Carol Carstensen on Isthmus’ Recent Madison Schools Coverage



This article, by Madison School Board President Carol Carstensen, appeared in Isthmus‘ May 12, 2005 edition:

Over the last two years, Isthmus’ articles on the Madison school district, especially its approach to teaching reading, have reminded me of a favorite quote from Adlai Stevenson: “These are the conclusions upon which I base my facts.”
The Madison school district has gotten a great deal of negative coverage from Isthmus, despite the fact that the district has seen continued improvement in the numbers and percent of children achieving at the two highest levels on the state’s third-grade reading test.

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Blocking Reform



Joanne Jacobs:

From the Huffington Post: Mike Piscal, founder of the very successful View Park Prep charter school in the low-income, minority Crenshaw District of LA names names in analyzing why 3,950 ninth graders at South LA’s four major high schools turn into 1,600 graduates, 900 college freshmen and 258 college graduates. More here.

This is related: Shanghai Jiaotong University won the recent ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. The US hasn’t won since 1997. The University of Illinois finished 17th, CalTech,Duke and MIT finished 29th while UW-Madison earned an honorable mention.




Stressed Out: Parental Pressure to Excel



Dave Murphy:

As the boy played behind the bushes at his Redwood City school, his obviously agitated mother grabbed him, abruptly escorting him to her car.
“She asked him what he thought he was doing and proceeded to tell him all in one breath that he would never get into a good university or have a good job if he spent all his time playing and goofing around,” said Jim Dassise, a parent who watched the episode unfold. “He should be more like one of his friends, who spent his time studying and having good grades.”
The boy was about 9 years old.




Madison Schools Medicaid Reimbursements



Mike Johnson takes a look at a Medicaid reimbursement program that pumps about 700K into the Madison Schools annually. The article provides a useful look at the strange way (and the costs) in which the money finds its way to local districts.

“The reason Madison started in the Medicaid reimbursement program could be summed up in two words: revenue limits,” said Joe Quick, the legislative liaison/communication specialist for the district. “Despite the somewhat cumbersome paperwork and a reimbursement formula where the state skims money off the top, the school district’s efforts are financially worth the work.”




Happy Mother’s Day!



Jon Carroll on “Our Mothers, Ourselves“:

She learned to scuba dive. She was active in the League of Women Voters. When I was 28, she and my stepfather moved to Ethiopia. She worked for the World Health Organization, preparing educational materials that said, in essence, “Please do not defecate in the river.”




Koloen: School Board Should Question Health Care Costs



Jim Koloen (appeared in the Capital Times):

Dear Editor: It is perplexing that the Madison School Board can approve a labor contract without actually having read it except through a summary provided by the administration. Why bother with a board at all if it simply behaves as though the administration and the board are one and the same? The words “rubber stamp” come to mind.

Evidently another contract ( five year transportation) was approved on May 2 – without presentation of the full financial details. (9 minute video clip of the discussion – the award was approved 4 – 2 with Kobza & Robarts voting against it due to lack of information. Check out the video). Generally, I think a five year deal is not a bad idea, IF all of the costs & benefits are known.

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Homeschooling & The World is Flat



I mentioned to a few friends recently that I think the Madison School’s “same service” budgeting approach (year after year) needs to be replaced by a new, largely curriculum based process that recognizes globalization, changing demographics and the fact that we should not simply compare our performance and curricula with those of Racine, Green Bay or Ann Arbor. Rather the comparison should be with Helsinki, Bangalore, Shanghai, London, Nagoya and (insert your city here).
Parents have a growing number of choices these days (some don’t realize that they have them – yet). Homeschooling appears to be the elephant in the room along with the slow rise of virtual schools.
Julie Leung sent a timely bolt of lightning to the blogosphere with her essay on education, including a discussion of her reasons for homeschooling:

Our desire to preserve our childrens’ organic curiosity plays a large part in our desire to homeschool. Too often the school system crushes curiousity out of a kid. Kids have a natural desire to learn.

Read Doc’s post for more background & links along with Gatto




Madison Schools 2005/2006 Budget?



I’m wondering if the MMSD’s 2005/2006 budget is floating around… somewhere? I’ve heard that it was released to the BOE members earlier this week, but I’ve not seen any sign of it on the District’s website. Stranger still, President Carol Carstensen required Board members to have their amendments in by noon today (5/5) – roughly 36 hours after receiving a budget, that, as far as I can tell, is not available to the public.
Ed Blume noted earlier that Milwaukee’s proposed budget is online.
I find Carol’s extremely short Board Member Amendment turnaround to be unusual, given a $320M budget…. Why?
The District’s 2004/2005 budget is available here (8.6MB PDF).
UPDATE: Ed Blume emailed a link to this 82 page 2005/2006 budget summary – pdf file. FWIW, the previous budget document – link above was 368 pages.




Minnesota Increases State School Funding



Minnesota Public Radio:

The bill represents a $622 million (12.6 Billion Package) increase in state aid over the next two years, although not all schools would get an equal cut. Each district could count on having $284 added to their basic per-student allowances in two installments, raising it to $4,885 by the second year.
School districts in high poverty areas, those with low property tax bases and ones that shift to a new teacher pay system would be in line for greater funding boosts. Statewide, the schools will see an average of $665 more per child in fiscal years 2006-07.

My view is that we lose a great deal of influence as we rely on state/federal funds.




Dying Institutions, Thriving Institutions



JennyD has a thought provoking article on General Motors, The Education Establishment and Journalism:

Most of the institutions in both of these fields are based on decades-old structures, with work structures and beliefs that are being battered everyday. Journalism is under enormous pressure, and newspeople feel it. They’d like to say it’s not their fault (see this Tim Porter post on the mood of the newsroom for more on that) but as Porter points out, they are as responsible as everyone at GM is for their predicament. Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis write about this all the time…and offer criticism and alternative id




UC System Struggles to Attract Minorities



Tanya Schevitz:

Ramine Cromartie-Thornton is just the kind of student that UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau wants to attract to his campus to increase ethnic diversity: She is African American, has a grade point average of about 4.2, a 1310 SAT score and plans to major in engineering.
But eight other universities want her, too, including Harvard, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke and the University of Pennsylvania. In the end, UC Berkeley wasn’t even in her top three.




Madison Mother Wants in to Virtual Charter School



Channel3000:

A Madison mother is threatening to go to court if necessary to get Madison schools to transfer two of her children to a virtual charter school.
The transfers were denied based on race, and the family says that’s discriminatory, reported News 3’s Linda Eggert.
Two years ago the Madison Metropolitan School District allowed the family’s oldest boy to transfer to the virtual school open enrollment. Earlier this month, two of his younger brothers were denied the same kind of access.

interesting issue




Classroom Clickers



Jeff Henrique, a Madison Schools Parent and a writer on this blog is featured in a UW Madison News Release regarding classroom clickers (personal response systems) as instant assessment tools.




Scullen on Wisconsin’s Thriving Charter Schools



Tom Scullen (Scullen is superintendent of the Appleton Area School District, which has 10 charter schools. He also is president of the Wisconsin Charter Schools Association.):

Charter schools are playing an increasingly important role in that success story.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster, at a recent state charter school conference, said charter schools “are critical in making schools learning environments for all children.” She added, “Charter schools encourage community and parental involvement and innovative teaching practices within the system of accountability for results in public education.”




Brant on the May School Referendums



Quicktime Video 25MB
MP3 Audio 4.8MB

 Kirby Brant is President of local PAC Get Real (he’s also a former Watertown School Board member and was a candidate for the Madison School Board in 2002). Brant gives his views on:

  • the Madison School District’s budget process
  • The May Referendums
  • Madison’s per student spending vis a vis other Wisconsin communities and those in Iowa
I’m happy to post views from all players interested in the May 2005 referendums. Email me at zellmer at mailbag dot com if you’d like to post an interview.



Bersin & School Reform in San Diego



Frederick Hess:

Bersin’s departure provides an opportunity to ask what we have learned from his highly visible and often contentious tenure. To explore that question, and with the district’s full cooperation, last year I assembled a team of analysts to examine the San Diego reform push. For me, five key lessons emerged from their appraisal.
First, the centralized, “managed instruction” model of improvement depends critically on the presence of a personnel and managerial infrastructure and on quality curricula. Alvarado gave unstinting attention to his centerpiece “Institute for Learning” training program for principals and faculty, and to building a corps of “peer coaches” to assist teachers. But his single-minded focus on these activities resulted in a lack of attention to infrastructure and curricula. As a result, the coaches, the Institute, and attempts to assign faculty where needed most ran afoul of the collective bargaining agreement’s provisions on professional development, staffing, and teacher transfers. A balky human resources operation reliant on outdated technology inhibited district efforts to speed up hiring or promote more flexible staffing.

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Mad City Grumps: Grandparents for the Referenda



Mad City Grumps. Check out their website. They also discuss taxpayer costs, along with a negative aid discussion. My preference would be to see the entire school tax burden, not just the referenda portion (and the changes over time for the average taxpayer).
It’s great to see this activity. I hope we see more – across all spectrums on these issues. via Katie Arneson




Bar Coding Your Child? – No thanks!



June Kronholz:

Suppose you are a fifth-year mechanical-engineering student at Cleveland State University, paying your tuition by taking off an occasional semester to work.
Is that any business of the federal government?
An idea circulating in the U.S. Department of Education and on Capitol Hill says that maybe it should be, and that maybe the government should follow students’ progress through college by assigning them bar codes.
Not surprisingly, that already is raising alarms. “What right does the government have to know that?” asks Katherine Haley Will, president of Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pa., an outspoken critic of student tracking.

Simply Absurd…




Buchen: Madison Schools; Are We Getting our Money’s Worth?



James Buchen:

It will come as no surprise to weary taxpayers that Wisconsin hosts one of the most expensive public school systems in the country.
We rank 8th in per capita spending for elementary and secondary education. The seven states above us tend to be either high cost states like New York and Connecticut or states with very small populations like Alaska and Wyoming. Taxpayers shoulder this burden by paying high property taxes and high state income taxes. In fact, on average, 44 percent of the property tax bill goes to fund public schools and 40 percent of the state budget is devoted to funding for K-12 public education in Wisconsin.




Proposed Milwaukee Schools Budget: 1% Property Tax Increase



Alan Borsuk:

A year after laying a 13% property tax increase on the city, Milwaukee Public Schools officials are proposing a budget for next year that projects an increase of less than 1% in the amount to be collected in property taxes to pay for schools.
But a budget proposal for 2005-’06 that continues reforms launched by Superintendent William Andrekopoulos and contains no major new steps is based on two big assumptions: That Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s state budget proposal, calling for a shift of more school funding back to state government, will win approval from the Republican-controlled Legislature; and that the School Board and the administration will win an arbitration proceeding with Milwaukee’s teachers union that focuses largely on health insurance costs.
The MPS proposal was presented to board members late Tuesday. They are scheduled to spend the next month working on it.




Madison Schools Boundary Changes – More Discussion



Lee Sensenbrenner:

But several parents in an audience of about 50 said they have little hope that the May 24 referendum to build a new school will pass. Meanwhile, they said, school district officials need to reconsider their plans if the school isn’t built, and also, perhaps, consider alternative building plans.
…..
But she said the main reason she did not support the contract was because the administration provided board members only a few details from it.
“I would have a hard time approving an agreement unless I see it in writing,” said Kobza, who is an attorney. “Maybe it’s just the line of work I’m in.”




California Teacher Incentive Pay Plan



Developing incentive pay plans are a challenge. Gov. Schwarzenegger is pushing this in California. Dan Weintraub writes:

Everyone knows that our poorest kids tend to clump in schools that depend too much on inexperienced teachers, many of whom are still trying to find their way in the profession. We have good, experienced teachers who would teach in these schools if they were rewarded financially for their trouble – just as in every other profession, where the toughest-to-fill jobs normally earn higher pay. So who or what is standing in the way of the students who need better teachers getting those teachers? The teachers unions.

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Westport, CT: A Struggle over Special Education



Alison Leigh Cowan:

Special education is a hot topic here, with school board meetings exploding into shouting matches over what services children are entitled to under federal law and parents spending thousands of dollars on appeals to force the school district to provide those services for their children.

The parents say they have no choice: the district, one of the state’s most affluent, is fighting just as hard to hold the line on skyrocketing special education costs.




NYT: School Reform: How Fast, How Far?



Several interesting letters to the editor in Sunday’s NYT in response to this article: The Schools Under Bloomberg: Much Tumult, Mixed Results, including this comment:

Too many have held low expectations for Harlem’s children. We have a mayor who not only seems to care about reforming the schools, but also is holding himself accountable for raising the expectations of our children. While I do not agree with every single one of his reforms, I believe they should be given more time before they are dismissed.

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There will be more….



Madison Teacher Blog.

“MadTeach is all about….teaching in Madison…..getting mad about teaching….and of course, getting mad about teaching in Madison……….”

Great to see this, though it’s anonymous…. This site does not have an RSS feed (google owned blogger does not yet support it). Our rss feed is here.




LA Times: The Preschool-Tax Folly



The LA Times opposes Rob Reiner’s proposed “Universal Pre-School” scheme:

The last thing California needs right now is to raise another huge sum of money $2.3 billion a year to start that can’t be used to close existing gaps.
Reiner would do that with a higher tax on incomes of more than $400,000 a year. Last November, voters approved a poorly thought-out measure to tax million-dollar earners to fund mental health programs. The line of good causes calling out for a tax on the rich will only get longer.
This editorial page has advocated reinstating higher tax levels on top incomes, but only if the revenue is used to heal the crippled general fund, and only temporarily. With a healthier budget, the Legislature could have a rational discussion about funding more preschool.




Shook on School Funding



Dennis Shook:

Way back in the corners of our collective political consciousness I am beginning to sense that there is an answer beginning to form. It probably involves consolidating many school districts and putting in place some kind of insurance program that keeps employee costs under control on the expenditure side.
On the revenue side, it also seems we are all starting to become more aware that not every sector in our economy is pulling its weight. Most every comparative study of tax burden during the past few decades has seen a dramatic shift of the burden onto the individual property taxpayer and away from the business sector. There are also a lot of taxable entities that are not being taxed at all, like nonprofits and even fraternal and religious organizations.

via wisopinion.com




The Lesson: Minority Achievement in Two Milwaukee Schools



Mary Van de Kamp:A fascinating article in Milwaukee Magazine compares two elementary schools with black principals and low-income black students. At one school, students outperform the district’s white students; at the neighboring school, students do far worse.

Last year, 81 percent of Hawthorne�s black fourth-graders scored proficient or above in math and 79 percent proficient or above in reading, compared to 34 and 63 percent, respectively, at Thurston Woods…..

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EIA: Teachers Comprise 50.8% of All US K-12 Public Education Employees



Education Intelligence Agency posted this data from the US Census Bureau, US Dept of Education and the NEA. Take a look.

Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia employ more non-teachers than teachers. South Carolina ranks highest in the percentage of teacher employees at 65 percent, while Kentucky brings up the rear with classroom teachers making up only 42.6 percent of its public education workforce.

via joanne jacobs




10 Area Teachers Receive Kohl Awards



Samara Kalk Derby:

The award that Tina Murray received Sunday may not go far in helping fund a new environmental project she started last week at Shabazz City High School, but it was gratifying nonetheless.
Murray, who has worked as a technology teacher at Shabazz for seven years, was one of 10 Dane County teachers to receive the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Fellowship award.




Steve Stephenson: Broken school budget led to Kobza win



Dear Editor: As a parent of children at both Madison East High School and Sherman Middle School, I am thankful for the hard work and significant positive contributions that Lawrie Kobza and her husband, Peter, have made to both of these schools.
Perhaps those apprehensive at the election of Lawrie Kobza to the Madison School Board are concerned that it won’t be business as usual. Quite frankly, this is exactly why Lawrie now sits on the board. The easiest thing for a school board to do when facing a budget problem is to float a referendum to ask the voters for more money. This is similar to giving a drug addict a fix. It is only temporary and the real issues will still be waiting for you when the fix wears off.

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GPS Enabled Children’s Uniforms…



Leslie Katz:

But the notion of electronic IDs in schools has proven more than a little controversial, with some calling them a cutting-edge way to monitor attendance and keep kids safe and others assailing them as an assault on the youngsters’ right to privacy.




Middle School Goes out of Fashion?



Anne Marie Chaker:

. . . a growing body of evidence is showing that preteen students do better when they can remain in their familiar elementary schools for longer — with better grades and fewer disciplinary problems than their middle-school peers.
. . . An early study tracked hundreds of middle-school-age students in Milwaukee public schools, comparing those who switched to a new school in grade seven with their counterparts in a K-8 school who didn’t have to make any switch. The research found that those who switched had more negative attitudes toward school and lower grades. Girls in particular didn’t recover in middle adolescence (grades nine and 10) when it came to self-esteem and participation in extracurricular activities.

Via Eduwonk & Joanne Jacobs




Charters Pay Teachers More? – Albuquerque



Susie Gran:

“It’s true. We do pay more,” said Greta Roskom, a charter-school principal and a former Albuquerque Public Schools principal and administrator.
By and large, charter schools are paying their teachers more than APS pays theirs.




QEO: Good or Bad?



Ken Cole:

The perennial argument that the QEO has somehow �capped� teacher salaries just doesn�t square with the numbers because most districts voluntarily settle above the 3.8 percent total package, which includes both salary and benefits. The Wisconsin Association of School Boards database shows that total-package increases averaged about 4.5 percent in 2003-04 and 4.3 percent in 2004-05.

Stan Johnson:

Prior to the law change, arbitrators intervened in stalled negotiations and brought the sides together by analyzing such data as a local school district�s ability to pay, national and regional market forces, and comparable wages and benefits in the geographic area. Arbitration was the single most important factor accounting for the period of labor peace from the late 1970s to early 1990s.

What’s the QEO? via wisopinion




Capital Times Editorial on Kobza’s Win



4.11.2005 Capital Times Editorial:

Newcomer Lawrie Kobza surprised a lot of people with her win in Tuesday’s voting for the Madison School Board, which saw her upset incumbent Bill Clingan by a comfortable 53-47 percent margin.
Her win is being read as something of a municipal Rorschach test.
Some members of the current board majority, who vigorously opposed her candidacy, fear that Kobza will be another Ruth Robarts, the dissident board member who has angered her colleagues by picking fights on budget issues and accusing other board members of being rubber stamps for Superintendent Art Rainwater.

Great to see the Capital Times engaged….
UPDATE: Karyn Saemann on No School District, no sense of place; schools in Fitchurg.




Milwaukee Schools Update



Quite a bit happening in Milwaukee, according to Alan Borsuk.

The revolving door for urban school superintendents has been a major fact of life across the country. The general rule of thumb many use is that if you make it three years in the job, you’re doing better than average.
Andrekopoulos will reach the three-year mark in August. He has said from the start that he was committed to the job for five years, and he recently said he might want to make it six.
It is still going to be heavy going for him and everyone else involved in MPS. The budget decisions are going to be tough and the politics demanding. Change, as Andrekopoulos says, is hard.
Most important, the job of raising the level of educational success of children in the city overall is complicated and slow going, at best.
But the Goldberg election may prove over time to have been an important signal that Andrekopoulos will beat the urban superintendent challenge and get the five years or more that he wants. That is likely to make this the key question for the next several years: Will the policies he stands for work?




The 65% Solution?



George Will, writing from Phoenix:

The idea, which will face its first referendum in Arizona, is to require that 65 percent of every school district’s education operational budget be spent on classroom instruction. On, that is, teachers and pupils, not bureaucracy.
Nationally, 61.5 percent of education operational budgets reach the classrooms. Why make a fuss about 3.5 percent? Because it amounts to $13 billion. Only four states (Utah, Tennessee, New York, Maine) spend at least 65 percent of their budgets in classrooms. Fifteen states spend less than 60 percent. The worst jurisdiction — Washington, D.C., of course — spends less than 50 percent.

Joanne Jacobs has a few comments.




Dave Burkhalter Named WEAC Executive Director



Via Wispolitics:

Daniel Burkhalter, who has been director of government relations for the Illinois Education Association since 1993, is the new executive director of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.
The WEAC Board of Directors approved the appointment of Burkhalter Friday (April 8, 2005). He succeeds Michael A. Butera, who left in November to take a position with the National Education Association. WEAC Legal Counsel Bruce Meredith has been acting executive director.

Wispolitics. Clusty search




Hacker High School



The Hacker Highschool project is the development of license-free, security and privacy awareness teaching materials and back-end support for teachers of elementary, junior high, and high school students.
Today’s kids and teens are in a world with major communication and productivity channels open to them and they don’t have the knowledge to defend themselves against the fraud, identity theft, privacy leaks and other attacks made against them just for using the Internet. This is the reason for Hacker Highschool.




Teacher Union Agreements Around the USA



Madison Teachers, Inc. is currently bargaining with the Madison School District. The current agreement can be found here (167 page PDF). I ran some google searches and found the following teacher contracts online:

I’ll continue to add to this list, along with the new MMSD/Madison Teachers Agreement when it is available. MTI’s weekly Solidarity is well worth checking out, for another view into our schools.




School Administrator Sharing



Amanda Kramer:

Lake Mills Superintendent Dean Sanders will speak to the Johnson Creek School Board at the end of April about the possibility of the districts sharing a superintendent, a business manager and possibly a pupil services director.
The move might not only save money, but it could also avoid cuts to staff and services, he said. Sanders said both districts face financial challenges.
“We all have to look at ways of making our districts run, short of cutting programs and hurting kids,” Sanders said.




Madison C.A.R.E.S Presentation @ Thoreau PTO 4.12.2005



Mary Marcus forwarded this event notification: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 / 6:30 to 7:30p.m. @ Thoreau School PTO Meeting (Map & Driving Directions)

Guest Speakers Bill Keys and Arlene Silveria from Madison C.A.R.E.S. (Citizens Acting Responsibly for Every Student).

Madison CARES (Citizens Acting Responsibly for Every Student) is an organization of citizens who are concerned about the future of the public schools and have come together in support on the 3 referenda that will be on the ballot in the Madison Metropolitan School District on 5/24. At the meeting, we will provide you with information on the 3 referenda questions and how they may affect your school. We will also introduce you to our organization. There will be time for questions and answers.

Madison C.A.R.E.S. background information




The Real Education Revolution?



Greg Beato:

In doing so, they overlook people like Joyce and Eric Burges, who are at the Valley Home Educators convention promoting their organization, the National Black Home Educators Resource Association. The Burgeses produce an annual symposium for African-American families in their home state of Louisiana, and Joyce Burges dreams of opening up a series of private learning centers where homeschooling parents can combine resources and offer instruction in a central location. In pursuit of this goal, Burges has reached out to local businesses and foundations, but few have responded so far. �We�re an upstart, grassroots organization,� she says, �so I�m asking businesses for anything that can help us get the word out that parental involvement in education is a viable way of ensuring that children do exceptionally well.�A lot of them say, �Yes, we sense your passion, but we can�t really do anything.��




“Fixing” No Child Left Behind



New York Times Editorial:

The United States has historically viewed public education as a local issue, so the federal government has looked the other way when the states have damaged the national interest by failing to educate large swaths of the population. That approach has left us with one of the weakest educational systems in the developed worl




April 5, 2005 Madison School Board Election Campaign Finance Disclosures



Pre-election School Board Candidates Campaign Finance Disclosures (City Clerk Reports):

  • Seat 7: Carol Carstensen: $ Raised: 9,906 (PAC = 100.00); Spent $4,697.94; On Hand 8,541.95
  • Seat 7: Larry Winkler: $ Raised: 3,788.25 (PAC = 0); Spent $1,788.25; On Hand 2,100.00
  • Seat 6: Bill Clingan: $ Raised: 11,305 (PAC = 2440); Spent $5183.8; On Hand 7,219.01
  • Seat 6: Lawrie Kobza: $ Raised: 11,474.01 (PAC = 575); Spent $3432.47; On Hand 6,706.94

Special Interest Spending:

  • MTI Voters (Madison Teachers PAC): $ Raised: $12,000 $ Spent 5,490.6 Cash on Hand: $28,211.23
  • Madison Teachers, Inc: Radio Ad Expenditures for Bill Clingan and Carol Carstensen: $5,514.00 (heard this ad today on 105.5
  • Progressive Dane: $ Raised: 2,205.81 $ Spent $2,114.69 Cash on Hand: 676.61 ($255 went to Bill Clingan)

The most interesting bit of data: Larry Winkler’s source of funds is…. Larry Winkler. His recent speech to the Madison Rotary is well worth reading.

Additional details and links are available here.




DPI News



Wisconsin DPI announced the formation of an advisory council on Charter Schools (PDF) and High Schools – via wispolitics Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, WEAC plans to spend $358K to support incumbent Libby Burmaster, more than the $313K (Burmaster = 250K, Underheim = 64K) both candidates have raised to date – via Alan Borsuk!
Mary Battaglia’s recent post asks what this government body does (Johnny Winston adds a comment).




Free Speech & Blogs Cause Flap in Tennessee



The fast growing internet writer (and free speech) world is making some waves. Bill Hobbs relates the story of the Tennessee House Speaker killing a representative’s bill because he “had the nerve” to start writing about the “goings-on” in the legislature. More here and here. Civil, respectful discourse can only benefit our society. Internet writers are simply stepping into the void created by a changing media landscape. I think Therese Berceau would be an excellent legislative blogger… “Fly in the ointment” – as a good friend mentioned 🙂




Madison Cares



Madison CARES:

is mobilizing neighbor-to-neighbor education, grassroots visibility, and volunteer energy. We’re working from community to community, and neighborhood to neighborhood. We also will communicate through Madison-area media, the World Wide Web, and printed literature.

The link above includes an introduction along with several documents. I’ll post additional links as they become available.




Referendum Coverage



Angela Bettis:

It�s official, Madison homeowners will be asked to vote on three school referenda in late May.
School Board President Bill Keys said, �This community is at a crossroads. This will determine what type of schools we want.�
But one man opposed to the referenda thinks Madison residents can keep good schools if the district is more creative.

Karyn Saemann also covers Monday Night’s Board Decisions. Sandy Cullen has more.

Extensive Madison Schools budget coverage is available here.




Sensenbrenner on the April 5, 2005 School Board Elections



Lee Sensenbrenner has been busy, posting several articles today on the April 5, 2005 Madison School Board Elections (Vote! – find your polling place here: Madison | Fitchburg | Maple Bluff | Shorewood | Town of Madison)

Learn more about the candidates here. This site includes interviews, links and campaign finance information. The best place to compare the candidates and their views is probably the recent Cherokee Candidate Forum. This was an excellent evening and well worth checking out.




Chandler on Business/Residential Property Taxes



Madison Resident Richard Chandler:

There seems to be an orchestrated effort under way to blame high residential property taxes on businesses. This assertion has been made recently by some legislators, a school administrator and local officials who are opposed to a property tax freeze, spending limits, and other efforts to reduce Wisconsin’s tax burden by restraining spending.
The argument goes something like this: Over the past 30 years, the share of total property taxes paid by homeowners has risen while the share paid by businesses has dropped. The claim is that this shift is the result of tax exemptions for businesses. While it may serve some political purpose to make this claim, it’s not true.
Simply put, the changes in the percentages of property taxes paid by different categories of property over the past three decades are primarily the result of changes in the economy, not tax breaks. During this period, residential property values have increased rapidly in Wisconsin — and with it the amount of property taxes they pay. What’s usually not mentioned is that the share of property taxes paid by commercial property has climbed along with the residential share as we’ve moved to a more service-oriented economy.

Chandler is the former Wisconsin secretary of revenue and state budget director.




School Board Candidates Battle over Budget



Sandy Cullen:

Madison School Board members Carol Carstensen and Bill Clingan say they have worked hard to keep years of budget cuts away from the classroom.
But Lawrence Winkler and Lawrie Kobza, who are challenging them in the April 5 election, say the incumbents and other School Board members haven’t done enough to deal with the long-term financial challenges plaguing the district.
After more than a decade of state revenue caps that limit how much money school districts can raise in taxes without going to referendum — and with three referendums slated for a special election May 24 — this year’s board race could serve as a vote of confidence for board members or a mandate for change.
Both Kobza and Winkler have made change a rallying cry. And while Clingan and Carstensen admit that there are always ways in which the board can do better, they maintain that many of their challengers’ claims are unfounded.




Does Pre-Kindergarden Improve School Preparation & Performance?



David R. Francis:

Using a new rich source of data, researchers Katherine Magnuson, Christopher Ruhm, and Jane Waldfogel conclude in Does Prekindergarten Improve School Preparation and Performance? (NBER Working Paper No. 10452) that early education does increase reading and mathematics skills at school entry, but it also boosts children’s classroom behavioral problems and reduces their self-control. Further, for most children the positive effects of pre-kindergarten on skills largely dissipate by the spring of first grade, although the negative behavioral effects continue. In the study, the authors take account of many factors affecting a child, including family background and neighborhood characteristics. These factors include race/ethnicity, age, health status at birth, height, weight, and gender, family income related to need, language spoken in the home, and so on.




In Pursuit of Excellence: Jerry Brown on Arts Schools



Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown (who is wisely blogging):

From today’s Oakland Tribune: The arts high school opened by Mayor Jerry Brown in downtown Oakland 2.5 years ago is now officially one of the best schools in California, at least according to the latest rankings assigned to all public schools by the state.

Read the comments as well (bottom of blog entry)




119M in Referendums – Lee Sensenbrenner



Lee Sensenbrenner on the 119M in planned May 24 referendums:

If the voters approve a referendum May 24 to prevent classroom and extracurricular cuts for three years, along with two other referendums to ensure adequate maintenance for five years and to expand Leopold Elementary School on the south side, the five-year property tax impact of the three referendums could amount to more than $119 million.
An alternate plan the board is considering, which would keep the maintenance and school construction but guarantee against educational cuts for just two years, would collect about $66 million in additional property taxes over the next five years.
All of this is done in the context of a school budget that totals $317 million for this year.

Board member & candidates comments.




It’s not the Schools, It’s the Computers!



John Clare:

The less pupils use computers at school and at home, the better they do in international tests of literacy and maths, the largest study of its kind says today.
The findings raise questions over the Government’s decision, announced by Gordon Brown in the Budget last week, to spend another �1.5 billion on school computers, in addition to the �2.5 billion it has already spent.




Dave Bing Wants a Charter School in Detroit



Former Detroit Piston Star Dave Bing is trying to get a charter school off the ground in Detroit. Rochelle Riley has more:

The group is mad because Bing decided to partner with white philanthropist Bob Thompson, whose offer to build $200 million worth of charter high schools was rejected two years ago for fear it might hurt the city schools. The pair isn’t recycling Thompson’s old offer. Bing wants one school, near his company, one whose graduates could see their future down the street.
. . . Sambo? Sellout? Not black enough? Dave Bing is the definition of black for this century, always achieving and always looking for ways to help those coming up behind him.
So for those who think being black means letting the public schools die while throwing darts at those who would help, who think being black means letting the city perish before accepting help from someone white, for those who want to take Dave Bing’s membership card in the black race, then take mine, too.
Those who would rather call names than welcome solutions don’t represent my history, my present or my future. They’re segregationists who can single-handedly kill Detroit, if allowed.

Via Joanne Jacobs




Recent High School Grad Runs for School Board – Portland, OR



Nick Budnick:

Although there are certain things that you get with age, there are also certain things you don’t have with age. I can walk into a high-school classroom and sit down any day and act like a high-school student. I can sit down in a meeting with the teachers union and tell them what didn’t work in our class. I can also call up some friends who go to Franklin, and Grant, and say, “What’s happening?” I can do that; these folks can’t. When they hear information, they hear it through administrators and teachers.

via joanne jacobs




Cherokee School Board Candidate Forum Video/Audio



Several westside PTO’s hosted a candidate forum Wednesday evening. The candidates discussed a wide variety of questions, including referendums, the budget process, strings, local education media coverage and differences with their opponents. Listen to the entire event (34.6MB mp3 audio file), or click on the links below to review specific questions & answers.

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Madison Teachers Present Contract Proposal



Lee Sensenbrenner:

In a departure from their usual procedure, the two sides are first considering all the changes in contract language put forward by Madison Teachers Inc.
This proposal, covering such changes as whether teachers would gain free access to after-school events and intellectual property rights to the curriculums they design for the classroom, was presented Wednesday afternoon to Superintendent Art Rainwater and his staff.




Wiki’s in Schools



Chris Jablonski:

Wikis have made their way into the classroom at Lewis Elementary School in Portland, Oregon. Students working on writing projects are accessing their teacher’s wiki from their Safari bookmark toolbar on their Macs via Apple’s Rendezvous. The wiki is installed on the teacher’s iBooks and is an adaptation of Instiki, which in combination with SchoolTool, an open souce management information system, streamlines the entire process. Apart from a couple of problems,–when the laptop is asleep or is outside the school the system breaks down–it gets the thumbs up from the students who use it. It takes away the burden of navigating file servers and word processor interfaces and lets the students focus on their writing.

I like wiki’s – they seem quite useful for the classroom.




Parents Question Math Strategies in Boston



Surely, the quote of the day:

”What’s going to happen when they go into a store? Are they going to say, ‘Do you happen to have 25 Cheerios so I can break it down?’ ” said Jacqueline Azulay of Roslindale, who sees her two daughters going to great lengths to break large numbers into manageable pieces. ”I think they need to teach basic math.”

Vanessa Parks dives into the math wars with many interesting quotes.




Leopold Expansion: Ridgewood Gets New Management



Alliance Residential Management is reportedly now in charge of managing Fitchburg’s Ridgewood Apartments. Visit Alliance’s searchable apartment database here to check out the type of properties and prices they offer.
Mary Battaglia recently mentioned Fitchburg’s possible condemnation of the Ridgewood Apartments.
It seems change is in the wind at Ridgewood, with implications for the planned Leopold expansion (Learn more about the Leopold Referendum) Leopold is 0.20 miles from the Ridgewood Apartments (map).




Carstensen Responds to Robarts 3/15/2005 WSJ



In response to Ruth Robarts’ recent letter, stripped of its satire, she is suggesting that paying Madison’s school staff less would eliminate the budget gap. Her proposal is that school staff should receive a package of 2.35 percent for salary and benefits combined. There are three major problems with her proposal:

  • This would impose a pay cut on almost all employees, with the deepest cuts affecting the lowest paid staff (educational assistants and food service workers)
  • A 2.35 percent package would save the district about $4.6 millionthere would still be a budget gap of at least $4 million.
  • State law makes such an approach impossible. The qualified economic offer law essentially requires that districts offer at least a 3.8 percent annual increase for salary and benefits combined.

Be wary of last minute proposals that sound good and promise to solve the problem without painful cuts. As a community we need to face the fact that the budget gap we face is real; it is a direct consequence of the state laws and funding decisions that affect all Wisconsin school districts.

/Carol Carstensen, Madison School Board /




Failing the Wrong Grades



Diane Ravitch:

While the problems of low achievement and poor high-school graduation rates are clear, however, their solutions are not. The reformist governors, for example, want to require all students to take a college-preparatory curriculum and to meet more rigorous standards for graduation. These steps will very likely increase the dropout rate, not reduce it.
To understand why, you have to consider what the high schools are dealing with. When American students arrive as freshmen, nearly 70 percent are reading below grade level. Equally large numbers are ill prepared in mathematics, science and history.
It is hardly fair to blame high schools for the poor skills of their entering students. If students start high school without the basic skills needed to read, write and solve mathematics problems, then the governors should focus on strengthening the standards of their states’ junior high schools.
And that first year of high school is often the most important one – many students who eventually drop out do so after becoming discouraged when they can’t earn the credits to advance beyond ninth grade. Ninth grade is often referred to by educators as a “parking lot.” This is because social promotion – the endemic practice of moving students up to the next grade whether they have earned it or not – comes to a crashing halt in high school.




Biotech: Teachers Key in Setting Student on Biotech Path



“I don’t think you’re smart enough to be a doctor.”
Bernadette Tansey:

People sometimes look at Teresa Ramirez with wide eyes when they find out she comes from Compton.
The city south of Los Angeles is not the hometown that many expect to turn out a biotechnology fellowship winner who’s doing research at the National Cancer Institute before applying to medical school.
In Compton, Ramirez was grazed with a bullet when a junior high school classmate dropped a gun he had brought on campus. Some of her classmates joined gangs, and some have already died. She faced skepticism when she said she wanted to be a doctor.
“I came across people, even the priest at my church, who said, ‘I don’t think you’re smart enough to be a doctor.’ ”

Many are counting on biotech to drive Wisconsin’s economy (and provide the tax base for growing education demands…).




FOIA, Blogshine Sunday & Madison School Board Election



Freeculture.org sponsored blogshine Sunday, a day when news organizations run stories and editorials in support of public access to government information.
The internet has substantially improved citizen’s ability to see who is funding elected officials directly and indirectly.
The Madison City Clerk conveniently posts campaign finance information on their website. I took a quick look at PAC (political action committee) spending on school board races and found this:
Madison School Related PAC’s:

  • Citizens for investing in Madison Schools: apparently setup to support the June, 2003 referendum. Current Board Members Bill Keys and Bill Clingan’s campaigns contributed to this PAC (1000 and 800 respectively), as did Madison Teachers, Inc. (MTI) ($1500). This PAC raised and spent more than $30K in 2002/2003.
  • Get Real, a PAC that supported candidates who were not endorsed by Madison Teachers. Get Real raised and spent less than $1,000. Get Real made small donations to unsuccessful candidates Sam Johnson & Melania Alvarez. This organization’s campaign finance disclosure documents are signed by former Madison School Board member Nancy Harper.
  • Madison Teachers’s Madison Voters raised more than $40K in 2004 and spent about $34K on direct and indirect support of endorsed candidates (Johnny Winston, Jr., Shwaw Vang and Alix Olson – who lost to incumbent Ruth Robarts). MTI Voters July 20, 2004 report [pdf] showed cash on hand of $52K
  • Progressive Dane raised and spent less than $2,000 last year, including small contributions to Johnny Winston, Jr. and Shwaw Vang.

Every active member of the Madison School Board was endorsed by and received direct and indirect support from Madison Teachers, Inc. The only current exception is Ruth Robarts, who, while supported in the past by MTI, was opposed by MTI in her 2004 successful re-election campaign.

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Axing the Arts: District (again) proposes cutting popular strings program



Jason Shephard, writing in the 3.11.2005 Isthmus:
Music teachers, parents and community activists are already agitating against Madison schools Superintendent Art Rainwater�s call to eliminate the elementary strings program, as part of a proposed slate of budget cuts.
�This creates a very disturbing environment in the community,� says Marie Breed, executive director of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra. �It�s particularly shocking for a strong arts community like Madison to dismiss elementary string education so easily, saying essentially, �We�re not going to support these children.��
By eliminating the fourth- and fifth-grade strings program, Rainwater says the district can cut nearly ten full-time equivalent positions, saving about $500,000 in salaries and another $100,000 in equipment, repairs and books. In all, the district needs to trim $8.6 million to comply with state-imposed revenue caps — or else secure referendum approval to exceed them.

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Zaleski: Schools Could use a Makeover



Rob Zaleski:

Among its many features:
Twelve students per class, each equipped with their own laptop computer.
Classes meet not in huge buildings but in small rented sites scattered throughout the area. “The idea of sending 400 – or 1,400 – kids to a central site, as we have now, is madness,” Parish told me back in ’92. “Especially in today’s society, where there are social behaviors that nobody really wants.” …..
You don’t improve schools by chopping their funding, he says. But he does think the money that schools receive could be better spent.
There’s no denying, for instance, that the Madison School District is top-heavy with administrators, he says, or that the schools themselves are run in an extremely inefficient manner.

I find this thinking interesting. We do need to take a look at the process, costs & benefits. Zaleski is incorrect about an “assault on their budgets”. Madison school spending has grown over the past 10 years from roughly 194M to 317M in annual spending (and will, according to Roger Price’s recent budget presentation, increase 10M in 2005/2006). One can argue about where the money goes, or that more should be spent, but we do indeed spend a great deal on public education (Madison spends 12.9K per student while the national average is 7,734).




3/7/2005 Madison School Board Meeting Budget Comments



Board Members and citizens discussed the Madison School District Administration’s proposed budget changes (reductions in the increase, cuts and program eliminations – see this post for details. The overall budget will go up, from 317M to 327.7M as it does annually.) this past Monday evening:




Gladwell on Education



New Yorker writer and author (Blink & Tipping Point) Malcolm Gladwell spoke recently at the UW. He had two comments on education:

  • Students should wear uniforms
  • Math should be taught to each gender separately.

Video/audio clip and links here The clip is great as he provides a very useful example of inadvertent (or maybe not) gender bias.