A Different Approach: Affiliated Alternatives



Jason Shepherd recently wrote an article on the Madison School District’s Affiliated Alternatives Program. This differentiated program supports about 150 students:

Many of the school’s students have multiple problems, from severe learning deficits to turmoil at home. A countywide survey found they use alchol and marijuana at three times the rate of other students in Dane County.
Academic classes follow state standards but are tailored to students’ interests and needs, with a focuse on practical life skills.
One of the delights in spending time at Affiliated Alternatives is watching Principal Fischer in action.
It’s clear she’s in command, and she’s set high expectations for staff and students. She talkes to students with respect, and kids say they feel as if they can share problems with her.

View full article.

Sort of related: Carol Carstensen mentioned that the Board’s Performance and Achievement committee, in a somewhat rare meeting, will discuss heterogeneous groupings at 5 p.m. Monday, January 30, 2006. This is apparently the first of several meetings on this topic. West High School’s imminent English 10, one curriculum for all (apparently 40+ sophomore English electives reduced to none) has created no small amount of heterogeneous grouping discussion. I’m glad that a Board committee will soon discuss curriculum, in my view, the District’s #1 priority.




Proposal Would Send All Swan Creek Students to Lincoln



Kurt Gutknecht:

The plan advanced by Jerry Eykholt, a member of the task force studying ways to deal with overcrowding at schools on in west side of the Madison school district, would move students to Lincoln Elementary School.
Eykholt drafted the proposal in response to a letter signed by 185 households in Swan Creek who opposed moving students from Leopold.
One of the proposals had recommended moving Swan Creek students to Midvale and Lincoln elementary schools. Eykholt?s proposal would move them only to Lincoln, thereby reducing the length of the bus ride, which he said would address one of the major concerns of the residents.
Previous proposals would move elementary students to Lincoln (grades 3 through 5) and Midvale (grades K through 2). His proposal would require Lincoln to offer all elementary grades.
Eykholt called Lincoln “a very nurturing environment” that provided an exceptional level of assistance to students, a consequence of the district?s efforts to serve students from low-income families.




Internet Wake-up Call for Parents



Amy Hetzner:

In the crowded media center at West High School on Thursday night, Special Agent Erik Szatkowski led parents to what he considers manna for sexual predators: an online site where adolescents post their pictures, interests and other tidbits about themselves.

On the Web site, which describes itself as “a community of online diaries and journals,” Szatkowski introduced his audience to 14-year-old Katie, who likes “The O.C.,” and 14-year-old Brooke, who posted a photo of herself on her page. He also found a 12-year-old Milwaukee boy who boasted: “I’m a b-ball player. I’m a sexy beast. I’m a ladies man.”




Seeking A’s in a Few More Zzzz’s



Maria Glod:

At 6:20, the bus pulled up, and Carly was on her way to Robinson Secondary School.
Carly, an eighth-grader who complains she’s frequently groggy during early-morning classes, said she would prefer it if school “started at 8:30 and ended at 3.”
“I wake up because of all the people” in class, she said. “But I’m still tired.”




30 Years of Clout: MTI’s John Matthews & the ’76 Teacher’s Strike



Susan Troller:

The key architect behind that transformation was the tough young executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., John Matthews, who had come to Madison eight years earlier from Montana.
Thirty years later, Matthews is still tough and, more than ever, still casts a powerful shadow across the public education landscape of Madison as a tireless and relentless advocate for teachers. With Matthews at the helm, MTI has remained a dominant force in education and labor.

Former Madison Mayor (currently with Epic Systems – Verona) Paul Soglin weighs in as well.




Student Posting on District Food Policy



I am a member or the MMSD’s Student Senate. I am currently involved in a group discussing a draft of a proposed food policy which I feel is rather Draconian. The draft has not yet been made public (I am told this is because it is a “draft” and thus not ready for release) and that the issues have been publicized. However, I am concerned about some measures of the policy and feel that they have not been highlighted for interested parents. I think some of you might have concerns as well. Here are some of the propositions that my committee has voted against altering as well as what parents were told at the January 17th meeting about the policy
“When beverage vending is available, the only beverages that be offered for sale [not me wording] or permitted in schools at all sites accessible to students will be water, milk, fruit juices composed of 100% fruit juice with no added sweeteners of caffeine, and electrolyte replacement (“sports”) beverages that do not contain caffeine or more than 42 grams of added sweetener per 20 oz serving.”
“No food will be sold to students in vending machines”
This is currently true of all elementary schools and most middle schools, but not the high schools. Vending sales at the four major high schools bring in roughly $15-20 thousand a year for the school (some of a principal’s only discretionary income). Personally, I feel eliminating all sales of soda and snacks seems extreme, especially considering the current financial pressure schools are under. The “cold turkey” elimination of all of these sales starting with the 06-07 school year seems like too much.
“Candy will not be given or sold to students nor offered for sale at school or to the community by the school during the school day. The sale of candy and snacks [this language will be revised to be more specific] is not permitted on school grounds during the school day.”
This would mean that clubs that rely on sales of such items would have to search for new methods. Bake sales would be eliminated. Students would be able to buy a giant cookie in the lunchroom, but not a small one in support of a club.

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School Boundary Changes & Housing



Channel3000:

The looming boundary changes in the Madison Metropolitan School District are having an impact on the local housing market. Home sellers and buyers aren’t sure where kids will go to school.




On Becoming the Bad Class



All Things Considered:

Commentator Emily Wylie teaches 11th grade English at a New York City public girls’ school. She also taught them when they were in 8th grade, and since then they’ve gotten a reputation as a bad class. Wylie doesn’t disagree.




Vonnegut on Modern Society



Morning Edition:

The author Kurt Vonnegut has been looking to the future through his writing ever since the publication of his first novel, Player Piano. The story tells of a time when men are displaced by machines in the workplace. Society is reduced to a managing class and a consuming class. His books have often included an element of science fiction, including his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five.

audio

Vonnegut’s short story, Harisson Bergeron is a must read:

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.




College Aid Plan Rates US High School Academic Rigor



Sam Dillon:

The measure, backed by the Bush administration and expected to pass the House when it returns next month, would provide $750 to $1,300 grants to low-income college freshmen and sophomores who have completed “a rigorous secondary school program of study” and larger amounts to juniors and seniors majoring in math, science and other critical fields.
It leaves it to the secretary of education to define rigorous, giving her a new foothold in matters of high school curriculums.
Mindful of the delicate politics at play when Washington expands its educational role into matters zealously guarded as local prerogatives, senior Department of Education officials said they would consult with governors and other groups in determining which high school programs would allow students to qualify for grants.




Literacy of College Students Finds Some are Graduating with Only Basic Skills



Pew Charitable Trusts:

Twenty percent of U.S. college students completing 4-year degrees – and 30 percent of students earning 2-year degrees – have only basic quantitative literacy skills, meaning they are unable to estimate if their car has enough gasoline to get to the next gas station or calculate the total cost of ordering office supplies, according to a new national survey by the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The study was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

1.9MB PDF




Work Study School Set for 2007



Jay Matthews:

The first private high school in the area to support itself largely through wages earned by students working one day a week for local employers will open in Takoma Park in fall 2007, the Archdiocese of Washington announced yesterday.
Archdiocese officials said the new Cristo Rey school, based on a work-study model first tried in inner-city Chicago 10 years ago, will be its first new archdiocese high school in more than 55 years. It will open on the site of Our Lady of Sorrows School, a parish elementary school closing this year because of declining enrollment.




Nearly 38% of Arkansas Children Overweight



Andrew DeMillo:

Thirty-eight percent of Arkansas’ public school children are overweight or at risk of being overweight, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences said in a report issued Thursday.
The finding was the same as last year’s when UAMS also studied the effects of a 2003 state law that called for mandatory and voluntary changes in the schools to address health issues among Arkansas’ children.
Health officials said Thursday they hope to see obesity numbers decline as more schools offer healthier food choices.

Learn more about this issue here and by watching the recent Nutrition and Schools Forum.




Where are the Parents?



Madison District 15 Alder (and MMSD Affiliated Alternatives Employee) Larry Palm:

Tonight I attended the Public Forum at O’Keefe Middle School to discuss a potential move of the Affiliated Alternatives into the building shared with Marquette Elementary School.

I appreciated the high level of questions asked of Steve Hartley, the District’s Director of Alternative Programs. A large majority of questions revolved around the anticipated interactions between students at what would essentially be a K-12 campus (minus the students that attend certain grades at Lapham Elementary School– which is also another option on the East Side Task Force for either the Affiliated Alternatives or the administrative offices of MSCR).

Palm also notes that it is budget time again and suggests that the District “take this year off from a referendum”.




Some Students Use Net To Hire Experts to Do Their School Work



Lee Gomes:

But what the computer-programming student who goes by the handle “Lover Of Nightlife” did last month, as the fall semester raced to a close, could only have happened in the age of the Internet: He went online to outsource his predicament.
“This is homework I did not have time to study for,” he said in a message on a Web site devoted to outsourcing computer projects. “I need you guys to help me.”
Attached was a take-home final exam for a computer class that Mr. Nightlife Lover wanted to pay someone else — presumably, someone from a place where people can’t afford a lot of night life to begin with — to take for him.




Math Will Rock Your World



Business Week:

Neal Goldman is a math entrepreneur. He works on Wall Street, where numbers rule. But he’s focusing his analytic tools on a different realm altogether: the world of words.
Goldman’s startup, Inform Technologies LLC, is a robotic librarian. Every day it combs through thousands of press articles and blog posts in English. It reads them and groups them with related pieces. Inform doesn’t do this work alphabetically or by keywords. It uses algorithms to analyze each article by its language and context. It then sends customized news feeds to its users, who also exist in Inform’s system as — you guessed it — math.




“State Support for Higher Education Has No Correlation with College Quality”



Anne K. Walters writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Public colleges in states that spend a lot of money on higher education aren’t necessarily better than colleges in states that provide them with meager support, according to a report that ranks states based on an analysis of their higher-education budgets and the performance of their colleges. The report, which was prepared by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, attempts to answer the age-old question in debates over state financing of higher education: Does more money equal better quality? The report, A New Look at the Institutional Component of Higher Education Finance: A Guide for Evaluating Performance Relative to Financial Resources [by Patrick J. Kelly & Dennis P. Jones] compares state funds for higher education in each state with colleges’ performance in a variety of areas, including graduation and participation rates. The report concludes that education can succeed even when state support falls.

Wisconsin ranks #4 in “Performance relative to funding” for public research institutions.




Charter Schools And Healthful Foods






Soglin on Quality in Government



Paul Soglin:

There must be public sector leaders who are more concerned about their legacy than the next election. There must be an environment of trust so that as review is done of past failures, it is free from recrimination and blame. The purpose of the checking and reviewing must be to learn for future not to assign blame.
To find a mayor or a governor with the inclination, the time, and the values to focus on serious management issues is no easy task. In today’s environment, with Katrinas, failing bridges, poor school systems, and the prospect of terrorism at every corner, the matter is even more pressing.




Of McDonalds and K-12 Schools



From an email I received recently:
——————–
McDonald’s has competition everywhere… globally. It is exceptional when it comes to standardization of product and services – they even have Hamburger U. Yet I have been to McDonald’s in suburbia and McDonald’s in rural America and McDonald’s in poor urban areas. They are not equal. And it isn’t just a case of McDonalds.. the same is true for Burger King and any other fast food chain that has corporate inspections and standards.
For instance, the Burger King, KFC, and McDonald’s near my urban church each suffer from the same problems – they are dirtier and have poorer service than those same stores in the suburban area I live in… there is no McDonald’s Playland in the urban Cleveland or Akron McDonald’s I know but there are loads of them out in my suburban area. Competition doesn’t seem to be helping those who live in the poor urban area gain the same experience those in suburbia get… even with restaurants that possess strong standards and assessments.
I think this says something about the theory that competition would be good for our schools and would equalize the playing field for kids in urban, rural, and suburban schools. It doesn’t seem to be working for McDonald’s.
Sue
Sue Ramlo, PhD
Professor of General Technology
Department of Engineering & Science Technology
The University of Akron
Akron, OH 44325-6104
sramlo@uakron.edu
330-972-7057




A Nation at Risk: Obesity in the United States



American Heart Association:

The report is that nearly one sixth of young people between the ages of 2-19 are said to be overweight. While this is alarming, it is perhaps even more important to appreciate that the 16% overweight rate represents the nationwide average. Local rates vary widely depending on gender, race, socioeconomic status, educational background, and probably more, as yet, undetermined factors.
Among Mexican Americans ages 6-19, nearly one in four boys, and one in five girls are overweight. Over one fifth of African American females ages 6-19 are overweight. Combining these figures with those at risk for being overweight, we learn that excessive weight threatens the health of between a third and a half of children in these groups. And, the situation continues to worsen.




Reader Jonathan Gramling Regarding Juan Jose Lopez’s First Fundraising Letter



Reader Jonathan Gramling emails in response to this article:

In reference to Ed Blume’s and Barb Schrank’s comments about the Juan José López fundraising letter, if the shoe fits, wear it. The difference between being critical and being negative is just partisan semanntics like the difference between insurgent and freedom fighter. It’s not the high road. It just reflects your partisan leanings and who you support in an election. So don’t be so condescending!
Jonathan Gramling
gramljon at_aol.com




Singapore Education Minister Compares Singapore and America Schools



Newsweek International Edition columnist Fareed Zakaria interviewed Singapore Minister of Education Tharman Shanmugaratnam to understand why he believes Singapore students score tops in math and science on international tests, but lacks leaders in business, academia, math and science in the professional world.
Shanmugaratnam’s sees driving ambition, creativity, and adventuresomeness as lacking in Singapore students — characteristics that are not measured in global testing. He says, “Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority. ”
Funding and academic-private partnerships are another factor in U.S. favor, he says. Foundations are critical for funding research in the U.S. “For example, you could not imagine American advances in biomedical sciences without the Howard Hughes Foundation,” says Shanmugaratnam.
But Shanmugaratnam is not all praise for U.S. education system. “[It] as a whole has failed. Unless you are comfortably middle class or richer,” he explained, “you get an education that is truly second-rate by any standards…. In Singapore we get the poor kid who is very bright and very hungry, and that’s crucial to our success.”




More on Milwaukee Vouchers & TABOR



John Fund:

The irony is that public educators in Milwaukee believe choice has helped improve all the city’s schools. “No longer is MPS a monopoly,” says Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent William Andrekopoulos. “That competitive nature has raised the bar for educators in Milwaukee to provide a good product or they know that parents will walk.” The city’s public schools have made dramatic changes that educators elsewhere can only dream of. Public schools now share many buildings with their private counterparts, which helps alleviate the shortage of classrooms. Teachers, once assigned strictly by seniority, are now often hired by school selection committees. And 95% of district operating funds now go directly to schools, instead of being parceled out by a central office. That puts power in the hands of teachers who work directly with students.

Milwaukee schools are still struggling, but progress is obvious. Students have improved their performance on 13 out of 15 standardized tests. The annual dropout rate has fallen to 10% from 16% since the choice program started. Far from draining resources from public schools, spending has gone up in real terms by 27% since choice began as taxpayers and legislators encouraged by better results pony up more money.

Rich Eggleston says that TABOR would subvert Democracy:

In Wisconsin, the ‘Taxpayers Bill of Rights’ is being billed as a tool of democracy, but it’s actually a tool to subvert the representative democracy that to reasonable people has worked pretty well. When Milwaukee-area resident Orville Seymeyer e-mailed me and suggested I “get on the TABOR bandwagon,” this is what I told him:

via wisopinion




Lagging Freshman Reassigned Before Test



Nick Anderson:

At least 2,500 ninth-graders in Prince George’s County will abruptly move this week from a standard one-year algebra course into a two-year program, shielding the struggling students from a state graduation test this spring that officials said they were likely to fail.
The highly unusual shift comes midway through the school year in one of Washington’s largest suburban school systems and in some respects runs counter to a regional trend of pushing students to take higher-level mathematics as early as possible.




“War Against Vouchers”



Andrew J. Coulson:

Unlike previous school-choice cases, Bush v. Holmes did not hinge on the use of public funds at religious schools. Instead, five of the seven presiding justices ruled that school vouchers violate the “uniformity” clause of Florida’s Constitution. Far from being an arcane and forgotten technicality, this clause was amended and reapproved by voters just eight years ago: It mandates, among other things, “a uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education.” If only wishing could make it so.
What the new wording fails to consider is that a homogenized government bureaucracy is not necessarily compatible with efficiency and quality. By this point in American history, we should know better. After more than a century of honing its public school system, Florida has managed an on-time graduation rate of just 57%, placing it third from last nationally. Its composite SAT score is the fourth lowest among the states.




Writing Wrongs – Outsourcing Admission Essays



Bess Kargman:

College admissions officers around the country will be reading my application essays this month, essays in which I describe personal aspirations, academic goals — even, in one case, a budding passion for the sitar. What they won’t know is that I actually graduated from college more than a year ago, and that the names attached to these essays are those of my duplicitous clients.




Some Students Prefer Taking Classes Online



Justin Pope:

At some schools, online courses – originally intended for nontraditional students living far from campus – have proved surprisingly popular with on-campus students. A recent study by South Dakota’s Board of Regents found 42 percent of the students enrolled in its distance-education courses weren’t so distant: they were located on campus at the university that was hosting the online course.

Numbers vary depending on the policies of particular colleges, but other schools also have students mixing and matching online and “face-to-face” credits. Motives range from lifestyle to accommodating a job schedule to getting into high-demand courses.




Task Force Insight



Dear Board,
While serving as a member on the Long Range Planning Committee for the West/Memorial Task Force I came to a few insights I would like to share.
Our charge was to seek solutions for the over-crowded schools in Memorial and Leopold attendance area as well as address the low income disparity throughout the area.

  • Overcrowding in Memorial – with current data and projected growth to be over 100% capacity in 5 of the elementary schools I believe the only solution to this problem is a new school. With the purchase of the far west land the board must believe this as well. This should be the number one priority of the growth solution for MMSD. There is space at Toki/Orchard Ridge and a few seats at Muir for this attendance area and additions could be made to Falk, or an update and expansion of Orchard Ridge/Toki could be made, but otherwise there is no room without changing programmatically.
  • Leopold overcrowding is much more complicated, as you know. This huge expansive slice of Madison and the entire city of Fitchburg attendance area has somehow become one elementary school. I do not support an addition to this school for many of the same reasons I did not like two schools on the same land. It is lots of seats in one part of town and you create problems for the future. If Shorewood or Crestwood had 1000 seats we would be busing kids from Fitchburg to that school because that’s where the space is. An addition without a new school means a principal, staff and others at this school are functioning like the other 4 – 5 hundred space schools but with double the students, is that fair to the staff of that school? Would you want to be the principal of 800 – 900 students? I would rather have a school in Fitchburg or south of the Beltline off of 14 to help Leopold and the Allis attendance area that currently is sent to the other side of Monona.
    There is space at Midvale/Lincoln, Randall, Shorewood,and there is 110 seats at Hamilton, 94 seats at Wright, and 118 seats at Cherokee. And of course the strange building of Hoyt that must have ghost or something since no one wants to touch it. There is space in West. The move of Leopold to Chavez is wrong minded since it shifts the West area problem to the overcrowded Memorial area.
    The Elephant in the Room throughout the entire Task Force was Midvale/Lincoln and the perceived lack of quality at that school. There is 75 seats at Lincoln and 62 seats at Midvale this year and each time the suggestion was made to shift students from Leopold to M/L it was met with distaste, (except for two apartment buildings of 30 students) as the memo from the Swan Creek neighborhood (see attachment) was an example. That memo, while it outraged me, is a glaring example why we can’t solve Leopold overcrowding (see memo [pdf] from Midvale Parent Jerry Eykholt to the Swan Creek Parents). On the task force Leopold was sent to Chavez, Randall/Franklin, Thoreau over and under M/L, but somehow those 137 seats at M/L seemed too far away. I think the district is failing Midvale/Lincoln.

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Stossel: How the Lack of School Choice Cheats Our Kids Out of A Good Education



John Stossel:

And while many people say, “We need to spend more money on our schools,” there actually isn’t a link between spending and student achievement.
Jay Greene, author of “Education Myths,” points out that “If money were the solution, the problem would already be solved … We’ve doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years, and yet schools aren’t better.”
He’s absolutely right. National graduation rates and achievement scores are flat, while spending on education has increased more than 100 percent since 1971. More money hasn’t helped American kids.
Ben Chavis is a former public school principal who now runs an alternative charter school in Oakland, Calif., that spends thousands of dollars less per student than the surrounding public schools. He laughs at the public schools’ complaints about money.

I’m impressed ABC devoted so much effort to education. The article includes full text and video.
Stossel also touches on Kansas City’s effort to turn around (1980’s and 1990’s) by spending more per student than any other district in the country. Madison School District Superintendent Art Rainwater implemented the largest court-ordered desegregation settlement in the nation’s history in Kansas City, Mo




Swan Creek Residents Organize to Stay at Leopold



Kurt Gutknecht, writing in the Fitchburg Star:

Residents of Swan Creek have launched a spirited campaign against plans to bus students from the area to Midvale/Lincoln elementary schools.
A few days after Christmas, 185 households signed a letter [500K PDF] opposing the plan, which a task force had proposed to address overcrowding at several schools in the western part of the Madison Metropolitan School District.
Students from Swan Creek now attend Leopold Elementary School.
The letter was presented at the Jan. 5 meeting of the task force. Another task force is preparing plans for the east side of the district where under enrollment is a greater concern.
According to the letter, said the plan being considered meant the “subdivision is used selfishly by the Madison school district” to “plug holes in a plan that has very little merit” and contradicts an agreement the district made when it exchanged land with the Oregon School District. During the negotiations prior to the land swap, the Madison district said children from Swan Creek would attend Leopold.
The letter cited behavioral and safety issues associated with long bus rides, the negative effects on parent involvement and neighborhood cohesion, and criticized the attempt to use children from the subdivision to achieve balanced income at the schools.
Prasanna Raman, a member of the task force who presented the letter, said busing students from Swan Creek could be a case of reverse discrimination.

UPDATE: Midvale parent Jerry Eykholt sent this letter [pdf] to the Task Force and Swan Creek residents.

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Thursday Morning Links: School Performance



  • Milwaukee’s new School Performance Ratings:

    Andrekopoulos said those studies are showing that students in high value-added programs are decidedly more engaged in actual classroom activity than those in low value-added schools.
    In a recent presentation to the School Board, he said MPS now understands why low-performing schools are that way. “We didn’t know that two years ago,” he said.
    Milwaukee Public Schools has begun listing how individual schools are doing not only on the widely used measure of what percentage of students are proficient or btter in standardizd tests, (attainment), but also with a measure in which the average increase in student scores from year to year in each school is compared with the average for all of MPS (value added).

  • Houston to pay teacher bonuses based on student test scores.



Madison a National Leader in Special Education



“Inclusive education” is often mischaracterized as solely about educating students with disabilities in the “least restrictive environment.” Fortunately, inclusive education now means providing a supportive and quality education for all students. It is in this spirit that I want to speak to the accomplishments of our staff in making Madison one of the most inclusive, progressive urban school systems in the country.

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No Child Left Behind, Four Years Later



Talk of the Nation:

Four years ago this week, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act, designed to raise test scores and close the achievement gap between rich and poor and white and minority students. What has it achieved so far?

audio




The Issue Of Mascots



This is a message from Janice Rice of the Native American Council of Madison on the Communities United list serve. This message is pertinent given some of the changes that State Superintendent Libby Burmaster is proposing regarding state high schools and nicknames.

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West Attendance Area Task Force Discussion at a PTO Meeting



Summary of a West Attendance Area Task Force Discussion at the Thoreau PTO:
MMSD Chief of Staff Mary Gulbrandsen participated in a well attended Thoreau PTO meeting recently to discuss the options that the West Attendance Area Task force is currently evaluating. I thought the conversation was quite interesting and have summarized several of the points discussed below:

  • The May, 2005 referenda failed due to poor communication. What will the District due to improve that? There was some additional discussion on this topic regarding whether a referendum could pass.
  • Why don’t the developers (and therefore the homeowners in these new subdivisions) pay for the costs of a new school? Discussion followed that included much larger building permit fees, a referenda question that asked whether the homeowners in these emerging subdivisions should pay for a facility and changes in the way that we fund public education. Some also suggested that people purchased homes in these areas knowing that there was not a school nearby and therefore should not be surprised that a bus ride is required. Mary mentioned her experiences growing up an a farm where a 45 minute bus ride was no big deal. Obviously, there are different perspectives on this – I rode the bus daily for several years.
  • Can’t the District sell some of their buildings (excess schools, Hoyt, Doyle – next to the Kohl Center) to pay for this? That would be a strong statement that might support the passage of a referendum.

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“School Choice: A Moral Issue?”



Shay Riley:

I am a staunch advocate for school vouchers, and a recent controversy help reaffirm my support. Residents of Ladera Heights – an affluent, mostly black community in Los Angeles metro – have organized for a territory transfer proposal to leave Inglewood’s school district of not-as-affluent blacks and Hispanics and join Culver City’s mostly white, middle-class school district with higher student achievement (registration required). However, both suburbs oppose the plan, which the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization takes up this month. Ladera Heights should have foreseen opposition by Culver City. That was a not-so-subtle hint by white folks to upscale coloreds (median household income in Ladera Heights: $90,000+); create your own good schools. Whatis even more problematic to me was the response by Inglewood officials, one of whose school board members calls the proposal racist and argues that Ladera Heights residents merely want to raise their property values (which are already higher than that of Culver City). Ahem, Ladera Heights is 70%+ black. Yet Inglewood officials want children to remain in crap schools in order to do social engineering and undermine freedom of association. However, if there was a school voucher option then the parents of Ladera Heights (which is not large enough to form its own district) could tailor a school for its community’s children.




“My Vocation Ed Problem”



Jay Matthews:

What’s the point of high school for the majority of our kids? Even at a school as successful on paper as Cajon, most of the kids I see every day are literally having their time wasted by a curriculum that is at least 80 percent college preparatory. I know that in the last decade the concept of “school-to-work” connections, “career academies” and “smaller learning communities” has been all the rage. But the reality that I’ve seen is that most of these have been pretty ineffectual due to the counter-trend of steadily beefing up college prep curriculum requirements – to the point that virtually all high school students are required to follow a course of study that will qualify them for a four-year college, even though less than half have any mathematical hope of doing so.




Clarification of plans for 9th and 10th grade science at West HS



If you were at the West HS PTSO meeting last night (report to be posted soon for anyone who was unable to attend — the topic was an update on the SLC initiative by SLC Coordiator Heather Lott), then you know that the question of what 9th and 10th grade science will look like next year and thereafter was left somewhat unanswered. I had the following clarifying email exchange with West HS Principal Ed Holmes today:

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The Gap According to Black



Cydny Black:

In high school now, at Madison Memorial, I see this achievement gap more clearly than ever. Where are all the minority students in my advanced placement classes? Or more specifically, where are all the black students? In my advanced classes I can count them on one hand. And of these students, most are from middle to upper class families. Their parents have degrees of some sort, and their parents have pushed education—just as my parents encouraged me.
This leads me to ask, “What happens to all the kids whose parents don’t have degrees and who aren’t pushed to learn?” It seems to me that in a lot of these cases, they get trapped in the system, just like the two boys who fought at my school. And do teachers and administrations really know how to help them? It surprises me that we are taught history, math, science, and English but we are never given answers to some of the more difficult questions. The questions that deal with our society and our lives as young people growing up.
What does all of this mean for the African American youth who are struggling? How will they advance in school, and what’s more, in society?




“They’re all rich, white kids and they’ll do just fine” — NOT!



Two of the most popular — and most insidious — myths about academically gifted kids is that “they’re all rich, white kids” and that, no matter what they experience in school, “they’ll do just fine.” Even in our own district, however, the hard data do not support those assertions.
When the District analyzed dropout data for the five-year period between 1995 and 1999, they identified four student profiles. Of interest for the present purpose is the group identified as high achieving. Here are the data from the MMSD Research and Evaluation Report from May, 2000:
Group 1: High Achiever, Short Tenure, Behaved
This group comprises 27% of all dropouts during this five-year period.
Characteristics of this group:

  • Grade 5 math scores – 84.2 percentile
  • Male – 55%
  • Low income – 53%
  • Minority – 42%
  • African American – 31%
  • Hispanic – 6%
  • Asian – 5%

(more…)




Tuesday Morning Links



  • Urban Colleges Learn to be Good Neighbors:

    As a case study, Penn’s urban renewal effort is probably the most comprehensive — targeting every service and institution that makes a community vibrant. The university restored shuttered houses and offered faculty incentives to move into the neighborhood; invested $7 million to build a public school; brought in a much-needed 35,000-square-foot grocery store and movie theater; and offered the community resources such as hundreds of used Penn computers.
    “We said we teach our students about civic engagement. You can’t do that and not be role models for civic engagement,” said former Penn president Judith Rodin, who was a catalyst in the renewal efforts.

  • Referendum Tactic Calls on Old Friends
  • Earlier is Better, Leaders Say
  • No Child Left Behind: President Bush Visits School that Closed the Gap:

    The president invoked North Glen’s success on the fourth anniversary of the law, at a time when support for his signature education initiative has eroded.
    Despite large increases in federal aid to schools, many congressional Democrats say that overall, the law is underfunded. Some conservatives say the law undermines local authority and gives the federal government too much control over schools. Those concerns have stalled a Bush administration proposal to expand the law’s testing requirement to the nation’s high schools.
    Educational researchers say it is too soon to say whether the law has prompted lasting improvement in student achievement. “Bush is claiming greater success for the act than he can justify,” said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington research organization that has closely studied the law’s impact. “It is still unclear that the law will be successful in solving the problems in public education.”
    At North Glen, the percentage of black third-graders rated as proficient on the statewide test rose from 32 percent in 2003 to 94 percent in 2005, placing the campus among the top schools in Maryland for black student performance. Black students perform at least as well as whites on several academic measures at the school, whose student population is 42 percent black, 40 percent white, 11 percent Hispanic and 7 percent other ethnic groups.

  • Teens hangout at myspace
  • DC Seeks to Redirect Sales Tax to Schools:

    The chairman of the D.C. Council’s finance committee said yesterday that a proposal to modernize schools should be paid for by dedicating $100 million of city sales tax revenue every year for the next 15 years.




What Are They Teaching the Teachers?



Joanne Jacobs:

Close the education schools writes George Will in Newsweek:

The surest, quickest way to add quality to primary and secondary education would be addition by subtraction: Close all the schools of education.

Will doesn’t think much of requiring would-be teachers to have the politically correct “disposition” for teaching. “The permeation of ed schools by politics is a consequence of the vacuity of their curricula, he argues, quoting Heather McDonald’s 1998 City Journal article, “Why Johnny’s Teacher Can’t Teach.”

Today’s teacher-education focus on “professional disposition” is just the latest permutation of what MacDonald calls the education schools’ “immutable dogma,” which she calls “Anything But Knowledge.”

The dogma has been that primary and secondary education is about “self-actualization” or “finding one’s joy” or “social adjustment” or “multicultural sensitivity” or “minority empowerment.” But is never about anything as banal as mere knowledge. It is about “constructing one’s own knowledge” and “contextualizing knowledge,” but never about knowledge of things like biology or history.

Will wants to return to teacher-centered classrooms led by math teachers who know math.




Florida Vouchers: Separate but Uniform



Joanne Jacobs:

Black Students Lose Again is the headline on John Tierney’s Jan. 7 New York Times column on the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to throw out vouchers for students attending low-performing schools.

Democrats once went to court to desegregate schools. But in Florida they’ve been fighting to kick black students out of integrated schools, and they’ve succeeded, thanks to the Democratic majority on the State Supreme Court.

Most voucher recipients are black students who’ve used the tuition aid to transfer from nearly all-minority schools to integrated private schools that offer a college prep education. Tierney cites Adrian Bushell, who chose a Catholic school that is 24 percent black instead of Miami Edison, a large local high school that’s 94 percent black and 6 percent Hispanic.

His experience is typical. In other places that have tried vouchers, like Milwaukee and Cleveland, studies have shown that voucher recipients tend to move to less segregated schools.

Besides helping Adrian (who’s got a 3.1 average and plans on college), the Florida program has also benefited students in public schools like Miami Edison. Because each voucher is worth less than what the public system spends per student, more money is left for each student in the public system. And studies have repeatedly shown that failing Florida schools facing voucher competition have raised their test scores more than schools not facing the voucher threat.

The court majority ruled the vouchers are unconstitutional because Florida is required to provide a “uniform” system of education.




Fail Exam? You Don’t Graduate



Nanette Asimov:

State Superintendent Jack O’Connell delivered a tough-love message Friday to nearly 50,000 high school seniors still hoping to escape a new requirement that they pass the state’s exit exam to get a diploma in June:
The answer is “no,” he said. There will be no way for this year’s students who fail the test to graduate with their classmates.
His message was a response to demands from critics of the exit exam that he find some alternative to this high-stakes test.
“I have concluded that there is no practical alternative available that would ensure that all students awarded a high school diploma have mastered the subject areas tested by the exam and needed to compete in today’s global economy,” O’Connell said.




Teachers Turning Tech Devices into Learning Tools



Ann Ryman:

High-tech gadgets have become some of the biggest nuisances at schools in recent years, especially right after winter break. But slowly, surely, instead of shunning such devices, some teachers are finding ways to use them in the classroom.
They’re part of a small but growing movement where educators strive to use the language and media of today’s tech- and Web-savvy kids to teach.
Here are three of the most popular new technologies teachers are testing in their classrooms.

Some useful ideas in this story, including teacher training. Stanford is podcasting, among othes.




The Safe Room



These words were written by a middle school special education assistant (SEA) who prefers to remain anonymous:

As adults, we head off to work everyday expecting each day to be similar to the others. Nothing out of the ordinary, just, pretty much, the same old, same old. But one day a difference occurs. A pounding against a wall starts somewhere down the hallway. It gets louder and more frequent. Then, the yelling begins. At first, one considers the possibilities for such commotion and none of them are pleasant. A fight amongst workers? A disgruntled customer or client? The yelling turns to screaming and it unnerves everyone around. The explanation is that there is a problem and to keep on working, to simply ignore the disruption. It eventually stops. The next day and after that, several days a week the same incident happens. The length of the disturbance can last from 10 to 45 minutes. It is obvious that whoever is in this situation is in severe emotional distress. Still, all those working on that same floor are told to ignore it, even if it is making one physically uncomfortable to listen to these episodes.

(more…)




Changing City Puts Choice in New Light



Patrick McIlheran:

But what government can do, he says, is expand opportunities, most classically by education. The Milwaukee Public Schools are trying but are frequently unsuccessful. Of the children who enter its ninth grade, fewer than half make it to 12th grade. The district is trying to change, but a city that makes it onto national TV because of a mob beating needs anyone with bright ideas. And it would be particularly perverse to see those bright ideas, or the willingness of parents to take charge of children’s lives, stymied because of some separate argument about other programs the governor is demanding.




Parting Liberal Waters over No Child Left Behind



Samuel G. Freedman:

He wrote the legal brief that persuaded the Supreme Court in 1958 to order the integration of Little Rock’s public schools, and four decades later, his wavy black hair having long turned into an unruly gray cumulus, he was in court fighting to preserve a desegregation program for the St. Louis region.
In the past several years, though, Mr. Taylor has added a more controversial line to his résumé, as a public advocate for the No Child Left Behind law. From conferences of state legislators to conclaves at education schools, he has defended a statute closely associated with President Bush, parting ways with many of his lifelong allies on the left and bewildering the audiences that would otherwise venerate him.




Bloomberg Continues to Push Public Schools



David Herszenhorn:

So far, the mayor has given only a few hints of his plans. During his re-election campaign, he pledged to double the number of charter schools in New York City, to more than double the number of children attending public prekindergarten and to radically upgrade the high schools with enhanced job training for the worst students and more elite programs for the best.




“Are Teachers Unions Good for Urban Education?”



Shavar Jeffries:

Largely because of these rules, our urban schools better resemble bloated, civil-service bureaucracies than efficient, professional academies of learning.
The problem of union-precipitated bureaucracy is especially acute in urban schools given that union fundraising and organization greatly outstrip the political resources available to urban parents. Given this disparity in political influence, urban-district teachers unions negotiate, disproportionately, with themselves: unions on one side of the table; union-backed school board members, often elected specifically because of union support, on the other.

This is obviously a heated issue all around.




We All Have a Lot to Learn



Fareed Zakaria:

This small event says a lot about global competition. Traveling around Asia for most of the past month, I have been struck by the relentless focus on education. It makes sense. Many of these countries have no natural resources, other than their people; making them smarter is the only path for development. China, as always, appears to be moving fastest.
But one thing puzzles me about these oft-made comparisons. I talked to Tharman Shanmugaratnam to understand it better. He’s the minister of Education of Singapore, the country that is No. 1 in the global science and math rankings for schoolchildren. I asked the minister how to explain the fact that even though Singapore’s students do so brilliantly on these tests, when you look at these same students 10 or 20 years later, few of them are worldbeaters anymore. Singapore has few truly top-ranked scientists, entrepreneurs, inventors, business executives or academics.




Private Education in India



Alex Tabarrok:

More than four out of five Indian engineering students attend private colleges, whose potential growth seems limitless. …
Something similar is happening to the Indian school system…Since the early 1990s the percentage of 6-to-14-year-olds attending private school has jumped from less than a tenth to roughly a quarter of the total in that cohort, according to India’s National Council of Applied Economic Research. And this number may be on the low side. James Tooley of the University of Newcastle in Britain has found that in some Indian slums about two-thirds of the children attend private schools, many of which are not officially recognized and so may escape the attention of nationwide surveys.




“Charter School Confidential”



Jay Matthews:

I don’t think there is a more important story in this new year of 2006 than what happens to the country’s growing charter schools.
But no matter what happens to the federal law, we are going to continue to try to improve schools in this country, one way or another. I would prefer to spend my time looking at the most interesting and encouraging efforts to do so, and that means checking on the charter schools — independently run public schools — since they have the most freedom to innovate.




Article from 12/25 Wisconsin State Journal on Successul Job Placement of Student with Disabilities



Here are links to the Wisconsin State Journal article on Dan Spooner that I mentioned in my December 29 post. This portrays just one of a number of students in MMSD who make very successful transitions into adulthood and jobs, thanks to strong cooperatiive efforts between the school district and local employers, with support from Dane County.
These are links to the main story and the sidebar:
http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=wsj:2005:12:25:539027:FRONT
http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=wsj:2005:12:25:539026:FRONT




Tax Base, City Growth and the School District’s Budget



Paying my annual property tax bill recently, I wondered what the effect of Madison’s development growth (some might call it sprawl) has had on overall spending growth and on an individual’s tax burden (note, Madison Schools include Fitchburg, Maple Bluff and Shorewood parcels). I contacted the city assessor’s office and asked how the number of parcels has changed since 1990. Here are the numbers (thanks to Hayley Hart and JoAnn Terasa):

2005: 64976 2004: 62249 2003: 60667 2002: 59090
2001: 58140 2000: 57028 1999: 56006 1998: 54264
1997: 53680 1996: 53152 1995: 52524 1994: 51271
1993: 50938 1992: 49804 1991: 49462 1990: 49069

Some believe that more money will solve the School District’s challenges.

(more…)




Bill Lueder’s 2005 “Cheap Shots” Awards



Bill Lueders:

Most Secretive Public Entity:
Madison Schools
This summer, the school board announced plans to meet in closed session to discuss teacher bennies, until this was deemed improper. In fall, the district suppressed a report that criticized school officials over the stun-gunning of a 14-year-old student on grounds that there was “pending litigation” — which of course means the litigants had certain access. It also cut a secret deal to buy land for a new school on the city’s southwest side, with board members refusing to delay final approval for even one week to allow for public input. What might voters do the next time the schools come seeking more money? Shhh! It’s a secret!




Raising Expectations in Watts



Lance Izumi:

One place where such heroic work is taking place is the Watts Learning Center (WLC) charter school, one of the most improved charter schools in California.
From 2000 to 2005, the WLC rose from a low test-score ranking to a level near the state’s proficiency target score of 800. The K-5 charter school was able to defy low expectations and accomplish this feat with a student population nearly all African American and low income. In an example of what the President called “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” these two factors are too often considered indicators of educational failure. WLC charter school proved defied that expectation.
Gene Fisher, founder and president of WLC, says that the school’s mission is to create a culture of learning and high expectations for students, parents, faculty and staff. He points out that, “The job of our teachers includes an emphasis on a proven curriculum while also reinforcing these high expectations – a belief that students can and will succeed.”
The school uses the structured phonics-based Open Court reading program. WLC chose Open Court before the Los Angeles Unified School District adopted the same program. Open Court emphasizes continuous review and practice of already learned material. Sandra Fisher, the school’s executive director, says that it is important that the curriculum be structured because so many students lack structure in their lives.

Links:

via Joanne




Rationing Milwaukee’s Vouchers



Alan Borsuk:

A rationing plan for enrolling students in more than 120 schools in Milwaukee’s private school voucher program will be imposed for the 2006-’07 school year, the state Department of Public Instruction said Tuesday in a letter to administrators of those schools.
Key advocates for the voucher program said if the rationing is imposed, hundreds, if not thousands, of students in voucher schools would be unable to continue in or to enroll in schools in the program, and substantial damage would be done to some of the schools.

DPI Letter [pdf]




The Graduates: What Happens After Young Disabled Adults Leave School



Jeff Zaslow:

Ms. Stautz can’t walk or talk, but she misses her old school, says her mother, Janice. Every day at High Point, she socialized with classmates and got encouragement from teachers. Now, she spends mornings in bed, “watching lights and colors on TV,” says Janice. Later, her wheelchair is pushed into the living room, where she is switched into a recliner. Ms. Stautz is on a waiting list for a county day-care program, but her family doesn’t know when or if she’ll get in.
“I try to keep her stimulated, but there’s only so much I can do,” says Janice, who recently bought Holly a puppy for company.




Disintegrating District: Los Angeles



Evan George writing in LA Alternative:

But on November 15th, Jefferson saw a new kind of disruption: a march organized by the students and parents of Small Schools Alliance, to protest what they see as indifference to the inadequate learning environment at Jefferson. More than 500 marchers converged on LAUSD headquarters with a petition of 10,000 signatures calling for the district to relinquish control of Jefferson High School and transform it into six independent charter schools to be operated by Green Dot Public Schools, a local, non-profit charter school developer, created by former Democratic party activist—and Rock the Vote founder—Steve Barr.
Green Dot, which currently operates five high schools in the Los Angeles area, has vied for control of Jefferson High School for nearly a year and a half. Charter school critics—and there are many—have long decried Romer’s own association with the Charter School Movement. As reported in this paper back in February of 2003, Romer then supported a contentious bill aimed at resurrecting the controversial Belmont Learning Center as a risky charter school program.
“I think the Left, which I’m a member of, has to pull our heads out of our xxxxx and come up with some solutions, and stop defending failed systems. Especially un-democratic, centralized bureaucracies that are not effective,” says Barr in an interview with L.A. Alternative. “We have no answers for the education issue. Our answer is to give more money to a failed centralized system?”
Here is an eduprediction: One way or another, things are going to change at Jefferson, Barr has let the genie out of the bottle and it’s not going back in. And that is his endgame anyway, improving things. Those parents want fresh ground now that they know it’s out there.
Barr has this old fashioned notion that the public schools are supposed to be a way up the economic ladder a few rungs — for the kids not the adults.

via Eduwonk




“In Middle Class, Signs of Anxiety on School Efforts”



Susan Saulny:

Some of the very changes that Chancellor Joel I. Klein has made his hallmark – uniform programs in reading and math for most schools; drilling that helped produce citywide gains last spring on standardized tests; changes in rules for admission to programs for the gifted and talented, designed to make them more equitable – have caused unease among that important constituency.
Many parents say, however, that there are extremely limited public school options in the middle school years, and some chafe at how the new rules for gifted programs in the elementary schools and for certain select schools have made competition for admission stiffer.
City officials say that judging by the number of children eligible for free lunch, the class divide in the system remains stable: About 80 percent of the children are poor, with no increase in middle class flight.
Yet Emily Glickman, a consultant who advises parents in the city on winning admission for their children to private schools, said, “The last two years the interest in private schools has exploded, as I see it with people coming to me.”




Fairfax: Rocky End to Schools’ Growth



Maria Glod:

The proposed downsizing of Glasgow — and the anger it has sparked among parents — underscores a dramatic shift in the region’s largest school district, where the rapid student growth of the past decade appears to have come to an abrupt end.
Just four years ago, school officials predicted that there would be more than 171,000 students this year and that the number would continue rising. Now they think the district, the 12th largest nationwide, will max out next school year with 164,725 students.




Pretty Good



A poem by Charles Osgood of CBS News quoted in There Are No Shortcuts, by Rafe Equith
Pretty Good
There once was a pretty good student,
Who sat in a pretty good class;
Who was taught by a pretty good teacher,
Who always let pretty good pass–
He wasn’t terrific at reading,
He wasn’t a whizbang at math;
But for him education was leading
Straight down a pretty good path.
He didn’t find school too exciting,
But he wanted to do pretty well;
And he did have some trouble with writing,
And no one had taught him to spell.
When doing arithmetic problems,
Pretty good was regarded as fine–
5 plus 5 needn’t always add up to be 10
A pretty good answer was 9.
The pretty good class that he sat in
Was part of a pretty good school;
And the student was not the exception,
On the contrary, he was the rule.
The pretty good student, in fact, was
Part of a pretty good mob;
And the first time he knew that he lacked was
When he looked for a pretty good job.
It was then, when he sought a position,
He discovered that life could be tough–
And he soon had a sneaking suspicion,
And he soon might not be good enough.
The pretty good town in our story
Was part of a pretty good state,
Which had pretty good aspirations,
And prayed for a pretty good fate.
There once as a pretty good nation,
Pretty proud of the greatness it had,
Which learned much to late, if you want to be great,
Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.




West Moves Ahead With English 10 Restructuring



West High School has decided to move ahead with their curriculum reduction plan. The school has posted a document explaining the changes on their website. The one concession that the school has made to parents is their decision not to require students to give up time at lunch in order to earn an honors designation. Instead, there will be an embedded honors component where students will be expected to complete more complex assignments and take more challenging exams. Support for struggling students will now occur in the classroom as well.
From the document:

The staff training necessary for full implementation of the tenth grade English program will include:
• The basics of how to differentiate in the classroom. What is really meant by differentiated instruction? How is it successfully implemented at the high school level?
• Best practice strategies for supporting struggling learners in the heterogeneous classroom.




Vouchers, Charters and Public School Accountability



Eduwonk rounds up a number of interesting comments on Milwaukee’s voucher program, including this:

Update: Concerning public accountability, one reader writes:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m not defending these voucher schools, or any schools that hide from legitimate public oversight. But I’ve spent years now working on projects that required interviews with school personnel, site visits, documentation from the central office, etc., etc. And if you think that refusing to submit to outside evaluation is specifically or even primarily a problem of private/voucher schools, you’re nuts. There’s no stonewaller like the public school stonewaller. Administrative assistants are the worst. And don’t give me all that FERPA xxxx, either; they just don’t want people snooping around.
That’s a fair enough point, it’s not just a voucher school problem (though not every public school stonewalls either).




One Room Schools Holding Up in Rural America



Neenah Ellis:

One-room schools still exist in America. They are a legacy of a less mobile, more rural time in American history. Mostly serving isolated communities, the remaining schools require one teacher to educate children of varying ages at the same time in a single classroom.




Task Forces Present Early Options



Sandy Cullen:

Those options would move between 316 and 620 students. Some students at Leopold, Chavez, Falk, Thoreau, Stephens and Huegel would go to existing schools, while some students from Crestwood, Huegel, Stephens and Chavez would attend a new school.
School Board member Lawrie Kobza questioned why an option moving fewer students, which had been presented at recent public forums, was off the table. “I had felt we were moving in the right direction when moving the least number of kids,” she said.
Facilitator Jane Belmore said bus rides for some of those students would have exceeded 45 minutes each way.
….parent Tim Olsen called on administrators to “lead from the front” instead by selling the Doyle Administration Building.
Olsen said that selling the property adjacent to the Kohl Center could bring nearly $7 million to the district, which anticipates eliminating up to $10 million from its current budget next year to comply with state revenue limits.




Memorial Black Student Union



A new student group at Memorial:

The Black Student Union (MBSU) was designed to encourage and develop the Black students of James Madison Memorial High School and beyond. Our purpose is to serve as a liaison between students and the administration, link students to the community, and provide a positive social and cultural atmosphere. Our goal is to build better relationship among one another and to break the typical presentations of the Black community while maintaining respect, unity, and love.


Read more on the blog of the Madison Area Family Advisory/Advocacy Coaliton (MAFAAC).




Internationalizing Our Schools



Elizabeth Burmaster:

We live in a world instantly connected via satellites, computers, and other electronic technology. Our children embrace the technology that makes those connections possible, but need the educational background through cultural and linguistic experiences that will prepare them for the global world of today and their international future.

Burmaster raises some useful points. Clearly, it is no longer sufficient to compare Madison’s curriculum and achievement with Racine, Green Bay or Kenosha. Rather, the question should include Bangalore, Helsinki, Shanghai, Taipei and Osaka, among others.




Friedman on Vouchers



Nick Gillespie:

In 1955 future Nobel Prize–winning economist Milton Friedman kick-started modern education reform with an article titled “The Role of Government in Education.” Bucking the “general trend in our times toward increasing intervention by the state” in virtually all economic and social activities, Friedman argued that universal vouchers for elementary and secondary schools would usher in an age of educational innovation and experimentation, not only widening the range of options for students and parents but increasing all sorts of positive outcomes.
“Government,” wrote Friedman, “preferably local governmental units, would give each child, through his parents, a specified sum to be used solely in paying for his general education; the parents would be free to spend this sum at a school of their own choice, provided it met certain minimum standards laid down by the appropriate governmental unit. Such schools would be conducted under a variety of auspices: by private enterprises operated for profit, nonprofit institutions established by private endowment, religious bodies, and some even by governmental units.”




East High Principal Allen Harris Profile



Sandy Cullen:

You can tell something’s different at East High School this year without even going inside.
Gone is the “smoking wall,” where for generations, students gathered to hang out and smoke cigarettes before and during the school day.
“It was intimidating,” said parent Lucy Mathiak, who admits she was uncomfortable walking past the large group of students who would gather along the wall on Fourth Street. “It smelled terrible and it was really annoying,” added Mathiak’s son Andrew Stabler, 16, a junior at East.
It was also one of the first things to change this fall after Alan Harris stepped in as the school’s new principal.

Background on East High’s recent principal position turnover. More on Allen Harris, including his appearance at the recent Gangs and School Violence Forum




Winter Solstice Celebration: Thoreau Student Self Portraits




Thoreau Art Teacher Andy Mayhall:

Thoreau Elementary School was given a donation by a retired art teacher to have an artist-in-residency. We had artists submit proposals to the school, which were reviewed by the Cultural Arts Committee. Local artist, Susan Tierney, was selected to work with me, and Thoreau students to create self-portrait paintings. Susan worked with students in the classroom on and off for about a month. The students made sketches and then final drawings onto hardboard. Students could create realistic or non-realistic, some were cartoon like, self-portraits. They used colored pencil and acrylic paint to color the portraits. The finished portraits were put together to form 22 murals. The murals are on display in the hallway between the LMC (library) and classrooms on the upper floor. These murals will be a permanent display at Thoreau.

Check out the murals via these photos.




“School Choice and the Civil Rights Establishment”



Shavar Jeffries:

According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Black parents, especially Black parents of children in urban schools, strongly support school choice. This result should be unsurprising: The futures of their children are directly, if not irrevocably, compromised by the continuing failure of urban schools. At the same time, most longstanding civil-rights organizations — like the NAACP, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) — strongly oppose school choice. The following assertions of LCCR, contained in its platform statement on educational matters, is typical:




Crucial Year Can Be Precipice or Springboard



Jay Matthews:

“Ninth grade in America’s public schools has become an increasingly severe hurdle to student progress,” said Walter Haney, a Boston College education professor who has done much research on why more ninth-graders are being held back and eventually dropping out.




“More Black Families Homeschool”



Zinie Chen Sampson:

Joyce Burges, of the Baton Rouge, La., area, says she and other black home schoolers have been likened to traitors by people who think they’ve turned their backs on the struggle to gain equal access to public education. But she feels that when schools don’t teach children to read, or fail to provide a safe place to learn, children should come first.
“You do what you have to do that your children get an excellent education,” she said. “Don’t leave it up to the system.”
(Michael) Apple, the Wisconsin professor, said improving public education for the greatest number of students depends on mass mobilization by concerned parents, but he raises a cautionary note.

A homeschooling mother of one blog National Black Home Educators Resource Association.




Milwaukee: “Main Street of School Reform”



Alan J. Borsuk:

North Ave. is a microcosm of the wealth of things being done to help educate low-income black students and is ground zero in Milwaukee (which itself has been called ground zero in America) for school reforms of many kinds – all of them paid for with public money.
“This whole plethora of schools has inspired this community and given this community hope,” Johnson says. “All of the schools along the avenue are sending a very strong message to the community that education is the key, and there are very strong options.”
But if North Ave. illustrates how parents in Milwaukee have a wider array of choices in publicly funded education than parents elsewhere in America, it does not yet provide convincing answers of what will come from the innovations.

Map of the North Avenue Area.

The most interesting quote of the article:

(Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent William) Andrekopoulos says: “We do things differently because we have to compete. We have a consciousness of all the options in the community.”
At the Young Leaders Academy, Ronn Johnson says, “It’s very clear to the school operators that you have to offer a high quality option or your customers will leave.”
He calls the burst of new schools “a wake-up call to everyone that the power has shifted. It’s no longer in the district. . . . Parents really have the power now.”




Math, Science and Rigor



Sandy Cullen:

Gov. Jim Doyle supports the push to increase the math and science proficiency of high school students, which is primarily coming from business leaders.
They say a lack of these skills among those entering the labor pool is putting Wisconsin at risk of losing jobs because there won’t be enough qualified workers to fill positions ranging from manufacturing jobs to computer specialists, from engineers to mathematical, life and physical scientists and engineering and science technicians.
Art Rainwater, superintendent of the Madison School District, supports increasing the state requirements. Madison high schools require two years of each subject, but in recent years the district has strengthened its math requirement so that all students must now take algebra and geometry to graduate, Rainwater said.
If the state does not increase its math and science requirements, the district will likely consider raising them, he said.
But School Board President Carol Carstensen said she isn’t certain requiring more courses is the way to best prepare all students to succeed after high school.
And just increasing the requirements (emphasis added) won’t make the classes more rigorous, said Lake Mills chemistry teacher Julie Cunningham, who recently won the prestigious Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award.

Additional links and background on math and science curriculum.




“Schools of Hope” is 10 Years Old: 3rd Grade Reading Scores



Channel3000:

During its 10 years, the project has been making a difference to local children, WISC-TV reported.
Since then, the achievement gap has narrowed between students of color and white students who complete algebra by the 10th grade.
At Friday’s Schools of Hope Annual Meeting, the group declared their first goal of closing the gap in third grade reading scores closed. This is something that hasn’t been achieved anywhere else in the country.

Ruth Robarts posts a different perspective and notes that while there has been real progress, the gap has not in fact been closed: “For example, African American third graders scoring proficient or advance has risen from 41% in 1998 to 69% in 2004. Nonetheless, there are significant differences between the percentages of students in subgroups who score proficient or advanced and those who score basic or minimal.” Joanne Jacobs links to two Education Trust reports that describe a “culture of excellence” for high school curriculum.
UPDATE: Sandy Cullen has more on Schools of Hope




“The Absolute Necessity of School Choice”



Shavar Jeffries:

In the current model, public schools have little incentive to respond meaningfully and systematically to the interests of Black parents, particularly poor Black parents, as these parents simply do not have the political capital to impact systematically the way in which public schools deliver education. A choice model, however, consistent with the most basic predicates of freedom and democracy, begins to grant poor people the opportunity to opt out of the public system if it continues miserably to fail their children. At the same time, it empowers Black parents to select educational models less contaminated by diminished conceptions of Black existential capacity — a phenomenon James Baldwin warned us about forty years ago.




Time for Our Own District (Fitchburg)



Kurt Gutknect writing in the Fitchburg Star:
Satellite View of Fitchurg | Madison School District Map | Oregon School District Map | Verona School District Map

You don’t have to travel very far to hear snide remarks about Fitchburg. It’s a sprawling suburb. Unchecked growth. An enclave for white folks and their McMansions.
Of course, there’s an element of truth in all of these barbs, and I frequently indulge my doubts that this appendage of Madison is a manifestation of our most noble civilizing instincts.
But I confess to getting rather fond of Fitchburg, and occasionally entertain notions that its sprawling, disjointed character is normal. The city might be evolving toward something that resembles, well, a city.
My main reservations about Fitchburg have more to do with doubts that 21st century American culture is really creating a better world for the next generation. For better or worse, Fitchburg is a product of the times. It’s unrealistic to expect us to evolve into an enclave against virulent consumerism or to stanch the flow of SUVs.
All things considered, Fitchburg does about as well as can be expected, and maybe better than many other burbs.

(more…)




“What Kind of School Systems Are Our Taxes Supporting”



Word travels quickly in 2005: Northwestern Adjunct Professor James Carlini:

This question becomes very critical given the fact that jobs are being outsourced to other countries by the thousands and many leaders of public schools have lost touch with what’s important. Educators better get with the program and start teaching real skills along with the ability to learn and compete.
……
Where is the quality control in public schools? Political correctness and slanted ideology should be replaced with political accuracy and strong, fundamental and objective learning skills. Schools should also concentrate on developing skill sets to compete globally. A focus on creativity, flexibility and adaptability – rather than rote, repetition and routine – should be the critical objective of today’s school goals for educating tomorrow’s work force

More about Carlini. There are, of course, no shortage of opinions on this matter.




Proving Success using Different School Models



American Institutes for Research:

Of the 22 reform models examined, Direct Instruction (Full Immersion Model), based in Eugene, Ore., and Success for All, located in Baltimore, Md., received a “moderately strong” rating in “Category 1: Evidence of Positive Effects on Student Achievement.”
Five models met the standards for the “moderate” rating in Category 1: Accelerated Schools PLUS, in Storrs, Conn.; America’s Choice School Design, based in Washington, D.C.; Core Knowledge, located in Charlottesville, Va.; School Renaissance in Madison, Wis.; and the School Development Project, based in New Haven, Conn. Models receiving a “moderate” rating may still show notable evidence of positive outcomes, but this evidence is not as strong as those models receiving a “moderately strong” or “very strong” rating.

The Complete report is available here [Elementary | Middle and High School] Via Joanne.




Education for ALL Children



Art Rainwater:

The Madison Metropolitan School District has been a leader in creating inclusive educational opportunities for children. Since the District’s closing of Badger School in 1977, there has been steady progress toward fully including our children with disabilities in the general educational experience in our schools. Most children with disabilities now attend their neighborhood school where special education and classroom teachers work collaboratively to ensure that the learning experience is appropriate for every child in the classroom.
The sense of community and relationships between students with and without disabilities that develop in the school setting set the stage for many of our disabled citizens to join a pluralistic society as adults. Our community at large is enriched by providing valuable opportunities for children with disabilities to move into the world of work and be productive citizens.