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Search Results for: Madison teachers inc

Technology in the Madison Schools

I am the parent of 2 children, one in first grade and the other soon to enter Kindergarten. I recently registered my child for Kindergarten where I was handed a very helpful folder with lots of great information in it. It had pictures of children learning in various contexts and text touting the wonderful education […]

John Matthews has run Madison’s teachers union for 40 years. Is it time for a change?

Jason Shephard:

But while Matthews laments the failures of government to improve teaching and learning, he glosses over his own pivotal role in local educational leadership. That role includes standing in the way of programs like 4-year-old kindergarten that could help the district meet its educational objectives.
Beginning in the next few weeks, a school board made up mostly of rookies will begin to address the challenges ahead. A new superintendent starting July 1 — Daniel Nerad, formerly top dog in Green Bay — inspires hope of new solutions to nagging problems. But the third pillar of power is John Matthews. He’s been around the longest and arguably knows the most.
Already, Matthews has cemented his legacy from building a strong, tough union. But now, some are wondering if Matthews will also leave behind a legacy of obstructing key educational change.

Clusty Search: John Matthews.

Madison School Board Candidate Marj Passman’s Q & A Responses

Marj Passman has posted her Q & A responses from:

Marj, like Ed Hughes is running unopposed.

Madison School Board Candidates Discuss Why They Are Running

Take Home Test, Week 1 by Marc Eisen:

Why is The Daily Page wasting precious pixels by questioning two Madison school board candidates who are running unopposed on the April 1 ballot?
Because the success of the public schools is absolutely essential to Madison’s future. And by questioning Marjorie Passman, the lone candidate for Seat 6, and Ed Hughes, the lone candidate for Seat 7, we hope to further the discussion of education in Madison.
So for the next five weeks we will revive Take Home Test, asking the candidates large and small questions each week. Their responses to our questions follow.
THE DAILY PAGE: WHAT IN YOUR BACKGROUND PREPARES YOU TO SET POLICY FOR A SCHOOL DISTRICT OF ALMOST 25,000 STUDENTS WITH A $340 MILLION BUDGET AND 3,700 EMPLOYEES? PLEASE DISCUSS YOUR PERTINENT TRAITS AND EXPERIENCES.

Via a couple of emails, including Ed Hughes, who urges us to look forward!
Ed’s website includes an interesting set of Questions and Answers, including those from Madison Teachers, Inc..

Where to Educate Your Child? Madison Area is #2

Via a reader’s email: David Savageau (Contributing Editor of Expansion Management Management):

Three out of 10 of us either work in an educational institution or learn in one. Education eats up 8% of the Gross National Product. Keeping it all going is the biggest line item on city budgets. Whether the results are worth it sometimes makes teachers and parents–and administrators and politicians–raise their voices and point fingers.
In the 1930s, the United States was fragmented into 130,000 school districts. After decades of consolidation, there are now fewer than 15,000. They range in size from hundreds that don’t actually operate schools–but bus children to other districts–to giants like the Los Angeles Unified District, with three-quarters of a million students.
Greater Chicago has 332 public school districts and 589 private schools within its eight counties. Metropolitan Los Angeles takes in 35 public library systems. Greater Denver counts 15 public and private colleges and universities. Moving into any of America’s metro areas means stepping into a thicket of school districts, library systems, private school options and public and private college and universities.

Here are some of their top locations:

  1. Washington, DC – Arlington, VA
  2. Madison, WI
  3. Cambridge-Newton-Framingham
  4. Baltimore -Towson
  5. Akron, OH
  6. Columbus, OH
  7. Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY
  8. Syracuse, NY
  9. St. Louis, MO
  10. Ann Arbor, MI

The Madison area has incredible resources for our children. The key of course, is leveraging that and being open to working effectively with many organizations, something Marc Eisen mentioned in his recent article. Madison’s new Superintendent has a tremendous opportunity to leverage the community from curricular, arts, sports, health/wellness, financial and volunteer perspectives.
Related:

The Capital Times:

The Madison area, which includes all of Dane County as well as immediately adjoining areas, was awarded A+ for class size and spending per pupil in public schools, and for the popularity of the city’s public library.
The greater Madison area scored an A for being close to a college town and for offering college options.
Private school options in the greater Madison area were graded at B+.
There has been some confusion in the response to the rankings because they lump together numerous school districts — urban, suburban and rural.

Channel3000:

The engineering-based program is just one example of the district’s willingness to bring college-level learning to his high school students. That effort appears to be paying off nationally, WISC-TV reported.
“It reinforces that what we’re trying to do as a district and as an area is working,” said Granberg. “And it’s getting recognized on a national level, not just a local or state level.”
“This is not a community that accepts anything but the best and so that bar is always high,” said Madison Metropolitan School District Superintendent Art Rainwater.
Rainwater also credits the ranking to teacher development programs.
“We spend an awful amount of time and an awful amount of effort working with our teachers in terms of how they deliver instruction to individual children,” said Rainwater.
He said the school district will continue to improve techniques, focusing on the needs of every student.

Madison Teachers Protest Larger Class Size

Channel3000:

Many of Madison’s elementary school teachers spoke out to the Madison Metropolitan School District’s Board of Education on Monday night.
Carrying brightly colored signs, the group protested the increased class size for gym, arts and computer classes. The larger related arts classes are known by some as “one and one-half classes,” WISC-TV reported.
District officials started the policy at the elementary level this year to save money.
Some teachers said their students, many of whom come from low-income backgrounds, are getting short-changed.
“I teach in a school with 46 percent or more kids on free or reduced lunch,” said Rhonda Schilling, a music teacher for Thoreau and Hamilton elementary schools. “Many of the kids come from really rough backgrounds, and those are the kids in particular that shine often in the arts. They need that contact time with their teacher.”

Madison Teacher Safety: Going to Court

WKOWTVWKOW-TV [Watch Video | mp3 Audio]:

February 13 became a tense day in two, separate Madison schools.
Police reports show a fifteen year old student at Memorial High School became angry with special education teacher Tim Droster. Another staff member told officers the student made motions to mimic the act of shooting Droster. The student was arrested.
At Cherokee Heights Middle School, police reports show a thirteen year old student reacted to being denied laptop computer priveleges by posing this question to special education assistant Becky Buchmann: “Did you want me to gun you down?” Juvenile court records show the student had previously shot an acquaintance with a BB gun, and Madison Teachers Inc. (MTI) information stated the student had also brought a BB gun to school and had gang affiliation.
Buchmann went to court and obtained a restraining order against the student.
Droster worked through school officials and his threatening student was given a different school schedule and new conduct rules.
Attorney Jordan Loeb has represented teachers seeking restraining orders to protect themselves in the classroom. “It’s controversial,” Loeb told 27 News.
But Loeb said teachers are no different than someone from any other walk of life when it comes to needing the authority of a judge to insure a threatening person does not cause harm.
“When it’s your safety on the line, you have to do everything you believe is necessary to keep yourself safe.”
Loeb estimated an average of ten teachers and other school staff members per year over the past decade have obtained restraining orders against threatening students and adults in Dane County courts.
But school district statistics show a more than five fold increase in teacher and staff injuries caused by students in the past three years.
In 2003, of 532 injury reports submitted by teachers and staff members, 29 were the result of student assaults.
In 2006, 540 teacher and staff injury reports involved 153 student assaults.
School district spokesperson Ken Syke said the most recent student assault numbers may be inflated by the inclusion of teacher injuries incidental to fights between students.

Related:

D.C. Schools Chief Wants Power to Fire Ineffective Teachers

Theola Labbe: As D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty proposed legislation yesterday that would grant schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee the power to drastically revamp the system’s central office, Rhee said she also wants more authority to fire underperforming teachers. It was her first public statement that teachers could be ousted as part of what Fenty […]

US Department of Education Response to Madison’s SLC Grant Application

Angela Hernandez-Marshall 971K PDF:

We have completed our review of applications received under the Smaller Learning Communities Program (CFDA 84.215L) [MMSD SLC Application]. The Department received a total of 236 eligible applications in this competition. Of these, 38 were selected for funding. Unfortunately, your application was not selected for funding this year.
Each application received a comprehensive review b y external reviewers who had experience implementing, documenting, or evaluating policies, programs, or practices at the national, state, or district level to improve the academic achievement of public high school students. Panel members included teachers, school, district, and state administrators, technical assistance providers, education researchers and program evaluators. Using the criteria published in the Federal Register notice, three reviewers independently rated each application and documented strengths and weaknesses.
The Department does not return copies of unfunded application to the applicant but we will retain a copy of your application until the end of this calendar year in the event that you wish to discuss it with us. We are enclosing a copy of the reviewers’ evaluations and comments, which you may use to strengthen your proposal for future competitions. To that end, please check our website beginning in November 2007 for information about the next Smaller Learning Communities grants competition: http://www.ed.gov/programs/slcp/applicant.html.
We appreciate the time and thought that went into the planning and preparation of your application. Your ongoing school improvement efforts are critical to improving educational services that will meet the unique needs o f high school students. Again, we do regret that we are unable to support your application and thank you for your effort.
Please forward any further inquiries to me at smallerlearningcornmunities@ed.gov.

The first reviewer noted (page 3) that “(5) As part of the district’s strategic planing there is no examination of the successes and weaknesses of previous SLC initiatives (pages 15-16).”.
Related, via Jeff Henriques:

A UW-Madison education prof seeks middle school science teachers to participate in a professional development project.
Improving science teaching with hypertext support

Researcher: Sadhana Puntambekar
Email puntambekar@education.wisc.edu
Phone: (608) 262-0829
Link to site: www.compassproject.net/info
News context:
Science Magazine: The World of Undergraduate Education
Previous participants include:
Contacts:
Kelly Francour: kfrancou@marinette.k12.wi.us
Dana Gnesdilow: gnesdilow@wisc.edu
Hands-on science lab activities provide students with engaging ways to learn. But sometimes students don’t fully learn the concepts behind what they’re doing.
A hypertext computer environment being developed and field tested gives students graphical ways to practice learning and relating science concepts like ‘force’ and ‘energy,’ for example.
The program, called CoMPASS, helps ensure that hands-on construction activities leads to student understanding of the underlying deep science principles and phenomena.
UW-Madison education professor Sadhana Puntambekar points out that reading, writing, and communicating are an essential part of science instruction.
Research has pointed out the important role of language in science. Yet informational text is seldom used to complement hands-on activities in science classrooms.
This CoMPASS computer environment gives students a graphical, interactive, hypertext ‘concept map’ to help students visualize concepts and their relations. Navigating these ‘concept maps’ helps student make connections between abstract concepts, and to select text resources based on the relatedness of the documents to each other.
Eighth-grade students using the CoMPASS ‘concept maps’ performed better on essay question requiring depth. On a concept mapping test, students using CoMPASS made richer connections between concepts in their own maps (6th and 8th grades)
The CoMPASS environment helps teachers, too. It gives them another way to observe how well students learn.
The system is being used in inquiry-based curriculum units in sixth and eighth grade science classes. To date, CoMPASS has been used by over 1000 students in sixth and eighth grades in Wisconsin and Connecticut.

“Value Added Assessment” Madison School Board’s Performance & Achievement Committee Looks at “A Model to Measure Student Performance”

Video / 20MB Mp3 Audio Superintendent Art Rainwater gave a presentation on “Value Added Assessment” to the Madison School Board’s Performance & Achievement committee Monday evening. Art described VAA “as a method to track student growth longitudinally over time and to utilize that data to look at how successful we are at all levels of […]

Insurance coverage teachers’ top priority

John Matthews: The union is obligated to represent its members interests. The union surveyed its members prior to entering bargaining and the members spoke loudly and clearly: Retain our health insurance options. MTI members value Wisconsin Physicians Service because it enables freedom of choice in medical providers. And MTI members value the services of Group […]

Audio / Video: Madison School Board Vote on the MTI 2007 – 2009 Agreement

The Madison School Board voted 4-3 (for: Carstensen, Moss, Silveira and Winston; no: Cole, Kobza and Mathiak) Monday evening to approve the proposed MMSD / MTI 2007 – 2009 agreement. The new arrangement, which does not include substantial health care changes, was set in motion by the “Voluntary Impasse Resolution Document” – also approved by […]

Long Reviled, Merit Pay Gains Among Teachers

Sam Dillon: For years, the unionized teaching profession opposed few ideas more vehemently than merit pay, but those objections appear to be eroding as school districts in dozens of states experiment with plans that compensate teachers partly based on classroom performance. Here in Minneapolis, for instance, the teachers’ union is cooperating with Minnesota’s Republican governor […]

Madison Schools MTI Teacher Contract Roundup

Conversation regarding the recent MMSD / MTI collective bargaining agreement continues: Andy Hall wrote a useful summary, along with some budget numbers (this agreementi s56% of the MMSD’s $339.6M budget): District negotiators headed by Superintendent Art Rainwater had sought to free up money for starting teachers’ salaries by persuading the union to drop Wisconsin Physicians […]

Madison’s Adoption of the Kronenberg “Positive Behavior Support” Principles

Doug Erickson: A couple of years ago, the students likely would have been suspended. But under a new approach to discipline being tried in the district, the students instead were given the option of coming up with a fix-it plan — something more than just saying, “I’m sorry.” The students chose to spend all of […]

An open letter to the School Board of Madison Metropolitan Schools

It’s about time that this community approached the budget process with the honesty and integrity that we homeowners are required to do. For the past several years, the Superintendent and his associates have made a projected budget by increasing all categories of the budget by a certain percentage (about 5%) whether costs in that area […]

Principals promote mid-sized schools

From a story by Susan Troller in The Capital Times: Several principals spoke persuasively about the advantages of mid-size schools at Monday night’s Madison School Board meeting, but they apparently failed to sway any votes in support of school closings. Cherokee Middle School Principal Karen Seno said she has allocated resources at her school to […]

April Madison Board of Education Progress Report

The month of April brings showers, however, for the Madison BOE it brings new beginnings, budget challenges and community dialogue.

Madison BOE elections 2007: Voters 2, MTI 1

The Isthmus article Blame for the media illustrates a long-obvious truth: John Matthews is Madison’s Mayor Daley, a ward boss of our very own, and he gets very angry when his political control slips. Matthews wanted to control the selection of Board members for three seats in 2007. Odd-year elections are especially important to Madison […]

An open letter to the Superintendent of Madison Metropolitan Schools

Dear Mr. Rainwater: I just found out from the principal at my school that you cut the allocations for SAGE teachers and Strings teachers, but the budget hasn’t even been approved. Will you please stop playing politics with our children education? It?s time to think about your legacy. As you step up to the chopping […]

School Board Candidate Forum: Madison United for Academic Excellence

Thanks to Laurie Frost & Jeff Henriques for organizing Thursday’s MAUE forum: Video / 30MB MP3 Audio. This event included some interesting questions: 14 minutes: On the Superintendent’s proposed reductions in the budget increase and their affect on the MMSD’s 6 TAG members. Do you believe TAG services still have a role? 20:40 What strategies […]

School District Annual Reductions in Budget Increases

Doug Erickson: Madison School District administrators are scheduled to announce today their recommendations for millions of dollars in program and staff cuts, a grim step in a budget process that typically consumes the School Board’s attention each spring. Larger class sizes at the elementary level and bigger caseloads for special education teachers likely will be […]

Madison’s Reading Battle Makes the NYT: In War Over Teaching Reading, a U.S.-Local Clash

Diana Jean Schemo has been at this article for awhile: The program, which gives $1 billion a year in grants to states, was supposed to end the so-called reading wars — the battle over the best method of teaching reading — but has instead opened a new and bitter front in the fight. According to […]

3/5/2007 Madison School Board Candidate Forum: West High School

The Madison West High School PTSO held a school board candidate forum Monday night. Topics included: Madison High School Comparison A candidate’s ability to listen, interact and work successfully with other board members Past and future referenda support Candidate views on the $333M+ budget for our 24,000 students Extensive conversations on the part of Marj […]

Two Educators Discuss “My Life & Times with the Madison Public Schools”

Audrey Soglin & Char Gearing respond to Marc Eisen’s recent words: I think we have learned and the research supports that kids need a balanced literacy approach. The “whole language vs. phonics” wars should really be put to rest. It is an old fight. Kids don’t learn the same way so a variety of instructional […]

Sparks Fly as the Madison Studio Charter School is Voted Down

The Madison School Board voted down the proposed Studio Charter School Monday night in a 4-2 vote (Against: Carstensen, Kobza, Silveira and Winston; For Mathiak and Robarts with Vang away). Sparks flew when Lucy Mathiak asked Nancy Donahue about their interaction with the attempts to talk with principals and teachers about the proposed charter school […]

Concessions Made in Advance of MTI Negotiations by a Majority of the Madison School Board

It will be interesting to see how voters on February 20 and April 3 view this decision by a majority of the Madison School Board: Should the Board and Administration continue to give away their ability to negotiate health care benefits ($43.5M of the 2006/2007 budge) before MTI union bargaining begins? Read the 2005 MMSD/MTI […]

‘Virtual’ courses rile teachers union

Non-union teachers could be used online By Susan Troller The prospect of a virtual school program in Madison is causing a confrontation in the real world between the Madison school district and John Matthews, executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., the teachers’ union. At issue is whether the Madison district will be violating its collective […]

Madison’s Mendota Elementary School beats the odds

What does it take to truly create a school where no child is left behind? That question defines what is probably the most pressing issue facing American public education, and a high-poverty school on Madison’s north side west of Warner Park seems to have figured out some of the answers. Mendota Elementary is among a […]

Innovation in the Madison Public Schools

Scott Milfred: The Madison School District just went through a successful school building referendum. Yet a key argument by opponents resonated with the public. The critics asked: Why not close an East Side school with falling enrollment to help pay for construction of a school on the far West Side where the number of students […]

Notes on Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater’s Reign

Marc Eisen: I could rattle off a half-dozen reasons why it’s a good thing that Art Rainwater is resigning as Madison’s school superintendent in 18 months. But I won’t. I wish instead that he was staying on the job. Rainwater’s lame duck status and the uncertainty over his replacement come at a particularly bad moment […]

It’s the right time for Madison School Board to review student discipline code

In The Capital Times, reporter Susan Troller tells the stories of students and teachers who recently experienced violence at Madison schools or school-related activities. The story underscores how important it is for the Madison School Board to take a hard look at violent misconduct at all levels. The board must consider whether the current discipline […]

Madison Superintendent Rainwater Tells MTI about Resignation Plans Before He Tells the School Board?

In a guest editorial in The Capital Times on January 10, 2007, MTI leader John Matthews explains that Madison school superintendent Art Rainwater unveiled his plan to resign at the end of 2007-08 to the teachers union leader long before he told the Madison Board of Education in an executive session on Monday, January 8, […]

Notes and Links on the Madison K-12 Climate and Superintendent Hires Since 1992

Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater’s recent public announcement that he plans to retire in 2008 presents an opportunity to look back at previous searches as well as the K-12 climate during those events. Fortunately, thanks to Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web, we can quickly lookup information from the recent past. The Madison School District’s two most […]

Reading Between the Lines: Madison Was Right to Reject Compromised Program

Jason Shephard: From the beginning, Mary Watson Peterson had doubts about the motivations of those in charge of implementing federal education grants known as Reading First. As the Madison district’s coordinator of language arts and reading, she spent hundreds of hours working on Madison’s Reading First grant proposal. “Right away,” she says, “I recognized a […]

2007 – 2008 Madison School District Budget Discussions Underway

Watch Monday evening’s school board discussion [Video | Download] of the upcoming larger than usual reductions in revenue cap limited increases in the District’s 2007 – 2008 budget (they are larger than normal due to the recently disclosed 7 year structural budget deficit). The 2006 / 2007 budget is $333M+ (it was $245M in 98/99 […]

On, Off and On Again 11/27/2006 Madison School Board High School Redesign Discussion

Susan Troller wrote this on Tuesday, 11/21/2006: A presentation on the redesign of Madison’s high school curriculum scheduled for next week’s School Board meeting has been scrapped for the immediate future, School Board President Johnny Winston Jr. confirmed late this morning. “We’ll hold off on changes until we get a better feel for how the […]

Madison School District Virtual Learning

Jason Shephard: One of the better-kept secrets in Madison is that the school district currently offers more than 100 online courses for city high school students. The program is called the Madison Virtual Campus. “It turns out Madison is a leader in this technology,” says Johnny Winston Jr., the school board president. “My first question […]

To Voting Madison Citizens

I didn’t vote for the Leopold referendum last spring, and I still believe that was the correct vote. If the community had voted to build a second school on Leopold then we would not have the opportunity for the community to vote “Yes” on this referendum, which I believe is a better financial and long […]

Madison School District Progress Report

Via a Johnny Winston, Jr. email: Welcome back to school! I hope you had a wonderful summer. On August 28th the Madison school board approved plans Plan CP2a and Plan CP3a relative to boundary changes that will be necessary if the November 7th referendum to construct an elementary school on the Linden Park site passes […]

Madison Student SAT Results Released

Madison Metropolitan School District [SAT Wisconsin Report – 244K PDF]: Madison students taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scored significantly above their state and local peers, continuing a trend of more than a decade. Madison students’ composite score was 1251, well above Wisconsin students’ composite score of 1188 and the national composite of 1021. (See […]

Human Resources Committee of Madison Board To Set Agenda

On Monday, August 21 the Human Resources Committee of the Madison School Board will have its first meeting at 7:00 p.m. in Room 103 of the Doyle Administration Building (545 West Dayton Street). Following a goal-setting meeting of the Board on June 19, the committee will address a number of important issues, beginning with alternative […]

Magical Teachers Can Change People’s Lives

William Wineke: “When I was in high school I had a teacher that really helped me,” nephew Tommy wrote. “His name is Gerald Krause. He is now retiring after 28 years of being a shop teacher at Verona High School. I know that being sappy isn’t my forte, but he has helped out our community […]

Making the Grade: Madison High Schools & No Child Left Behind Requirements

Susan Troller: Don’t assume that a school is bad just because it’s not making adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law. That comment came today from Madison School Board member Lucy Mathiak, whose children attend or have attended East High School. East and three other Madison public high schools were cited […]

2006 / 2007 Madison School Board & Committee Goals

The Madison School Board meets June 19, 2006 @ 5:00p.m. to discuss their 2006 / 2007 goals for our $332M+ schools. A friend wondered what goals readers have in mind. I thought it might be useful to consider the Board’s goals in light of the District’s strategic plan [450K pdf]: Instructional ExcellenceImproving student achievement Offering […]

Continue Elementary Strings – 550 Low-Income Children Deserve the Opportunity to Proudly Play Their Instruments

On Wednesday, May 31st, the MMSD School Board will consider amendments to the 2006-2007 school budget proposed by the Superintedent. In his proposal, the Superintendent proposed cutting Grade 4 strings this year and Grade 5 strings the end of next year. One amendment to be discussed on Wednesday would have Grade 4 strings 1x per […]

The Madison Community – Students, Parents, Professionals, Citizens – Can Help Elementary Strings: Here’s How

The community CAN HELP elementary strings and fine arts education in MMSD. Please write the School Board – comments@madison.k12.wi.us – ask them a) to establish a community fine arts education advisory committee beginning with a small community working group to put together a plan for this, b) develop a multi-year strategic and education plan for […]

Madison Schools Make Effort to Close the Achievement Gap

Sandy Cullen: Working in conjunction with the Schools of Hope project led by the United Way of Dane County, the district has made progress in third-grade reading scores at the lowest achievement levels. But racial and income gaps persist among third-graders reading at proficient and advanced levels. Other initiatives are taking place in the middle […]

MTI on Inclusion

For what it’s worth, this comes up when you Google for Madison and inclusion [pdf version]: From a 1996 MTI document. Note the emphasis on appropriate support and funding, and the statement “MTI opposes the exclusive use of any full inclusion model.” Can anyone posting to this blog tell us whether this is still the […]

Madison Schools’ Proposed Comprehensive Food Policy

Madison Metropolitian School District News Release: Community asked for feedback on proposals, Board will begin to consider next month As the next step in developing a Madison School District comprehensive food policy, recommendations are being released today by a student work group for consideration by the Board of Education. There’s been quite a bit of […]

Young Madison Activists Reflect On Resistance

Three years ago, a group of fifth-graders at Madison’s Crestwood Elementary School took on “The Man,” as they like to put it. The students, dubbed the “Recess Rebels,” tried to restore an outdoor recess that administrators had removed in a restructuring of the school day. They didn’t win, but they claimed a few victories along […]

Principal for a Day – Understanding Schools

Neil Heinen: When all is said and done, there may be no more important relationship in our system of public education than a principal and their school. The impact a principal has on students, teachers, staff, parents and learning is undeniable. And the good ones make their schools good. Madison has many good ones. And […]

Parent Involvement – from NCLB to easing the work of teachers

Madison School Board Seat 1 Candidate Maya Cole: Did you know that the No Child Left Behind legislation requires school districts that receive Title 1 funds to involve parents with their children’s schooling? One goal I have for the school board is to encourage and model increased parental participation in the schools. We need to […]

A Larger Conversation about Quality Inclusive Education

These are thoughts authored by community member and MMSD parent, Beth Swedeen: The issue of children being adequately served by special education services is a challenge playing out across the country. Certainly, as someone who works with families of children with disabilities and as a parent of a child with disabilities myself, I know the […]

Want to know whether the Madison schools get a good health insurance deal for teachers? Forget it.

Most of the $37M that the Madison school district will spend this year for employee health insurance goes to the cost for covering our teachers and their families. That’s about 10% of the total annual budget. I support high quality health insurance for all of our employees. As a school board member, I also have […]

Teachers bar shift in health coverage

Madison’s teachers union said Friday it will not agree to reopen its contract with the School District to renegotiate health-care benefits, dashing hopes the district could find cheaper coverage. A joint committee of district and union representatives has been studying rising health- care costs, but both sides had to agree to reopen the 2005-07 contract […]

Doyle Wants to Increase Math and Science Requirements

From NBC15.madison.com Gov. Doyle says he wants high school students to take another year of math and science. Doyle says the move will make students better prepared for the future. The announcement came when Gov. Jim Doyle released his Grow Wisconsin agenda last week. http://nbc15.madison.com/news/headlines/1882932.html

Madison School Board Workshop: Evaluate Business Services?

The Madison School Board had several interesting discussions Monday night. The first was a proposed 3rd party evaluation of the District’s Business Services Department. This discussion is somewhat in response to the complaint that, given budget choices, the Madison School District lays off teachers rather than accountants. Watch This Discussion – Quicktime MP3 Audio The […]

Music Education in MMSD Needs Help from the Madison Community

Music education in Madison’s public schools has been on the chopping block for the past four years, beginning with the Superintendent’s proposed cut to Grade 4 strings. All the proposed cuts were made without any planning for changes, and the harshest cuts came this year, again without any planning for change among the key stakeholders […]

Shephard: Madison Schools WPS Insurance Proves Costly

Jason Shephard emailed a copy of his article on Madison Schools’ Healthcare costs. This article first appeared in the June 10, 2005 issue of Isthmus. The Isthmus version includes several rather useful charts & graphs that illustrate how the Madison School District’s health care costs compare with the City and County. Pick it up.

Madison Schools/MTI Pact

Cristina Daglas: A smaller-than-expected contract for Madison teachers would leave about $400,000 for the School Board to spend on cash-strapped programs, although critics say more was available. Superintendent Art Rainwater and board President Carol Carstensen would not speculate Tuesday on what programs could benefit, but board member Ruth Robarts said maintaining the Open Classroom program […]

Madison Schools Health Care Cost/Benefit Analysis

Following are remarks and attachments distributed to the MMSD Board of Education electronically and hard copy on Monday, June 6, 2005, by KJ Jakobson, who is a researcher working with Active Citizens for Education in matters related to health care benefits for school district employees.  Discussion and questions may be directed to KJ Jakobson directly […]

Sherman Middle School Principal Mandates Change by Fiat – Renames Afterschool an 8th hour and Kicks Academic Performance Music Out to Afterschool

The current music education upheaval at Sherman Middle School is about what Madison values for our children’s education, such as academic music education during the school day and who makes those decisions. It is not about money, because teacher allocations will be needed to teach the 8th hour same as during the school day. Making […]

MMSD Teacher Layoffs Target Elementary String Teachers

On Thursday, based upon Superintendent Rainwater’s recommendation, the Madison School Board approved 20 FTEs for layoff. These layoffs included 60% of the elementary string staff – the largest percentage of one academic personnel group ever laid off in the history of the Madison Metropolitan School District. How come a program that cost less than 1/10 […]

MTI & The Madison School Board

Here is an excerpt from the article in this morning’s State Journal that deserves comment: Matthews said it was worth looking at whether layoffs can be avoided, but he was less optimistic about finding ways to achieve that. He said MTI’s policy is that members have to have decent wages, even if it means some […]

Madison Board of Education Should Not Rush to Vote on Layoffs

In the aftermath of the votes on the May 24th Madison School referenda, it is critical that the Madison School Board not rush to vote on layoffs of teachers and other staff. Currently, the Board is scheduled to vote on layoffs at noon on Thursday, May 26. This deadline for layoff votes is self-imposed by […]

Hard choices for Madison Voters

On May 24th, citizens in the Madison school district will vote on three referenda questions affecting whether to build an addition to Leopold School, exceed revenue caps, and renew the maintenance referendum. For many people the answers are an easy yes or no vote. Others, like me, have wrestled with their choice for each question. […]

Carol Carstensen on Isthmus’ Recent Madison Schools Coverage

This article, by Madison School Board President Carol Carstensen, appeared in Isthmus‘ May 12, 2005 edition: Over the last two years, Isthmus’ articles on the Madison school district, especially its approach to teaching reading, have reminded me of a favorite quote from Adlai Stevenson: “These are the conclusions upon which I base my facts.” The […]

April 5, 2005 Madison School Board Election Campaign Finance Disclosures

Pre-election School Board Candidates Campaign Finance Disclosures (City Clerk Reports): Seat 7: Carol Carstensen: $ Raised: 9,906 (PAC = 100.00); Spent $4,697.94; On Hand 8,541.95 Seat 7: Larry Winkler: $ Raised: 3,788.25 (PAC = 0); Spent $1,788.25; On Hand 2,100.00 Seat 6: Bill Clingan: $ Raised: 11,305 (PAC = 2440); Spent $5183.8; On Hand 7,219.01 […]

News Flash: John Matthews Is Willing to Delay Negotiations for Teachers’ Wages Until After the April 5 School Board Elections

Despite a written agreement between Madison Teachers Incorporated and the Board of Education that aims at settling the teachers contract for 2005-07 by June 30, union executive director John Matthews and Superintendent Art Rainwater made a jovial � and unprecedented – announcement that they would delay discussion of wages and benefits until after the April […]

Board Scares Parents-Threatens All District Can Teach Kids for $13,000+ is Reading and Math: Yet MMSD Board Has No Budget, Keeps $2 Million for Extracurr. Sports, Increases Admin. Budget $1.5 Million in Two Years, Turned Away $10+ Million Fed. Rdg. Grant

This is not the headline of an article in The Onion. Rather, as the Astronauts on the Apollo Mission said, “Houston, we have a problem.” After 10 years of continually reducing services to our children and community . . . long past the time that we can solve our revenue cap problems by being more […]

Madison Teachers Present Contract Proposal

Lee Sensenbrenner: In a departure from their usual procedure, the two sides are first considering all the changes in contract language put forward by Madison Teachers Inc. This proposal, covering such changes as whether teachers would gain free access to after-school events and intellectual property rights to the curriculums they design for the classroom, was […]

FOIA, Blogshine Sunday & Madison School Board Election

Freeculture.org sponsored blogshine Sunday, a day when news organizations run stories and editorials in support of public access to government information. The internet has substantially improved citizen’s ability to see who is funding elected officials directly and indirectly. The Madison City Clerk conveniently posts campaign finance information on their website. I took a quick look […]

Annual Spring Four Act Play: Madison School’s Budget Process

Spring is definitely coming. On February 17, the Madison School Board performed Act 1 of the four-act play that is our annual school budget process. Act 1 is the unveiling of the Budget Forecast. In this Act, the administration solemnly announces that the district faces-once again-“The Budget Gap”. The Budget Gap is the difference between […]

Madison Times report on Donna Ford’s visit

“African American and Hispanic students are underrepresented by 50 percent in gifted programs,” Ford said. “I am determined that before I leave this place, I am going to desegregate gifted education.”

Kobza letter to Keys: Don’t cut teachers

Madison School Board Candidate, Parent and PTO activist Lawrie Kobza forwarded a letter to Board President Bill Keys regarding Madison Schools financial priorities if cuts must be made for the 2005-2006 School Year. In past years, the district limited its budget options when it passed on non-renewal of administrator contracts by February 1 (the MMSD […]

Milwaukee Area School Chiefs Pay Outpaces Teachers

Amy Hetzner: More than three of every four school districts paid their superintendents more in 2003-’04, when measured against what the average teacher was paid, than they did in the 1995-’96 school year, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis of data reported to the state. In addition, with perks such as payments to tax-sheltered annuities […]

Taxpayer Information I’d like to see from the Madison School District

Given this and the probability of three spending referendums this spring, I would like to see the Madison School District’s finance folks publish the following information (in html, on their web site): The District’s sources and uses of funds over the past 10 years, including: total spending (education, special ed, services, staff/admin, other) Employment numbers […]

Comments on MMSD’s Buyout of East High Principal

Last spring four Board members �Carol Carstensen, Bill Clingan, Bill Keys and Juan Lopez�voted to authorize the superintendent to buyout problem employees and pay them up to five months in wages and benefits. Members Ray Allen, Shwaw Vang and I voted no. The decision was retroactive to cover deals with two teachers that the superintendent […]

Life Way After Head Start – Innovative PreSchool Programs Have Decades Long Effects for Low Income and Minority Children

Madison’s preschool leaders are advocating for an innovative K-4 program that involves a public/private partnership with the Madison Metropolitan School District, City of Madison and Madison preschools. There are proposed options that will build upon current preschool programs and entry into public school. As the article below states, innovative pre-school programs can have decades long […]

Madison Superintendent Declines $2M in Federal Funds Without Consulting the Board

On Friday, October 15, Madison School Board members received an e-mail from Superintendent Art Rainwater announcing that the district will withdraw from a federal program known as Reading First. In subsequent interviews with local newspapers, Rainwater estimated that the decision means forgoing approximately $2M in funds for materials to help students in the primary grades […]

Madison�s Accredited Early Educators Propose Solution for Four-Year Old Kindergarten

Several times in recent years, the Madison School Board has considered ways to create a four-year old kindergarten program for all Madison children. The goal of “universal” four-year old kindergarten is to assure that every child enters elementary school ready to learn. In the past, the administration’s proposals involved partnerships with private accredited daycare programs […]

Home Delivery for Madison School Board – Your Tax Dollars at Work

Every Thursday before the Monday meetings of the Madison School Board, a school district employee driving a district vehicle pulls up at each of the seven homes of the board members to deliver a packet of information for the upcoming meeting. Sometimes the vehicle is a van. Sometimes it’s a diesel truck.

Barbara Schrank: Madison School Board needs more thoughtful budget process

It’s true, there isn’t any windfall to be found in next year’s Madison school budget. But small changes in the budget could have a major effect on Madison’s families and direct educational services to our children. The following opinion piece was published in The Capital Times on Saturday, May 29, 2004. http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/guest/75315.php

Pushing back against Republican lawlessness over Act 10

Ruth Conniff:

When Dane Country Circuit Court Judge Juan Colas held officials in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration in contempt this week, he was pushing back against a level of unchecked lawlessness by this administration that is “practically seditious,” says attorney Lester Pines.
Colas had already ruled a year ago that parts of Act 10 — the law that ended most collective bargaining rights for most public employees — were unconstitutional. This included Act 10’s requirement that unions hold annual recertification elections. But commissioners at the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission decided to ignore that decision. They went ahead and prepared for recertification elections for more than 400 school district and worker unions in November.
“The commissioners knew full well” they were flouting the court, Colas said, despite their cute argument that the word “unconstitutional” applied only to the specific plaintiffs in the case — teachers in Madison and city workers in Milwaukee.
As John Matthews, executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., put it, Colas’ decision “is one of the most important decisions not only in public-sector labor history, but also in democracy.”
The principle here is simple. If a law is unconstitutional on its face, it’s unconstitutional in every case. That has always been understood in Wisconsin courts. And, Judge Colas pointed out, the Walker officials understood it, too.

Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Plans Press Conference on Negative Affect of Voucher Expansion on Public Schools



DPI Superintendent, Tony Evers, and legislators who want to maintain Wisconsin’s proud system of public education, are holding a press conference on Monday, June 17 at 10 AM in the Assembly Parlor to address the recent decision by the Joint Committee on Finance to expand voucher funding at the expense of public schools. The Senate and Assembly will be voting to pass this extreme budget within weeks. Please join these folks to inform and educate the public about the negative impact that private school voucher expansion will have on Wisconsin’s public schools. Wear Red for Public Ed. We need a wall of support behind the speakers. Time is running short to stop this train wreck but we cannot allow our opposition to go unnoticed!
TIME / LOCATION: 10 am in the Assembly Parlor with Superintendent Tony Evers.

Governance change is apparently quite difficult within the present school district model.

Support Our Public Schools

Commentary on Wisconsin’s Proposed Voucher and Charter School Expansion

Long term disastrous reading scores are the existential threat to our local public school “status quo” structure.



Related: Where Have all the Students Gone? Madison Area School District Enrollment Changes: 1995-2013.

03 2013 Film and Discussion – We Are Wisconsin – 3/11/13

Could restorative justice bring education antagonists together?

Pat Schneider:

It’s a painful irony for Ananda Mirilli that the School Board run she tried to use to call the community to come together to do better for Madison kids ended up embroiled in such controversy.
“I’m seeing an even bigger divide in the community, and I’m sad that we are in that place,” Mirilli told me Wednesday. “But I’m hoping to continue to work to find healing in our community. We really need to have a conversation about the achievement gap.”
Mirilli, a Latina who lost her bid for Seat 5 on the Madison School Board in the Feb. 18 primary, decided against a write-in campaign when primary winner Sarah Manski dropped out of the race just two days later. But Mirilli hasn’t given up hope that the election — despite Manski’s surprise withdrawal and the allegations of dirty politics and hypocrisy it incited — can yet be made an occasion to bring together people now sometimes working at odds to improve education in Madison schools.
And as the Restorative Justice Program manager at YWCA Madison, Mirilli is wondering if restorative justice principles might be the way to do it.
“I’m wondering if we could hold a circle — not to find out the truth, but to see how we can move forward on this,” Mirilli told me.
Mirilli says she was wrongly depicted by Manski as pro-voucher because of a supposed association with Kaleem Caire of the Urban League of Greater Madison. Caire on Wednesday resurrected allegations of double-dealing by leaders of Madison Teachers Inc. in negotiating his Madison Preparatory Academy charter proposal that was rejected by the School Board two years ago.

Much more on the 2013 Madison School Board elections, here.
I appreciate Schneider’s ability to add links to her articles. This continues to be a rare event in Madison’s traditional media circles.

GRUMPS on Vouchers, Private Charter Schools, Special Education Vouchers



Much more on GRUMPS, here.

GRUMPS Resurfaces 3.5.2013




SAVING MADISON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
GRUMPS (GRandparents United for Madison Public Schools) will be joined by leaders from the business and non-profit sectors to speak out in support of the Madison Metropolitan School District and against legislative efforts that may weaken our schools. Vouchers, private charter schools, special education vouchers will fragment our community and weaken MMSD, a strong public school district whose doors are open to all students.
Date: Tuesday, March 5
Time: 10:30 am
Location: Madison Senior Center, 330 W. Mifflin St.
Speakers:
GRUMPS: Nan Brien, Carol Carstensen
Businesspersons: Betty Custer, Founder and Managing Partner at Custer Financial Services,
Robert Gibson, Chairman and President, Composite Rebar Technologies, Inc.
Non-profit leaders: Michael Johnson, CEO, Boys & Girls Club of Dane County; Sal Carranza, Latino Education Council of Dane County; Eileen Mershart, Retired CEO, YWCA Madison
LWV: Andrea Kaminski, Executive Director, League of Women Voters, Wisconsin
Much more on the 2013 Madison School Board elections, here.

And So, It Continues 2: “Pro Union” or “Union Owned”


Madison School Board.

Chris Rickert:

There’s also the obvious point: If seniority and degree attainment make for better teachers, why are seniority protections and automatic raises for degree attainment necessary in a collective bargaining agreement or an employee handbook?
One would think good teachers should have secure employment, dibs on choice positions and regular raises by virtue of being, well, good teachers.
I’m not drawing attention to the ridiculousness of seniority and degree-attainment perks because I think Walker’s decision to effectively end public-sector collective bargaining was a good one.
But support for these common contract provisions is one way to measure school board candidates.
There’s a difference, after all, between being pro-union and union-owned.

Focus needed on long-term educational goals by Dave Baskerville:

There is now much excitement around Madison and the state with the selection of a new Madison School District superintendent, the upcoming election of new School Board members, the expected re-election of State Superintendent Tony Evers, the rollout of new Common Core state standards, and now a vigorous debate, thanks to our governor, over the expansion of school vouchers.
The only problem is that for those of us who pay attention to classroom results and want to see our students really move out of second-class global standings, there is no mention of long-term “stretch goals” that could really start getting all of our kids — black and white, poor and middle class — reading like the Canadians, counting like the Singaporeans or Finns, and doing science like the Japanese — in other words, to close the gaps that count long-term.
Let’s focus on two stretch goals: Wisconsin’s per capita income will be 10 percent above Minnesota’s by 2030, and our eighth grade math, science and reading scores will be in the top 10 globally by 2030.
This would take not only vision, but some serious experimentation and radical changes for all of us. Can we do it? Of course, but not with just “feel good” improvement and endless debate over means to that end, and without clear global benchmarks, score cards, and political will.

www.wisconsin2.org
The New Madison Superintendent Needs to “Make Things Happen”, a Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:

Barely half of the district’s black students are graduating from high school in four years. That’s a startling statistic. Yet it hasn’t produced a dramatic change in strategy.
Ms. Cheatham, it’s your job to make things happen.
Your top priority must be to boost the performance of struggling students, which requires innovation, not just money. At the same time, Madison needs to keep its many higher-achieving students engaged and thriving. The district has lost too many families to the suburbs, despite a talented staff, diverse offerings and significant resources.
Being Madison’s superintendent of schools will require more than smarts. You’ll need backbone to challenge the status quo. You’ll need political savvy to build support for action.
Your experience leading reform efforts in urban school districts is welcome. And as chief of instruction for Chicago Public Schools, you showed a willingness to put the interests of students ahead of the grown-ups, including a powerful teachers union.
We appreciate your support for giving parents more options, including public charter schools and magnets. You seem to understand well the value of strong teacher and student assessments, using data to track progress, as well as staff development.
The traditional classroom model of a teacher lecturing in front of students is changing, and technology can help provide more individualized attention and instruction. The long summer break — and slide in learning — needs to go.

Madison School Board Election Intrigue (Public!)

he top vote-getter in Tuesday’s Madison School Board primary said Friday she ran for the seat knowing she might not be able to serve out her term because her husband was applying for graduate school in other states.
Sarah Manski, who dropped out of the race Thursday, said she mentioned those concerns to School Board member Marj Passman, who Manski said encouraged her to run. Passman told her it wouldn’t be a problem if she had to resign her seat because the board would “appoint somebody good,” Manski said.
Passman vigorously denied encouraging Manski to run or ever knowing about her husband’s graduate school applications. After learning about Manski’s statement from the State Journal, Passman sent an email to other School Board members saying “I had no such conversation with her.”
“It’s sad to believe that this kind of a person came close to being elected to one of the most important offices in our city,” Passman wrote in the email, which she also forwarded to the State Journal.
Manski said in response “it’s possible (Passman) didn’t remember or it’s possible it’s politically inconvenient for her to remember.”

And so it continues, part 1.

And, so it continues



Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:

Leadership comes in different shapes and sizes. After spending time with 41-year-old Jen Cheatham and attending the community forum on Thursday, I kept thinking back to the winter day 23 years ago when 43-year-old Barry Alvarez was introduced to the Madison community and made his memorable statement about how fans interested in season tickets better get them now because they’d soon be hard to get.
Like Cheatham, Alvarez was an outsider, a rising star in a major program who was ready to take the reins of his own program and run with it. That certainly did not guarantee success, but he proved to have that rare and ineluctable something that inspired his players to raise their game, that drove them to succeed as a team because they couldn’t bear to let their coach or teammates down.
As with Barry, so with Jen. For those of us who have been able to spend time with Jen Cheatham and talk to her about her vision for our Madison schools, it is clear that whatever leadership is, she has it. What we heard time and again from those she’s worked with is that Jen is able to inspire principals and teachers to do their best possible work for the students they serve. But also like Alvarez, she’s doesn’t shy away from tough decisions when they’re necessary.

Related: Madison’s third grade reading results:

“The other useful stat buried in the materials is on the second page 3 (= 6th page), showing that the 3rd grade proficiency rate for black students on WKCE, converted to NAEP-scale proficiency, is 6.8%, with the accountability plan targeting this percentage to increase to 23% over one school year. Not sure how this happens when the proficiency rate (by any measure) has been decreasing year over year for quite some time. Because the new DPI school report cards don’t present data on an aggregated basis district-wide nor disaggregated by income and ethnicity by grade level, the stats in the MMSD report are very useful, if one reads the fine print.”

Madison School Board Needs to Address Search Fiasco:

That being the case, Cheatham would come to this position in a difficult circumstance. As Kaleem Caire, the president of the Urban League of Greater Madison, told the State Journal: “The perception of people in this community when we have one pick, they will always question the value of this woman. That’s not fair to her and not fair to our kids.”
The School Board has presided over a fiasco that board member Ed Hughes admits — in a major understatement — “has not gone as smoothly as we’d like.”
Now the board needs to get its act together.
If would be good if the board were to seek the return of the more than $30,000 in taxpayer money that was allocated for what can only charitably be referred to as a “search.” However, we don’t want the board to squander more tax money on extended legal wrangling.
The board should make it clear that it will not have further dealings with this search firm, as the firm’s vetting of applicants does not meet the basic standards that a responsible board should expect.
Perhaps most importantly, the board should engage in a serious rethink of its approach to searches for top administrators. The Madison Metropolitan School District is a great urban school district. It has challenges, especially with regard to achievement gaps and the overuse of standardized testing, that must be addressed.

Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman – August, 2009

“Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk – the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee. Adult practices and attitudes have become embedded in organizational culture governed by strict regulations and union contracts that dictate most of what occurs inside schools today. Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It’s as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands.” Zimman went on to discuss the Wisconsin DPI’s vigorous enforcement of teacher licensing practices and provided some unfortunate math & science teacher examples (including the “impossibility” of meeting the demand for such teachers (about 14 minutes)). He further cited exploding teacher salary, benefit and retiree costs eating instructional dollars (“Similar to GM”; “worry” about the children given this situation).
Zimman noted that the most recent State of Wisconsin Budget removed the requirement that arbitrators take into consideration revenue limits (a district’s financial condition @17:30) when considering a District’s ability to afford union negotiated compensation packages. The budget also added the amount of teacher preparation time to the list of items that must be negotiated….. “we need to breakthrough the concept that public schools are an expense, not an investment” and at the same time, we must stop looking at schools as a place for adults to work and start treating schools as a place for children to learn.”

Wisconsin Education Rule-Making Battle: Should We Care? Yes; DPI Election Politics

Why should parents, citizens, taxpayers and students pay attention to this type of “rulemaking” case?
WKCE (Wisconsin’s oft-criticized soft academic standards – soon to be replaced) and MTEL-90 (Wisconsin adopts Massachusetts’ teacher content knowledge requirements).
I found Ed Treleven’s article interesting, particularly the special interests funding the rule making legal challenge. I am a big fan of our three part government system: judicial, legislative and executive. That said, the Wisconsin DPI has not exactly distinguished itself over the past decade. The WKCE “tyranny of low expectations” is exhibit one for this writer.
Ed Treleven

Even before the change in the law, rules ultimately have to be approved by the Legislature.
Democrats had labeled the law a power grab by Walker when it was proposed after Walker was elected and before he took office. He signed it into law in May 2011.
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Madison Teachers Inc., the Wisconsin Education Association Council and others. Defendants were Walker, DOA Secretary Mike Huebsch and schools superintendent Tony Evers. Smith’s decision, however, notes that Evers also asked the court to block the law. Evers issued a statement Tuesday saying he was pleased with Smith’s ruling.
Lester Pines, who represented the teachers groups in court, said the law as applied to DPI ran counter to a unanimous state Supreme Court decision in 1996 that said the Legislature cannot give equal or superior authority to any “other officer.”

Finally, it appears that current DPI Superintendent Tony Evers is ready to roll for the spring, 2013 election. I have noticed a number of DPI related inquiries on this site. Perhaps this will be a competitive race!
UPDATE: Gilman Halsted:

The Madison teachers union was one was one of seven plaintiffs that challenged this provision of ACT 21. Union President John Matthews says he’s pleased with the ruling.
“It’s simply because of the way the Constitution defines the role of the state superintendent,” he said. “The governor has equal authority not superior authority to the state superintendent and we think because of the enterprise if you will of public education that should not be a political issue. And Judge Smith saw it our way.”
But a spokesman for the governor’s office says he’s confident that Judge Smith’s ruling will be overturned on appeal and that the governor will retain his rule making veto power. Opponents of this new executive power see it as a power grab. And although this ruling appears to limit the governor’s power over rules that affect education it leaves his authority intact for administrative rules from any other state agency. State Superintendent Tony Evers released a statement hailing the ruling and pointing out that he had proposed language that would have carved out his exemption from the governor’s rule vetoes before the law was passed.

ACT 10 Ruled Null & Void

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter:

MTI’s September 14 Circuit Court victory, in which significant portions of Governor Walker’s union busting legislation (Act 10) were found to be unconstitutional, has gained world-wide attention.
Recognition has been noted twice in The Wall Street Journal, along with articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, in Great Britain, and numerous newspapers throughout Wisconsin. It has also been the subject of daily TV and radio coverage. Announcement of the decision received a standing ovation at the Fighting Bob Fest, and at the Osaka, Japan Social Forum. Public employees in Osaka are suffering from Act 10-like legislation.
MTI Executive Director John Matthews hailed Judge Colas’ decision as restoring the basic rights of collective bargaining to Wisconsin’s public employees. He said, “This is the ticket to restoring employees’ equal voice in the workplace, and the means of assuring justice for those not only represented by MTI, but by numerous other Wisconsin public sector unions.” MTI has requested that the Madison Metropolitan School District timely engage in collective bargaining with MTI to establish contract terms for MTI’s five (5) collective bargaining units, for the 2013-14 contract term.
The State has asked Judge Colas to stay (delay) implementation of his decision pending appeal.

What’s so ‘objectionable’ about a teacher survey?

Matthew DeFour

The Madison School Board on Monday approved using an employee survey as part of its potential process for devising new employee work rules, although such a tool would be illegal if the state’s collective bargaining law is overturned, district lawyer Matt Bell said.
The School Board agreed not to issue the survey until the legal uncertainties related to last week’s court ruling overturning key parts of the state’s new collective bargaining law, known as Act 10, are resolved.
Prior to Friday’s ruling, Superintendent Jane Belmore told the board the survey results would be collected and analyzed by the Wisconsin Association of School Boards at a cost of $1,000.
The survey would ask respondents whether they “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “agree,” “strongly agree” or have “no opinion” about questions such as “The hours I work are reasonable” and “Layoffs should be based on seniority.”
Madison Teachers Inc. executive director John Matthews said the union is opposed to the district using an employee survey.
“Let’s have people who teachers already trust providing that input,” Matthews said.

Maybe their fight really isn’t our fight

Chris Rickert:

There are a lot of good things about public-sector unions, but solidarity for solidarity’s sake isn’t always one of them.
Wisconsin’s public-sector unions wasted no time showing solidarity with Chicago’s union teachers on Monday, when the latter hit the picket lines for the first time in 25 years.
“Their fight is really our fight,” John Matthews, executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., told this newspaper. “Whether we’re talking about Scott Walker or (Chicago Mayor) Rahm Emanuel, it’s the same thing.”
Except it’s not, and already embattled public-sector unions risk credibility by insisting otherwise.
In Wisconsin, Republican Gov. Walker used his party’s takeover of state government last year to essentially push through the death penalty for most public-sector unions.
Unions that choose to take on the newly arduous task of recertifying can expect little more for their efforts than the right to bargain for raises limited to the rate of inflation.

Nichols’ job may prevent participation

Bill Keys, Madison, former member Madison School Board

Thursday’s State Journal reported on the Government Accountability Board’s warning of potential conflict of interest should Nichelle Nichols serve on the Madison School Board.
Nichols will be unable to work fully with her colleagues, because her election may affect her employer, the Urban League of Greater Madison, should the Madison Preparatory Academy proposal return to board agendas or other items dealing with funds received by the Urban League, such as the Schools of Hope project.
When I served on the board, our attorney instructed me to avoid Madison Teachers Inc. negotiations and not even be in the room during discussions. As a retired teacher, I benefited only from the life insurance policy provided by the district. Even so, discussions or votes on MTI benefits would violate state law.
I had to avoid any discussion or votes taken regarding the district’s appropriations to Kajsiab House, which received a district grant to work with Hmong families. I volunteered there, but it was one of the programs in the Mental Health Center of Dane County, my wife’s employer.
Nichols, whose integrity is intact, will find herself more restricted than I was, and will be excluded from significant board work that may be construed as benefiting her or her employer.
Arlene Silveira will not be affected by such potential conflicts, another reason she will be a more effective board member.

Much more on Bill Keys, here.
Seat 1 Candidates:
Nichelle Nichols
www.nichols4schoolboard.org
email: nnichols4mmsd@gmail.com
Arlene Silveira (incumbent)
www.arleneforschoolboard.com
email: arlene_Silveira@yahoo.com
Seat 2 Candidates:
Mary Burke
www.maryburkeforschoolboard.net
email: maryburkewi@gmail.com
Michael Flores
www.floresforschoolboard.org
email: floresm1977@gmail.com
Arlene Silveira & Michael Flores Madison Teachers, Inc. Candidate Q & A




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