madison native Jennifer Uphoff Gray, a 12-year veteran of the New York theater scene, to direct “The Diary of Anne Frank, ” he told her “The casting is in your hands, ” says Gray.
So Gray contacted drama teachers across the area asking for names of talented actresses who might play Anne. She saw a slew of local spring school plays, scouting for talent. Finally she went to Chicago to find the right girl for the part, auditioning some 16-, 17- and 18-year-old actresses in the process.
Teacher Essay Brings $60,000 Award
An enterprising teacher at Stephens Elementary School on Madison’s west side wrote a prize-winning essay that will bring her school $60,000 worth of laptop computers, digital camera/camcorders, computer monitors and software from Samsung Electronics and Microsoft.
Allison Milley, who is a special education teacher for fourth- and fifth-grade students, wrote a 100-word essay describing how her students would benefit from the high tech products. Over 8,200 schools entered the contest.
“The kids were really excited when they found out we were chosen,” Milley said. She said that she heard about the contest through a listserve for parents, students and teachers who are involved with special education.
Milley explained that special education students often find it especially helpful to use computers in learning to read and write.
Best Values in Colleges & Universities
We updated and ranked this list of the top 100 colleges in early 2008. Sort the overall rankings for both in-state students and out-of-state students, cost, quality measures or financial aid measures (how we scored the schools). Then select All States or any number of individual states (hold down the control key as you click to choose more than one), or select All Schools or any number of individual colleges. Clicking on the college names in the table will take you to their Web sites. Most of our data come from Petersons, a Nelnet company
West Side Parents Angry About Proposed School Boundaries Charge
Some in a big Madison neighborhood are outraged over the latest plan to change West Side school boundaries to make way for a new school opening near Hawk’s Landing next fall.
Residents in the Valley Ridge neighborhood are pledging to start a petition drive and to do whatever it takes to stop the proposal.
The new, yet-to-be-named school on the far West Side has prompted officials to try to rearrange boundary lines on the West Side. But, the boundary lines are different than initially proposed and some in Valley Ridge said they are in shock.
“I feel very deceived,” said parent and homeowner Beth Todd, vice president of the Glenn Stephens PTO.
Todd, her husband and other parents said they were always told their children would not be affected by the new boundary changes in meetings with school officials before the referendum for the new school passed.
Currently, Valley Ridge children go to Stephens school as well as Jefferson Middle School. But under a new proposal, that would all drastically change, and, some contend, for no good reason.
Ed schools put diversity before math
A good education requires balance. Students should learn to appreciate a variety of cultures, sure, but they also need to know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Judging from the courses that the nation’s leading education colleges offer, however, balance isn’t a goal. The schools place far more emphasis on the political and social ends of education than on the fundamentals.
To determine just how unbalanced teacher preparation is at ed schools, we counted the number of course titles and descriptions that contained the words “multiculturalism,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” and variants thereof, and then compared those with the number that used variants of the word “math.” We then computed a “multiculturalism-to-math ratio”—a rough indicator of the relative importance of social goals to academic skills in ed schools. A ratio of greater than 1 indicates a greater emphasis on multiculturalism; a ratio of less than 1 means that math courses predominate. Our survey covered the nation’s top 50 education programs as ranked by U.S. News and World Report, as well as programs at flagship state universities that weren’t among the top 50—a total of 71 education schools.
The average ed school, we found, has a multiculturalism-to-math ratio of 1.82, meaning that it offers 82 percent more courses featuring social goals than featuring math. At Harvard and Stanford, the ratio is about 2: almost twice as many courses are social as mathematical. At the University of Minnesota, the ratio is higher than 12. And at UCLA, a whopping 47 course titles and descriptions contain the word “multiculturalism” or “diversity,” while only three contain the word “math,” giving it a ratio of almost 16.
Graphic novels enliven literature for Dane County students
Move over Melville — comic-style books are popping up in classrooms throughout Dane County, giving educators a new tool to teach literature.
Graphic novels, a literary form that marries bold art and often edgy text, have persuaded reluctant students to open books and are providing a new way to teach visual learning, area educators and librarians say.
Libraries have long been aware of the value of such “sequential art” in helping students become better readers, said Hollis Rudiger, a former librarian at UW-Madison’s School of Education. “It’s the classroom teachers that are finally starting to see the value,” she said.
This fall, students at Monona Grove and DeForest high schools studied graphic novels in English classes. Next year, if there’s enough interest, Monona Grove plans to offer an art class focusing on the novels and cartooning.
“I’m very, very excited about teaching this class because it’s a step in a different direction,” said Judith Durley, a Monona Grove High School art teacher who proposed the class.
Sparring over (Wisconsin) online schools
Key Republican and Democratic leaders launched competing efforts on Thursday to rewrite Wisconsin ‘s laws for online schools, just weeks before families begin filling out applications to transfer from their traditional home school districts.
Their proposals, described as attempts to clarify confusion after a recent court ruling, quickly came under attack from the opposing party.
Rep. Brett Davis, R-Oregon, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee, proposed that online schools, also known as virtual schools, be allowed to continue operating with few restrictions. About 3,000 Wisconsin students attend online schools.
Sen. John Lehman, D-Racine, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he ‘s introducing a measure restricting online schools to half of the approximately $6,000 in state aid they currently receive for each student who transfers from a home district.
“I really believe it ‘s important to wring the profits out of these operations, ” said Lehman, who contends that Davis ‘ approach forces taxpayers to pay too much to online schools such as the Northern Ozaukee School District ‘s Wisconsin Virtual Academy. The district north of Milwaukee, with curriculum from a Virginia-based firm, K12 Inc., operates the online school that was the focus of the recent court ruling.
Stoughton Schools to Install Cameras
istrict officials said they will install 60 cameras by the end of January as part of its effort to update its safety and emergency plan.
Five of the six district schools will get one indoor camera and eight outdoor cameras. Stoughton High School will get three indoor cameras and 11 outdoor cameras, WISC-TV reported.
“Adding cameras is not something that is occurring because of any one particular incident here. It’s part of wanting to be more fully prepared,” said Mary Gavigan, superintendent of the Stoughton Area School District.
A look at the UW’s People Program
“It’s ultimately not about what color you are. Everybody brings something to the university community.”
Cydny Black was reflecting on her first semester at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, after starting out last fall with a scholarship from the Pre-college Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence (PEOPLE) program, which recruits, readies and funds tuition for minority and low-income students for the university.
One of three PEOPLE students from Madison high schools interviewed by The Capital Times at the start of the fall semester, the 18-year-old African-American said she has really enjoyed herself on a campus that is more than 80 percent white.
She is also succeeding in school. She achieved a 3.75 grade point during the semester, higher than her 3.3 average in high school.
“Anyone who says you can’t do it if you didn’t in high school is wrong,” she said.
The PEOPLE program was established because UW-Madison has struggled for years to attract and retain minority students through graduation. But all three students interviewed last semester — Black, Aaron Olson and Summer Becker — are adapting well so far.
Schools turning broadband into cash
Three local educational institutions have discovered they are sitting on the telecommunications equivalent of beachfront property, and they’re about to cash in – to the tune of more than $100 million over 30 years.
In the 1970s, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Schools and Milwaukee Area Technical College each got licenses for a set of frequencies to broadcast televised lessons in their classrooms. But by the mid-1990s, they had switched almost completely to the Internet, leaving these frequencies virtually unused for more than a decade.
Now, new rules from the Federal Communications Commission have cleared the way for these channels to be converted to wireless broadband. And commercial providers, eager to expand their wireless reach, have been racing to lease the frequencies from their owners.
Together, UWM, MPS and MATC plan to lease a dozen channels of educational broadband to Kirkland, Wash.-based Clearwire Corp. Under the deal, each institution will get $4.2 million up-front and monthly payments of $55,000 that increase annually, for a total estimated payout of about $36 million each over three decades.
The agreement could also bring Milwaukee Public Schools one step closer to bridging the digital divide. Clearwire spokeswoman Helen Chung would not comment on the company’s future business plans. But Todd Gray, an attorney with Washington, D.C.-based firm Dow Lohnes, who helped negotiate the deal, said Clearwire will likely use the spectrum to expand its wireless broadband network into the greater Milwaukee area.
Schools’ physical footprint lends themselves to this sort of wireless / fiber internet service. This is another way that the school systems can “bind” themselves to more of the population.
Waukesha School Board Cuts Administrators to Save Teacher Positions
The School Board sacrificed administrative staff for teaching positions as part of nearly $1.3 million in program reductions approved Wednesday night for the 2008-’09 year.
The savings generated by eliminating the School District’s last staff member dedicated to implementing its gifted-and-talented program, as well as the equivalent of one-third of its department chairmen, helped keep the staff needed to preserve an eight-period day at the middle schools.
The board also voted to reduce the amount of money it distributes to building sites for discretionary spending by $200,000, or 3%, to cover some of the costs of a middle-school program that gives students one period every day for enrichment or extra help.
“None of us wants to make these cuts,” board member Kurt O’Bryan said. But he said the district paid its department chairmen more and gave them more time than did other school districts, and that administrative reductions would hurt students less than teacher layoffs.
Unschooling Your Kids
Since they were young, Christian and Georgina McKee have been able to learn what ever they wanted at their own pace.
And although reading came natural to Christian- Georgina didn’t pick up the skill until she was eight.
“We knew if we sat her down and forced her to read, we would have had a very unhappy child and probably a child who probably would think that she couldn’t rather than she could,” says mother Alison McKee.
It’s called “unschooling.”
Mckee says unlike other home schooling methods- it gives children complete educational freedom.
Punishing the Best
When Jay Schalin asserted in his Jan. 1 Point of View article “Misguided agenda for universities” that “the presence of disengaged students will only lessen a high school’s ability to focus on students who are interested in learning,” he skimmed over the larger problem of the falling educational standards caused by such policy initiatives.
When schools cater to business and popular demands to increase graduation rates and college attendance rates, they are forced to pass less intelligent and less productive students simply to meet the new quotas, usually by curving tests or lowering expectations for the same grade. This demeans and devalues a high school diploma or bachelor’s degree in the job market due to the ease of obtaining one as well as the higher number of potential employees with such degrees. In such cases, the best students are punished, suffering through a dull curriculum for little payoff without postgraduate education.
Facebook photos land Eden Prairie kids in trouble
Mary Lynn Smith & Courtney Blanchard:
Eden Prairie High School administrators have reprimanded more than 100 students and suspended some from sports and other extracurricular activities after obtaining Facebook photos of students partying, several students said Tuesday.
School administrators and the district’s spokeswoman didn’t return phone calls, but students called in by their deans over the past two days said they were being reprimanded for the Facebook party photos, which administrators had printed out. It’s likely, they said, that other students among the 3,300 who attend Eden Prairie will be questioned throughout the week.
Boy Glues Hand to Bed to Avoid School
A 10-year-old Mexican boy dreaded returning to school after Christmas break so much that he glued his hand to his bed. Sandra Palacios spent nearly two hours Monday morning trying to free her son Diego’s hand with water, oil and nail polish remover before calling authorities, police chief Jorge Camacho told The Associated Press from outside the northern city of Monterrey.
“I didn’t want to go to school because vacation was so much fun,” Reforma newspaper quoted the boy as saying.
Kids in the lab: Getting high-schoolers hooked on science
While this might be typical work for a graduate student in the life sciences, Ballard is a senior at Madison West High School who is still shy of his 18th birthday. His work with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Eukaryotic Structural Genomics is part of the Youth Apprenticeship Program (YAP), an innovative project that gives exceptional high-school students an opportunity to get exposure and experience in their desired careers.
Created in 1991, the program is run by Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development, with collaboration from universities, schools and businesses. Statewide, more than 10,000 students have participated in 22 different program areas. This year, Ballard is one of nine Dane County students enrolled in YAP’s biotechnology focus, which offers a taste of working science that they can’t get in high school.
“Working in the research lab is amazing,” says Ballard, who plans to pursue both an M.D. and Ph.D. after college. “It’s meaningful. There is a point (to it). In high school, you do your labs and it’s not contributing to human knowledge in any way.”
Related:
- Important Information about credit for non-MMSD courses.
- Update on Credit for Non-MMSD Courses
- Dual Enrollment
- Part time Wisconsin open enrollment.
Asian American Students and School Stereotypes
The surge in the number of Asian Americans the past four decades has affected many sectors of society, particularly public schools. On the whole, Asian American students tend to perform well on standardized tests and have a high rate of acceptance into some of the most selective high schools and colleges. The energy and ambition shown by many of these students has both improved our schools and fueled stereotypes. For example: All those hard-working Asian kids, some people say, are raising the grading curve and putting too much pressure on the rest of us.
I have often wondered what Asian American students think about this. Fortunately, one of them has just completed a very small but intriguing study that shines a surprising light on this often overlooked issue.
The study, ” ‘Too Many Asians at this School’: Racialized Perceptions and Identity Formation,” was written by Jenny Tsai as her senior college thesis for the social studies department at Harvard last year. If you e-mail Tsai at jenny.tsai@post.harvard.edu, she will send you a copy. What she describes is not a cabal of brainiacs trying to steal all the academic glory from their non-Asian competitors, but a collection of industrious and ambitious American teenagers trying to emulate their equally achievement-oriented white classmates, while society and government shove them into an artificial group called “Asians and Pacific Islanders” on the census forms.
