“We’re trying to see if a local school can do things that the present school system is too dysfunctional to handle,” said Chuck Samuels, chairman of Wilson’s local school restructuring team, the group of parents and teachers that advises the principal. “From this seed of a pilot project could grow more autonomy for Wilson and for other schools to do the same.”
Last year, Wilson parents and teachers explored the idea of becoming a charter school after becoming frustrated by the central office’s slow response to their maintenance problems and by its move to cut $400,000 from the school’s budget to cover a systemwide shortfall.
To avert the exodus of the highest-performing comprehensive high school from the system, Janey signed an agreement with the Wilson parents and teachers allowing them to devise a proposal for becoming independent of the central office by taking charge of areas such as the budget and teacher hiring.
Property Tax Levies in Wisconsin #1 As a % of Home Values
Property taxes in Wisconsin are the nation’s highest in proportion to the value of owner-occupied homes, according to a recent national study.
hat is “nothing terribly new or earth-shaking,” said Todd A. Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance in Madison, who predicted the taxes still are too low to cause a fundamental change in state policy.
The study results are “a combination of two things,” Berry said. “We are a higher property tax state . . . (and) our median home value is lower. Put those together, and it is going to push us up.”
The Tax Foundation [Gerald Prante]:
No tax riles the American people more than property taxes, especially real estate taxes that are based on the value of their homes and land. According to a recent Tax Foundation poll, property taxes are thought to be the least “fair” of all state and local taxes.
Most likely, part of the reason for this loathing is that taxpayers are more acutely aware of what property taxes cost them than they are of income, payroll, corporate, or sales taxes. Sometimes, property taxes are paid into an escrow account without much personal attention from the taxpayer, but often property taxes involve the actual writing of a huge check to the local government.
Key Findings:
- Property taxes highest in the Northeast, Texas, Illinois, and Wisconsin
- New York and New Jersey dominate list of high-tax counties
- About half of all property taxes go to public schools
- Property taxes rose faster than incomes from 2002 to 2004
- Housing market decline may force local governments to cut spending or raise property tax rates
Prante’s last point regarding the relationship between changes in the housing market, tax assessments and rates is an important factor to watch. Madison has experienced substantial housing growth (and therefore parcel quantity and values) over the past decade. If/when that changes, there will be some blowback with respect to assessments, millrates and the net taxes we pay.
Add the Madison School District’s recently revealed 7 year structural deficit, the subsequent need to reduce the annual school district spending increases in it’s current $333M+ budget by a larger than normal amount and we have a rather challenging school spending environment. Complete report: 409K PDF
Fall 2007 Madison Virtual Campus Grand Opening
Joan Peebles and Kelly Pochop:
In Fall 2007, the Madison Metropolitan School District will celebrate a “grand opening” of the Madison Virtual Campus which will be able to serve staff and students with opportunities to learn using online tools and methods. While the Madison Virtual Campus will provide online learning services across the entire district, students and teachers will benefit in particular.
Over the next nine months, staff from all divisions within the Teaching and Learning Department will be developing ways to deliver professional development to teachers in buildings across the district. Teachers will be able to receive training to support and improve their classroom instruction without the need for traveling to workshops across the district or planning for substitute teachers during their intermittent absences to receive instructional training.
Accountability
Judge tosses out mayor’s takeover of L.A. schools
A Superior Court judge Thursday struck down legislation that gave Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa substantial authority over the Los Angeles Unified School District, a stunning setback to his plans for assuming direct control of dozens of Los Angeles schools.
Judge Dzintra Janavs said the law, which would have taken effect Jan. 1, violated multiple provisions of the state Constitution and the Los Angeles City Charter. She ordered public officials “to refrain from enforcing or implementing” any part of Assembly Bill 1381, which codified Villaraigosa’s powers.
In a late afternoon news conference, the mayor vowed to seek an expedited appeal.
On the QEO (Qualified Economic Offer)
Here’s the short story on the QEO: Back in the early 1990s, when Tommy Thompson, et al., did their part to appease the anti-taxers regarding school costs and property taxes, they implemented a trio of reforms. The QEO (qualified economic offer) law allowed school districts to impose a 3.8% cap on increases in public school teacher salaries and benefits without bargaining, given that bargaining first comes to an impasse. The second reform placed caps on how much revenue districts could raise from the local levy. The third was a promise–not a statutory requirement like the other two–that a full two-thirds of funding for schools would be paid out of the state’s general fund, also to keep property taxes low.
District administrators and school boards hate the revenue caps; teachers hate the QEO; the legislature (when Republican-flavored, anyway) hates the 2/3 promise. And I’d bet 98% or more of the rest of the state probably couldn’t even tell you what any of the three things are.
Barbara Golden / MAFAAC Update
WORT-FM’s new website includes archived audio. Barbara Golden’s 12/18/2006 appearance can be heard here [mp3 audio.]
Homeschool-Public School Bonds Growing
More parents are supplementing lessons at home by embracing public school partnerships.
Students at the tiny, nondescript public school building in North Seattle have no playground, no formal cafeteria, no sports teams, no bells signaling the end of class.
They come and go as they please, and the nearly 250 who pass through the halls don’t even consider themselves public school students.
They’re among the more than 20,000 children statewide who are thought to opt out of public schools each year. They and their parents are drawn instead to the flexibility and freedom of homeschooling.
Meanwhile, another Wisconsin virtual high school opens.
Funding Gaps: 2006
School finance policy choices at the federal, state, and district levels systematically stack the deck against students who need the most support from their schools, according to a report released today by the Education Trust.
The report, Funding Gaps 2006, builds on the Education Trust’s annual studies of funding gaps among school districts within states. For the first time the report includes data and analysis on:
- How federal Title I funds widen rather than narrow the education funding gaps that separate wealthy states from poor states; and,
- How funding choices at the school district level provide enhanced funding to schools serving higher concentrations of affluent students and white students at the expense of schools that serve low-income students and students of color.
Wisconsin’s Title 1 allocation per “poor child” is $1,577.00 [PDF Report]. One interesting piece of data: Wisconsin school district receipts from federal sources are 6.1% of total revenues. The state average is 8.9%. (Minnesota is 6% while Illinois is 8.6% and Iowa is 8.3%). The State of Wisconsin provides, on average 52.2% of district revenues (above the federal average of 47.1%). Local tax receipts are, on average 41.7% of district revenues (national average is 43.9%).
New La Follette Principal Meets With Parents
On Tuesday’s meeting at the school, some parents in attendance said that there were feelings of confusion, concern and anxiety. The meeting was a listening session and allowed the new principal to introduce himself and then work to quell concerns.
Rathert told the parents about his extensive leadership experience and outlined his plans for moving forward, He also fielded questions from attendees, WISC-TV reported.
“The main thing I’ve done is just come in and tried to listen and get around to as many people and get in front of as many students as possible and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can,” Rathert said.
A Few Words on Professionalism
There’s been a bit of school climate discussion recently regarding safety as well as leadership changes, most recently at LaFollette. I’ve had the opportunity to observe a number of teachers and principals over the past few months and have to say that the level of professionalism and resiliency, in the face of significant challenges, have been impressive. I am thankful for their time and efforts.
Local Politics: Zig and Zag with the Madison Studio School
Steven Elbow’s Tuesday article in The Capital Times on the proposed Madison Studio School included a rather tantalizing opening quote from organizer Nancy Donahue:
When Nancy Donahue began her effort for a charter school in Madison, she had no idea she would be wading into a world of politics.
“It’s a campaign,” said Donahue, who hopes to have her arts- and technology-oriented Studio School up and running next fall. “And before this I was very apolitical. But I’ve learned if you believe in something you do what you have to do.”
A couple of close observers of Madison’s political tea leaves emailed some additional context:
Former teacher and Progressive Dane education task force member Kristin Forde is a member of the Madison Studio School’s “core planning group”. In the past, Forde has participated in School Board candidate interviews and a Progressive Dane (PD) candidate Forum.
Madison School Board President Johnny Winston, Jr. has been and is supported by PD along with recently elected (in one of the closest local elections in memory – by 70 votes) board member Arlene Silveira.
PD reportedly requires any candidate they endorse to back all of their future candidates and initiatives. [ed: Shades of “with us or against us“. Evidently both Russ Feingold and Barack Obama have not read the memo.]
I find PD’s positions interesting. They recently strongly supported the Linden Park edge school [map] (opposed by a few locals who dislike the sprawl implications, though it handily passed in November, with 69% voting in favor). I do think Madison is behind the innovation curve with respect to online learning and possibly charters. Appleton has 12 charter schools, including an online school.
Background documents:
- The Madison Studio School Proposal 256K PDF.
- Philosophy, staff and Board information 256K PDF.
- Budget documents 1 [jpg] [PDF] [.xls] | 2 [jpg] [PDF] [.xls] | 3 [jpg] [PDF] [.xls]
- SIS notes and links
The timing and politics are a challenge, given the recently disclosed 7 year Madison School District structural deficit which will require larger than normal reductions in the 2007 / 2008 budget increases.
I have very fond memories of Madison’s Preschool of the Arts.
It will be interesting to see if the Studio School supporters endorse PD’s spring, 2007 candidates, which include Johnny Winston, Jr who is standing for re-election.
Milwaukee School Property Tax Error
Milwaukee taxpayers accidentally got a $9.1 million tax break – and city and Milwaukee Public Schools officials now have a $9.1 million headache.
Because of a paperwork snafu between MPS and City Hall, the property tax bills mailed this month inadvertently left out a tax increase that the School Board approved in October.
Now fingers are being pointed, the schools are demanding that the city come up with the money, and city officials are huddling in high-level, closed-door meetings to figure out what went wrong and how it can be fixed.
City officials aren’t saying what options are under study or whether they might include a special tax assessment or borrowing money to be paid back in future years.
2007 – 2008 Madison School District Budget Discussions Underway
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Watch Monday evening’s school board discussion [Video | Download] of the upcoming larger than usual reductions in revenue cap limited increases in the District’s 2007 – 2008 budget (they are larger than normal due to the recently disclosed 7 year structural budget deficit). The 2006 / 2007 budget is $333M+ (it was $245M in 98/99 while enrollment has remained flat, though the student composition continues to change). |
Related Links:
- 2007 / 2008 Budget Outlook: Glass Half Empty or Half Full?
- Susan Troller’s Summary of Monday Night’s meeting:
The report outlined 10 areas, now called “discussion topics,” where the administration and board will look to trim or slash programs, personnel or services in an effort over the coming months to balance the district’s 2007-2008 budget.
“We cannot call these recommendations, but they are areas we will need to look for cuts. This will be a very difficult budget,” he added.
The suggested topics for discussion include cutting athletics and extracurricular activities, consolidating schools, increasing ratios of students to teachers, reducing custodial staff and maintenance, reducing administrative staffing, reducing various services from technology to transportation, and reducing supplemental staff like school social workers, nurses and psychologists. - Arlene Silveira mentioned the possibility of a Spring, 2007 referendum. She asked what the timeline might be. Roger Price said the deadline is February 1, 2007 (about 32 minutes into the video). I’ve received a few emails regarding the timing of the public disclosure (11/18/2006) of the District’s structural deficit vis a vis the successful far west side new school November referendum. An April referendum would indeed be a bold move.
- WIBA’s Vicki McKenna and Active Citizens for Education’s Don Severson discuss WISTAX’s 2006 School Facts [1.4 PDF] in light of the upcoming budget discussions. [10.5MB mp3 audio]. The School Facts report compares student population (a significant factor in a school district’s ability to raise taxes/grow revenues) spending, achievement, staffing and the tax base of Madison, Appleton, Green Bay, Janesville, Kenosha, Middleton – Cross Plains, Milwaukee, Racine, Sun Prairie and Verona. The Madison School District spends about 23% more per student than the state average.
- Barb Schrank noted in November, 2005 that from 2000 to 2004, the Madison School District lost 174 students while the surrounding Districts gained 1,462. Revenue value of 1,462 students is $13.16 million per year.
- Memo to the School Board outlining spending growth reduction discussion areas.
- Presentation of a “balanced” 2007 / 2008 budget will be the first week of April, 2007 (3 school board seats are up for election that same week, April 3, 2007).
25 Year Old KIPP Teacher’s Math Program
But one of the secrets of KIPP’s success in attracting the brightest young teachers and raising achievement for low-income children throughout the country is its insistence on letting good teachers decide how they are going to teach. KIPP principals, such as Johnson, have the power to hire promising young people such as Suben and let them follow their best instincts, as long as the results — quality of student work, level of student classroom responses, improvement in standardized test scores — justify the teacher’s confidence in her approach.
Johnson and Schaeffler were variously startled, amused and intrigued by Suben’s determination to do math her way. They say they are also very pleased with the results, which justify both the hiring of Suben and the KIPP insistence on lively engagement of every child in class.
Seattle students getting junk-food fix elsewhere
It was a lunch that would horrify a dietitian: a bag of Tropical Skittles, a Jones soda, two Little Debbie marshmallow treats, a deep-fried pizza stick and a bottle of sweetened iced tea.
The high-calorie, sugar-packed treats are standard fare for Cleveland High School freshman Tikisha Spires, who travels off campus for lunch each day.
It’s certainly not what the Seattle School Board had in mind two years ago when it adopted a rigorous nutrition policy and canceled a lucrative vending contract with Coca-Cola. Chips and cookies were replaced in vending machines with granola bars and trail mix; sugary drinks are no longer sold in schools. Cleveland fell into line with other schools, offering healthier foods in its cafeteria and vending machines.
Teens such as Tikisha fell into line, too — out the door to find their junk food off campus.
Reading First-Gate
The abuses revealed in federal investigations of the Reading First program are not, as the normally levelheaded U.S. Rep. George Miller of California asserts, the product of a Republican “culture of corruption.” Nor do they spring from a vast business conspiracy, as opponents of privatization would have us believe; an autocratic bureaucrat ideology, as the Bush administration seems inclined to suggest; or an isolated set of circumstances, as all reasonable people hope. The scandal is part of a pervasive pattern in public education today, and is the predictable result of elected officials’ well-intentioned but incomplete approach to school reform legislation.
Since the early 1990s, federal and state government has rightly moved public education in the direction of standards, accountability, and competition. By any reasonable assessment, the programs that schools purchase, not just teachers and the bureaucracy, bear some responsibility for the conditions that led to legislative change. Capped by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the legislative framework political leaders established aims at compelling public schools to purchase new, innovative programs from the private sector. But in the process, policymakers unwittingly took aim at deeply entrenched purchasing relationships involving school districts, federal and state education agencies, large multinational publishing firms, and an expert class of consultants in academia and the think tanks. Elected officials failed to change the rules of that game. Instead, they left the making of their new market to this syndicate.
Resignation & Fights At La Follette
The same day principal John Broome resigned, last friday, three fights broke out, leaving many students, staff and parents wondering if they are related.
Mitch weber discovered the fights ended with two students in trouble with the law and one teacher injured.
Since the school year started, we’ve reported on rising violence at La Follette – a student pulling a knife on another student, a fight in the hallway involving girls.
Today, the district denied the principal’s resignation and the fights last week are connected.
As school got out this afternoon at La Follette High School. Many students knew why we were there. Damian Clendening found out today his new principal isn’t coming back.
I have to agree with Phil M that the Administration deserves “some level of credit” for addressing this now, rather than later. Tim had some useful comments on the challenging job that is an urban high school principal.
Why Not Walk to School Today?
Brian Lee and Jared Cunningham:
By applying GIS analysis, University of Kentucky undergraduate landscape architecture students have found ways to make it safer and easier for children to walk to school. Concerns with the growing childhood obesity epidemic, increased costs in driving children to school, and fostering the perception that it is more normal to drive rather than to walk to destinations have made walking to school an issue. With ArcView 9.1 and the ArcGIS Spatial Analyst extension, these students identified dangerous walking and bicycling areas, proposed design safety solutions, and evaluated alternatives for improving adverse conditions.
The immediate safety, as well as the long-term health, of children walking to and from schools has become an important topic of discussion in communities. The doubling of the childhood obesity rate over the past 30 years has raised concerns about short- and long-term health costs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 recommend that children and adolescents frequently participate in at least 60 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, preferably on a daily basis. A short recess period during school does not provide enough physical activity for a growing child. One way to increase physical activity is to incorporate it into the child’s daily school commute. However, neighborhoods have often been designed with the automobile exclusively in mind. Consequently, children walking or bicycling to school is not always a safe alternative to the car or school bus.
Open Enrollment Gives Special Students More Options
Middle school isn’t an easy time for anybody, but it was especially difficult for Jordan Johnson.
His fellow students teased him about the cane he used, and his teachers frequently forgot to provide worksheets and other materials in the large type he needed because of a progressive vision loss called retinitis pigmentosa. He would fall behind and frequently lose work, but his parents wouldn’t learn of his problems until quarter grades came out, said his mother, Sally.
That ended when he transferred to the Waukesha School District, under the state’s open enrollment program, to use the district’s virtual high school, iQ Academies at Wisconsin, which allows students to attend classes via computers set up in their home.
“Ever since, I’ve been getting pretty good grades,” said Jordan, 16, whose family moved to Hudson recently.
07/08 Budget Discussions Begin
Superintendent Art Rainwater sent a memo to the School Board [550K PDF] outlining 10 categories that will be considered as the District prepares a balanced 2007/2008 budget in April, 2007. This budget will be more challenging due to the recently disclosed $6M structural deficit, which means that the reduction in the Distict’s revenue cap limited spending increases in its’ $333M+ budget will be larger than usual. The discussion categories include:
- Athletics/Extra Curricular
- Consolidate Schools
- Teacher/Staff Ratios
- Building/Facilities
- Reduce Administrative Staffing
- Services
- Student Services
- Curriculum Development and Support
- Decrease allocations for instructional supplies/materials/equipment by up to 20%
- Eliminate/Reduce District Student Programs/Services
QEO Politics: Politicians Discuss Wisconsin’s Qualified Economic Offer
To avoid arbitration, the QEO mandates that districts maintain the same increasingly costly benefits for teachers, Leistikow said.
“Districts are put in a terrible box,” Leistikow said. “Repealing the QEO will give school districts more flexibility in managing their benefits cost.”
The WEAC union, a staunch and powerful Doyle supporter, would like to see both the QEO and revenue caps eliminated, President Stan Johnson said. “It’s got to be part of a total package,” he said.
Doyle, however, favors keeping the revenue limits to hold down property taxes, Leistikow said.
Odden said repealing the QEO but leaving the revenue caps in place would leave school districts in a difficult position.
“Unless there’s a major change in the school funding formula, I wouldn’t predict that the QEO would be eliminated,” Odden said.
If it happened, the effect would probably be higher salary and wage costs at the expense of other programming and items in school budgets, including possibly job cuts, Odden said.
There will be no shortage of challenges dealing with revenue cap limits to growth in the Madison School District’s $332M+ budget during the upcoming 2007/2008 process, including the recently disclosed 7 year structural deficit.
High Schools Crack Down: Dance Nice or Not at All
Before Sophie Friedman, 15, went to her first high school dance last year, her friends warned her: This would not be like those in middle school with shy, awkward dance moves.
But their advice did not prepare Sophie for what she saw when she showed up. “It was a pretty big shock,” she said. “I didn’t expect it to be that crazy.”
Her classmates were bumping, grinding, shaking, arching, teasing and flaunting in a way that made the chaperons gape.
Educators, Parents Eager for an Edge Opt for IB Classes in Grade Schools
Hunting for the best education for her three young children, Traci Pietra fretted about low test scores at her Arlington neighborhood school. Then the principal told her about Randolph Elementary’s affiliation with one of the most prestigious and rapidly growing brands in education: IB.
International Baccalaureate is best known for a high school diploma program geared to the university-bound academic elite. But Pietra and her husband, Peter, were sold on the lesser-known elementary version of IB. Both were attracted to the IB emphasis on global understanding, Pietra said, and added: “He was like, ‘Our kids are going to an Ivy League school, and we need an education that’s going to get them on the right track.’ “
Cardozo High School AP English Teacher Video
John Poole 5:21 video:
Cardozo High School in Washington, DC, is a national pioneer in introducing Advanced Placement courses to disadvantaged students. It has found ways to build student skills so that they can begin to get passing grades on the AP exams. One of its star AP teachers, Frazier O’Leary, taught the school’s first AP class 10 years ago and, since then, has become a frequent speaker and adviser to school districts around the nation.
Well worth watching.
More Notes on Re-Thinking K-12
What if the solution to American students’ stagnant performance levels and the wide achievement gap between white and minority students wasn’t more money, smaller schools, or any of the reforms proposed in recent years, but rather a new education system altogether?
That’s the conclusion of a bipartisan group of scholars and business leaders, school chancellors and education commissioners, and former cabinet secretaries and governors. They declare that America’s public education system, designed to meet the needs of 100 years ago when the workplace revolved around an assembly line, is unsuited to today’s global marketplace. Already, they warn, many Americans are in danger of falling behind and seeing their standard of living plummet.
I think we need to think more daringly, yes, but I don’t think we tried everything or nearly hard enough to improve American schools within the current context. But I think that is sort of irrelevant today because the context has changed so much and consequently more of the same amounts to trying to make the current system work to do things we don’t want it to do anymore anyway.
Locally, dealing with the recently disclosed 7 year structural deficit in the Madison School District’s $332M+ budget will require strong leadership, open minds and the ideas contained in Peter Gascoyne’s words.
V. Dion Haynes has more.
On Banning the High School Honor Roll
It’s been ridiculed since Monday. Even Jay Leno weighed in with a joke about his PC home state, Massachusetts, where Needham High, in case you missed it, will stop printing the honor roll in the paper lest, as Leno put it, “it might make the kids flunking out feel bad.”
“We protect our children too much. This sends the wrong message,” said one Needham mother, whose son graduated in June. Yet she understands the principal’s good intentions.
Her boy is among those still reeling from four student suicides in three years. One was her son’s friend. She understands too the paradoxes: How the pressure on high schoolers to achieve – from parents, peers, school – is greater than ever. But teenagers have less ability to cope.
That’s because a hallmark of middle-class parenting, 2006, starting in preschool, is to stamp out any situation that teaches children how to deal with, say, getting picked last, over and over, in a schoolyard pick-up game – assuming your kids’ school even allows pick-up games anymore.
Searchable Database of Big City School Board Policies and Teacher Contracts
It was a big job, but the National Council on Teacher Quality has put together a database that will allow you to “easily search the contents of collective bargaining agreements and board policies from the nation’s 50 largest public school districts.”
NCTQ will unveil it in DC on January 4. I’m guessing that somewhere in the halls of Harlem Success Charter School, Eva Moskowitz is smiling.
2007/2008 Madison School District Budget Outlook: Half Empty or Half Full?
Susan Troller’s piece today on the larger than usual reduction in “revenue cap limited” increases (say that quickly) in the Madison School District’s $332M+ 2007/2008 budget is interesting, from my perspective, due to what is left unsaid:
- The District has been running a “structural deficit for years, revealed only recently after school board Vice President Lawrie Kobza spent considerable time seeking an answer to the question:
“Why did our equity go down this past year since we, the board, passed a balanced budget in 2005/2006? Why did it go down by $2.8M (about a 1% variance in last year’s $319M+ budget)?
Superintendent Art Rainwater responded:
“The way we have attempted to deal with maintaining the quality of education as long as we could was to budget very, very aggressively, realizing that we had an out of fund balance ($5.9M in 2006/2007). We made the decision 7 years ago or so to budget aggressively and try to manage to that budget believing that we would use less fund equity over time than if we set aside a set amount. So that’s been our approach. That fund equity has now come down to the point that we believe we can’t do that any more and we will not bring you a balanced budget that is aggressive particularly where it gets into aggressive on the revenue side in how much efficiency we believe we can budget. So, what the effect of that is to increase the amount you have to pay.
- I’ve not seen a published figure on how much the District’s equity has declined during this “7 year aggressive” budget posture. The District’s operating budget in 1998/1999 was approximately $245M. The current year’s budget is $332M. Enrollment has remained flat during this time.
- Madison is a “rich” district, spending 23% more per student than the state average. Madison is also a property tax rich district, with an average property value per student of $775,000 (Appleton is $411K, Milwaukee $267K, Verona 526K and Middleton-Cross Plains $779K) – via SchoolFacts 2006. George Lighbourn’s recent WPRI school finance article is, in my view correct:
Even the most vocal proponents of change understand the reality that big changes are not in the offing. They know that they are up against the most formidable impediment to change, the printout, that age-old tabulation showing how much money each school district will get out of Madison. Any change that shows dozens of school districts will see a decline in state aid has almost no chance of succeeding.
- All of this points to the importance of managing the $332M+ budget well, choosing the most effective curriculum and building public confidence for future referendums. I wonder when the public might have learned of the structural deficits (and the District’s dwindling cash equity) had elections gone a different way the past few years (reformers vs old guard)? Learn more about the April, 2007 School Board election.
- Notes/links:
- Parent Peter Gascoyne posted a new approach to the District’s budget challenges last spring.
- Local Tax Climate
- March, 2006 Budget Forum
School finance is a mess. However, the Madison School District’s $332M+ budget provides resources far beyond most public school systems. Throwing up our arms and blaming the state or feds, or ? will not solve anything and certainly does not put our children’s interests first. Transparency, responsibility, creativity, local control (be careful what we wish for with respect to state and federal school finance updates) and wise investments are key to maintaining the community’s remarkable financial and voluntary public education support.
Rethinking K-12: Out of the 20th Century
National Center on Education and The Economy:
In a TIME article on How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century , Claudia Wallis and Sonja Steptoe write that the national discussion around education will change “when the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, a high-powered, bipartisan assembly of Education Secretaries, business leaders and a former Governor releases a blueprint for rethinking American education from pre-K to 12 and beyond to better prepare students to thrive in the global economy.”
Executive Summary 2.1MB PDF
Andrew Rotherham comments.
On Wisconsin’s Learning Gap
The education achievement gaps between African-American and white children in Wisconsin remain among the worst in the United States, according to an analysis released Wednesday by an influential education group.
To a degree that’s good news. That’s better than in 2004, when a similar analysis by the Journal Sentinel showed the proficiency gaps in several key measures between African-American and white children were larger in Wisconsin than in any other state.
Using more recent results of the same series of tests – the National Assessment of Educational Progress – the Education Trust found that in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math, Wisconsin was near the bottom of the list, which included the states and the District of Columbia. In eighth-grade math, Nebraska had a bigger gap. In fourth-grade reading, Wisconsin was sixth from worst in gap size and eighth from the bottom when it came to the average score of black students.
The results, said Daria Hall, a senior policy analyst for the organization and the main author of the report, “show just how far Wisconsin has to go in order to ensure that all kids, particularly poor kids and kids of color, are getting equal opportunities to meet high standards.”
Hall – herself a graduate of Milwaukee Public Schools – said Wisconsin should look to states with much smaller gaps and with gaps that have been narrowed in recent years to see what it should do. She named Massachusetts and Delaware as examples.
Massachusetts has eliminated funding gaps between school districts serving high-income and low-income students, she said. But it’s not only about money, she added. The state has created rigorous education standards and accountability systems.
Tony Evers, deputy state superintendent of public instruction, said the analysis showed that the scores of African-American and Latino students in Wisconsin had risen in recent years while the scores of white students stayed flat – which he called “slightly good news.”
Edtrust Wisconsin Report 500K PDF. Edtrust.org.
Something Different: Cherokee’s 8th Grade Orchestra Plays “Stairway to Heaven”
Cherokee Middle School’s 8th grade orchestra plays the famous Led Zeppelin tune Stairway to Heaven: [4.2MB mp3].
A Look at Single Sex Schools in Milwaukee
In a school with more non-Catholics than Catholics, a more universal identifier is average income: More than 80% of the students receive vouchers to attend St. Joan, and almost the same number qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
“Our girls face a huge amount of challenges,” says Teddi Kennedy, the school’s director of advancement. “For some of them, just getting here on the bus and getting a good meal is a concern.”
That meal is served in a tiny lunch line in the corner of the school’s gymnasium. On this day, nearly everything is the same color: a fried chicken patty with a slab of cheese, corn and canned fruit salad.
A New Paradigm of Education Reform Litigation
I believe it is time, once again, to consider a new approach to using the law to facilitate meaningful educational opportunities for minority children. I suggest that civil-rights lawyers initiate a new wave of litigation premised on reshaping the governance of public schools and, in so doing, empowering minority parents to assume meaningful decision-making roles concerning the kind of education available to children of color. Litigation efforts to this point have been focused fundamentally on widescale, largely uniform government decision-making about the educational needs of minority children; the voice and needs of individual children and parents have largely been unheeded. And it is usually the case that policymaking focused on across-the-board remedies inevitably ignores the particular needs of minority children. The approach I suggest does not imply, however, an atomistic preoccupation with individual needs in opposition to the civic and social purposes motivating public subsidy of educational services; rather, I suggest a public-private form of governance fundamentally different from the almost exclusively government-centered litigation model used today.
More on Teacher Merit Pay
A new study by education researchers concludes that the best way to improve the quality of teaching is to pay teachers more. And to pay good teachers even more. Critics aren’t so sure, notably teacher’s unions. They warn that merit-pay systems are notoriously subjective and unreliable.
Audio.
Milwaukee Evaluates Online Textbooks & Free Wireless Internet for Students
Milwaukee Public Schools may go digital with some learning resources as the district selects about $7.7 million worth of new language arts, foreign language, technology education and social studies textbooks.
With a new wireless network expected to bring free broadband Internet access into the homes of MPS students by next semester, Superintendent William Andrekopoulos said the district could start to “expand its textbook options” and look at more paperless models. But questions remain about if and how the district would make the most necessary resource – computers – available to a largely low-income population of students.
“This is the first time we’ve started looking at online options, especially with language arts material,” Andrekopoulos said last month, after a School Board committee voted to move forward with the textbook adoption process. The committee’s recommendation was approved by the full board on Nov. 30.
Aquine Jackson, chief academic officer for MPS, said electronic options could improve some of the literacy curricula that need supplemental resources. At a district-estimated $6.7 million worth of materials, language arts texts for grades K-8 and spelling for grades K-5 constitute the bulk of material that’s up for adoption.
Washington Governor Wants More Math
Gov. Chris Gregoire urged lawmakers Monday to plow nearly $200 million into Washington’s classrooms to help students who are struggling with math and science.
The governor’s sweeping proposal includes smaller middle school and high school math and science classes, recruiting hundreds of new math and science teachers, offering master teachers up to $10,000 in annual pay bonuses and expanding tutoring and other help for struggling students. She also wants to beef up local districts’ curriculum to “world-class” standards and then design achievement tests accordingly.
America’s Million-Dollar Superintendents
The signature feature of the SEC’s newest rules, effective Dec. 15, is that companies must add up all compensation in a single figure, which facilitates easy comparisons across time and companies. To derive a total-compensation number, the SEC made difficult and controversial assumptions about the present value of stock options, deferred compensation, and other uncertain future income streams. But the effort was widely defended because the health of financial markets depends on such transparency.
Similarly, the efficient operation of public school systems requires that the public understand how its money is being spent. Surprisingly, however, public school systems have far lower standards of transparency for executive compensation than public companies’.
Oaksong School May Move
Developed in Germany in 1919, soon after the end of World War I, Waldorf education originated as a way to develop people who could bring peace to the world, aiming to develop each child’s sense of truth, beauty, and goodness.
But two years after moving into the building that OakSong’s leaders thought would give the alternative school a permanent place in a natural setting where it could expand, financial struggles could force them to give up the property and search for a new home.
Just raising the $110,000 for the down payment on the property’s $360,000 purchase price was “a big stretch” for the school’s small community of 15 to 20 families, said Susanne Schadde, OakSong’s board president, whose children Alice, 6, and Paul, 4, attend the school.
A Study of Core-Plus Students Attending Michigan State University
Janet Mertz recently mentioned (along with UW Placement’s James Wollack recently) this paper by Richard Hill & Thomas Parker [750K PDF]:
The latest, December 2006 issue of the American Mathematical Monthly, an official publication of the Mathematical Association of America, contains an 18-page article entitled “A study of Core-Plus students attending Michigan State University” by Richard Hill and Thomas Parker, professors at MSU who teach pre-service high school math teachers.
They state that, “as the implementation progressed, from 1996 to 1999, Core-Plus students placed into, and enrolled in, increasingly lower level courses; this downward trend is statistically robust (p<.0005). The percentages of students who (eventually) passed a technical calculus course show a statistically significant (p<.005) decline averaging 27 percent a year; this trend is accompanied by an obvious and statistically significant increase in percentages of students who placed into low-level and remedial algebra courses. The grades the Core-Plus students earned in their university mathematics courses are also below average, except for a small group of top students. ACT scores suggest the existence but not the severity of these trends."
Core-Plus is used in some Madison High Schools. Much more on math here.
Don’t like math? UW-O asks ‘why not?’
For many college students, high school math is but a distant memory of derivative functions and playing games on graphing calculators.
When a professor mentions that certain math skills are necessary for his class, it sends the lecture hall into a frenzy of questions and worry. It seems that math, more than any other subject, is lost in the student’s transition from high school to college.
With a $69,000 grant, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh geology professor Jennifer Wenner intends to figure out why.
“There are a couple of hypotheses,” Wenner said. “From my own experience, some people get it in their head that they can’t do math, and they get this block about it.”
DC Area High School Rankings, 2006
The Challenge Index, my system for rating high schools based on college-level test participation, grew from watching a low-income school in East Los Angeles — Garfield High — find ways to challenge average students that most high-income schools never thought of. As The Washington Post unveils its 10th annual Challenge Index rankings of Washington area public schools this week, I want to see how low-income schools in this region are doing.
The Challenge Index rates each school by taking the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or other college-level tests the school gave in 2006 and dividing by the number of seniors who graduated from the school this year. High school educators who have learned, as the teachers at Garfield did, that even average students benefit from AP and IB are more likely to have more students taking those exams and do better on The Post’s list. High school educators who stick with what is still the majority view about AP and IB in America — that the programs are suitable only for top students — do not do so well.
In many cases, the list defies the conventional wisdom that schools with lots of low-income students are bad and schools with few such students are good. That is not to say that most low-income schools do well on the list. Most do not. Many of their teachers and administrators accept the widespread assumption that their students can’t do AP or IB. But the few schools in poor neighborhoods that break out of this mindset are worth studying.
Spring 2007 School Board Election Update
I’ve added 3 additional declared candidates to the election site, via the City Clerk’s office:
- Seat 3 (Shwaw Vang’s seat): Pam Cross-Leone vs Beth Moss vs Rick Thomas.
- Seat 4: Johnny Winston, Jr. (Incumbent)
- Seat 5 (Ruth Robart’s seat): Maya Cole vs Marj Passman.
Links and notes on running for School Board can be found here. It’s great to see these active citizens participating in our democracy.
Wisconsin School Finance; Next Step: Supreme Court?
George Lighbourn [55K PDF]:
Even the most vocal proponents of change understand the reality that big changes are not in the offing. They know that they are up against the most formidable impediment to change, the printout, that age-old tabulation showing how much money each school district will get out of Madison. Any change that shows dozens of school districts will see a decline in state aid has almost no chance of succeeding. Only when there’s enough new money to ensure all districts will see some growth, will the prospeckind of money is nowhere on the horizon.
Math failures – haven’t we heard this before?
As controversies rage about the best way to teach math and whether students should be allowed to use calculators — incidentally, the State Education Department on Dec. 1 declared that calculators will now be considered teaching materials, like textbooks, and schools must provide them to students — the real question is why children in this country are not better at learning math. Is it the curriculum? Is it the equipment? Is it the tests? And, haven’t we heard all this before?
In 1957, the Russians sent up Sputnik, stealing a march in the space race, and the United States decided that something had to be done, in a hurry, about math and science instruction in this country. Thus were born National Science Foundation grants to teachers of math and science so that they might get master’s degrees in their subjects rather than in education. A generation of teachers excitedly brought their advanced knowledge back to their classrooms.
Also in the early ’60s, the so-called New Math was influencing curricula across the country. The result was an emphasis on concepts to the detriment of the basics. Naturally, there was an eventual backlash when parents could no longer understand their children’s homework.
By the ’70s, teachers in middle and high schools were noticing that students were getting weaker on their recall of times tables and other basics. This could not then be blamed on calculators because there were no calculators yet in general use.
More on math here.
School Day Goes Into Overtime
Starting with the Class of 2009, all Maryland students will be required to pass exams in algebra and data analysis, English, government and biology in order to graduate. All of the students in Guinn’s classroom failed the test in algebra last school year. Her class, part of a new program in Prince George’s County called the Twilight Academy, is meant to give students the extra push they need to pass the tests, known as the High School Assessments, which they will retake in January.
The county’s performance on the tests has improved, and students can take the tests multiple times. But more than half of the 24,000 freshmen and sophomores in Prince George’s are still at risk of failing to graduate. In the last school year, the county’s passing rate in algebra was 46.1 percent; in biology, 42.5 percent; in government, 55.5 percent; and in English, 45.9 percent. The results were well below state averages. The Prince George’s and Baltimore school systems together accounted for 45 percent of the students who did not pass the algebra test.
West / Memorial Cell Tower Lease Hearings
A parent’s email:
To All:
A Spring Harbor parent alerted me to hearings being held by the school board this Wednesday at 6:00 PM at Midvale Elementary [map] on the proposed lease of property at West and Memorial for cell towers. For details, please go to www.madison.k12.wi.us/topics/cell. This should be a somewhat controversial issue, since some people are concerned with the safety of cell towers.
I personally am concerned that, if the school board leases property for cell towers to Cingular or U.S. Cellular, they do so for a fair price and make sure that fair increases are built in over the course of the contract. (I lived in a building in Chicago which had given a wireless company a lease at a fixed rate in perpetuity. That was a very good deal for the lessee and a bad deal for the lessor.)
I hope that one or more of you is familiar with the safety issues and that one or more of you is an expert on real estate leases and would be willing to represent our interests at this hearing on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, I am an expert on neither, so I don’t think I can add anything.
FWIW, US Cellular is owned by TDS.
Free tuition for vow to stay?
Considering recommending free tuition for all students who agree to remain in the Dairy State after getting their degrees, reversing an exodus of college graduates and potentially transforming the state’s economy.
The commission will gather in Madison on Tuesday to discuss including the idea in a package of recommended reforms geared primarily toward improving the two-year campuses.
Comments on BOE Progress Report for December
Madison School Board President Johnny Winston, Jr. (thanks!) posted a rather remarkable summary of recent activity today. I thought it would be useful to recall recent Board Majority inaction when reviewing Johnny’s words:
It’s remarkable to consider that just a few short years ago, substantive issues were simply not discussed by the School Board, such as the Superintendent’s rejection of the $2M in Federal Reading First Funds (regardless of the merits, $2M is material and there should have been a public discussion).
Reductions in the District’s annual ($332M+ this year) spending increases were thinly discussed (May, 2004).
Today, we know that the School District has been running a structural deficit for years, something previous Board Majority’s were apparently unaware of or certainly never discussed publicly.
Friday Night Luxury?
On game days, football fan Tracy French pulls his SUV into a reserved parking spot and rides an elevator to a stadium suite outfitted with plush seats and a big-screen TV.
His team is the Panthers — the Cabot High School Panthers of Cabot, Ark. Mr. French is the president of a local bank that has given about $65,000 to the school’s athletic department over the past five years, and the luxury seats are one of the perks he gets in return. “I would never have thought they’d have these types of facilities,” he says.
Public education may face budget shortfalls across the country, but you wouldn’t know it from the new digs where the high-rollers of high school football are camped on Friday nights. In a development that is changing the way athletics are funded, some public schools are taking a page from the pros’ playbook on VIP seating. Vidalia High School in Georgia spent more than $2 million of public money last year to build a fieldhouse with eight air-conditioned skyboxes. Brookwood High School in Georgia built the Lodge, a facility overlooking the stadium where members of the booster club can lounge on leather couches and have a pregame meal of T-bone steak. Denton, John Guyer and Billy Ryan high schools, which share a new $18.3 million, 12,000-seat stadium in Denton, Texas, added two VIP suites, with tiered seating and cable TV. They rent out one of the suites for $150 a game. At Lucy C. Laney High School, also in Georgia, the principal and county athletic director use the stadium’s two skyboxes in part to entertain boosters, alumni and others over cheese plates and chicken wings.
The Supreme Court & Race in Schools
But, as an extraordinary two-hour Supreme Court argument last week demonstrated, the meaning and legacy of Brown remain up for grabs. The court was considering whether school systems in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., could take account of students’ races to ensure racial balance.
During the argument, two sets of justices managed, with equal vehemence, to invoke Brown — while understanding it to require precisely opposite things.
One side relied on the logic of the case: Brown, these justices said, forbids racial classifications by the government, period, even when the goal has changed from segregation to integration.
The other side relied on its music, saying that the real point of Brown was to achieve and maintain integrated public schools, whether through social progress or through government action that takes account of race.
AMERICA’S public schools are unfair. Their quality varies widely and many are lousy, so some unlucky kids get a shoddy education. Rich children live in areas with more property taxes, more education spending and better schools. They also tend to be white. So is it fair to keep some white children out of good schools, and give black children their places?
That incendiary question is among those at the heart of two cases the Supreme Court heard on December 4th. In two districts that deliberately balance each school’s racial mix (Jefferson County, Kentucky and Seattle, Washington) some white children complain that, because of their skin colour, they cannot get a fair shot at admission into the public schools they want. Both sides claim to have on their side the constitution’s 14th amendment, which was ratified after slavery ended, and grants everyone equal protection under the law.
Financial Literacy Project
I have the beginnings of an idea for a project to do later in Spring, for the exponential functions unit, in conjunction with our freshman College Readiness classes.
I was thinking about when I was a freshman in college, and how there were always tables set up by credit card companies who would attract crowds of freshmen with such irresistable items as Citibank t-shirts and Bank of America frisbees. They would give a credit card to just about anyone. There have been lots of reports about how so many college students get into incredible credit card debts because they don’t know how to manage a credit card, and they are preyed on by these vultures.
Back to School
In 2003 Wide Angle profiled seven children in seven countries-Afghanistan, Benin, Brazil, India, Japan, Kenya, and Romania-as they started their first year of school. Returning in 2006, we find that some of these children are already struggling, hanging onto their education by a thread. With over 100 million children around the globe out of school, this 90-minute special puts a human face on an issue with profound consequences for global development.
Reyhan Haranci has more.
Why the Achievement Gap Persists
The No Child Left Behind education act, which requires the states to close the achievement gap between rich and poor students in exchange for federal aid, has been under heavy fire since it was passed five years ago. Critics, some of whom never wanted accountability in the first place, have ratcheted up their attacks in anticipation of Congressional hearings and a reauthorization process that could get under way soon after the new Congress convenes in January.
More here.
New Math Curriculum Draws Complaints
Connected Math textbooks for one year and the equivalent Singapore Math version.
Brandon Lorenz:
A recent meeting at Central Middle School attracted about 50 people to discuss concerns with the district’s Connected Mathematics Project, a new constructivist approach that was introduced in sixth, seventh and eighth grades this year.
Another meeting for parents is scheduled for Dec. 13 at Horning Middle School.
Such new math programs rely on more hands-on activities and problem-solving skills than traditional programs.
Speaking with Zaborowski, Lynn Kucek said she was worried the math program would make it more difficult for her daughter, who does well in other subjects, to get into college.
More on Connected Math and the recent Math Forum.
Systems Struggling to Address Student Health
Today, a vision-laboratory-in-a-bus assembled by Turkel pulls up to schools in low-income neighborhoods, not only providing vision tests for children but also ensuring that glasses, when needed, are made to specifications and delivered within days — all for free.
The results, school principals say, are remarkable: Many of the kids — and in some schools it can be as much as half of the student population — who wear the glasses show improvement in attendance, focus and achievement. Their behavior often improves, too.
Tax Climate Notes & Links
The arrival of local property tax bills signal the onset of tax season. Accordingly, there has been a number of recent articles on Wisconsin’s tax climate:
- Barbara Miner: More than 16,000 private properties in Wisconsin pay no property taxes. As a result, everyone else pays more. Why?
In Milwaukee, for instance, almost 20 percent of the city’s non-governmental property value is exempt from taxes, a big jump from almost 10 percent six years ago. Add in government-owned property such as public schools, fire stations and parks, and the exempt total is more than 33 percent. Figures are similar for many other cities and suburbs in the area.
Todd Berry has been president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance since 1994. Berry’s group has done many studies of Wisconsin’s taxes but has never looked at the impact of nonprofit tax exemptions.
As Berry sheepishly admits, his group is itself exempt and doesn’t pay property taxes on the building it owns in Madison, valued at about $500,000 on its federal tax return. Thus, a group that often does studies exposing high taxes helps add to the tax level for others with its own exemption. - Institute for Wisconsin’s Future:
Contrary to the claims of corporate lobbyists that the state has unreasonably high business taxes, Wisconsin is already a low-tax state for large firms.
And this means the corporate sector is not making a fair contribution to the cost of maintaining public structures of state and local government, from schools to roads to public safety to the environment.
To back up these statements, the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future released a mass of data on December 4, 2006, detailing that more than thirty states have higher taxes on corporations and that over 60% of the biggest companies operating in the state paid zero corporate income tax in 2003. - Wistax:
After a drop of 0.5% in December 2005, school taxes this year will rise 5.4% to $3.79 billion. The increase is less than in 2003-04 (7.2%) but over the 1990-2005 median (4.9%) Increased property values helped drop the average tax rate from $8.62 per $1,000 to $8.31. Growth in another state tax credit will help offset the school tax hike.
Inevitably, tax favors are available for certain folks and are often inserted into bills late in the process. The Miller Park exemption is classic:
Restaurants pay taxes but not Friday’s Front Row Sports Grill at Miller Park because everything inside the stadium grounds is exempt.
The exemption for Friday’s particularly galls city officials, not only because another property leaves the tax rolls but because they see it as unfair to other competitors. While the Miller Park restaurant is tax-free, the TGIFriday’s in Greenfield pays property taxes of about $45,000.
Last fall, both Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl voted for a massive, one year large corporate tax giveaway: a 5% tax rate on offshore earnings. What a mess.
State Ed. Leaders Debate National Standards
“I submit to you that in a system of education that serves such a highly diverse and transitory culture, . . . shared standards aren’t simply an option, but a mandatory conversation,” the Council of Chief State School Officers’ executive director, Gene Wilhoit, said in a speech at the conference’s opening session. He took over the helm at the CCSSO Nov. 1.
Mr. Wilhoit’s appeal followed similar comments made this year by Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, researchers at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, and others. Such discussion, which comes as policymakers and educators compare education systems across the states and the world and prepare for the renewal of the federal No Child Left Behind Act next year, appears to be rekindling a push for national standards.
Council of Chief State School Officers.
School Boundaries, Money and Race
In a process to ease over-crowding, facilitated by Dr. Jack Parish, Superintendent of Schools for Henry County, the proposed boundary lines for the new schools had been drawn to include a small portion of the Fairview community. Others in Fairview would remain at the older schools. Fairview is a modest neighborhood made up of children who are predominately African-American and whose parents are less affluent than those who reside in Union Grove, a fact which has sent Union Grove residents reeling.
As a resident of the Fairview community with a child in middle school, I had my concerns. Our streets aren’t made of gold, and the neighborhood certainly doesn’t boast lavishly decorated Home and Garden-type vacation cottages; but it’s not the ghetto either. Homes are modest and well-kept. Homeowners are comprised mostly of middle-aged baby-boomers, preparing for retirement and saving for their kids’ college funds all at the same time.
Most of the children I know from Fairview come from good homes with loving parents who teach them to be well-behaved. I couldn’t see much difference between families in our neighborhood and those in Union Grove. For days I had debated whether to attend a meeting where parents from both neighborhoods would come together to vent their concerns.
Spring 2007 Madison School Board Election Update
I’ve added two declared candidates to the April 3, 2007 election page:
- Marj Passman for Seat 5 (Ruth Robarts is retiring)
- Beth Moss for Seat 3 (Shwaw Vang’s seat)
Johnny Winston, Jr., in seat 4 has announced he is running again, but as of this afternoon, had not declared his candidacy according to the City Clerk’s office.
Check out the video interviews and links from the April, 2004 election; the last time these seats were contested.
Learn more about running for school board here. (updated to reflect the correct seats via Marj’s comments below).
Do Math Topics Lead to Better Instruction?
It says the typical state math curriculum runs a mile wide and an inch deep, resulting in students being introduced to too many concepts but mastering too few, and urges educators to slim down those lessons.
Some scholars say the American approach to math instruction has allowed students to fall behind those in Singapore, Japan and a dozen other nations. In most states, they say, the math curriculum has swelled into a thick catalogue of skills that students are supposed to master to attain “proficiency” under the federal No Child Left Behind mandate.
Math Forum audio / video
Gates Foundation Grants & Expectations
Gates grants have flowed to schools and school systems in 42 states and the District, including $126 million to New York, $65 million to Chicago and $38 million to Oakland, Calif. The grants have helped open 1,100 schools and revamp an additional 700. The foundation also has sunk millions into education think tanks and policy and academic groups (including Hechinger). Its agenda is to create high schools with rigorous college-prep curricula, to replicate successful experiments and to convert giant, mostly urban schools into effective, manageable units.
Reviews of the Gates school initiatives have been mixed.
This fall, Denver shut down a high school that had received $1 million in Gates grants; officials cited plunging enrollment after the school was divided into three smaller ones and students fled to other schools.
Bucking School Reform, A Leader Gets Results
“We are relentless,” Dr. Cashin said in a recent interview. “The secret is clear expectations. Everything is spelled out. Nothing is assumed.” She provides her principals, for instance, with a detailed road map of what should be taught in every subject, in every grade, including specific skills of the week in reading and focus on a genre of literature every month.
Dr. Cashin is obsessed with writing, and in most of her schools, student work lines the walls — not just the final product but layers of drafts. Even first graders have writing posted on the walls.
A feature used in every school is the four-square graphic organizer, a worksheet with four boxes like a window pane and a rectangle at its center that helps children develop a five-paragraph essay. Some progressive educators scorn it as a crutch; Dr. Cashin insists that it works.
While the city’s reading program focuses on story books, Dr. Cashin layers on lots of nonfiction. And, responding to research showing that impoverished children often lack vocabulary and basic facts, she has adopted a curriculum called Core Knowledge, which teaches basics like the principles of constitutional government, events in world history and well-known literature.
Swaying Seattle’s School Assignments (Boundaries)
In 2004, after the district scrapped race as a factor in assignments because of the legal threat, another group of white parents from the same neighborhood got upset when their children were passed over at the same majority-white school, Ballard High. They were left out not because of race, but because they didn’t live near enough.
This time, the school district quietly backed down when the parents started sending their children to private or suburban schools instead of the struggling, majority-black school to which they’d been assigned. Ballard and other supposedly full schools together took about 100 extra students, most of them white.
Even as parents challenge a government action making room for minorities in highly-regarded schools, the later events in Seattle show another side of the picture: the ways that school-assignment practices can work to the benefit of whites. In Seattle as in other parts of the country, schools sometimes accommodate middle-class parents who push to get their children into coveted schools. When these middle-class parents are predominantly white, as in Seattle, the lobbying can tend to sort more white children into the most desirable schools.
A Campaign for the Civics Curriculum
The teaching of civics presently in the United States is dismal and startling. It used to be, when I was a kid, that there were classes in civics and you learned not only the checks and balances, but hows and whys and wherefores. And you learned what was the reasoning behind the creation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. …
If you think that running a government like ours is, arguably, more complicated than running a pharmaceutical company or an auto company — and it is — then we should train people to the running of the country. …
We want to … define the necessity of civics: What is it and is it necessary? If it’s necessary, is it urgent? And, if it’s urgent, what do we do? And then [we should start] to proceed to literally design classes.
It is time that we simply revive the notion that we can learn how to run the country — and learn not for Republicans and not for Democrats, but learn how to learn the Constitution. The idea of people having power to pursue a notion of happiness or control of their own lives is a new thing and a miracle. America is a miracle.
Agreed. Howard French’s recent article on history illustrates the need for rigor, critical thinking and the ability to ask questions.
School Integration Back Before Supreme Court
More than 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public schools, the justices are about to consider whether a school district can voluntarily integrate by considering race in campus assignments.
In cases from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., to be argued Monday, the justices will address the question left unanswered by the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling in 1954: What can the government do when the last vestiges of state-sponsored segregation are erased and schools nevertheless remain racially isolated because of housing patterns, parental choice and perhaps societal discrimination?
Growing Interest in Mandarin Courses
With its booming economy and aspirations to expand its global influence, China may have achieved a victory in American classrooms.
Take the private Chinese-American International School here, which runs from prekindergarten through eighth grade and offers instruction in all subjects — from math to music — half in Mandarin and half in English. The curriculum also includes Chinese history, culture and language studies, and in the 25 years since the school was founded, it has attracted mainly Asian-American children. But in the past few years, it has seen rapid growth in the enrollment of non-Asians.
For example, five years ago, the school was 57 percent Asian-American, but this year it is only 49 percent Asian-American, said Sharline Chiang, its spokeswoman, adding that more non-Asian-Americans have been applying in recent years. Andrew Corcoran, the head of the school, said that in the last three to four years, applications from white and Indian-American families have more than doubled, though he declined to give exact figures.
Ms. Chiang also said that this was the first year in which the prekindergarten class had more white children, 36 percent, than Asian-Americans, 32 percent.
San Francisco’s Chinese-American International School.
Arlene Silveira Seeks Comments on The Madison School District’s Proposed High School Redesign Process
Good morning –
As you may have heard, the School Board and district are embarking on a major high school redesign initiative [Discussion & Presentation Audio / Video]. The Superintendent made a presentation at the board meeting last week, giving some background information and outlining the process by which we will gather feedback and evaluate future changes for our high schools. The scope is huge – it involves challenging curriculum, relationship development and development of the skills needed to succeed in a challenging world. What will the new design look like? We don’t know. We are starting with a blank slate. The process will be community-oriented. There will be time for more formal input as the process starts after the holidays. In the meantime, I would like to know your thoughts on the following questions:
- What do you think MMSD’s high schools are already doing well?
- What are the barriers that keep our high schools from meeting your expectations?
- What is your vision for the future of our high schools.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Arlene Silveira
One of the interesting questions discussed during Monday evening’s school board discussion on this issue was the need to address curriculum issues in elementary and middle school so that students arrive in high school prepared. In my view, this should be our first priority.
Paul Tough’s recent article on “What it takes to Make a Student” provides a great deal of useful background information for this discussion.
Effect of Ritalin on Preschoolers Examined
National Institute of Mental Health:
The first long-term, large-scale study designed to determine the safety and effectiveness of treating preschoolers who have attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with methylphenidate (Ritalin) has found that overall, low doses of this medication are effective and safe. However, the study found that children this age are more sensitive than older children to the medication’s side effects and therefore should be closely monitored. The 70-week, six-site study was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and was described in several articles in the November 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
“The Preschool ADHD Treatment Study, or PATS, provides us with the best information to date about treating very young children diagnosed with ADHD,” said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, MD. “The results show that preschoolers may benefit from low doses of medication when it is closely monitored, but the positive effects are less evident and side-effects are somewhat greater than previous reports in older children.”
California Poll: More Accountability – Post All School Data Online
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who says parents should be able to scrutinize schools on the Internet like they are “shopping for a car,” received a political boost Thursday with a new poll showing widespread support for opening the financial books at public schools.
With the Legislature beginning its new session Monday, the survey, sponsored by the nonprofit group Children Now, was designed to give Schwarzenegger and lawmakers ammunition next year as they attempt to put more information about the state’s 9,500 public schools on the Web.
Schwarzenegger wants large amounts of data — from enrollment numbers and school test scores to reports on the quality of textbooks and individual school budgets — to be posted online in a user-friendly way.
“Let the sun shine in on everything,” the governor said recently at a news briefing, describing how the state should “make it easier for parents to shop for the best schools,” as he put it, and shame poor-performing schools so “they’ll be getting their act together.”
Phantom AP Study Lurks
We yearn so much for data on the Advanced Placement program — a powerful influence on high schools today — that one of the most cited pieces of recent AP research actually does not yet exist, at least in any published form.
This is the report on AP and college science courses by Philip M. Sadler and Robert H. Tai. The only publicly available account of what they found is a Harvard News Office press release with the headline: “High school AP courses do not predict college success in science.” They argue that students who took AP science in high school do not do as well in college science courses as AP advocates say they should, and that taking AP science in high school may hurt science education by letting more students avoid college biology, chemistry and physics.
I might have left this issue alone until Sadler and Tai had their work published, but their conclusions are so provocative that the Harvard press release, and the powerpoint slides they used at a February meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have already been cited in several news articles and at least one book, Alfie Kohn’s “The Homework Myth.” Kohn is one of the most fastidious writers I know, always checking and footnoting his sources. If he thinks it is okay to cite this study before it is published, then it is time to discuss it in this column, which claims to be on top of all things AP. The Sadler-Tai work deserves close attention for many reasons, one of them being I think it is being given more credence than it deserves, at least in its fetal state.
Education and Entrepreneurship: More Differentiation
The incumbent policy is more of the same. Both parties in Washington champion more government involvement in primary education and more subsidies for existing colleges and universities.
The innovative policy is to support any alternative to our current education system. Ultimately, we would trust consumers to keep the best alternatives and discard the rest.
…….
While politicians champion more homogeneity in education (national standards; send everyone to college), my guess is that what we need is more differentiation. Students are heterogeneous in terms of their abilities, learning styles, and rates of maturation. Putting every student on the same track is sub-optimal for large numbers of young people.
Some students — probably more than we realize — are autodidacts, meaning that they teach themselves at their own pace. One of the brightest students in my high school statistics class simply cannot handle the structure of a school day. He is motivated to learn on his own (he was curious to read my book on health care and asked me for a copy), but he is demotivated by most of his classes.
Some students are not suited for academic study. We speak of the proverbial auto mechanic, but in fact the best career path for many of these students in today’s economy would be in the allied health fields. Unfortunately, this career path is blocked by occupational licensing requirements, which prevent many otherwise capable students from pursuing careers in dental hygiene, physical therapy, or similar professions. If we had the equivalent credentialism at work in auto repair, you would need four years of college plus two or three years of post-graduate education just to work on a car.
Kling website and blog.
Interesting timing. I spoke recently with a Madison parent (pre-K child) who agrees with this sentiment (balancing education power with parents via greater local choice).
Milwaukee Police to be Stationed in Schools
Milwaukee police officers will be assigned for the first time to full-time duty inside city public schools under an agreement between police and Milwaukee Public Schools leaders.
The effort to improve school safety will begin small – with two pairs of officers in the spring semester, which begins in late January – but all involved hope that it will grow by next fall, provided that money can be found to do that.
In releasing details of the police plan late Tuesday, MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos also said he expects to propose in December that MPS spend about $450,000 during the rest of this school year for increased services from a Milwaukee County mental crisis intervention team that deals with children. Andrekopoulos said “more anger and hostility” were showing up among MPS students and that mental problems have been a factor in some recent violence.
Dealing with Bullies
C.K. Gunsalus – Inside Higher Ed:
Some difficult people are merely minor irritants: Others learn to avoid them as much as possible, and the overall working environment is not badly compromised. But a person who targets others, makes threats (direct or indirect), insists on his or her own way all the time, or has such a hair-trigger temper that colleagues walk on eggshells to avoid setting it off, can paralyze a department. In the worst cases, this conduct can create massive dysfunction as the department finds itself unable to hold meetings, make hiring decisions, recruit new members, or retain valued ones. When I first got involved in helping department heads cope with such people, my colleagues and I used concepts and approaches we gleaned from studies of bullies.
The bullies I have encountered in the academic environment come in many forms, from those who present themselves as victims, all the way to classic aggressors who rely on physical intimidation. In academe and other settings populated by “knowledge workers,” one often encounters other kinds of bullies as well, including “memo bullies” (who send regular missives to a long mailing list) and “insult bullies” (destructive verbal aggressors).
Jason Shephard discussed local bullying in last spring’s “The Fate of the Schools“.
Milwaukee Fathers Form Citywide Parent Group
Jason Brown doesn’t know what to do if his 14-year-old son doesn’t get into a good high school next year, namely Rufus King or Riverside.
ellow Milwaukee Public Schools parent James West feels equally uneasy about finding that a teacher had given a near-perfect score to what he called a near-incoherent essay by his daughter.
Anthony Drane, who works in a supplemental instruction program at Milwaukee Area Technical College, fears for his children’s futures when he encounters former MPS students who lack basic study skills such as note taking.
The problem, the three fathers have concluded, is not just that Milwaukee’s public schools are in crisis but that there aren’t enough parents like them who are alarmed and trying to do something about it. They hope to change that with the North Milwaukee Parent Association, a citywide group that intends to motivate parents by giving them the knowledge and support to participate in the school system.
The idea, they said, is that empowering Milwaukee’s youths must start with educating their guardians.
Madison School Board: Superintendent’s High School Redesign Presentation & Public Comments [Audio / Video]
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Four citizens spoke at Monday evening’s school board meeting regarding the proposed “high school redesign”. Watch or download this video clip. |
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Superintendent Art Rainwater’s powerpoint presentation and followup board discussion. Watch or download the video. |
Links:
- Susan Troller: MMSD to study high schools before “redesigning” them
- Joan Knoebel comments.
- East High School Principal Allen Harris’s letter to parents.
- On, off and on again School Board High School Redesign discussion.
- Marc Eisen: Superintendent Halts High School Redesign.
- Laurie Frost: More Than English 10: Let’s REALLY Talk About Our High Schools.
- Comments from East High Parents on Proposed Curriculum Changes
- Ruth Robarts: On Monday, November 27, the Madison School Board will begin to address rumors about major changes coming to our high schools. There are some realities behind the rumors.
- Andy Hall: East High Student Insurrection over Proposed Curriculum Changes?
- A timeline of West High School’s March Toward One Size Fits all English 10.
- Bruce King’s report on West High School’s English 9 Program.
- Carrie Lynch: One big happy classroom?
- Superintendent Art Rainwater’s presentation.
- Madison United for Educational Excellence hosted a conversation with Art Rainwater Wednesday evening .
Bolstering the School System is Up to Us
Three times in the past week, I’ve witnessed parents of young children ponder whether to trust education of their offspring to Seattle Public Schools.
In raising children, however, families cannot afford mistakes. When a young life gets off on the wrong track, its retrofit can get more complicated than putting new rails in a tunnel.
And a city increasingly populated by singles and childless couples badly needs families with children. A disastrous mandatory busing program drove working families from Seattle during the 1970s and ’80s.
Loss of confidence now threatens public schools with an institutional death spiral.
What happens? People use their doubts and subpar average test scores — which shouldn’t mean much to the middle class, given scores’ correlation with poverty — to justify leaving, without really exploring, what is offered by their local school.
The Madison School Board has recently opened a new chapter in it’s governance responsibilities by discussing substantive issues (things that would have never made their agenda two years ago, like rigor, budget details (recently revealed structural deficit) and health care costs, among others). Don’t roll back the clock, run for school board!
New Project to Send Musicians Into Schools
Two pillars of the classical musical establishment, Carnegie Hall and the Juilliard School, have joined forces to give birth to a music academy whose fellows will go forth and propagate musicianship in New York public schools.
The city’s Education Department is opening its arms to the new program, seeing an inexpensive but valuable source of teaching for a system deprived of comprehensive music training. And the leaders of Carnegie and Juilliard see an opportunity to promote their conviction that a musician in 21st-century America should be more than just a person who plays the notes.
Under the new program elite musicians will receive high-level musical training, performance opportunities at Carnegie Hall and guidance from city school teachers in how to teach music. The fellows will each be assigned to a different school and work there one and a half days a week. They will teach their instruments, or music in general, and give their own pointers to school music teachers.
State School Finance Reform Proposal: Eliminate Sales Tax Exemptions
Erpenbach argued that closing tax exemption “loopholes” would save every homeowner thousands of dollars a year in property taxes and take a giant step toward eliminating funding disparities between rich and poor school districts.
“It’s not a tax increase,” said Erpenbach, who conceded that his plan would still force consumers to pay more for some goods and services that are now exempt. Nonetheless, he said, “Most everybody, at the end of the day, will have more money in their pocket.”
Escaping “Average”
But Secondary Education Director James VanSciver and other Seaford educators became convinced that with extra help, many more students could be taking algebra in middle school and college-level courses in high school. Four years ago, they began offering special tutoring, summer classes and Saturday classes. The number of Advanced Placement classes at Seaford High swelled from four to 14.
The focus on helping average students also boosted minority enrollment in the most rigorous classes. The district has about 3,400 students, 40 percent black and slightly more than half white. Through the initiative, administrators found more black students doing well and going on to college.
Julius Mullen, who directs a Saturday program for young African American males in Seaford, said the students discovered they could advance if given more time and the assurance that they had their friends with them. “When expectations are raised, I think students will grab for them if they have the support programs in place,” Mullen said. “They have to see their friends achieving success.”
Activist Parent & Contributor Janet Mertz Named AAAS Fellow
Five University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty members are among the 449 scientists and engineers to be awarded fellowships from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which were announced this week (Nov. 23).
The AAAS grants the distinction to researchers advancing science and engineering in significant ways. New fellows will be recognized at the Fellows Forum, held during the 2007 AAAS annual meeting in San Francisco on Feb. 17.
UW-Madison faculty elected this year include:
Janet E. Mertz, professor of oncology, for the development of recombinant DNA methods and for the co-discovery of introns, messenger RNA transport elements and mechanisms by which viruses regulate their expression.
The AAAS is the largest scientific society in the world. Founded in 1848, the AAAS publishes the journal Science.
Janet’s SIS posts can be found here.
Science a la Joe Camel
A reader forwarded this: Laurie David:
At hundreds of screenings this year of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.
The producers of former vice president Al Gore’s film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.
The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other “special interests” might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn’t want to offer “political” endorsement of the film; and they saw “little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members” in accepting the free DVDs.
Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film’s theatrical run is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.
Telling Tales Out of School, on YouTube
In the good old days, students simply used technology like cellphones to cheat on tests. Now, they’re posting what happens in their classrooms on YouTube.
Two students who attend the equivalent of Grade 9 at a school in Gatineau, Quebec, a city across the river from Ottawa, were sent home last week after officials learned that they had posted a videotape of a teacher losing his temper on YouTube. The episode was not spontaneous. A girl, who has not been identified, provoked the teacher while a boy secretly taped the encounter with a compact video camera.
YouTube removed the video at the request of the Portages-de-l’Outaouais school board a week ago, the board president Jocelyn Blondin said. But that has left the question of determining what to do with the students and how to prevent similar episodes in the future.
“Still Left Behind”?
The schools that are achieving the most impressive results with poor and minority students tend to follow three practices. First, they require many more hours of class time than a typical public school. The school day starts early, at 8 a.m. or before, and often continues until after 4 p.m. These schools offer additional tutoring after school as well as classes on Saturday mornings, and summer vacation usually lasts only about a month. The schools try to leaven those long hours with music classes, foreign languages, trips and sports, but they spend a whole lot of time going over the basics: reading and math.
Second, they treat classroom instruction and lesson planning as much as a science as an art. Explicit goals are set for each year, month and day of each class, and principals have considerable authority to redirect and even remove teachers who aren’t meeting those goals. The schools’ leaders believe in frequent testing, which, they say, lets them measure what is working and what isn’t, and they use test results to make adjustments to the curriculum as they go. Teachers are trained and retrained, frequently observed and assessed by their principals and superintendents. There is an emphasis on results but also on “team building” and cooperation and creativity, and the schools seem, to an outsider at least, like genuinely rewarding places to work, despite the long hours. They tend to attract young, enthusiastic teachers, including many alumni of Teach for America, the program that recruits graduates from top universities to work for two years in inner-city public schools.
Third, they make a conscious effort to guide the behavior, and even the values, of their students by teaching what they call character. Using slogans, motivational posters, incentives, encouragements and punishments, the schools direct students in everything from the principles of teamwork and the importance of an optimistic outlook to the nuts and bolts of how to sit in class, where to direct their eyes when a teacher is talking and even how to nod appropriately.
……….
At KIPP’s Bronx academy, the sixth, seventh and eighth grades had proficiency rates at least 12 percentage points above the state average on this year’s statewide tests. And when the scores are compared with the scores of the specific high-poverty cities or neighborhoods where the schools are located — in Newark, New Haven or the Bronx — it isn’t even close: 86 percent of eighth-grade students at KIPP Academy scored at grade level in math this year, compared with 16 percent of students in the South Bronx.
………..
Toll put it this way: “We want to change the conversation from ‘You can’t educate these kids’ to ‘You can only educate these kids if. …’ ” And to a great extent, she and the other principals have done so. The message inherent in the success of their schools is that if poor students are going to catch up, they will require not the same education that middle-class children receive but one that is considerably better; they need more time in class than middle-class students, better-trained teachers and a curriculum that prepares them psychologically and emotionally, as well as intellectually, for the challenges ahead of them.
The most malignant element of the original law was that it required all states to achieve proficiency but then allowed each state to define proficiency for itself. It took state governments a couple of years to realize just what that meant, but now they have caught on — and many of them are engaged in an ignoble competition to see which state can demand the least of its students.
The evidence is now overwhelming that if you take an average low-income child and put him into an average American public school, he will almost certainly come out poorly educated. What the small but growing number of successful schools demonstrate is that the public-school system accomplishes that result because we have built it that way. We could also decide to create a different system, one that educates most (if not all) poor minority students to high levels of achievement.
But there are still those few schools, mostly charters, that really do seem to have found the right formula: high standards, a structured instructional approach, character education, long hours, great teachers and development of a esprit d’corps.
And while Tough laments the fact that teacher unions have constrained the growth of charter schools, it is clear that there is little, if anything, these schools are doing that could not be done in a unionized school – unless of course we expect that schools that rely on teachers working twice the hours (15 or 16 a day, he says) can be replicated systemwide without increasing teacher salaries proportionally. (In fact, those strategies are precisely what the UFT and Chancellor Crew built into the Extended Time Schools back in the 90s, and many of them are working today in the UFT Charter Schools in East New York.)
Unschooling via Homeschool
On weekdays, during what are normal school hours for most students, the Billings children do what they want. One recent afternoon, time passed loudly, and without order or lessons, in their home in a North Side neighborhood here.
Hayden Billings, 4, put a box over his head and had fun marching into things. His sister Gaby, 9, told stories about medieval warrior women, while Sydney, 6, drank hot chocolate and played with Dylan, the baby of the family.
In a traditional school setting, such free time would probably be called recess. But for Juli Walter, the children’s mother, it is “child-led learning,” something she considers the best in home schooling.
“I learned early on that when I do things I’m interested in,” Ms. Walter said, “I learn so much more.”
Doc Searls has more.
LIFE IS SHORT | Autobiography as Haiku
I come from Tehran and no, there are no camels where I come from. There are cars and honking taxis that pass women in black veils or short, colorful scarves that barely cover their heads. In this beautiful prison of banned dreams, there certainly isn’t a statue of liberty; men and women liberate themselves with cafes, cigars, smuggled drugs and secret relationships. In America, I am a writer. I can imagine, dream, live, breathe as an Iranian, an American. I can add color to anything; if only I could paint the gray streets of Tehran with my words.
Wisconsin Math, reading proficiency are much higher on state exams than on federal
Wisconsin students continue to fare far better on the state’s standardized tests than they do on those given by the federal government, according to a new analysis that raises questions about what it means to be “proficient.”
About 70% to 85% of Wisconsin students were considered proficient or better on the state’s reading and math tests for the 2005-’06 school year. Yet only 33% to 40% of the state’s fourth- and eighth-graders scored at least proficient on the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress in those subjects, according to the study by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.
The state was one of 16 in the country that had a proficiency gap of 45 to 55 percentage points, the Taxpayers Alliance found. Several states, such as Oklahoma and Mississippi, had even larger differences between the percentage of students considered proficient by their states as opposed to the federal government.
“It just creates confusion,” said Dale Knapp, research director for the Taxpayers Alliance. “We want a sense of what our students know, where they sort of stand. And we’re really getting two different answers that are very different answers.”
The blame doesn’t necessarily fall on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations, said Tony Evers, deputy superintendent of the state Department of Public Instruction, which administers the tests annually.
“Math is the same in Madison as it is in Missouri as it is in Mumbai.” – Michael Petrilli,
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a group that has raised the idea of national standards
“What that ought to be is a big signal to the folks in Wisconsin that they really need to evaluate the rigor of their standards and their assessment.” – Daria Hall, Education Trust
More on the Fordham Foundation’s report and EdTrust. Finally, WISTAX offers a free report on testing.
“What the Approved Referendum Means”
Madison Schools Superintendent Art Rainwater:
November 7 was a great day for our children and for the community. Certainly, the fact that we will have a new school in an area that is experiencing substantial growth is important for our future.
The relief that the community approved from the revenue cap will mean that we will have to reduce our services by less than expected, although we will still have to make cuts of several million dollars. Every staff member whose position is saved to serve children is important and $807,000 of relief will save a number of services.
The most obvious gains aside, it was just as important that the passage of the referendum involved support from the whole community.
The grassroots organization CAST (Community and Schools Together) worked long and hard to be sure that our citizens understood what was at stake and how important their vote was. District staff from the central office, building services and the schools supported this through their hard work and discussion with neighbors and friends.
Oregon School Cafeteria Makes It from Scratch
Thanksgiving is a time to savor good food, something you don’t expect to find in a school cafeteria. In fact, most schools across the country serve reheated, premade food that is trucked in from central kitchens. Daily offerings are often uninspiring: chicken sticks, macaroni and cheese, and pizza.
But there is a move in some parts of the country to bring real cooking back to school kitchens. Last year, Abernathy Elementary School in Portland, Ore., bought a second-hand stove and a big mixer and started cooking all its food from scratch.
Thanksgiving
Wikipedia | US Census Bureau
A quick note to thank the Madison School Board (Johnny Winston, Jr., President; Lawrie Kobza, Vice President; Carol Carstensen, Treasurer; Shwaw Vang, Clerk; Lucy Mathiak, Ruth Robarts and Arlene Silveira) for publicly discussing and addressing a number of issues this year:
- The Superintendent’s Review (something that was not done for a number of years until a few incumbents lost their seats).
- Implementing a substantive review of the District’s Math Program (see also this open letter and the recent Math Forum)
- Taking a substantive look at healthcare costs.
- Diving deep into the District’s $332M+ budget.
Happy Thanksgiving!
On, Off and On Again 11/27/2006 Madison School Board High School Redesign Discussion
Susan Troller wrote this on Tuesday, 11/21/2006:
A presentation on the redesign of Madison’s high school curriculum scheduled for next week’s School Board meeting has been scrapped for the immediate future, School Board President Johnny Winston Jr. confirmed late this morning.
“We’ll hold off on changes until we get a better feel for how the process will work,” Winston said.
Winston, other School Board members and members of the administration met this morning to discuss high school curriculum proposals, including changes in accelerated classes for freshmen and sophomores at East High.
Andy Hall wrote this on 11/22/2006:
Madison School Board President Johnny Winston Jr. said community outcry and confusion over East’s plans to restructure its classes likely will dominate the board’s discussion of reforming operations in the district’s high schools. The meeting is set for 8 p.m. Monday in the auditorium at the Doyle Administration Building, 545 W. Dayton St.
“I’m sure we’re going to hear a lot from the community,” Winston said. “Board members want to hear it. They want it now.”
Winston said he expects people riled about potential or recent changes at La Follette and West high schools also will attend.
The board, Winston said, needs to set direction for the district’s schools and needs to be kept informed. He’s opposed to eliminating classes for talented and gifted students. “We need to be enhancing them,” he said.
It’s essential, Winston said, for parents, students, teachers and the community to have a voice in any talks about changing the way schools are run.
“I really hope we can get this thing, whatever it is, in order,” Winston said.
Indeed, a look at the School Board’s calendar for Monday, 11.27.2006 reveals that the High School Redesign discussion is scheduled for 8:00p.m. that evening.
The Board has been criticized over the years for simply not discussing some of the tough issues such as health care, the District’s rejection of $2M in federal Reading First funds (the politics and implementation of Reading First have been controversial. However $2m is $2m and it at least deserved a public conversation) and West High’s full speed ahead on a one size fits all curriculum (See also “the Fate of the Schools“.
I’m glad to see the Board take this up Monday. A recent discussion of the District’s quiet policy change regarding credit for non-madison school district courses appeared, disappeared and now is on a 12/11/2006 Performance and Achievement committee agenda.
New Program in Schools Takes Students From Playwriting to Performance
There have been programs promoting theater involvement in New York City schools for years, but Fidelity Investments, together with the Viertel/Frankel/Baruch/Routh Group, the Broadway producing team behind “Hairspray” and “Company,” and Leap, a 30-year-old non-profit organization dedicated to arts education, have announced one of the broadest programs yet.
Other organizations, like Theater Development Fund, have programs to involve students in Broadway theater, but this one, which started last month at 10 high schools and junior high schools in the city, aspires to be the most comprehensive. It is a seven-month course involving big-name theater professionals, trips to Broadway shows, playwriting and play producing classes and, for 10 students, a Broadway stage on which their plays will be performed.
“We have never done a program as comprehensive as this,” said Alice Krieger, the associate executive director of Leap.
Madison Schools Superintendent Art Rainwater Halts East High Redesign
The uproar over proposed changes in East High School’s curriculum has apparently prompted Madison School Superintendent Art Rainwater to announce a halt to any plans to change programming at Madison’s four major high schools.
A Snapshot of the State of U.S. Education
Report on the State of American Schools Shows High School Students Challenged by Math and Science
High school students in the United States are consistently outperformed by those from Asian and some European countries on international assessments of mathematics and science, according to The Condition of Education 2006 report released today by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Fourth-graders, by comparison, score as well or better than most of their international peers, although their counterparts in other countries are gaining ground.
“While our younger students are making progress on national assessments and are ahead on some international measures the same can not be said at the high school level,” said Mark Schneider, NCES Commissioner. “U.S. students do relatively well in reading literacy when compared to their international peers, but they are outperformed in mathematics and science and our 15-year-old students trail many of our competitors in math and science literacy.”
The Condition of Education is a congressionally mandated report that provides an annual statistical portrait of education in the United States. The 50 indicators included in the report cover all aspects of education, from student achievement to school environment and from early childhood through postsecondary education.
The report shows that U. S. public schools have the most diverse student population than at any other time in history. In addition, more individuals are enrolling in postsecondary education, and more bachelor’s degrees have been awarded than in the past.
Local School Tax & Spending Climate Update
Two links on local and state taxes (some have implications on future state tax redistribution for schools):
- Wisconsin Faces a $1.6B structural deficit by Steven Walters:
A report made public today [Wisconsin DOA 2007-2009 Budget Reports] identifies a $1.6 billion gap between what state officials say they need to run their agencies over the next two years and what taxes and other revenues will bring in over that period.
- Dane County Properties Taxes increase 4.88% by Channel3000:
Without a veto, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk signed the $450 million county budget that she said protects public safety, human services and the environment.
Audio: Falk Signs Budget, Declines Comment On AG Race (MP3 Format)
For the average $240,000 Madison homeowner, the county portion of the property tax will increase by almost $16, which represents a 4.88 percent increase, WISC-TV reported.
Locally, the Madison School District’s property tax assessments will go up less than the County, about 3.2%.
East High Student Insurrection Over Proposed Curriculum Changes?
“This is a discussion killer and it’s an education killer because it’s going to make kids feel uncomfortable,” Collin said Monday of the emerging plan, which would take effect in the fall.
This morning, Collin and other students – he says it may involve 100 of the school’s 1,834 students – plan to protest the planned changes by walking out of the school at 2222 E. Washington Ave. Some may try to meet with Superintendent Art Rainwater at his Downtown office.
East Principal Alan Harris said he’s heard talk of a student protest. Students refusing to attend class would be dealt with for insubordination, he said, and could face suspension, particularly if he determines their conduct is unsafe.
Harris said he’s met with parents, staff members and students, and more private and group meetings are planned, to hear their concerns.
However, Harris said he believes he remains on the right track. East, he said, must change.
Read the extensive discussion on the Madison School District Administration’s High School redesign plans here. The Madison School Board will meet to discuss the proposed high school changes on November 27, 2006.
Related Links:
- A timeline of West High School’s march toward one size fits all English 10.
- Bruce King’s report on West High School’s English 9 program
Black Enrollment in AP Surges in Montgomery; Half Take Some Type of Honors Course
Montgomery County public schools this year passed a milestone in college preparation: Half of the 9,737 black high school students are enrolled in honors or Advanced Placement courses.
Five years ago, barely one-third of African Americans participated in such classes, despite the county’s reputation as a national leader in college prep. Now, a black student in Montgomery is more likely to take an AP test than a white student elsewhere in the nation.
Kalema took all the honors courses available to her in the ninth grade, then progressed into AP. As a senior, she is taking AP geography, calculus and English literature. She partly credits her counselor, Scott Woo, with her advancement.
“It’s always been Mr. Woo saying, ‘I think you can take this class,’ ” she said.
The county’s achievement is striking because the national surge in Advanced Placement testing has largely left black students behind.
The success of urban schoolteacher Jaime Escalante with a group of minority AP students in East Los Angeles in the 1980s convinced public educators that motivation and hard work might be just as important as standardized test scores in predicting AP success. Over the past few years, that philosophy has become pervasive in the Washington region.
Principals and teachers in Montgomery high schools began looking for reasons to include students in AP courses, rather than reasons to keep them out. The process evolved into a science: All students now take the PSAT, or Preliminary SAT, a strong predictor of AP potential, in the ninth grade. Principals get spreadsheets that allow them to sort students by PSAT score and grade-point average to identify those capable of AP study not enrolled in an AP course.
Kalema was being groomed for AP while still in middle school. She took Algebra I, a high school course, in the eighth grade; the school system has dramatically expanded advanced math study in elementary and middle schools as a pipeline to future AP and IB study.
Montgomery County Public Schools.
One in Four Pass California’s Student Physical Fitness Test
Despite growing alarm about childhood obesity and stepped-up efforts to get California’s 6.3 million public school children exercising and eating well, only one in four could stretch, lift, curl and run enough to pass the state’s annual physical fitness test.
Every spring, fifth-, seventh-, and ninth-graders take the test, which includes a mile-long run and push-ups. Results from the spring 2006 tests, made public Friday, highlight a troubling trend. Today’s children are much like the nation’s adults: increasingly inactive and sedentary.
“Three out of four students are not in good physical shape,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said in announcing the results. “Students need to turn off the video games, turn off the television and the computer and get out and walk and play games.”
The 2006 test scores show a slight gain — 1 percent — in overall performance compared to last year’s results.
Schools Slow in Closing Gaps Between Races
Despite concerted efforts by educators, the test-score gaps are so large that, on average, African-American and Hispanic students in high school can read and do arithmetic at only the average level of whites in junior high school.
“The gaps between African-Americans and whites are showing very few signs of closing,” Michael T. Nettles, a senior vice president at the Educational Testing Service, said in a paper he presented recently at Columbia University. One ethnic minority, Asians, generally fares as well as or better than whites.
The reports and their authors, in interviews, portrayed an educational landscape in which test-score gaps between black or Hispanic students and whites appear in kindergarten and worsen through 12 years of public education.
Some researchers based their conclusions on federal test results, while others have cited state exams, the SATs and other widely administered standardized assessments. Still, the studies have all concurred: The achievement gaps remain, perplexing and persistent.
NYT Letters: The New New Math: Back to Basics
NYT Letters to the Editor regarding “As Math Scores Lag, a New Push for the Basics“:
s a middle school tutor, I’m always amazed at the pride many schools feel because their middle school curriculum includes topics in pre-algebra/algebra. This sounds like good news until it becomes clear that it’s not pre-algebra that students find problematic: it’s basic arithmetic.
Enabling students to have rote facts at their fingertips endows them with great self-confidence and permits them to take risks with subsequent higher-thinking math skills. This self-confidence eliminates that “fear” of math that prevails in our culture.
When I was an elementary school student in the 1950s, what was drilled daily in the classroom was reinforced nightly with numerous homework problems.
This is a technique that not only allows students to master the math basics, it also instills a sense of self-esteem gained through accuracy, precision and academic discipline.
E. S. Goldberg
Miami, Nov. 14, 2006
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I was an educator in New York City for 31 years, and in my educational lifetime as dean of a Manhattan high school, a teacher in several junior and senior high schools and in summer and afternoon school tutorial programs, and a night adult-school teacher, I was involved in many new teaching programs.
Education is not an activity to promote politically correct reforms. Education is a process by which students are taught fundamentals in a structured environment with the least amount of distractions and political or doctorate-minded invasions.
The outrageous proposals to substitute the basics will always be with us, and the smart thing to do is not to waste the good taxpayer’s patience or money.
John A. Manicone
Port St. Lucie, Fla., Nov. 14, 2006