schoolinfosystem.org
Jay Matthews: It is election day — a good day, I think, to thank God for our freedoms and for finally relieving us of the pain of listening to all those annoying campaign commercials. I watch and listen to them anyway, even the worst of them. I am a political news junkie and always find […]
Stacey Childress, Richard Elmore and Allen Grossman writing in the Harvard Business Review: One of the biggest management challenges anywhere is how to improve student performance in America’s urban public schools. There has been no shortage of proposed solutions: Find great principals and give them power; create competitive markets with charters, vouchers, and choice; establish […]
This is one of the best things I read recently on support for public education. TJM Jacob Stockinger: A ‘yes’ vote for schools ensures a better future By Jacob Stockinger There is a lot I don’t know about my parents. But I do know this: They would never have voted no on a school referendum. […]
Having long believed that there are solid grounds for criticizing the Madison School Board, I am happy to see how well we compare in our conduct and meetings to some school boards. School board has a truancy problem Steve Brandt, Star Tribune State conservation officer Brian Buria was checking a wetland complaint on Deer Lake […]
Elizabeth Carson: Here’s a math problem for you: Count the excuses people are trotting out for why schoolkids in New York City and State did poorly in the latest round of math scores. The results showed just 57% of the city’s and 66% of the state’s students performing at grade level – and a steady […]
Recently, I posted a letter from a middle school teacher in Madison regarding inadequate computers at one of our middle schools. Fancy programs on aging computers:an MMSD teacher tries to make things work Today the Madison school board received another letter from a teacher explaining how the current state of computers and software makes teaching […]
Marie Gryphon: Good teachers matter. This may seem obvious to anyone who has a child in school or, for that matter, to anyone who has been a child in school. For a long time, though, researchers couldn’t actually prove that teaching talent was important. But new research finally shows that teacher quality is a close […]
by Superintendent Art Rainwater The purpose of high school is to ensure that all of our students leave ready for college, jobs and civic involvement. Our traditional, comprehensive high schools today look and feel much like they have for generations. However, the world our students will live and work in has changed dramatically. The structure […]
The Economist: Look around the business world and two things stand out: the modern economy places an enormous premium on brainpower; and there is not enough to go round. But education inevitably matters most. How can India talk about its IT economy lifting the country out of poverty when 40% of its population cannot read? […]
In a major shift from its influential recommendations 17 years ago, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics yesterday issued a report urging that math teaching in kindergarten through eighth grade focus on a few basic skills. If the report, ”Curriculum Focal Points,” has anywhere near the impact of the council’s 1989 report, it could […]
Letters to the editor regarding “Demoting AP Classes“: To the Editor: Re “Demoting Advanced Placement,” by Joe Berger (On Education column, Oct. 4): As a college history professor, I see the demotion of Advanced Placement courses as a step toward (not away from) the “frenzied” race toward college and the dumbing down of American education. […]
Jason Shephard: On Nov. 7, residents in the Madison Metropolitan School District will vote on a referendum that includes building a new school on the far west side. The total package would hike taxes on an average home by about $29. Although a similar referendum was defeated in May 2005, this year’s ballot initiative may […]
Jeff Zaslow: Knowing that America is hated in many corners of the world, some of our best high-school students have a few requests. Their school curricula require them to study the French Revolution, which began in 1789. Why, they ask, aren’t they also learning about the Iranian Revolution of 1979? They’re taught foreign languages — […]
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Children with severe reading problems usually struggle for years before getting the help they need. But a growing number of neurologists and educators say that with the latest diagnostic tests, children at high risk for these problems can be identified in preschool and treated before they ever begin to read. The newer […]
Some people believe that the Wisconsin Legislature just doesn’t understand how revenue caps affect Wisconsin schools. I’m sorry to say, legislators know very well how caps control spending and they’re happy about it. “In GOP Plays Politics With Property Taxes,” The Capital Times’ Matt Pommer wrote in December 2004: Republicans sought to recapture the anti-tax […]
This is the third in a series of farewell posts to the SIS blog. I still don’t know how long this will take; I don’t have a schedule but I don’t think too much longer. There are still things I want to say before I leave this forum. “The Long Goodbye?” I hope not, but […]
The Economist: Many educators acknowledge that over the past 30 years Alberta has quietly built the finest public education system in Canada. The curriculum has been revised, stressing core subjects (English, science, mathematics), school facilities and the training of teachers have been improved, clear achievement goals have been set and a rigorous province-wide testing programme […]
Zachary Norris: Like the teacher on the show, I was greeted by a dysfunctional buzzer upon arrival at my school. A fitting symbol of the system’s disarray, they were desperately in need of teachers and couldn’t let me in once I got there. Many of my peers in the program were “surplussed,” bouncing around from […]
Jay Greene and Marcus Winters: Should the grade-level a student is in be based entirely on how old he is or at least partially on how skilled he is? This is the fundamental question underlying the debate over social promotion — the practice of moving students to the next grade regardless of whether they have […]
Andrew Rotherham: While critiquing a cage-match point that my colleague Kevin Carey made Sherman Dorn raises an important and overlooked issue. When it comes to data in education there are really two problems. The first, pretty well known, is that there is a real lack of data to answer a bunch of important questions in […]
Elissa Gootman: More than a decade after the city created a special institute to prepare black and Hispanic students for the mind-bendingly difficult test that determines who gets into New York’s three most elite specialized high schools, the percentage of such students has not only failed to rise, it has declined. The drop at Stuyvesant […]
Philip Ross: He thus put in a nutshell what a century of psychological research has subsequently established: much of the chess master’s advantage over the novice derives from the first few seconds of thought. This rapid, knowledge-guided perception, sometimes called apperception, can be seen in experts in other fields as well. Just as a master […]
From Channel 3000: Fall is right around the corner. That means classes back in session and another school referendum for Madison voters. A group calling itself CAST is gearing up to get voters to say yes to a $23.5 million referendum on Nov. 7. CAST stands for Communities And Schools Together. Rich Rubasch is heading […]
My daughter is the “Mothering Type”. You know the kind. She still loves dolls beyond her friends, and loves pets, and she took the babysitting class as soon as possible so she could be around small children. She is always the person in the class the helps and socializes with the high needs kids in […]
University of Florida: However, the trend once known as “mainstreaming”— widely considered the best option for such students – appears to have stalled in some parts of the country, the study’s authors report. And a student’s geographic location, rather than the severity of his disability, often determines how he will spend his school days, the […]
Kevin Carey: Imagine you’re about to put a chunk of your life savings into a mutual fund. Now imagine you peruse the various “best mutual fund” guides on the news rack, only to find they’re all missing crucial pieces of information. The guides list where the fund managers went to college, how much investment capital […]
Kate Grossman: “There are high expectations” for the top students, “and expectations that we’ll perform miracles on the low end.” — Third-grade teacher Natalie Brady In the first six weeks of school, Leigha Groves, whose daughter is one of Brady’s top students, asks for a syllabus repeatedly and meets with Brady several times. Early on, […]
I realize that some of the legal frameworks differ but think that this serves as a good remider that TIFs have an impact on school funding everywhere. From the Chicago Reader See also: Epoch TimesTJM By Ben Joravsky The Schools Scam Under the TIF system millions of dollars in property taxes are being diverted from […]
The Economist: That said, government should not be looking for ways to haul the rich down. Rather, it should help others, especially the extremely poor, to climb up—and that must mean education. Parts of the American system are still magnificent, such as its community colleges. But as countless international league tables show, its schools are […]
Much good stuff here but I’ll just point to the “Blueberry Story,” which encapsulates how public education differs from business. Click the title link for a version with comments TJM The Yearlykos Education Panel – a review / reflection by teacherken Sat Jun 17, 2006 at 03:19:37 AM PDT NOTE also crossposted at MyLeftWing I […]
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 […]
Madison Metropolitan School District Superintendent Art Rainwater replied via email to our “Open letter about Math Coordinator position at MMSD“: On Wed, 31 May 2006, Art Rainwater wrote: Dear Steffen and others; Thank you for sharing your concens. The District has always employed outstanding curriuclum leaders in our Teaching and Learning Department. Mary Ramberg has […]
David S. Kahn: Colleges across the country are reporting a drop in SAT scores this year. I’ve been tutoring students in New York City for the SAT since 1989, and I have watched the numbers rise and fall. This year, though, the scores of my best students dropped about 50 points total in the math […]
Let the Dialogue Begin Bridging Differences A Dialogue Between Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch May 24, 2006 By Deborah Meier & Diane Ravitch In the course of the last 30 years, the two of us have been at odds on any number of issues – on our judgments about progressive education, on the relative importance […]
Sandy Cullen: A new statewide assessment used to test the knowledge of Wisconsin students forced a lowering of the curve, a Madison school official said. The results showed little change in the percentages of students scoring at proficient and advanced levels. But that’s because this year’s Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations- Criterion Referenced Tests proved […]
Seven metropolitan areas of Wisconsin are in the top 25 metros for public schools in the country, according to a survey ranking U.S. school districts with 3,300 students or more. The survey was conducted by Expansion Management Magazine, a monthly business publication for executives of companies that are actively looking to expand or relocate facilities […]
I sent the following letter to the School Board last week after reviewing data and text on elementary strings sent to the School Board by the Fine Arts Coordinator. In late March, I spoke before the School Board about working together on strengthening strings and fine arts education and hoped that we would not see […]
From the Wisconsin State Journal, May 2, 2006 ANDY HALL ahall@madison.com Madison made more progress than any urban area in the country in shrinking the racial achievement gap and managed to raise the performance levels of all racial groups over the past decade, two UW- Madison education experts said Monday in urging local leaders to […]
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 […]
From the latest Teacher’s College Record. It looks like a solid study, but I have one caveat. One of the findings is that successful schools are aligned with the State Standards and success is then measured by these standards. This does raise questions about the content of these standards. The creation of these standards has […]
Kevin Carey: Normally I leave charter school issues to my colleagues Eduwonk and Sara Mead. But this morning’s front page article in the WaPo struck me as too obvious to pass up. It details how DC Public Schools is considering a novel arrangement with KIPP, one of the city’s most successful charter schools. KIPP wants […]
Jay Matthews: To my astonishment, I am still receiving e-mails about an op-ed piece, “Let’s Teach to the Test,” I wrote two months ago. I argued that most good teachers consider No Child Left Behind and other test-driven assessments convenient benchmarks and don’t find them disabling, as many critics say they are. I said what […]
A letter to the editor Dear Editor: I want to thank my supporters and many volunteers during the spirited run for Seat 1 of the Madison School Board. I appreciate the challenging forums and discussions with the press and community members, who have shown why Madison is always considered among the top school systems in […]
Lets face it. We all take sides whether in the school yard, the Board room or the School Board Race. Already, we see the lines of division. The Mathiak/Cole group on one side, the Lopez/ Silveira group on the other. What is ultimately at stake is the best interests of our children. What do we […]
Capital Times, March 30, 2006 By John Nichols Paul Wellstone has been dead for a long three years, and yet there is rarely a national political debate that does not cause me to think: What would Wellstone do? The late Minnesota senator was an epic political figure, who fought not just against right-wing Republicans but […]
I was leaving for a trip the other day and scooped up some reading material off my desk for the plane ride. I found myself holding three documents: one was the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy for 2006; another was a new study by the Economic Strategy Institute entitled “America’s Technology Future at Risk,” about […]
Beth Swedeen: Silveira best pick for School Board A letter to the editor Dear Editor: Arlene Silveira is the best choice for Madison School Board. She has shown her commitment to the overall issues facing the district through activities such as the effort to support a referendum last year and tireless work on the boundary […]
From The Capital Times, March 29, 2006 Dear Editor: The recent years’ actions of our Madison School Board create a nice template for a new reality television series, “School Boards Behaving Badly!” The passionate, yet appropriately measured, and get-things-done approaches of Ruth Robarts and Lawrie Kobza would be complemented quite well by Maya Cole and […]
The recent years’ actions of our MMSD Board of Ed create a nice template for a new reality television series, “School Boards Behaving Badly!” The passionate, yet appropriately measured and get-things-done approaches of Ruth Robarts and Laurie Kobza would be complemented quite well by Maya Cole and Lucy Mathiak. Cole is a bright, out-of-the-box child […]
Will the Madison district sink or swim? April 4th elections could prove pivotal At the end of an especially divisive Madison school board meeting, Annette Montegomery took to the microphone and laid bare her frustrations with the seven elected citizens who govern Madison schools. “I don’t understand why it takes so long to get anything […]
The Economist: “TEACHERS, teachers, teachers.” Thus the headmistress of a school near Helsinki, giving her not-exactly-rocket-science explanation for why Finland has the best education system in the world. ……. It has achieved all this by changing its entire system, delegating responsibility to teachers and giving them lots of support. There is no streaming and no […]
By James J. Gallagher I am posting this article from 1992 given the recent debate on one size fits all classrooms. Professor Gallagher makes the point that the argument that homogeneous grouping hurts no one is clearly false: research consistently shows that high ability students do better when they are in classes with similarly able […]
Diane Ravitch: Bill, I heard you speak a few weeks ago at Davos, when you told a large audience that education is the biggest challenge for the future. You are right about that. You pointed to the 1,500 or so small high schools that the Gates Foundation has funded as evidence of your commitment to […]
Are you concerned that your MMSD K-12 student is not being adequately challenged in one or more academic content areas? Perhaps s/he needs an INSTEP. An INSTEP is an “Individualized Student Education Plan.” It’s like an IEP (“Individual Education Plan”), except that it’s for high performing students. (IEP’s are for students with special education needs.) […]
This is very long, and the link may require a password so I’ve posted the entire article on the continued page. TJM http://www.tcrecord.org/PrintContent.asp?ContentID=11566 Standards, Accountability, and School Reform by Linda Darling-Hammond — 2004 The standards-based reform movement has led to increased emphasis on tests, coupled with rewards and sanctions, as the basis for “accountability” systems. […]
Kurt Gutknecht and Bill Livick pen an interesting article, published recently in the Fitchburg Star: Several teachers at area schools did not return calls asking for their opinion on the act. Administrators were less reluctant to weigh in. The principal of a Madison middle school, who did not want to be identified, gave a qualified […]
At a meeting on February 22 (audio / video), representatives of the Madison Metropolitan School District presented some data [820K pdf | html (click the slide to advance to the next screen)] which they claimed showed that their middle school math series, Connected Mathematics Project, was responsible for some dramatic gains in student learning. There […]
Video and audio from Wednesday’s Math Forum are now available [watch the 80 minute video] [mp3 audio file 1, file 2]. This rare event included the following participants: Dick Askey (UW Math Professor) Faye Hilgart, Madison Metropolitan School District Steffen Lempp (MMSD Parent and UW Math Professor) Linda McQuillen, Madison Metropolitan School District Gabriele Meyer […]
Jason Shephard, writing in this week’s Isthmus: Kerry Berns, a resource teacher for talented and gifted students in Madison schools, is worried about the push to group students of all abilities in the same classrooms. “I hope we can slow down, make a comprehensive plan, [and] start training all teachers in a systematic way” in […]
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 […]
Madison school politics make for some strange bedfellows. Take the case of the Feb. 21 primary race for the School Board, in which three candidates are vying for the seat left open by incumbent Bill Keys’ decision not to seek re-election. The marketing manager of a Madison-based biotechnology giant has been endorsed by the powerful […]
Lisa Hendrickson: Virtual schools – also known as “schools without walls” and cyber-schools – are just one of the many educational options available for families today in Wisconsin. Virtual schools started appearing in the late 1990s and have quickly become a very real alternative for children who may do better – for any number of […]
On Wednesday, January 11, representatives of Madison Teachers, Inc. (MTI) and the Madison school district met at the union’s headquarters for three hours. MTI Executive Director John Matthews chaired the meeting. It was the first of two meetings at which MTI and MMSD will supposedly explore the potential for savings on health insurance costs for […]
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 […]
Message from the East Attendance Area Task Force regarding rationale for Removing School Closings from Consideration. It reflects contributions from several Task Force members. This is another reason to be impressed by the hardwork of both the East and West/Memorial Task Forces.
Tamar Lewin writes in the New York Times January 8, 2006, about Advance Placement Classes – students and parents believe AP classes are important preparation for college, colleges have mixed feelings about students who take AP classes. “We’ve been put off for quite a while about the idea of teaching to the test, which is […]
The Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES) is a statewide network of educators, school board members, parents, community leaders, and researchers. Its Wisconsin Adequacy Plan — a proposal for school-finance reform — is the result of research into the cost of educating children to meet state proficiency standards. Washburn joins list of districts in budget […]
Jay Matthews: Bracey has been exposing statistics abuse for years. But I have never seen him put together all that he knows as well as he has in this book. It has some of the best explanations of educational numbers manipulation I have ever read, particularly issues like SAT scores, year-to-year school comparisons and argument […]
This is an article by Martha McCoy and Amy Malick which was published in the December 2003 journal of the National Assocation of Secondary School Principals. The Madison Partners in Special Education are very interested in using this as a tool to engage the MMSD school board, staff and various parent groups in productive dialogue. […]
Below is an excerpt from the book entitled: THE HANDBOOK OF SCHOOL COUNSELING: COUNSELING THE GIFTED AND TALENTED. It has not yet been published (so you get to read it first). It is written for school counselors, who I believe are very integral to student success. The authors of this book are Corissa C. Lotta, […]
Erin Weiss and Gina Hodgson (Thoreau PTO) engage in some impressive grassroots work: November 28, 2005 Dear Thoreau Families, Staff, Teachers and Friends, Now is the time for you to get involved in the MMSD redistricting process! This Thursday, December 1 at 6:30pm, a Public Forum will be held at Cherokee Middle School. This forum […]
Did anyone else read Michael O’Shea in Sunday’s Parade this weekend? Only one state, Illinois, has PE mandatory in K – 12 and 40% of our elementary schools throughout the nation no longer set aside time for recess. See www.actionforhealthkids.org or www.liveitprogram.com. Is it me or is there a reason students are heavier, and is […]
Parent Alan Sanderfoot wrote a letter to the Isthmus Editor on Katherine Esposito’s recent article: Ed Lite: Madison Middle Schools Serve Up an Uninspiring Academic Menu: Dear editor, Thank you for publishing Katherine Esposito’s article about Madison’s middle schools (“Ed Lite,” Nov. 11, page 12). Please allow me, however, to correct some mischaracterizations in her […]
On November 7, Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As he did last fall, the superintendent made some interesting claims about the district’s success in closing the academic achievement gap “based on race”. According to Mr. Rainwater, the […]
There is a techie adage that goes like this: In China or Japan the nail that stands up gets hammered, while in Silicon Valley the nail that stands up drives a Ferrari and has stock options. Underlying that adage is a certain American confidence that whatever we lack in preparing our kids with strong fundamentals […]
A recent posting from the Tomorrow’s Professor listserve looks at the importance of being a demanding teacher, and while the author is reflecting on his experience in the college classroom, the message is just as relevant for students at all grades.
I believe that virtual education initiatives could help with some of the concerns raised by parents and community members regarding Advanced Placement courses. Please check out this website http://www.digitaldistricts.org/ and let me know what you think.
Daniel Henninger: She went to the Public Education Foundation of Little Rock. The Foundation had no money for her, and the Little Rock system’s budget was a non-starter. So the Foundation produced a private, anonymous donor, which made union approval unnecessary. Together this small group worked out the program’s details. The Stanford test results would […]
Referendum soundly defeated in Phillips School District Greendale voters support $14 million tax levy North Carolina will use lottery proceeds for schools Slot machine revenue not best bet for public schools What’s new in the anti-TABOR toolbox? School-funding reform calendar The Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES) is a statewide network of educators, school board […]
It turns out that traditionalists and reformers were both right in their own way, but both were overzealous in their devotion to a particular mode of instruction and in their blanket dismissal of the competing point of view.
More than half of eighth-graders fail to achieve expected levels of proficiency in reading, math and science on national tests.
An issue that interests and is important to me is arts education, and I hope to journal about this issue on this blog site and www.danearts.org over the coming school year. Also, I hope to be able to play a different role in supporting arts education as a community member on the Partnership Commmittee. For […]
The Economist on two new books, The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa and What Good Are the Arts: Mr Kimmelman, a gifted piano student as a boy, returned more seriously to the keyboard in 1999 when he entered, and went on to the final round, of an amateur piano competition […]
Nolan Finley writing from Detroit: The hope is that this first, small school will turn into a statewide system of high schools linked to businesses and hell-bent on preparing Michigan kids for the best colleges, the best jobs, the best futures. “We know from research that small high schools are making a big difference in […]
Several Madison School District parents emailed the following questions recently: “I was just trying to find information on teachers in the Madison School System. Is there a site that you know of that gives information on the teachers (bio, cv, anything)?” This seems like a good idea. Perhaps each school’s website could include a teacher […]
I cringe when I hear people in any organization discussing “our experts know the best”, or generally advocating a top down, command and control approach. Paul Graham recently wrote a wonderful article on the lessons we can learn from “Open Source”. He refers to open source software and blogging among other avocations. Graham includes three […]
I was saddened and disappointed by the tone, content, and assumptions underlying Joan’s recent post on UW-Madison’s PEOPLE program and feel a need to respond as a parent who is engaged in trying to address cultures of racism in Madison schools and as a graduate and staff member of UW-Madison. I’ve interspersed the responses with […]
The Wisconsin State Journal discusses the college prep program UW sponsors for middle (Madison students only) and high school minority students. Glaringly absent from the reporting is what are the criteria for getting accepted into this program. It sounds like a program open only to minority students, or is it for low-income students of color? […]
William Gibson:We seldom legislate new technologies into being. They emerge, and we plunge with them into whatever vortices of change they generate. We legislate after the fact, in a perpetual game of catch-up, as best we can, while our new technologies redefine us – as surely and perhaps as terribly as we’ve been redefined by […]
Little solid evidence is available to gauge whether the federal government’s multibillion-dollar Reading First initiative is having an effect on student achievement, but many states are reporting anecdotally that they are seeing benefits for their schools. Among those benefits are extensive professional development in practices deemed to be research-based, extra instructional resources, and ongoing support […]
Well-reported story on the realities of school choice in Milwaukee. Vouchers are the lifeblood of religious schools in Milwaukee and religion permeates instruction. http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/333800.asp
A reader forwarded this article: Jay Mathews, writing in the Washington Post: So when I found a new attack on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), the nation’s leading association for math teachers, by a group of smart advocates, I saw a chance to bring some clarity to what we call the Math […]
Thank you to Troy Dassler, Marisue Horton, and others who commented on my report on the meeting of the Long Range Planning Committee on Monday, June 6. Several people objected to my characterization of the some of the presentations as nasty and bitter. I know that it’s hard to perceive Leopold leaders and supporters as […]
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 […]
The heated discussion between fine arts and sports is not helpful nor is it valid. This district seems to have a hard to financing both as part of the districts curriculum. For parents like myself that have children that love the arts AND athletics I do not favor eliminating one or the other. My 4th […]
Last evening the Madison School Board received the proposed budget for the 2005-2006 school year – whoopee. A new software system was given as the reason for the delay. A new software system does not guarantee good long-term educational and financial decisions for the district. Software and hardware are tools through which you analyze assumptions. […]
Dear Community Members: Thank you for your heartfelt comments regarding the 4th & 5th grade strings program. I know first hand about the program. I was a strings program participant at Lindbergh Elementary School in 1977. I know that strings are a very beloved program within our district. However, I don’t believe that our community […]
Pat Kukes, MMSD teacher, wrote the following opinion piece that appeared in the WI State Journal on Friday, April 29, 2005: Having already received my termination notice, I write this not as a teacher trying to save his job, but rather as an experienced educator who knows the value of a good educational system and […]
I watched the school board last Monday talk about the process for the “budget” up until the referendum. The original timeline had public hearings being completed prior to release of the 2005-2006 budget. Why? As Superintendent Rainwater says people don’t care about the budget; they only care about the programs, courses and services they want […]
Mark Purdy: (Warning: Parent bragging ahead.) My daughter and son, now college students, had terrific school sports experiences by just about any standard. Both played for Central Coast Section and league championship teams at Archbishop Mitty High School. Sarah’s soccer team was ranked No. 1 in the nation for a while. Our son’s basketball team […]