Maybe, in 2001, it seemed like 2014 was too far away to be worth much worry. In 2011, it’s not so far away. Not that it’s clear what is going to be done now about what was one of the more idealistic, well-intended, but ridiculous, notions ever put into federal law.
In 2001, and with strong bipartisan support, Congress approved the No Child Left Behind education reform law. Amid its complex notions, there were some clear intentions: Congress and the president (George W. Bush at that point, but Bill Clinton and Barack Obama would say much the same) were tired of putting a lot of money into schools across the country and not seeing much to show for it. They wanted to see the American education world buckle down to work especially on improving the achievement of low income and minority students. And they wanted every child to be reading and doing math on grade level by – oh, pick a date far away – 2014.
So they called the law No Child Left Behind. A wonderful idea – are you in favor of leaving some children behind? I’m not.
Wisconsin Senate Democrat Members’ Proposed Budget Amendment: Save Talented & Gifted Funding
The second Dem amendment includes a whole host of provisions on education.
See it here.
Here are some details, according to a summary from Minority Leader Mark Miller’s office:
-increase funding to K-12 by $356 million.
-repeal expansion of the choice program.
-repeal elimination of funding for gifted and talented programs, AODA grants, and science, technology, engineering and match grants.
-Fund the Wisconsin GI Bill and tie financial aid to increases in tuition.
-Boost funding to tech colleges by $17 million annually.
-repeal a provision JFC put into the budget that would create an individual income tax credit derived from property assessed as manufacturing or agricultural property. The tax credit would kick in Jan. 1, 2013, and when fully phased in for tax year 2016 would be worth $128.7 million annually.
— By JR Ross
Fascinating. I wonder what’s behind this?
Wisconsin Voucher debate reveals deep divisions about public schools
As of early afternoon Wednesday the fate of voucher schools in Green Bay is uncertain. Rumors are flying that the proposal to use tax dollars to pay families to send their children to private and religious schools in that city will be pulled from the state budget.
It’s been a hot topic.
The voucher story I posted on Chalkboard last week detailed Green Bay Supt. Greg Maass’ unhappy reaction to both the proposal and the abrupt legislative process that put it in the budget. It definitely struck a nerve, and drew many comments.
Some of the most interesting reactions went well beyond the issue of vouchers and whether public money should be used to fund private schools. They expressed the heart of the debate surrounding public schools, or “government” schools as some folks call them.
Are public schools failing? Who’s to blame? What responsibilities does a civil society owe to children who are not our own? What kind of reforms do parents, and taxpayers, want to see?
Here are some excerpts that are revealing of the divide in the debate:VHOU812 wrote: …As a consumer of the public (or private) educational institutions, I am demanding more value. If it is not provided, I will push to refuse to purchase and home school. This is not what I want. I want security knowing that I am satisfied with the investment in my children’s education. I don’t get that feeling right now from publc schools, and that is the core of the problem that public schools need to fix. I also see that private institutions, by their nature, can make changes to respond to consumer demands very quickly, and it is clear public schools either can’t, or won’t.
I’m glad Susan posted these comments. Looking at the significant growth in Wisconsin K-12 spending over the past few decades along with declining performance, particularly in reading compels us all: parents, taxpayers, students, teachers, administrators and the ed school community, to think different.
Wolfram’s words are well worth considering: “You have to ask, what’s the point of universities today?” he wonders. “Technology has usurped many of their previous roles, such as access to knowledge, and the social aspects.”
Seattle Schools’ Strategic Plan Update
Here is the presentation from today’s Work Session on the Strategic Plan with survey results.
Highlights:
- 5905 responses – 64% family member, 26% teacher or school staff, 1% principals, 5% community, 4% Central Office
- By zip code – looks like a somewhat even distribution with NE – 98115 with 528 responses, SE – 98118 with 221 responses, SW – 98136 with 118 responses, West Seattle – 98116 with 182 responses and NW – 98117 with 433 responses. (There were more zip codes than those.)
- page 8 has a breakdown of coaches and costs – overall it costs $6.4M for 65.6 coaches (the salary swings are interesting)
- Professional development in math, science and reading helping teachers and students – the big answer was …. no opinion. And, out of the nearly 6,000 responses, only 3443 people answered this question. Effective/somewhat effective (families-27%/teachers-51%). Ineffective/somewhat ineffective (families-22%/teachers-28%)
- MAP test results effectiveness. Effective/Somewhat Effective (families-41%/teachers-33%). Somewhat effective/ineffective (families-45%/teachers50%). Out of 6k responses, only 3682 respondents answered.
- MAP- how many times a year should it be used? 3x- families-30%, teachers-23%, principals-40%. Hmm, looks like principals like it more than teachers. 2x -families-29%,teachers-30%, principals, 40%. That’s a lot closer. And hey, they ARE reducing MAP to two times a year for 2011-2013 (winter and spring)
- NSAP. More efficient/somewhat more – families-42%/teachers 23%/principals 55%. Somewhat less/less efficient – families-27%/teachers-29%/principals-31%.
Download the Seattle Strategic Plan update, here.
OK, So Here’s Who’s Running for Seattle School Board 2011
I have been trying to find the campaign websites for all the candidates running for Seattle School Board this year (candidate filings closed 5 p.m. Friday), and the final list looks something like this. Two things: there’s like a ton of them and only four open seats; not all of them have a website yet.
Most of the new candidates are running because they are tired of the corruption and cronyism in Seattle Public Schools. Some want to focus on closing the achievement gap and raising test scores. Others are just sick of the influence a plethora of foundations have on education these days.
At least one of the candidates is a reluctant one who says he’s running because he is tired of mediocrity in our schools and the “business as usual approach” of our school board. Another lists this thing as his campaign website. This one sued the district against its new high school math textbooks in 2009.
The incumbents say they are fed up of the same things their challengers are (of course, I mean there can only be so many problems in one district, right?).
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: States face long slog after recession
At statehouses around the country, the Great Recession is far from over: It could take years for many states to climb out of the hole and return to pre-downturn spending levels.
An Associated Press examination of 50 balance sheets shows state budgets and bank accounts still ravaged by a drop in tax revenue. Many states are also facing enormous long-term pension and health care obligations. At the same time, the payout of stimulus money from Washington that helped many states in their darkest hours has come to an end.
While some states saw a modest jump in tax collections this spring, the combined revenue projected by the 50 states in the coming fiscal year – $734 billion – is still down by about $34 billion, or 5 percent, from the 2007-08 fiscal year, when the recession began.
Some states are in far worse shape. New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Illinois and Louisiana reported deficits that are more than 20 percent of the state general fund.
Making Sense of the Chicago Public Schools’ Budget Deficit
Rebecca Vevea & Crystal Yednak:
When the Chicago Board of Education meets Wednesday to vote on a scheduled 4 percent raise for teachers, one figure will be crucial to the debate: The $724 million deficit the Emanuel administration says Chicago Public Schools is facing for the upcoming year.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard have repeatedly cited the almost $720 million deficit, and Emanuel mentioned it again Monday when he called on the state to give CPS the roughly $300 million it is owed in back payments. But a Chicago News Cooperative review of the district’s funding sources shows that the calculations are inconsistent and CPS’s actual deficit is still unclear.
There is no question CPS is in a large financial hole. The extent of the deficit, however, depends primarily on how much federal stimulus money the district has available and whether late payments from the state are taken into account.
CPS has come to rely on hundreds of millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds, which are drying up. In the administration’s most recent budget presentation, in March, officials said CPS will have exhausted $260 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and $104 million from the federal Education Jobs Fund.
Poll: education most important issue facing Texas
More than one-fifth of Texans say education is the most important issue facing the state, though it is unclear whether Republicans will pay a political price for cutting education funding, according to poll results released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Texas Lyceum group.
The group released preliminary findings from the telephone survey, conducted at the end of last month, as the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature inches closer to passing a state budget that cuts billions from public schools.
When asked an open-ended question about the most important problem facing Texas, 23 percent of 707 respondents named education, as did 33 percent of 303 likely voters in the group surveyed. Lyceum pollsters define likely voters as Texans who are somewhat interested in politics, are registered to vote and have voted in most or all elections.
Presidential wannabes mum on schools
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney declared his candidacy for president last week. I went to his Web site to read his ideas about education. There weren’t any. The same thing happened when I went to former House speaker Newt Gingrich’s campaign site.
Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty’s Web site had a bit more–a piece beating up on teachers unions, a speech saying the federal government should give states more flexibility in fixing schools and an appreciation of former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. Business executive Herman Cain’s Web site called for less federal and union interference in education reform, and more rewards for the best teachers. Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) wants to end federal education spending, except for tax credits for parents.
That’s about it for the Republican candidates. I couldn’t find official education positions for potential GOP candidates Jon Huntsman, Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin. Even when the presidential campaign gets hot next year, we won’t hear much about schooling from either party. The government activity that most influences American lives has never inspired much talk by national politicians or much coverage by national media.
Rift between Kansas City school board, superintendent appears to be closing
The chasm that had separated Superintendent John Covington and the Kansas City school board over charter and contract schools appears to be closing.
The board is now considering policy changes that would require the superintendent’s recommendation before it could bring independent schools into the district fold.
Until the change is approved, however, the leaders of a pair of civic groups are standing by letters sent to the board last week warning that they believed it had assumed authority that could return it to its micromanaging habits of old.
Board president Airick Leonard West said he wants the conversation to refocus on the district’s vision of a portfolio of schools that are held accountable for their performance.
Arne Duncan’s ‘Plan B’ May Leave ‘No Child’ Behind
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is signaling that he’s prepared to give public schools relief from federal mandates under No Child Left Behind if Congress does not pass the law’s long-awaited overhaul and re-authorization this year.
“This is absolutely plan B,” Duncan told reporters during an embargoed conference call on Friday. “The prospect of doing nothing is what I’m fighting against.”
That relief could take the form of granting waivers on test scoring to flexibility on how schools spend federal dollars. “We can’t afford to do nothing,” he said.
Both Republicans and Democrats agree that the mandate, signed into law in 2002 with bi-partisan support, is dated and flawed. One of the major complaints is that some schools have been labeled failures despite making improvements.
Time for year-round school in Madison
But after learning of the Madison School District’s failure to adequately boost test scores under No Child Left Behind, I had to wonder: Heat or no heat, what cause for picnicking is there in the advent of a nearly three-month long break from formal learning for brains that, in their youth, are veritable sponges for knowledge?
I’m less worried about my children, who have a standard pair of educated, middle-class parents. They probably won’t make major academic strides over the summer, but they won’t lose much ground or — worse — fill their free time picking up bad habits.
But here’s the thing about the Madison district: Increasingly, its students aren’t like my kids.
They are like the kids who live in the traditionally lower-income, higher-crime Worthington Park neighborhood. These and the kids from the tonier Schenk-Atwood neighborhood where we live share a school, but they don’t necessarily share the same social, educational and financial advantages.Much more on the oft-criticized WKCE, here and “Schools should not rely on only WKCE data to gauge progress of individual students or to determine effectiveness of programs or curriculum”. It certainly is long past time for a new academic benchmark… Wisconsin students should participate in global examinations, such as TIMSS, among others.
N.A.A.C.P. on Defensive as Suit on Charter Schools Splits Group’s Supporters
In some ways, it seems like a natural cause for the N.A.A.C.P.: students — many of them poor, most of them black — treated as second-class citizens when the public schools they attended had to share buildings with charter schools. A lawsuit filed last month by the N.A.A.C.P. and the United Federation of Teachers described children having to eat lunch so early it might as well be breakfast, and getting less exercise because gym hours were evenly divided between the schools despite big differences in their enrollment sizes.
But black children have been major constituents of charter schools since their creation two decades ago. So when thousands of charter-school parents, students and advocates staged a rally on May 26 in Harlem, it was not so much to denounce the litigation as it was to criticize the involvement of the N.A.A.C.P.
Since then, a war has broken out within the civil rights community in New York and across the country over the lawsuit against the city and the larger questions of how school choice helps or hurts minority students.
A Year of Drama and Hard Feelings in Education
“Today marks the beginning of a very dark week at The School District of Philadelphia,” began a press release issued last Monday by the District itself. No doubt many Philadelphia school employees would agree. That day, the District issued layoff notices to 3,024 of its workers, including 1,523 of the District’s approximately 11,000 teachers.
Budget problems are nothing new for Philadelphia’s School District, which was taken over by the state of Pennsylvania a decade ago in part because of its chronic funding problems. Through all those difficulties, though, it has no modern history of teacher layoffs on this scale.
The moves were designed to close a $629 million shortfall in the School District’s $2.7 billion budget–a gap caused by the end of federal stimulus funding and the knowledge that cuts in state funding were on the way.
Introduction to Seattle Public Schools
I recently met with one of the several new employees at Seattle Public Schools and gave a rundown on history and culture of the District.
Here’s the short version:
1. There is a complete disconnect between what is said, done, and decided in the JSCEE and what happens in the schools.
The headquarters folks make bad decisions because they have no idea how those decisions will actually play out in the schools – and they don’t want to know. Their decisions don’t matter because they don’t check to confirm they are being followed and they couldn’t enforce them anyway. The schools know all of this – that the District headquarters is clueless about the realities of schools, that their decisions are horrible, that they will never come around and confirm compliance with the decision, and that they are powerless to enforce those decisions – so they simply ignore the decisions. The schools see the gap between them and the district headquarters as insulation and they work to keep it. They don’t want any district interference because it is always bad. The schools work to go unnoticed by the district headquarters. Ideally, they would like the District headquarters to forget they are there. The tall blade of grass gets cut; the high nail gets hammered down. If you have ever been part of an alternative school or an advanced learning program, you’ve heard people say “Don’t make waves, we don’t want to attract the District’s attention.” There are very, very few examples of district intervention in a school that proved beneficial. I think the District’s decision to put elementary APP in Lowell in 1997 was one. The interventions at Hawthorne and West Seattle Elementary are looking like they could buck the trend. STEM might also. If so, they would be the exceptions rather than the rule.
University Administrators Will Outnumber College Faculty by 2014; It’s Already A Reality at UM-Flint
According to Malcom Harris writing in n+1:
“And while the proportion of tenure-track teaching faculty has dwindled, the number of managers has skyrocketed in both relative and absolute terms. If current trends continue, the Department of Education estimates that by 2014 there will be more administrators than instructors at American four-year nonprofit colleges. A bigger administration also consumes a larger portion of available funds, so it’s unsurprising that budget shares for instruction and student services have dipped over the past fifteen years.”
Cuomo Urges Broad Limits to N.Y. Public Pensions
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, joining a parade of officials from across the country who are seeking to rein in spending by limiting public employees’ pensions, proposed Wednesday to broadly limit retirement benefits for new city and state workers in New York.
Mr. Cuomo said New York State and New York City simply could no longer afford to offer new employees the generous benefits their predecessors received.
Among the most significant changes the governor proposes is to raise the minimum retirement age to 65 from 62 for state workers, and to 65 from 57 for teachers.
“The numbers speak for themselves — the pension system as we know it is unsustainable,” the governor said in a statement. “This bill institutes common-sense reforms to bring government benefits more in line with the private sector while still serving our employees and protecting our retirees.”
Mr. Cuomo’s proposal escalates a battle between the first-term Democrat and a major Democratic Party constituency: public-sector labor unions.
Legislative Update: Our Spending Authority Goes Up; Rewritten Charter School Bill Tiptoes Toward Plausibility
Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:
There’s been a considerable legislative activity affecting our schools lately, with the Joint Finance Committee completing its work on the Governor’s proposed budget and other legislative committees active as well.
Here’s an update on two developments of particular interest to those of us in Madison – the retention of school districts’ ability to use property tax carryover authority to increase spending above otherwise applicable revenue limits and the most recent iteration of the Republican charter school expansion legislation working its way through committee.
Other legislative developments will have significant impact elsewhere in the state in the short run and could well affect Madison significantly in the longer run – I’m thinking of the expansion of voucher schools into all of Milwaukee County and Racine and perhaps Green Bay – but the two developments that will likely have a more immediate impact are my focus for today.
Public Employee Unions vs. Democratic Governors – Part 93
d an on-again, off-again relationship with Gov. John Kitzhaber. The Oregon Education Association endorsed his opponent in the Democratic primary, largely because of Kitzhaber’s “performance-based funding” proposal. When Kitzhaber won the nomination, OEA and other public sector unions bet the ranch on him.
Gov. Kitzhaber’s latest proposal is a merger of the state boards dealing with K-12 and higher education, which has caused OEA some heartburn. “I am surprised and disappointed to hear that OEA has changed course and now opposes Senate Bill 909 and a package of modest education reforms that would deliver better results for students, more resources for teachers and more accountability for taxpayer dollars. For them to cling to the status quo is not in the best interest of Oregonians,” said Kitzhaber in a statement.
Meanwhile in California, David Kieffer, the executive director of the state SEIU affiliate announced his opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan for a special election in September to extend and raise taxes. The state’s public sector unions are interested parties because they would be expected to fund the campaign with dues dollars.
Backlash: Are These End Times for Charter Schools?
Is it the best of times or end times for public charter schools? Four thousand charter-school leaders, teachers, advocates and policymakers will gather in Atlanta this month at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ annual conference. The gathering of upstarts is larger than what many long-standing traditional-education groups can muster, but in states and cities across the country, charter schools are facing increased political pressure and scrutiny. In Georgia, the state’s supreme court just ruled that the arrangements for charter schools are unconstitutional. Welcome to town! (See what makes a charter school great.)
Charter schools, the first of which was created in 1992, are public schools that are open to all students but run independently of local school districts. There are now more than 5,000 of them educating more than a million students. Charter schools range in quality from among the best public schools in the country to among the worst. That variance is proving to be a political Achilles’ heel for charter schools, fueling a serious backlash. (See “KIPP Schools: A Reform Triumph, or Disappointment?”)
In New York City, the NAACP joined the teachers’ union in a lawsuit that would have the effect of curbing charter-school growth. That sparked a protest by families in Harlem, and the NAACP was roundly criticized for its stance, which apparently owes more to politics than kids.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: U.S. funding for future promises lags by trillions
The federal government’s financial condition deteriorated rapidly last year, far beyond the $1.5 trillion in new debt taken on to finance the budget deficit, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
The government added $5.3 trillion in new financial obligations in 2010, largely for retirement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. That brings to a record $61.6 trillion the total of financial promises not paid for.
This gap between spending commitments and revenue last year equals more than one-third of the nation’s gross domestic product.
Medicare alone took on $1.8 trillion in new liabilities, more than the record deficit prompting heated debate between Congress and the White House over lifting the debt ceiling.
One vote could change the outcome for Georgia commission charter schools
It’s not too late. The state Supreme Court has one more chance to get it right.
In the legal equivalent to a 70-yard Hail Mary pass into the end zone, the Georgia Charter Schools Commission’s existence is dependent upon one of four judges — in response to a pending motion for reconsideration — reversing his or her position and voting to not strike down a law that catapulted Georgia to win a $400 million federal Race to the Top grant and recognition as a leader in public school choice.
As an attorney, a former Atlanta Public Schools elementary teacher and a once bright-eyed judicial intern in our state’s highest court, I have struggled to understand the court’s unnecessarily harsh decision. Despite their vote, I do not believe that the four judges who decided to dismantle the commission based on historically inaccurate and intellectually dishonest reasoning condone the mediocrity that permeates our public schools.
Nor do I think that any member of the court believes that low-income Georgia families stuck in these mediocre schools have access to political and economic capital of the magnitude expended by local boards of education in their efforts to preserve sole control over charter schools. But I do suspect these judges, on a very basic, instinctual, “gut-feeling” level, under-appreciate the magnificent danger posed to returning to the pre-2008 days of leaving charter school authorization in the exclusive hands of locally elected school boards.
N.J. Nears Deal to Cut Pensions, Benefits
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Senate legislative leaders have reached a deal to cut pensions and benefits for current public employees, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The deal would require workers to pay more of their salaries into the pension system, give up annual cost-of-living increases and pay a percentage of their health care premiums in a tiered system based on their salary, this person said. New employees would have to work longer to get full benefits. Current retirees would not be affected by the deal, nor will people who have at least 25 years in the system.
Top Democratic lawmakers appear to support the proposal. Senate President Stephen Sweeney, who is also a private-sector labor leader, believes he has the votes in his caucus to make it work, according to a person familiar with the matter. It’s unclear whether Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver is on board with the deal — one legislative source said she was — and if she would be able to muster enough votes in the Assembly, which has been more of an obstacle to Christie’s agenda.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: U.S. funding for future promises lags by trillions
The federal government’s financial condition deteriorated rapidly last year, far beyond the $1.5 trillion in new debt taken on to finance the budget deficit, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
The government added $5.3 trillion in new financial obligations in 2010, largely for retirement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. That brings to a record $61.6 trillion the total of financial promises not paid for.
This gap between spending commitments and revenue last year equals more than one-third of the nation’s gross domestic product.
Medicare alone took on $1.8 trillion in new liabilities, more than the record deficit prompting heated debate between Congress and the White House over lifting the debt ceiling.
Social Security added $1.4 trillion in obligations, partly reflecting longer life expectancies. Federal and military retirement programs added more to the financial hole, too.
The Cheap Schools Plan
e are rapidly on course to create a dual-level school system for Wisconsin students. In smaller cities and rural and suburban areas, school systems will continue to spend about $10,000 per pupil. That is a bit less than the national average of $10,499, as a recent Census Bureau report found.
But in big cities such as Milwaukee and Racine, and perhaps in Green Bay and Beloit, more and more students will be educated at choice schools that spend about $6,400 per pupil. These school systems tend to have students who are poorer, more likely to have learning disabilities, and they are typically the most challenging to teach. Yet Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators propose to spend less than two-thirds of the average per-pupil spending in other schools in the state and nation.
This situation, I might add, is not simply the fault of Republicans. Many Democrats, in hopes of killing school choice, have adamantly opposed spending more on vouchers in the past, so the per-pupil rate has always been absurdly low. On the other side are Republicans who can’t lose with school choice: It undercuts public schools and lowers the number of teachers union members in cities such as Milwaukee. And it allows them to portray themselves as reformers trying to do something about failing schools.
Madison Teachers, Inc. head: Time to get ‘down and dirty’
“They’re ready,” Matthews said afterward, “to do whatever it takes.”
After 43 years as executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., Matthews is in the spotlight again after encouraging a four-day sick-out that closed school in February. The action allowed teachers to attend protests at the Capitol over Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to curb collective bargaining by public employees. The matter remains in the courts, but it prompted a hasty contract negotiation between the district and union.
Teachers aren’t happy about some of the changes, and Matthews is preparing for a street fight.
“It’s going to get down and dirty,” Matthews said, alluding to the possibility of more job actions, such as “working the contract” – meaning teachers wouldn’t work outside required hours – if the School Board doesn’t back off changes in the contract. “You can’t continually put people down and do things to control them and hurt them and not have them react.”
Moreover, the latest battle over collective bargaining has taken on more personal significance for Matthews, whose life’s work has been negotiating contracts.Much more on John Matthews, here. Madison Teachers, Inc. website and Twitter feed.
State school official blasts voucher program expansion to Green Bay
State Superintendent Tony Evers on Monday blasted the Legislature’s budget committee for its late-night vote Friday to expand to Green Bay a program that allows students to attend private and religious schools at taxpayer expense.
The voucher expansion should be removed from the state budget and “a true local public debate needs to occur,” Evers said in a statement. He also referred to the budget committee’s vote to include Racine in the voucher program Thursday night.
“Raising taxes on the citizens of Green Bay and Racine in the dead of night, without public hearings or the support of their locally elected school officials echoes the type of non-representative, undemocratic actions taken by the English parliament against the American colonists through their stamp and tea taxes,” Evers said.
He raised several questions about the action Friday night by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to include in the state budget an expansion of the school voucher program for Green Bay.
Green Bay property taxpayers are now on track to pay millions for private and religious schools, Evers said. “At the same time, their public school system is being cut $40 million, which will certainly raise class sizes and reduce educational opportunities for public school students.”
School choice debate vs. reality
In the raging debate over school choice–perhaps the only educational issue that gets heated enough to interest politicians–the combatants, including me, tend to go with our own conclusions rather than the research. Timothy Hacsi in his 2002 book “Children As Pawns” showed this is the way we usually argue about schools in America.
But research is still being done. It is refreshing to find a new book presenting some of the most recent findings, as disturbing as they might be to my favorite biases. “School Choice and School Improvement,” edited by Mark Berends, Marisa Cannata and Ellen B. Goldring, is the latest offering of Vanderbilt University’s National Center on School Choice.
Here are what the data say. Feel free to ignore if it conflicts with your arguments. I certainly will:
Are we creating dual school systems with charters, vouchers?
Recently I participated in a panel discussion following a showing of the film ” Waiting for Superman .” The film is deeply moving. Only a heart of granite would remain unmoved by the plight of the children and caretakers as they learn they would not get into their schools of choice.
In the discussion, Jim Johnson, a UNC-Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School professor and founder of the Union Independent School in Durham, made a crucial observation. He noted that the debate around public charter schools versus traditional public schools, or private versus public schools, deflected us from the underlying issue: the plight of children who have no adult advocates.
As Johnson pointed out, despite failing to win a place in their school of choice, the students featured in the film all had a least one adult in their lives who knowledgeably advocated for them and cared deeply about their learning opportunities.
California school funding analysis finds disparity
Louis Freedberg, Stephen K. Doi:
State lawmakers have struggled for decades to bring equality to how school districts are funded, yet some districts receive thousands more per student than others, a California Watch analysis has found. And the data show spending more provides no assurance of academic success.
Last year, California schools spent an average of $8,452 to educate each student, a figure that includes money from local, state and federal sources, including one-time stimulus funds.
But that average masks enormous differences in spending. The Carmel Unified School District, for example, spent nearly three times as much as the Norris School District in Bakersfield. According to the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, some of the smallest schools in the Sierra foothills, with just a handful of students, received about $200,000 per student.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Why the Democratic Party Has Abandoned the Middle Class in Favor of the Rich
The first is this: Income inequality has grown dramatically since the mid-’70s–far more in the US than in most advanced countries–and the gap is only partly related to college grads outperforming high-school grads. Rather, the bulk of our growing inequality has been a product of skyrocketing incomes among the richest 1 percent and–even more dramatically–among the top 0.1 percent. It has, in other words, been CEOs and Wall Street traders at the very tippy-top who are hoovering up vast sums of money from everyone, even those who by ordinary standards are pretty well off.
Second, American politicians don’t care much about voters with moderate incomes. Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels studied the voting behavior of US senators in the early ’90s and discovered that they respond far more to the desires of high-income groups than to anyone else. By itself, that’s not a surprise. He also found that Republicans don’t respond at all to the desires of voters with modest incomes. Maybe that’s not a surprise, either. But this should be: Bartels found that Democratic senators don’t respond to the desires of these voters, either. At all.
It doesn’t take a multivariate correlation to conclude that these two things are tightly related: If politicians care almost exclusively about the concerns of the rich, it makes sense that over the past decades they’ve enacted policies that have ended up benefiting the rich. And if you’re not rich yourself, this is a problem. First and foremost, it’s an economic problem because it’s siphoned vast sums of money from the pockets of most Americans into those of the ultrawealthy. At the same time, relentless concentration of wealth and power among the rich is deeply corrosive in a democracy, and this makes it a profoundly political problem as well.
Voucher schools to expand amid questions about their performance
If Gov. Scott Walker’s budget is passed with recommendations approved Thursday by the Joint Committee on Finance, there will be more students in more voucher schools in more Wisconsin communities.
But critics of school voucher programs are hoping legislators will look long and hard at actual student achievement benefits before they vote to use tax dollars to send students to private schools. They also suggest that studies that have touted benefits of voucher programs should be viewed with a careful eye, and that claims that graduation rates for voucher schools exceed 90 percent are not just overly optimistic, but misleading.
“The policy decisions we are making today should not be guided by false statistics being propagated by people with a financial interest in the continuation and expansion of vouchers nationwide,” wrote state Rep. Sondy Pope-Roberts, D-Middleton, in a news release Friday.
Pope-Roberts is particularly critical of statistics that school choice lobbyists and pro-voucher legislators are using that claim that 94 percent of school voucher students graduated from high school in four years.
It’s good news, she says, but it tells a very selective story about a relatively small subset of students who were studied. That graduation rate reflects only the graduation rate for students who actually remained in the voucher program for all four years: Just 318 of the 801 students who began the program stayed with it.Related:
- The story behind the Milwaukee school choice study: The results are more complicated than they are sometimes portrayed.
- Many notes and links.
- Milwaukee Voucher School WKCE Headlines: “Students in Milwaukee voucher program didn’t perform better in state tests”, “Test results show choice schools perform worse than public schools”, “Choice schools not outperforming MPS”; Spend 50% Less Per Student
Per student spending differences between voucher and traditional public schools is material, particularly during tight economic times.
What does the future hold for education in Wisconsin?
Mr. Educational Landscape Watcher here, with his jaw hanging open while he thinks about a few questions that boil down to this: What next?
In January, Gov. Scott Walker told a convention of school board members and administrators from around Wisconsin that he was going to give them new tools to deal with their financial issues. Naïve me – I thought he meant bigger hammers and saws.
It turned out Walker was thinking along the lines of those machines that can strip-mine most of China in a week.
Goodness gracious, look at where things stand less than five months later, with more earth moving and drama ahead. Every public school in Wisconsin will be different in important ways because of what has happened in Madison. The private school enrollment in the Milwaukee and Racine areas will get a boost, maybe a large one. The decisions many people make on schooling for their kids are likely to be changed by what has happened in Madison. And then there’s the future of Milwaukee Public Schools (he said with a shudder).
As the Legislature’s budget committee wraps up its work, let’s venture thoughts on a few questions:
Creative Destruction in Education
For the most part, organizations are incapable of innovating. Most organizations are founded with a particular mission and method for pursuing that mission. If circumstances require that the mission or method be changed, organizations generally can’t do it. They’ll just keep doing what they were initially established to do until they can no longer continue operating.
Progress occurs not by turning around failing institutions, but by replacing those organizations with new ones that have a better mission and/or method. Of the original 500 companies included in the S&P 500 in 1957 only 74 (15%) exist today as independent companies. In the private sector, innovation primarily occurs by replacing or fundamentally re-organizing organizations and not by “reforming” them.
And while U.S. real GDP has nearly quintupled since 1970, education achievement of 17 year-olds and high school graduation rates have remained basically unchanged over the same time period. Perhaps the reason for progress in the economy but not in education stems from our willingness to allow new organizations to replace old ones in the private sector, but not in education.
Trading K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Students for Employees: Teacher Count Up, Student Count Down
With politicians and education policy-makers preoccupied by budget cuts and layoffs, it is easy to overlook why we find ourselves in this position. Fortunately, the U.S. Census Bureau rides in to remind us.
Each year the bureau publishes a comprehensive report on public school revenues and expenditures. Coupled with education staffing statistics from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data, it gives us a fundamental picture of the finances and labor costs of the American public school system.
The latest Census Bureau report provides details of the 2008-09 school year, as the nation was in the midst of the recession. That year, 48,238,962 students were enrolled in the U.S. K-12 public education system. That was a decline of 157,114 students from the previous year. They were taught by 3,231,487 teachers (full-time equivalent). That was an increase of 81,426 teachers from the previous year.
This is not new information. We knew last October that the entire public education workforce – teachers, principals, administrators and support workers – grew by more than 137,000 employees during the recession.
Robyn Bagley on Utah Digital Education
Robyn Bagley is the chair for Parents for Choice in Education and recently sat down with the Comcast Newsmakers. She is discussing the Utah Statewide Online Program that was passed in the previous session. Learn more about the digital learning and news that is occurring in Utah now.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: US Federal Budget Infographic
This is a unique moment in American history–a tipping point that will determine whether we pull our nation back from the brink of financial collapse. Spending has risen to unprecedented levels–threatening limited government and economic freedom. The Heritage Foundation’s 2011 Federal Budget in Pictures paints a clear picture of how much the federal government is spending, how deep it is in debt, how massive entitlement programs are, and what we pay in taxes.
Be sure to share our infographic with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, through email, or by posting on your own blog. The embed code below allows you to easily share the infographic with your blog readers.
Common Core Standards The New U.S. Intended Curriculum
Andrew Porter, Jennifer McMaken, Jun Hwang, Rui Yang:
The Common Core standards released in 2010 for English language arts and mathematics have already been adopted by dozens of states. Just how much change do these new standards represent, and what is the nature of that change? In this article, the Common Core standards are compared with current state standards and assessments and with standards in top-performing countries, as well as with reports from a sample of teachers from across the country describing their own practices.
The Common Core standards released in 2010 represent an unprecedented shift away from disparate content guidelines across individual states in the areas of English language arts and mathematics. Led jointly by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the Common Core State Standards Initiative developed these standards as a state-led effort to establish consensus on expectations for student knowledge and skills that should be developed in Grades K-12. By late 2010, 36 states and the District of Columbia had adopted the standards (http://www.corestandards.org/). These standards are therefore poised to be widely adopted and to become entrenched in state education policy.How Big a Change Are the Common Core Standards?
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Cheap houses, poor workers
REAL disposable income for Americans was pretty much flat in the first quarter, according to figures released today. Spending edged up, thanks to a fall in the savings rate. But this is back to the bad old days of consumption financed on the never-never. Indeed, we seem to be attempting to reconstruct the pre-2007 economic model even though that model was shown to be deeply flawed. The recent post on profit margins was evidence of the same effect. And even the rally in the equity markets, propped up by quantitative easing, is merely a subsidy for the better-off and Wall Street traders, whose fortunes are more tied to share prices than those of the average Joe. Surely the point of economic policy is to benefit the average person, not the chosen few.
Illinois Unions will regret not fixing pensions
Illinois’ runaway pension system is placing the state’s fiscal health in jeopardy. State contributions to the pension system have already crowded out payments to social service providers. But less focus has been placed on current state workers and teachers, particularly those with retirements more than a decade away. Their outlook is very much at risk, which is why their unions’ opposition to pension reform is contrary to their interests.
Illinois’ pension system is hopelessly insolvent with about $60 billion of assets and $200 billion in “legacy” liabilities (using an appropriate discount rate). Illinois state workers and teachers currently have roughly 9 percent of each paycheck withheld and sent to the pension black hole. The premise is that the funds will be held by the pension system, invested responsibly, and used to make payments to the workers upon retirement. Unfortunately, pension officials are using those contributions from current workers to pay current retirees.Much more, here.
Controversial DeForest, WI School Administrator Raises
The pressure is off of district administrators and the school board here in Sun Prairie, because of the shocking cajones of the DeForest Board of Education and DeForest Area School District Administrators.
While we’re getting worked up –and justifiably so— about our own district administration on the cusp of getting 1.6% increases in the midst of tight times, the DeForest Administration Team —with the support of the Board of Education– awarded themselves titannic raises under the guise of “Dane County Market Equity” adjustments. The raises are retroactive to January 1, 2011. For appearances sake–you just KNOW they’ll spin this in budget documents— their salaries are being frozen for 2011-12. Geeeee whiz! With those increases, they should be frozen permanently.
US Education Department Rules on For-Profit Schools Created With Investor’s Help
A proposed regulation from the Education Department threatens to devastate for-profit career or trade schools, but one thing is even more controversial than the regulation — how it was crafted.
Education Department officials were encouraged and advised about the content of the regulation by a man who stood to make millions if it were issued.
“Wall Street investors were manipulating the regulatory process and Department of Education officials were letting them,” charged Melanie Sloan of a liberal-leaning ethics watchdog called Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Walker should take bulls-eye off the backs of teachers
Gesturing like a conductor, the Van Hise Elementary teacher exhorted her third-graders for answers while deftly involving a special-needs youngster.
I was in class as part of the Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools’ “principal for a day” program, and I recall thinking: This would be a really tough job to do well day after day.
Teachers have always impressed me, apparently a lot more than they do Scott Walker.
The Republican governor continues to wage his cynical campaign against labor unions representing teachers and other public employees. The conflict rumbles on, with a judge ruling last week that the legislative vote to extinguish collective bargaining rights violated the state’s open meetings law.
The collateral damage to the morale and reputations of Wisconsin’s 60,000 or so classroom teachers seems of no concern to Walker and his allies inside and outside the state.
In fact, based on recent Walker press releases, teachers and teachers unions remain a prime target. In terms of there being a bulls-eye on teachers’ backs, just consider last week.
GOP looks at N.J. school strategy
ew Jersey Senate Republicans have been asked to consider taking a unified position on public education, including removing the state Supreme Court from school-funding decisions and granting the Legislature the power to determine what it means to provide a “thorough and efficient” education in public schools.
A Republican strategy memo laid out Friday in an e-mail from Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. to his caucus asked fellow GOP senators for feedback on a three-pronged education plan after Tuesday’s Supreme Court order requiring the state to invest $500 million more in 31 poor school districts.
The plan includes supporting a constitutional amendment that would end judicial involvement in school-funding decisions and give the state wiggle room to reduce funding in lean budget years. The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Steven Oroho (R., Sussex) and cosponsored by the other 15 members of the GOP caucus, was introduced in January but hasn’t gained traction. It would require voter approval.
A Deal on Texas School Finance, Dewhurst Says
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said leaders in the House and Senate had agreed on a school finance plan as he left a meeting with education and budget chiefs from both chambers.
As expected, it is the “hybrid of a hybrid” Sen. Florence Shapiro described. All districts would take what will likely be a 6 percent across-the-board reduction in the first year, the approach pushed by the House. In the second year, Shapiro’s SB 22 would take effect: 75 percent of the remaining $2 billion reduction in state funding would come from cutting property wealthy, target revenue districts; all districts would bear cuts to make up the that last 25 percent.
During the 2013 session, Shapiro said lawmakers will adjust the school funding formulas once again based on the money available. The current plan contains a 2018 deadline for the phase out of target revenue, but as Shapiro pointed out, there are three legislative sessions between then and now.
Michigan superintendent has plan to save state’s schools from Gov. Snyder’s ax: Make them prisons
Financially pinched states across the nation are making draconian cuts in spending for social services and public education. But there’s one area that gets gentler treatment under Republican governors and legislators: prisons. In fact, while Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and the GOP-controlled legislature were whacking $300 per student from the state’s K-12 school budget, he was simultaneously moving some of the “savings” over to corrections and prisons.
That prompted Nathan Bootz, superintendent of public schools in the small town of Ithaca in central Michigan, to pen a letter to the local Gratiot County Herald suggesting a modest proposal:
Call for revolution in English teaching: Professor says multilingual teachers who grew up speaking Cantonese provide a better model for Hong Kong children than native English speakers
English should be taught in Hong Kong by multilingual teachers, not native English speakers, according to a Hong Kong education professor who is organising an international conference on English as a lingua franca, being held in the city.
“It’s a revolutionary shift that we’re arguing for, and it’s that the multilingual way becomes the linguistic model for teaching kids English here, not that of a native English speaker,” says Andy Kirkpatrick, chair professor of English as a professional language at the Hong Kong Institute of Education.
Beyond the School: Exploring a Systemic Approach to School Turnaround
Joel Knudson, Larisa Shambaugh & Jennifer O’Day
Educators have long grappled with the challenge presented by chronically underperforming schools. Environments that consistently fail to prepare students for higher levels of education threaten opportunities for high school graduation, postsecondary education, and career success. The U.S. Department of Education reinforced the urgency of reversing sustained poor performance in early 2009 when it identified intensive supports and effective interventions in our lowest-achieving schools as one of its four pillars of education reform. However, federal and state policies have often situated the cause–and thus the remedies–for persistent low performance at the school level. This brief uses the experience of eight California school districts–all members of the California Collaborative on District Reform–to suggest a more systemic approach to school turnaround.
We explore the district perspective on school turnaround by describing several broad themes that emerged across the eight districts in the California Collaborative on District Reform. We also profile three of these districts to illustrate specific strategies that can create a coherent district-wide approach to turnaround. Building on these district perspectives, we explore considerations for turnaround efforts in the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
The story behind the Milwaukee school choice study: The results are more complicated than they are sometimes portrayed.
John F. Witte and Patrick J. Wolf:
The past few weeks have seen a lively debate surrounding the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and Gov. Scott Walker’s various proposals to expand it. It is time for researchers to weigh in.
For the past five years, as mandated by state law, we have led a national team in a comprehensive evaluation of the choice program. Our study has applied social science research methods to carefully matched sets of students in the choice program and in Milwaukee Public Schools. Whenever possible, we have used measures that are applied consistently in the public- and private-school sectors, generating true apples-to-apples comparisons.
This is what we have learned:
Competitive pressure from the voucher program has produced modest achievement gains in MPS.
The three-year achievement gains of choice students have been comparable to those of our matched sample of MPS students. The choice students are not showing achievement benefits beyond those of the students left behind in MPS.
High school students in the choice program both graduate and enroll in four-year colleges at a higher rate than do similar students in MPS. Being in the choice program in ninth grade increases by four to seven percentage points a student’s prospects of both graduating from high school and enrolling in college. Students who remain in the choice program for their entire four years of high school graduate at a rate of 94%, compared with 75% for similar MPS students.
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: An American Agenda for Education Reform; Advocating Benchmarking
This paper is the answer to a question: What would the education policies and practices of the United States be if they were based on the policies and practices of the countries that now lead the world in student performance? It is adapted from the last two chapters of a book to be published in September 2011 by Harvard Education Press. Other chapters in that book describe the specific strategies pursued by Canada (focusing on Ontario), China (focusing on Shanghai), Finland, Japan and Singapore, all of which are far ahead of the United States. The research on these countries was performed by a team assembled by the National Center on Education and the Economy, at the request of the OECD.
A century ago, the United States was among the most eager benchmarkers in the world. We took the best ideas in steelmaking, industrial chemicals and many other fields from England and Germany and others and put them to work here on a scale that Europe could not match. At the same time, we were borrowing the best ideas in education, mainly from the Germans and the Scots. It was the period of the most rapid growth our economy had ever seen and it was the time in which we designed the education system that we still have today. It is fair to say that, in many important ways, we owe the current shape of our education system to industrial benchmarking.
But, after World War II, the United States appeared to reign supreme in both the industrial and education arenas and we evidently came to the conclusion that we had little to learn from anyone. As the years went by, one by one, country after country caught up to and then surpassed us in several industries and more or less across the board in precollege education. And still we slept.Well worth reading. I thought about this topic – benchmarking student progress via the oft-criticized WKCE during this past week’s Madison School District Strategic Planning Update. I’ll have more on that next week.
Related: “Schools should not rely on only WKCE data to gauge progress of individual students or to determine effectiveness of programs or curriculum”.
University of Wisconsin Institutions to Receive Talented & Gifted Grants
Modifies the gifted and talented education grant program to allow all UW institutions to receive grants.
Wisconsin Joint Committee On Finance website.
I wonder what this means?
Some states and regions offer extensive higher education opportunities to high school students.
Wealthy don’t need vouchers for private school
Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
Giving children in poverty private-school vouchers to escape failing public schools in Milwaukee is one thing.
But Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to hand vouchers to wealthy families in Milwaukee and other cities isn’t justified or affordable for taxpayers.
This is especially true given the state’s budget problems and cuts in aid to public schools. Walker’s proposal could result in beleaguered taxpayers having to subsidize private school tuition for wealthy families who never intended to send their kids to public schools in the first place.
The Republican-run Legislature should keep Milwaukee’s private school choice program as it is: focused on needy, urban children.
Opposing points of view: For students’ sake, schools should retain best teachers, no matter the years of experience
Michael Lomax & Michelle Rhee:
When times are tough, as they are now, and schools need to reduce their teacher rolls, the importance of teachers in our children’s education demands that we keep the best.
It seems like common sense, Management 101, for any organization, company or agency that wants to do a better job in tough times. Your employees are your most important assets. So if some have to go, which ones do you keep? You save the best.
That commonsense rule of thumb should apply to schools and teachers. Research shows there is not a single school-based factor that has more of an impact on student learning than the quality of a child’s teacher.
School voucher advocates gave $3M to state Republican campaigns
A report from Wisconsin Democracy Campaign shows proponents of the school choice program outspent opponents 3-to-1 during the last election season. Nearly $1 million in outside election spending came from state business lobby Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.
Assembly Republicans approved a bill earlier this month to expand voucher school enrollment in Milwaukee. Democrats call the program a privatization of education.
Opponents of the plan spent about $1 million to help elect mostly Democrats, with $841,000 coming from state teachers union Wisconsin Education Association Council. Sen. Spencer Coggs of Milwaukee received more than $39,000 in direct campaign contributions from opponents, the single largest amount for any Democratic senator.
Obama’s desire for data on your kid
The tea partiers are demanding that Congress not raise the debt ceiling but instead avoid default by cutting spending dramatically. Federal spending on education emerges as the discretionary item in the federal budget most available for the knife, and a House bill is being introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., that lists 43 education programs to be cut.
We’ve spent $2 trillion on education since federal aid began in 1965. The specified goals were to improve student achievement, eliminate or narrow the gap between upper-income and low-income students, and increase graduation rates from high school and college.
We have little or nothing to show for the taxpayers’ generosity. Even Education Secretary Arne Duncan admitted that 82 percent of public schools should be ranked as failing.
So how will the army of educrats, whose jobs depend on billions of dollars of federal handouts, save their jobs? They’ve come up with an audacious plan that pretends to be useful in enabling them to discover what works and what doesn’t, but it is so large and complicated that it would take years and require a huge computer-savvy payroll and billions of taxpayers’ dollars.
And incidentally, it would be illegal because it’s based on using executive branch regulations to override federal statutes.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Nearly Half of Americans Are ‘Financially Fragile’
Nearly half of Americans say that they definitely or probably couldn’t come up with $2,000 in 30 days, according to new research, raising concerns about the financial fragility of many households.
In a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Annamaria Lusardi of the George Washington School of Business, Daniel J. Schneider of Princeton University and Peter Tufano of Harvard Business School used data from the 2009 TNS Global Economic Crisis survey to document widespread financial weakness in the U.S. and other countries.
The survey asked a simple question, “If you were to face a $2,000 unexpected expense in the next month, how would you get the funds you need?” In the U.S., 24.9% of respondents reported being certainly able, 25.1% probably able, 22.2% probably unable and 27.9% certainly unable. The $2,000 figure “reflects the order of magnitude of the cost of an unanticipated major car repair, a large copayment on a medical expense, legal expenses, or a home repair,” the authors write. On a more concrete basis, the authors cite $2,000 as the cost of an auto transmission replacement and research that reported low-income families claim to need about $1500 in savings for emergencies.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Deal Reached in Albany to Cap Property Taxes
Pledging to provide relief to highly taxed suburban homeowners, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislative leaders said Tuesday that they had agreed to place a 2 percent limit on property tax increases in a plan that rivals the toughest such measures in the nation.
The proposed property tax cap, an agreement in principle that must be approved by the Legislature, is aimed at reversing the economic decline in many parts of the state outside of New York City. It also seeks to curb soaring property tax bills in areas like Long Island, Westchester County and pockets of upstate New York, where residents are facing among the highest property taxes in the nation.
Some residents, particularly those who are older and live on fixed incomes, are being forced out of their homes by rising property taxes.
“It is going to be a game changer, and it’s going to change the trajectory of this state,” Mr. Cuomo said.
New York has long had some of the highest property taxes in the nation, and those taxes increased by 5.5 percent, on average, each year from 1999 to 2009, according to statistics provided by the Cuomo administration.
Class Warfare Inside the Fight to Fix America’s Schools
A hard-hitting look inside America’s K-12 showing why children are failing, who is standing in their way, who is helping, and what needs to happen.
Madison Teachers lobby School Board to keep planning time
Hundreds of teachers packed the Madison School Board meeting Monday night to protest changes in their contract next year related to planning time for elementary school teachers.
Some speakers reminded the board that elementary school planning time was a key issue in the 1976 teachers strike that closed school for two weeks. Tension among teachers is already heightened because of state initiatives to curtail collective bargaining and reduce education funding.
“Compensation has been reduced, morale is low, stress is high,” Lowell Elementary teacher Bob Arnold said. “Respect and support us by preserving our already inadequate planning time.”
Districts asked to name teachers who used sick time during protests
School districts across the state are being asked to release the names of teachers who called in sick during protests in February at the Capitol, a move that led to closures for a day or more in many districts.
It’s unclear how many of the state’s 424 districts received requests, but several conservative groups have made public records requests for teacher names. Most districts have released them.
But the Madison School District denied several requests, saying the release could risk the safety of teachers and students, and disrupt morale and the learning environment in schools.
And the s, the state’s largest teachers union, used a similar argument in asking a La Crosse County judge to quash the release of teacher names in the La Crosse and Holmen districts.
The judge recently blocked the release of names in Holmen and may rule soon on the La Crosse case.
Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Evers calls voucher expansion ‘morally wrong’ in memo to legislators; Tony Evers Needs a Reality Check on School Choice
State Superintendent Tony Evers [SIS link] in a memo Monday urged the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to restore funding for public schools and work collaboratively to improve the quality of all Milwaukee schools before considering any voucher expansion.
“To spend hundreds of millions to expand a 20-year-old program that has not improved overall student achievement, while defunding public education, is morally wrong,” Evers said in the memo.
Gov. Scott Walker has proposed eliminating the income limits on participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, eliminating the enrollment cap and has proposed opening up private schools throughout Milwaukee County to accept vouchers from Milwaukee students. Walker has spoken of expanding the voucher program to other urban areas in the state, such as Racine, Green Bay and Beloit.
The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was created to improve academic performance among low-income students who had limited access to high-performing schools. Low-income students use taxpayer money to attend private schools, including religious schools. Each voucher is worth $6,442. The program now is limited to 22,500 students; 20,189 are in the program this year.
However, after 20 years and spending over $1 billion, academic performance data and the enrollment history of the school choice program point to several “concerning trends,” Evers said in his analysis of voucher student enrollment, achievement, and projected cost for long-term expansion.
Low-income students in Milwaukee Public Schools have higher academic achievement, particularly in math, than their counterparts in choice schools. Evers cited this year’s Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts exams and the legislatively mandated University of Arkansas study, which showed significant numbers of choice students performing below average on reading and math.At a press conference in Racine, DPI Superintendent Tony Evers gave his harshest criticism of school vouchers yet. Well beyond the typical quibbles over test scores and graduation rates, Evers claimed that school vouchers were de facto “morally wrong.” It’s not every day that a State Superintendent of education accuses an education-reform program of being immoral. In doing so, Tony Evers may have bitten off more than he could chew.
Calling a school voucher program morally wrong inculpates more than just the program, it inculpates parents, teachers, organizations, lawmakers, and a majority of Americans that endorse it. In fact, one could reasonably argue that Evers’ statement makes himself morally culpable since Milwaukee’s voucher program operates out of the Department of Public Instruction of which he is the head. What does it say about the character of a man that knowingly administers an immoral program out of his own department?
In short, Evers’ argument goes something like this: voucher programs drain public schools of their financial resources; drained resources hurt children academically; hurting children academically is morally wrong; ergo, voucher programs are morally wrong.
The Math of School Heartbreak in Levittown
WHEN he first introduced cuts at a public meeting last month, Samuel Lee, the superintendent of the Bristol Township School District, was plainspoken and direct. He did not say that everyone would pull together and the children would get the same great education, but, rather, that worthy programs would be dismantled and young teachers would lose jobs. “Everything that is going to be presented tonight is not good for our kids,” he said as about 300 teachers, parents and students looked on. “We are heartbroken.”
I grew up in blue-collar Levittown, and have written about it several times for this newspaper as a window into national sentiment. The community was deeply skeptical of Barack Obama early in 2008, then voted for him in huge numbers in the fall. In 2010, the local Democratic congressman was turned out of office amid a wave of national anger over the economy.
Over the past several weeks, I have watched as local officials and community residents confronted a budget shortfall that threatens to reverse hard-won gains in schools that once performed poorly. But I did not hear much of the polarization, argumentation and point-scoring that the cable news universe reflects as the totality of our civic discourse. In Levittown, this time around, the mood is one of sadness, loss and resignation. “We’re all struggling in this community,” W. Earl Bruck, an electrician, and chairman of the board’s budget committee, told those at the meeting. “I can tell you that I’ve been out of work for 56 weeks.”
Stand up for children, education
Gregory Thornton, Milwaukee Schools’ Superintendent:
The Milwaukee School Board and I recently had an unusual conversation. It came at the end of a meeting on our proposed budget. Struck by the sadness of the parents and teachers who had testified on the devastating impacts, and in dismay over the massive cuts to state funding offered by our governor, we came down to a question that summed up the past weeks: What do you do when the facts are not enough?
We have made considerable progress academically and financially. The 2009 McKinsey & Co. report listed potential cost savings for Milwaukee Public Schools in six areas. Efforts to trim costs for textbook purchases, food service, transportation, employee benefits and facilities were already underway when this report was released. Since 2009, the district has addressed each area and, as a result, at least $50 million has been or is scheduled to be saved.
Academic achievement is a priority. Fifty-seven percent of our schools increased their reading scores. Forty-three percent improved in math. Data released by the state Department of Public Instruction this spring shows MPS outperformed Milwaukee voucher schools on the state’s test, even though the district serves a much higher proportion of students with disabilities.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Top Washington, DC Lobbyist Compensation
WHO YOU WANT TO BE TODAY — CEO Update, a D.C.-based trade publication for association executives (a.k.a., “what we read on Blain’s couch while he’s on conference calls”), finds seven lobbyists who made seven figures in 2009, the latest year with data available: 1) Cary Sherman, Recording Industry Association of America, $3,185,026; 2) Bruce Josten, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, $1,340,455; 3) Todd Hauptli, American Association of Airport Executives, $1,312,350; 4) Alan Roth, USTelecom: The Broadband Association, $1,159,138; 5) Cynthia Fornelli, American Institute of CPAs, $1,154,37; 6) Rick Pollack, American Hospital Association, $1,087,024; and 7) Howard Schloss, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), $1,065,628. (Fine print: “highest paid non-CEO staffer who is a federally registered lobbyist in a tax-exempt organization. Compensation figures include base pay, bonuses, deferred salary and nontax income on … tax return from years ending in 2009.”)
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Top World Central Bank Leverage Chart
Source: Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, 5/20/2011 edition. Worth considering for financial & risk planning.
Related: Britannica: Central Banks and currency.
Basell III details: Clusty.com and Blekko.
Will Wisconsin, teachers union have smarts to act in kids’ interest?
Who loves the baby?
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett asked that at a forum of civic leaders last week.
In the biblical story, two women claiming to be the mother of the same baby take their dispute to King Solomon. He calls for a sword so he can split the baby in two and give each woman half. One woman tells him to go ahead. The second tells him to give the baby to the first so the child can live. Solomon, of course, awards the baby immediately to the second. A true mother would sacrifice just about anything, even maternal rights, to let her child live.
What does this have to do with the next couple of years for students in Milwaukee Public Schools?
This: If people act with wisdom, maturity and a willingness to sacrifice for the good of kids, there could be significant relief from cuts that will negatively affect just about all 75,000-plus students. The list could start with easing the looming big jumps in average class size.
The sacrifice part would fall largely on MPS teachers. But it would put them in line with what is almost surely going to happen to the large majority of teachers across the state.
The wisdom part would have to start with Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislative leaders. Willingness to budge on ideological points hasn’t been one of their most visible traits in recent months.
How Do Unions Affect State Budgets?
Many questions have arisen from recent political events about the power of unions. In a new working paper published today, Mercatus scholar Eileen Norcross, compiled research on unions and clears up some misconceptions about the difference between private and public sector unions and how they work.
“The main differences between public and private sector come from economics,” said Norcross. “Private sector unions can raise their wages, but not their employment. By contrast, public sector unions can increase both wage and employment outcomes.”
The result, says Norcross, is that public sector unions can grow the size of budgets, while private sector unions are constrained by the profitability of the firm.
“Unlike private sector unions, public sector unions rely not only on collective bargaining, but also leverage their political influence to achieve these gains,” said Norcross. “In fact, empirical studies indicate the political activity of unions may be more effective than collective bargaining at raising employment.”
New Jersey Governor Christie Alters Schools’ Per Student Spending
The Christie administration has recalculated the amount it says New Jersey public school districts spend per pupil, increasing the state average rate by several thousand dollars to more than $17,800.
The figure, from the 2009-10 school year, has been adjusted to include costs such as transportation, federal funding, debt payments and legal judgments that can vary greatly from district to district. In the 2008-09 school year, using the previous calculation, the state average was $13,200 per student.
The Christie administration says the new figure is more transparent and complete.
Racine School officials: vouchers ‘morally wrong’
Public school officials called vouchers “morally wrong” and potentially “crippling” for Racine at a press conference Thursday.
A school choice voucher program in Racine would cost taxpayers money while hurting the academic chances of public school students, officials said during the afternoon press conference at Walden middle and high school, 1012 Center St. The press conference was held in response to a proposal from Gov. Scott Walker to expand Milwaukee’s school choice voucher program, which allows low-income Milwaukee students to receive state-funded vouchers to attend participating private schools. Walker has proposed removing the low-income requirement while also expanding the program to other cities.
Public school officials who spoke in Racine Thursday think that’s a bad idea.
“School vouchers have been called ‘a dagger in the heart of public education’ and I think there’s some truth to that,” Racine Unified Superintendent Jim Shaw said at the conference. He explained vouchers take needed funds away from public schools — when a child leaves a school with a voucher about $6,000 in per pupil state aid to that school leaves with them to pay for private school tuition.
Summary of Illinois Senate Bill 7
Strike Rights
Fact finding: The creation of a three panel board that will look at the final offers from the Board of Education and CTU, publish those offers and study the validity of the different claims. The fact finding process will take over 75 days to complete.
If fact finding does not produce a resolution, then CTU members can vote to strike. In order to authorize a strike 75% of all our bargaining unit members must vote for it.
Attainment of Tenure
Under last year’s PERA law, 4 ratings were established: excellent, proficient, needs improvement and unsatisfactory in a four-year probationary period. To achieve tenure, a teacher must have:
3 consecutive years of excellent ratings grants immediate tenure within 3 years.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Surplus to deficit: How we got here
George W. Bush X 2 = Barack Obama in both extra spending — and tax cuts.
It’s a crude but fair summary of the two presidents based on new data mapping how the nation moved from surpluses in 2001 to record deficits over the past decade. And it takes on special meaning given the turmoil these days in the Senate, whether in producing a budget, salvaging months of work by the bipartisan Gang of Six or expanding the Treasury’s borrowing authority to avert default.
For Republicans, the new numbers — compiled by the Congressional Budget Office — bolster the GOP’s argument that President Barack Obama has gone well past Bush’s hearty appetite for new spending. But for Democrats, the same equation underscores the fact that the growth in discretionary appropriations since 2001 has been matched almost dollar for dollar by a series of tax cuts that were also expanded under Obama.
“Starve the beast is the worst kind of diet,” an administration official joked when told of the numbers. “It shows the beast eats more.”
Indeed, from 2002 through 2011, CBO estimates that the combined tax cuts enacted by successive Congresses cost $2.8 trillion, even as increased appropriations added $2.95 trillion above projections for discretionary spending.
Gift Card, Anyone? The Anatomy of a Fiasco
Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:
I am in favor of a less adversarial and more collaborative and forward-looking relationship between the school district and MTI. I think it is unfortunate that the union seems to perceive that it is in its best interests to portray the school district administration as hostile to teachers. I would like to see a world where the union views itself less in an adversarial role as a bulwark against the administration’s exploitation of teachers and more collaboratively as partners with the district in figuring out better ways to improve student learning.
From my perspective, my proposal – which, if adopted, would only have amounted to a gesture – wasn’t intended to help persuade teachers to abandon their union. Instead, I’d hope that it may convey the message that, even when the administration and School Board disagree with teachers’ positions and adopt policies that make their jobs harder, we are not the enemy. We want to work together collaboratively in pursuit of better results for our students.
Oregon Board of Education raises reading benchmarks despite concerns about the impact on instruction
The State Board of Education today approved higher reading benchmarks for elementary and middle school students beginning this September.
Four of the board’s seven members spent several minutes voicing concerns about becoming too focused on test scores and the dangers of raising standards without supporting increased classroom time, improved instruction and student engagement.
Yet, the new rates passed 6 to 0 with chairwoman Brenda Frank abstaining.
Board members say despite concerns, it’s critical to raise standards as states move towards a common curriculum and to give students and their parents a more honest assessment of whether the students are on track to graduate on time.
Right now, state leaders say meeting reading benchmarks in third or fourth grade doesn’t mean that a child is likely to be on track in high school as well.Related: Problems in Wisconsin Reading NAEP Scores Task Force.
Howard Dean: The Battle Between Unions and Charter Schools Is Over
We’re not entirely sure what he’s talking about, but former Gov. Howard Dean this morning, speaking on the subject of public charter schools declared “that battle is coming to an end.”
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the one-time presidential hopeful and DNC Chair said “charter schools are the future,” especially in inner cities, and praised the United Federation of Teachers in NYC for starting a charter school of their own.
To be sure, charter schools are an important part of the Democratic Party’s official education platform (see here), but even in NYC, where the union and its charter school are co-located in a traditional public school building, union leaders and activists continue to spend a lot of time and money trying to whack the bejesus out of their vulnerable charter school competitors.
Joel Klein’s Bad Faith Argument: The Misuse Of Al Shanker
(This is the first of two posts on Joel Klein’s essay, The Failure of American Schools, in the June issue of Atlantic Monthly.)
Last September, when Joel Klein was still at the helm of the New York City Department of Education, he delivered a luncheon talk for a business roundtable, the Association for a Better New York (ABNY). I attended on behalf of the UFT. In his spoken presentation, Klein attributed to the late UFT and AFT President Al Shanker the following phrase:When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.
Long before Joel Klein worked this line into his stump speech, I had come across it on the far right precincts of the web, where it is a staple of feverish discussions of the ‘malevolence’ of teacher unions.* Given the lack of source citation and the way in which the words rung so hollow as something Shanker would say, I was more than a tad bit suspicious about its authenticity.† Over the course of time, I asked a number of people — some who had worked with Shanker for many years and others who had studied his life and career as scholars — if they knew of any instance when he had spoken or written these words. Without exception, every person consulted had no knowledge of such a statement.
How to destroy a school system
There is something horribly fascinating about watching Wisconsin Republicans discuss their plans for our state’s school system.
First, they swing the bloody ax:
- The biggest budget cuts to our public schools in state history, nearly $900 million. Kerchunk.
- A bill to create a statewide system of charter schools whose authorizing board is appointed by Scott Walker and the Fitzgeralds, and which will funnel resources out of local schools and into cheapo online academies. Kerchunk.
- Lifting income caps on private-school vouchers so taxpayers foot the bill to send middle- and upper-income families’ kids to private school. Kerchunk.
- Then comes the really sick part. They candy-coat all this with banal statements about “reforms” that will “empower” parents and students and improve education.
Last week, Walker went to Washington, D.C., to give a speech to school-choice advocates at the American Federation for Children. He started off by reading a Dr. Seuss book, and talking about how “every kid deserves to have a great education.”
Related: Problems in Wisconsin Reading NAEP Scores Task Force and Wisconsin needs two big goals.
New York Voters Pass 93% of School Budgets in State
Voters across New York State approved more than 93 percent of school budgets on Tuesday, as administrators facing sharp reductions in state education aid offered plans to cut staff and programs, tap into reserves and keep tax increases relatively low.
Statewide, districts proposed an average budget-to-budget increase of 1.3 percent, the lowest in 15 years. (The five largest school districts — Buffalo, New York, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers — do not hold budget votes.) The average increase in local tax collections was 3.4 percent, up slightly from 3.2 percent last year, though 36 districts proposed no increase at all, and 20 reduced their tax collection.
Over all, 634 budgets passed and 44 were rejected, according to an analysis by the New York State School Boards Association. As of Wednesday evening, only partial results had been released by the State Education Department.
California Governor Puts the Testing Juggernaut On Ice
California Governor Jerry Brown has taken a big step towards reducing the testing mania in the nation’s most populous state. Up until his administration we have been on an accelerated path towards the comprehensive data-driven system that test publishers and corporate reformers have convinced leaders is needed to improve schools. But in the May budget outline from Brown’s office, he makes it clear he is putting on the brakes.
From the Thoughts on Public Education blog comes this:Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing to suspend funding for CALPADS, the state student longitudinal data system, and to stop further planning for CALTIDES, the teacher data base that was to be joined at the hip with CALPADS.
What is even more encouraging is the explanation Brown offers, which shows a great deal of understanding of these issues. The document states:
Minnesota charter schools get 1-year extension on new rules
Charter schools in Minnesota are getting a one-year reprieve from a deadline that threatened to close dozens of schools.
Those schools’ sponsors were facing a summer deadline to continue sponsoring schools under a new system created two years ago. Schools without a sponsor, or authorizer, by this July would have had to close.
Gov. Mark Dayton signed legislation into law Wednesday that extends that deadline until next summer.
Eugene Piccolo with the Minnesota Association of Charter Schools said the deadline worried many schools.
School board member Ed Hughes wants to give some docked pay back to Madison teachers (Proposal Withdrawn Later in the Day)
Hughes is making the proposal [56K PDF Ed Hughes Amendment] as an amendment to the district’s budget.
Funding would come from the $1.3 million windfall the district will get from docking the pay of 1,769 teachers who were absent without an excuse on one or more days between Feb. 16-18 and 21.
The district closed school during those four days because of the high number of staff members who called in sick to attend protests over Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed changes to public sector collective bargaining.
“Under the circumstances it seemed to me the school district shouldn’t necessarily profit from that, because the teachers agreed to make up the time in a way that took away planning time for them,” said Hughes, who is considering a run for school board president when new officers are elected Monday.
Hughes is also proposing increasing the district’s proposed property tax levy for next year by about $2 million to pay for maintenance and technology projects and any costs associated with the district’s implementation of a state-imposed talented-and-gifted education plan.
“It seems goofy that we give away $1 million and then raise property taxes [50K PDF Ed Hughes Amendment],” board member Lucy Mathiak said.If a school board member in Madison gets his way, the district would used money it saved when teachers forced schools to shut down during the budget debate to award end of the year bonuses to teachers.
WTMJ partner station WIBA Radio in Madison says that teachers in Madison would receive $200 gift cards as year-end bonuses.
“Whenever we can, we need to show some kind of tangible appreciation for the extremely hard work our teachers and staff do,” said Ed Hughes, a member of the Madison school board.
“They’ve had a particularly tough year as you know, given that they kind of became political footballs in the legislature. We’re ending up slashing their take home pay by a substantial amount, pretty much because we have to.”Additional links:
- David Blaska adds quotes from Mr. Hughes, here.
- School board member withdraws controversial gift card proposal.
- Don Severson talks with Vicki McKenna on the proposal (35mb .mp3)
- What’s behind the teacher gift card proposal? by Susan Troller
- TJ Mertz summarizes today’s brief Madison School District budget meeting.
Related: 5/26/2005 MTI & The Madison School Board by Ed Hughes.
Steering Capital: Optimizing Financial Support for Innovation in Public Education
Public education has reached a moment of rare consensus: something must be done about the sorry state of our public schools, particularly in urban and low-income areas, and that the solution must deliver better results at scale – and without significant additional resources. Other fields like medicine and communications have embraced innovation – a new approach that achieves a better result – as the best means to this end. But education innovation has not yet lived up to its promise. In this paper, education entrepreneur Kim Smith and innovation writer Julie Petersen chart a path forward for how the public, private and nonprofit sectors can work together to advance education innovation by steering capital toward products, services and approaches that improve educators’ productivity and students’ learning outcomes.
Today, the educational ecosystem is not set up to support meaningful and widespread innovation. The policy and investment context that defines the flow of capital in education can either encourage or inhibit this innovation, and today it does much more of the latter than the former. Public policies and regulations favor compliance over excellence, rarely allow state or district buyers to choose flexibly between a range of high-quality product or service options, inhibit the flow of information that would allow buyers to anticipate or measure performance improvements, and offering few meaningful incentives for these buyers to adopt better products and services. The philanthropic capital market similarly provides few mechanisms for rewarding dramatically improved outcomes (including little funding for the scale-up of successful organizations), instead favoring small doses of funding across many organizations. Private investors shy away from fueling education innovation, intimidated by policies that restrict the work of for-profit providers in education, frequent policy volatility at the local level, market domination by a few large publishers that feel little pressure from competition or from their customers to really innovate, and a slow, relationship-based sales cycle that rarely measures or rewards quality.
An Open Letter to Wisconsin Governor Walker about His School Choice Speech to the American Federation for Children
Dear Governor Walker:
I visited the McIver Institute website to view the speech on your plans to expand school choice in Wisconsin which you gave to the American Federation for Children on May 9th. I have a few questions. If you want to just post your responses below in the comments section of this blog, that would be super! Thanks in advance.
1. Did you use a teleprompter? I don’t think I saw you look at your notes more than once or twice in the thirty-three minute speech. If you gave that speech just winging it, I am very impressed. (When you ate David Gregory’s lunch in his interview of you, I also gave you credit where it was deserved.) My one (very small) constructive criticism of your speaking style is to suggest that you cut back on nodding your head up and down “yes” when applause is washing over the podium. It makes you look a little bit like Dan Aykroyd in the Blues Brothers, and a little too self-congratulatory. On the other hand, if you make it to the presidency some day, and Mr. Aykroyd can lose some weight, he will probably be all set for a return gig on SNL.
Democrats Want to Direct Additional Wisconsin Taxes to K-12 Spending
Assembly Democrats today proposed using more than half of the new money in last week’s bolstered revenue projections to increase K-12 funding in the state budget, charging that Republicans have failed to distinguish between priorities that can wait and those that cannot.
“We are actually fighting for the very future of public education,” Rep. Fred Clark, D-Baraboo, said at a press conference outside the Capitol this morning. Clark is running against GOP Sen. Luther Olsen in a potential recall election.
Dems proposed directing $356 million more toward school aids in the budget after LFB projections added $636 million to state coffers over the next biennium last week. Their proposal would also reserve $200 million of that revenue to repay the Patients Compensation Fund, $100 million to pay down some state debt and $20 million to increase aid to technical colleges.
Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding.
Understanding UW Debate: Relative State Support Down, State Regs Remain.
Thornton: More follow through needed on Milwaukee Public School reforms
Plenty of talk, not enough action.
That was the blunt message Wednesday from Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Gregory Thornton, at a forum on how to fix what ails MPS, local government and the city as a whole in an era of declining public resources.
He said while rhetoric about change has been good, with a series of reforms laid out over the years, the focus and follow through have been lacking.
“We have an ‘execution gap,’ ” Thornton said at the forum on Milwaukee’s future with top city, civic and business leaders at Marquette University. “The problem is, we are not playing very well together.”
He said greater effort at partnerships was needed and that the foundation for some solutions was already in place. MPS has vast libraries that might be put to greater use by the community, for example, he said.
School choice advocates spend freely on politics, WEAC Spending
A rural legislator who received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from out-of-state school choice advocates took flak back home for supporting expansion of a Milwaukee voucher program when his own school district is struggling financially.
According to a story in the Sauk Prairie Eagle last week, an aide to Rep. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, had to use a gavel to bring order back to a budget listening session at Sauk Prairie Memorial Hospital on May 6.
Marklein, a freshman Republican legislator, was asked if campaign contributions were influencing his support for two pieces of recent school choice legislation which provide public tax dollars for families to spend in private schools in Milwaukee. This, at the same time that the River Valley School District, which Marklein represents, has been forced to cut programs and staff and is facing more cuts in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget.Related: WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators by Steven Walters:
How much do election-year firewalls cost to build? For the state’s largest teachers union, $1.57 million.
That’s how much the Wisconsin Education Association Council said last week it will spend trying to make sure four Democratic state senators are re-elected – enough, WEAC hopes, to keep a Democratic majority in the 33-member state body.
Although there are 15 Democratic candidates running for the state Senate, and 80 Democrats running for the state Assembly, the latest WEAC report shows that the teachers union is placing what amounts to an “all in” bet on saving just four Democratic senators who are finishing their first terms.Wisconsin Teachers Union Tops Lobbying Expenditures in 2009, more than Double #2
Guest Commentary: An education agenda for Denver’s next mayor
The Denver mayoral race has been remarkable in its focus on education reform. Never before has there been so much discussion, debate and even television ads on this critical issue in the city’s mayoral race. We are fortunate to have two candidates, Michael Hancock and Chris Romer, who are both education reformers.
Some point to the Denver mayor’s lack of direct authority over the city’s schools to argue that the candidates’ rhetoric is better suited for the upcoming school board race. This misses the point: Denver’s next mayor is sure to have a significant impact on public education in our city. And as President Obama and Colorado’s U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet are demonstrating on the national level, serious and much-needed education reforms require strong leadership.
Hancock and Romer have their differences when it comes to education policy, but both realize the central importance of high-quality public education to bringing growth and prosperity to Denver. There are some truly great public schools in our city, but when the district schools as a whole are struggling to sufficiently prepare one-fifth of their students for college, work and civic participation, fundamental reform is required.
Four Degrees of New Jersey Education Association
Question: how many degrees of separation are there between the broadening coalition opposing the expansion of charter schools in New Jersey and the National Education Association?
First, a news hook and a bit of back story. On Saturday morning New Jersey School Boards Association’s Delegate Assembly overwhelming approved an emergency resolution put forth by the Princeton Board of Education that would require voter approval for the authorization of any new public charter school. The approval implicitly supports a pending bill sponsored by Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan (and, as NJ Spotlight reports, complicates prospects for a more carefully crafted bill that would expand authorizers beyond the DOE, sponsored by Assemblywoman Mila Jasey).
NJSBA’s disapprobation of charter school expansion is right in line with the political agendae of other education groups like Education Law Center, Garden State Coalition of Schools, and a new group called Save Our Schools NJ (SOS NJ). Their well-coordinated message is simple: taxpayers cough up the dough for public education so taxpayers should have veto power within their communities regarding the opening of any taxpayer-supported charter school. Anything else is taxation without representation, right? If a potential charter school wants to open, then it can put the question to a vote during election season.
Jeb Bush’s education ideas draw national attention
Jeb Bush left the Florida governor’s office in 2007, but his influence still holds sway in Tallahassee, and now is felt in state capitals from New Jersey to Oregon, where lawmakers are eager to adopt his ideas on how to improve education.
Since leaving Tallahassee, the popular former Florida governor has developed a national reputation as an education powerhouse and champion of vouchers and charter schools. His latest recognition: the Bradley Foundation, a conservative group that says it shies away from lauding politicians. Last week, it gave the Republican its Bradley Prize, a distinction that carries a $250,000 stipend.
“The reforms that he put in place during his two terms as Florida governor in many ways lead the country in elementary and secondary education,” said Michael W. Grebe, the president and chief executive officer of the Bradley Foundation, which has spent more than $40 million over the last 20 years in support of charter schools and voucher programs, including as a donor to Bush’s education foundation. “He put in place programs that have clearly raised academic standards. It’s measurable, demonstrable. We’re also really impressed by what he continues to do as a private citizen. When he left office, he didn’t leave behind his work.”
NEA Gives Friend of Education Award to 14 Fugitive Wisconsin Democrats
NEA Gives Friend of Education Award to 14 Fugitive Wisconsin Democrats. Each year the National Education Association issues a “Friend of Education” award to some liberal worthy known for toeing the union line. Last year’s award went to Diane Ravitch, and previous winners are Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy.
This year the union decided to honor the 14 Wisconsin Senate Democrats who fled the state rather than debate and vote on the governor’s collective bargaining bill.
It is believed to be the first multi-week sojourn to the Tilted Kilt ever to result in an award from a major national organization.
Test scores could end a Wisconsin teacher’s job
School boards across Wisconsin could use teacher evaluations – which rely in part on the results of students’ standardized state test scores – as part of the reason for dismissing and disciplining educators, according to legislation considered by the Assembly and Senate education committees Monday.
Senate Bill 95 proposes modifying 10 state mandates so that local school districts have more flexibility to decide what’s best for their communities, said Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon), a co-sponsor of the bill with Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills).
The legislation covers a wide berth of areas – from allowing school boards to offer physical education credit to high school students who participate in one season of an extracurricular sport, to changing the way a state-funded class-size reduction program is implemented in the elementary grades – but was criticized by some legislators who thought it was too hastily brought to a hearing Monday.
Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) noted that details about the bill were released only one business day earlier, on Friday, by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
“I’m pretty sure if there had been more notice on this, this room would have been packed,” she said, looking at the meager crowd of about 30 people.
Wisconsin Senate Bill 95 Testimony
Thank you for this opportunity to testify on Senate Bill 95.
Due to time limitations — both the time allotted here and the very, very short time between the release of the Bill on Friday and the scheduling of this hearing for today — I will be confining myself to only two of the topics covered in this wide ranging measure. Those are the dilution of the Student Achievement Guaranty in Education (SAGE) and the use of student standardized test scores as a determinant of educator employment conditions. I will note that I believe every section of this Bill should be thoroughly sifted and winnowed.
Before directly addressing the proposals on SAGE and the use of student standardized test scores, I’d like to say a few things about the broader trend in educational thinking and policy in Wisconsin.
Not too long ago Senator Olson chaired a Special Committee on Review of State School Aid Formula. I sat though most of the meetings of that committee. Although little came of it, there was a sense of optimism and ambition in the work of that committee, a sense that we can and should do better. This spirit was captured in the title of the presentation by Professor Alan Odden “Moving From Good to Great in Wisconsin: Funding Schools Adequately and Doubling Student Performance,” (paper of the same title here) . It should be added that Doctor Sarah Archibald, who is anow dvising Senator Olson, was part of that work.
Much more on Wisconsin Senate Bill 95, here.
Rahm’s Education Promise
Rahm Emanuel will be sworn in today as mayor of Chicago, having campaigned on promises to fix a school system that graduates only half its students. The veteran Democrat talks a good game and has appointed a schools CEO with strong reform credentials. But Mr. Emanuel has miles to go before he proves that his famous political toughness is a match for the unions and bureaucrats who will oppose any reform worthy of the name.
In addressing Chicagoans today, Mr. Emanuel will likely celebrate Illinois Senate Bill 7, which last week passed the state legislature and awaits Governor Pat Quinn’s signature. The law is certainly welcome, and Mr. Emanuel was right to support it. But its provisions say less about the boldness of lawmakers than about the implacability of the status quo.
On the plus side, the law ties teacher tenure and layoffs to student performance, not just to seniority. The law also makes it easier to fire ineffective teachers–easier, that is, than the traditional process that in Chicago can include more than 25 distinct steps. And while it’s good that the law makes it harder for the Chicago Teachers Union to strike, Illinois remains one of only 11 states to allow teachers to strike at all.
Wisconsin Voucher expansion is threat to public education
here’s a train coming, folks. And, unlike the proposed Madison-to-Milwaukee rail, this train really is high-speed.
If we’re not paying attention, it could end up crippling public education in Wisconsin.
Gov. Scott Walker had already included in his 2011-13 budget proposal a plan to change the Milwaukee school voucher program, which allows low-income students to attend private schools on the taxpayers’ dime.
It would eliminate the enrollment caps; expand it to include schools in all of Milwaukee County, not just the city; and phase out income limits, opening the program to middle- and high-income families.
The Assembly last week passed a separate bill that eliminated the caps and the Milwaukee-only school requirement.
New Jersey School Board President Calls Charter Schools “Bad Public Policy”
Speaking before the Board of Education during its meeting Thursday night, President Jack Lyness expressed strong feelings in opposition to the nation’s burgeoning “charter school movement.”
Charter schools are primary or secondary schools that are funded by government but operate independently from local boards of education in exchange for meeting academic standards stipulated by the state Commissioner of Education. Unlike private schools, charter schools are not permitted to charge tuition, and they are considered part of the public school system.
Many parents of New Jersey school children are considering charter schools as an alternative to traditional public schools. As of January, there are 73 charter schools in New Jersey-the state is the fourth largest charter authorizer in the U.S.-and the state Department of Education website predicts there will be more than 100 by the fall. This year, more than 22,000 children in grades pre-K through 12 throughout the state are enrolled in a charter school. According to the New Jersey Charter Schools Association, 66 percent of the state’s charter schools achieved adequate yearly progress in 2008-09 compared to 44 percent of their local district schools.
Class size hike spells trouble Impact of increase to 34 in K-8 will be negative
There are people who have been making a splash nationally by spreading word that judgment day will be May 21, and by fall, the earth will no longer exist.
If so, we don’t need to be so alarmed about the future of Milwaukee Public Schools. Or a list of other school districts that aren’t in quite as bad shape. Yet.
But in case we remain in this vale of tears a bit longer, let’s talk about what is expected to happen to class sizes in MPS. This won’t be pleasant.
MPS Superintendent Gregory Thornton used a number last week in a talk before civic leaders and, later, in comments to the School Board: 34. That’s going to be the average class size next year, he said.
For kindergarten through 12th grade? No, he told me, for kindergarten through eighth grade. There’s no estimate for high schools yet, he said. (As a general matter, high school classes are larger than younger grades.)
“Class sizes will increase,” Thornton said. “That’s just a reality. . . . This is a community that needs learning to be personalized and customized.” In other words, it needs at least reasonable class sizes.
So 34 compared to what this year? Thornton estimated 28 to 29.
Wisconsin Voucher program needs accountability
The children of Milwaukee deserve a quality education regardless of whether they attend Milwaukee Public Schools, a charter school or a private school through the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.
A key element to support quality is transparency. Clear, easy to understand and readily available information, including test score results, helps parents and the public evaluate their schools. Traditional public and charter schools throughout the state have been using publicly reported test score results and other data to drive school improvement for years. This transparency was extended to the voucher program through laws enacted in the 2009-’11 budget.
This fall, for the first time, students attending private schools through the state’s voucher program had their academic progress assessed with the same statewide tests as their public school peers. Results reported this spring showed that some public, charter and private schools in Milwaukee are doing very well, but too many are not providing the education our children need and deserve.
We believe that students in the voucher program, receiving taxpayer support to attend private Milwaukee schools, must continue to take the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination. Standardized tests, including the WKCE, do not paint an entire picture of a student, and many private schools participating in the voucher program take other quality tests. We need to put all the schools in MPS, charter and choice programs on a common report card.
On “Parents with Options”
A “dagger,” said the well-meaning man, “in the heart of public education.” That man, who superintends Green Bay’s public school system, was reacting to word that Gov. Scott Walker proposed letting parents statewide have the same option poor Milwaukeeans now have – to take their state school aid to a private school, if they choose it.
Parents with options: That was the violence that Greg Maass, that superintendent, was talking about. I don’t mean to single out Maass. He colorfully phrased the apocalyptic view that many others had toward Walker’s idea. A writer for The Progressive, the left-wing Madison magazine that figures we peaked in about 1938, tiresomely said it was “war on education.”
Right: To increase options is to war on education. Actually, though, that is the heart of the complaint of the public school establishment. Giving families more control over where they can get a publicly funded education necessarily means less control for those in charge of what had been the only place you could get one.
But will Walker’s idea kill off public education? Unlikely: Incumbent school systems already live with publicly funded competition.
Wisconsin Bill OKs teacher discipline for bad school test scores
School districts would be able to use standardized test scores as a factor in disciplining or firing teachers under a Republican bill made public Thursday and scheduled for a public hearing Monday.
Currently, districts can use the scores to evaluate teachers, with certain limitations, but not to discipline or fire them.
The bill comes after the state lost out on federal education funding in part due to limitations in how districts can judge teaching performance, and as a state task force develops a plan to better evaluate teachers.
In addition to the teacher evaluation changes, the bill sponsored by the chairmen of the Senate and Assembly education committees also would allow students to receive physical education credit for playing after-school sports, allow athletics suspensions based on police records and alter funding rules for certain programs, among other things.TJ Mertz has more.
Wisconsin school districts rank low on transparency
When it comes to transparency, Wisconsin school districts are like the kids who spent all night playing video games and the next morning pray that their teachers won’t call on them in class. They are falling behind, offering few of the answers that parents and taxpayers deserve.
Wisconsin’s 442 school districts have earned an overall grade of D on disclosure, according to an analysis conducted by Sunshine Review. The analysis tests the information publicly available on district websites against a 10-point transparency checklist in areas ranging from budgets to criminal background checks on employees.
The Madison Metropolitan School District – one of the state’s largest – did a little better, earning a C-minus.
Want to know basic information, such as what taxes are levied by your school district or how much money it receives from the state and the federal government? Sorry, but chances are you live in a district that does not list tax data on its website – 73% fail to do so.
Nearly two-thirds of school districts neglect to post their current budget along with budgets from previous years so taxpayers can compare spending from year to year. Less than 2% of districts post audits of their finances and performance online or disclose a schedule of upcoming audits.
Class Size: What Research Says and What it Means for State Policy
Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst & Matthew M. Chingos:
Class size is one of the small number of variables in American K-12 education that are both thought to influence student learning and are subject to legislative action. Legislative mandates on maximum class size have been very popular at the state level. In recent decades, at least 24 states have mandated or incentivized class-size reduction (CSR).
The current fiscal environment has forced states and districts to rethink their CSR policies given the high cost of maintaining small classes. For example, increasing the pupil/teacher ratio in the U.S. by one student would save at least $12 billion per year in teacher salary costs alone, which is roughly equivalent to the outlays of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal government’s largest single K-12 education program.
The substantial expenditures required to sustain smaller classes are justified by the belief that smaller classes increase student learning. We examine “what the research says” about whether class-size reduction has a positive impact on student learning and, if it does, by how much, for whom, and under what circumstances. Despite there being a large literature on class-size effects on academic achievement, only a few studies are of high enough quality and sufficiently relevant to be given credence as a basis for legislative action.
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