Madison Teachers, Inc., via a kind Jeannie Bettner email:

MTI prevailed last year in a Circuit Court decision in which Judge Juan Colas found much of Act 10, what Governor Walker referred to as his “bomb” on public employee unions, to violate the Constitution. That decision is on appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the Walker administration and his appointed Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission has simply thumbed their nose at Colas’ ruling and vowed to continue forcing unions to conduct annual elections, wherein a union is decertified if it does not receive 50%+1 of those eligible to vote, not just 50%+1 of those voting as in every other election.
In a September 17, 2013 ruling, Judge Colas told Governor Walker and the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission’s commissioners that a Circuit Court decision, while they may not like it or agree with it, is precedential and must be followed throughout the State. Colas said, “The question here is not whether other courts or non-parties are bound by this court’s ruling. It is whether the defendants are bound by it.” WERC was a named defendant in MTI’s suit, so as all defendants to a lawsuit are, and in a case in which the statute was found facially unconstitutional, they (WERC) are barred from enforcing Act 10 under any circumstances, against anyone.

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter, via a kind Jeannei Bettner email (PDF):

As school resumes, The Progressive Magazine is revving up the movement to save public schools. On their new web site, created specifically for the anti-voucher/save public schools project, www.publicschoolshakedown.org, The Progressive is pulling together education experts including Diane Ravich (education historian and former Assistant Secretary of Education), activists, bloggers, and concerned citizens from across the country.
PUBLIC SCHOOL SHAKEDOWN is dedicated to EXPOSING the behind-the-scenes effort to privatize public schools, and CONNECTING pro-public school activists nationwide.
“Public School Shakedown will be a fantastic addition to the debate”, says Diane Ravitch. “The Progressive is performing a great public service by helping spread the word about the galloping privatization of our public schools.”
“Free public education, doors open to all, no lotteries, is a cornerstone of our democracy. If we allow large chunks of it to be handed over to private operators, religious schools, for-profit enterprises, and hucksters, we put our democracy at risk”, Ravitch adds.
That’s where Public School Shakedown comes in. While there are already groups such as the National Education Policy Center doing terrific research on education privatization and its effects, and bloggers writing pointed, hilarious reports, there is still not a great deal of understanding in the general population of how the education privatization movement works.
Teachers understand that the attack on public education is an attack on the very heart of our democracy. Yet the “school choice” movement has succeeded in setting the terms of the conversation. To the unknowing layperson, “school choice” and “education reform” sound like benign policy goals that aim to improve children’s access to high-quality education.
The time is right for a journalistic platform like The Progressive to put the pieces together.
From its base in Madison, The Progressive has made the attack on public schools a primary focus of its reporting.
Wisconsin is ground-zero for the school voucher movement. The first school voucher program started in Milwaukee back in 1990. But the last few years of the Walker Administration really brought home the importance of this issue.
The 2011 protests called attention to the public as to how much is at stake – a great public school system, open to all, and a democracy – not just a pay-as-you-go system of winners and losers that leaves the poor and middle classes behind.

Madison School District 500K PDF

Experience and research tell us that effective educators are the single most important school based factor determining student success. The DPI Educator Effectiveness Team is dedicated to guiding the training, piloting, and implementation of a Wisconsin Educator Effectiveness System that will support and improve professional practice leading to improved student outcomes. This includes assuring that educators have access to quality data identifying individual areas of strength, as well as areas of needed improvement. The work of the Educator Effectiveness Team is grounded in the belief that every child in every classroom deserves to have excellent teachers and excellent building leaders who are supported in their ongoing professional growth.
Educator Effectiveness System: A Holistic Tool to Improve Professional Practice and Student Outcomes
DPI has worked with stakeholders to design the Wisconsin Educator Effectiveness System to improve educator professional practice in order to improve student outcomes. Several states have successfully implemented similar systems, and initial results indicate these Systems represent a vast improvement over typical educator evaluation practices. However, in order to make sure the System most positively impacts educator practice throughout Wisconsin, it is essential that educators and the public understand key aspects of the system.

Additional background at the Wisconsin DPI website and via duckduckgo.

Fabius Maximus:

To remember the loneliness, the fear and the insecurity of men who once had to walk alone in huge factories, beside huge machines. To realize that labor unions have meant new dignity and pride to millions of our countrymen. To be able to see what larger pay checks mean, not to a man as an employee, but as a husband and as a father. To know these things is to understand what American labor means.
— Adlai Stevenson, in a speech to the American Federation of Labor, New York City on 22 September 1952

Yin & Yang:

“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).

A. David Dahmer:

MMSD School Board President Ed Hughes said that public education these days is under a lot of pointed criticism if not under an outright attack. “Initiatives like the voucher expansion program are premised on the notion that urban traditional public schools are not up to the task of effectively educating a diverse body of students,” Hughes says. “We’re out to prove that they are wrong. We agree with Superintendent Cheatham that in Madison all of the pieces are in place for us to be successful. Following the framework that she will describe to you, we set the goal for ourselves to be the model of a thriving urban school district that is built on strong community partnerships as well as genuine collaboration of teachers and staff. As we do that, we will be the school district of choice in Dane County.”
Cheatham said that Madison has a lot of great things going for it, but also had its share of challenges.
“A continually changing set of priorities has made it difficult for our educators to remain focused on the day-to-day work of teaching and learning, a culture of autonomy that has made it difficult to guaranteed access to a challenging curriculum for all students,” Cheatham said. “The system is hard for many of our students to navigate which results in too many of our students falling through the cracks.”
It starts with a simple but bold vision that every school is a thriving school that prepares every student for college, career, and community. “From now on, we will be incredibly focused on making that day-to-day vision become a reality,” she said.
“Many districts create plans at central office and implement them from the top down. Instead, schools will become the driving force of change in Madison,” Cheatham said. “Rather than present our educators with an ever-changing array of strategies, we will focus on what we know works — high quality teaching, coherent instruction, and strong leadership — and implement these strategies extremely well.”

Related: The Dichotomy of Madison School Board Governance: “Same Service” vs. “having the courage and determination to stay focused on this work and do it well is in itself a revolutionary shift for our district”.
“The notion that parents inherently know what school is best for their kids is an example of conservative magical thinking.”; “For whatever reason, parents as a group tend to undervalue the benefits of diversity in the public schools….”.
Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

Jill Barshay, via a kind reader email:

Since President Johnson’s War on Poverty Program in 1965, policy makers have been trying to equalize education spending across the United States. The lofty goal is for schools with lots of poor students to have access to the same resources that schools with rich kids have. But researchers and advocates for the poor have pointed to loopholes in Title I funding that effectively allow affluent schools to operate at higher levels of funding than low-income schools. For example, Marguerite Roza at the Center on Reinventing Public Education found that less money is spent on salaries in high-poverty schools than on low-poverty schools within the same district.
Because there can be so much variation in poverty within a school district (just think about the socio-economic differences between Tribeca and the Bronx), the Department of Education is making a big push to calculate exactly how much each school spends on a student. That might sound simple enough. But like any data project, the devil is in the details.
The issue is, how do you allocate administrative and other centralized expenses among schools? For example, say you have an itinerant teacher who spends a few hours at one school, then moves to another, and then another — each day of the week. To properly figure out how much of that teacher’s salary to attribute to each school, districts would need to create some sort of time-and-attendance punchcard system. But who wants to create such an expensive system or put teachers on punch cards?
I attended a boisterous and sometimes acrimonious session on this topic between district bean counters and the U.S. Department of Education at the NCES STATS-DC 2013 Data Conference on July 18, 2013. Many administrators protested the whole idea of counting pennies per school, saying it was too burdensome and impossible. They worried they would have to waste hours figuring out how to allocate all kinds of centralized activities, from computer servers to buses.

Locally, Madison spends a bit more than $15,000 per student, or nearly double the US average.

Alan Borsuk:

A second-grade teacher notices that one of her students lacks fluency when reading aloud. The first thing the teacher should do to help this student is assess whether the student also has difficulties with:
A. predicting
B. inferring
C. metacognition
D. decoding
Don’t worry if you’re not into metacognition. The correct answer is decoding — at least according to the people who put together the test teachers must pass in Massachusetts if they are going to teach children to read.
The Massachusetts test is about to become the Wisconsin test, a step that advocates see as important to increasing the quality of reading instruction statewide and, in the long term, raising the overall reading abilities of Wisconsin students. As for those who aren’t advocates (including some who are professors in schools of education), they are going along, sometimes with a more dubious attitude to what this will prove.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction officially launched the era of the new test for reading licenses with a memo sent last week to heads of all teacher preparation programs in the state. The memo spelled out the details of implementing a law passed in 2011 that called for Wisconsin to use the Massachusetts test. The memo included setting the passing score, which, after a short phase-in period, will match what is regarded as the demanding Massachusetts standard.
In a nutshell, after Jan. 31, 2014, anyone who wants to get a license that allows them to teach reading in Wisconsin will have to pass this test, with 100 multiple choice questions and two essay questions, aimed at making sure they are adequately prepared to do so. (Those currently licensed will not need to pass the test.)
Why Massachusetts? Because in the 1990s, Massachusetts launched initiatives, including requiring students to pass a high school graduation test, requiring teachers to pass licensure tests specific to the subjects they teach, and increasing spending on education, especially in schools serving low-income children.
At that point, Wisconsin and Massachusetts were pretty much tied, and down the list of states a bit, when it came to how students were doing. Within a few years, scores in Massachusetts rose significantly. The state has led the nation in fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math achievement for a decade. Wisconsin scores have stayed flat.

Many notes and links on Wisconsin’s adoption of Massachusetts (MTEL) elementary English teacher content knowledge standards. UW-Madison Professor Mark Seidenberg’s recommended Wisconsin’s adoption of MTEL.

Stephen Q. Cornman (PDF):

The 50 states and the District and Columbia reported $604.3 billion in revenues collected for public elementary and secondary education in fiscal year 2011 (FY 11) (table 1). State and local governments provided $528.8 billion, or 87.5 percent of all revenues; and the federal government contributed $75.5 billion or 12.5 percent of all revenues (derived from table 1 and figure 1).
Adjusting FY 10 data for inflation, total revenues decreased by 0.7 percent (from $608.4 to $604.3 billion), local revenues decreased by 1.8 percent (from $266.8 to $262.0 billion), state revenues increased by 1.0 percent (from $264.1 to $266.8 billion), and federal revenues decreased by 2.6 percent (from $77.5 to $75.5 billion) for FY 11 compared to FY 10 (derived from table 1 and table C-1, after adjusting for inflation).1
Current expenditures totaled $527.2 billion in FY 11 (table 2). Expenditures for instruction amounted to $322.5 billion, total support services accounted for $183.0 billion, food services were $20.4 billion, and enterprise operations accounted for $1.3 billion. Adjusting FY 10 data for inflation, current expenditures decreased 1.5 percent (from $535.3 to $527.2 billion) for FY 11 compared to FY 10 (derived from table 2 and table C-2, after adjusting for inflation).1
Current expenditures per pupil for public elementary and secondary education were $10,658 on a national level in FY 11 (table 3). Current expenditures per pupil ranged from $6,326 in Utah to $20,793 in the District of Columbia. Expenditures per pupil were next highest in New York ($18,834); New Jersey ($16,855); Alaska ($16,663); Connecticut ($16,224); and Wyoming ($15,815).
Adjusting for inflation, per pupil state and local revenues increased by 0.2 percent on a national basis from FY 10 to FY 11, while per pupil current state and local expenditures decreased by 1.6 percent (table 4). Adjusting for inflation, per pupil state and local revenues decreased by 1 percent or more in 28 states and increased by 1 percent or more in 14 states from FY 10 to FY 11. Per pupil current expenditures decreased by 1 percent or more in 30 states and increased by 1 percent or more in 9 states from FY 10 to FY 11.
Adjusting for inflation, current expenditures per pupil steadily climbed at least 1 percent per year between FY 96 and FY 08. However, the increases in current expenditures per pupil became smaller (less than 1 percent) from FY 08 to FY 09 and from FY 09 to FY 10; and then negative (i.e. a decrease of more than 1 percent) between FY 10 and FY 11 (derived from table 5 and figure 2).
In FY 11, instruction and instruction-related expenditures totaled $347.4 billion, or 65.9 percent, of all current expenditures for public elementary and secondary education; student support services were 29.3 billion, or 5.6 percent; administration costs were 56.3 billion, or 10.7 percent; and operations were 94.2 billion, or 17.9 percent (figure 3 and table 6).
1 FY 10 data were adjusted to FY 11 by utilizing the direct multiplier in the Consumer Price Index provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and adjusted to a school year basis (July through June).
See Digest of Education Statistics, Advance Release of Selected 2012 Tables, Table 34. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_034.asp, downloaded May 29, 2013. For example, FY10 federal revenue was adjusted by multiplying 75,997,858,024 by 1.02007982097954 =77,523,881,408.
In FY 11, states reported $322.5 billion in current instruction expenditures, which included $212.8 billion, or 66.0 percent, for salaries; and $75.2 billion, or 23.3 percent, in employee benefits for teachers and teacher aides (figure 4 and derived from table 7).
Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary education were $604.2 billion in FY 11, including $527.2 billion in current expenditures, $41.0 billion in facilities acquisition and construction, $3.4 billion in land and existing structures, $6.5 billion in equipment, $8.2 billion for other programs, and $17.9 billion in interest on debt (table 8).

City of Madison, via a kind reader’s email:

Mayor Paul Soglin joined U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, other mayors and school superintendents in Washington, DC, today to discuss partnership opportunities between cities and the U.S. Department of Education to foster effective approaches to education reform.
Participating city leaders are part of a new Mayors’ Education Reform Task Force co-chaired by National League of Cities (NLC) First Vice President Chris Coleman, Mayor of Saint Paul, MN, and NLC Second Vice President Ralph Becker, Mayor of Salt Lake City, UT. Mayors Coleman and Becker formed the task force in March 2013 to explore how cities can and should be involved in local education reform efforts.
During today’s meeting, task force members highlighted the growing commitment by municipal officials across the country to promoting educational achievement.
“Mayors and elected officials can bring together all the stakeholders in the education conversation in their cities,” said Mayor Soglin. “The perspectives from mayors of cities large to small are valuable to local and national policymakers. I’m glad we had an opportunity to talk with the Secretary and his staff about the role mayors can play in education transformation.”
Local leaders shared examples of city-school partnerships they have formed in their communities in areas such as school improvement, early learning, afterschool programming, and postsecondary success.
“The trajectory of learning begins at birth and extends over a lifetime,” said Mayor Becker, who was unable to attend the meeting. “Cities now experience an unprecedented level of collaboration and discussion in formulating specific plans for postsecondary access and success and productive out-of-school time learning.”
The meeting with Secretary Duncan provided mayors with an opportunity to discuss how lessons learned at the city level can inform federal education policy. Among the key issues of concern identified by the task force are:

• Finding a “third way” in education reform that balances a commitment to accountability with a spirit of collaboration among school administrators, teachers, and cities;
• Transforming schools into centers of community that support parent engagement and provide wraparound services to children and families;
• Building on successful “cradle-to-career” models to develop a strong educational pipeline;
• Securing adequate and equitable funding for local education initiatives; and
• Promoting college access and completion.

“In this global economy, cities and towns depend on an educated workforce and schools are depending on us. We need to work together to ensure that our children graduate high school ready for postsecondary education and career success,” said NLC President Marie Lopez Rogers, Mayor of Avondale, AZ. “As city leaders, we have an important message that must be heard and we must be at the table in guiding federal and local education reform policies.”
In addition to Mayors Soglin, Coleman and Becker participants in today’s meeting included: Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson of Gary, Indiana; Mayor Edna Branch Jackson of Savannah, Georgia; Mayor Dwight Jones of Richmond, Virginia; Mayor Pedro Segarra of Hartford, Connecticut; Riverside (Calif.) Unified School District Superintendent Rick Miller; Gary Community School Corporations Superintendent Cheryl Pruitt; and New York City Deputy Chief Academic Officer Josh Thomases.
The National League of Cities (NLC) is dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. NLC is a resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and villages, representing more than 218 million Americans.

Related:

• www.wisconsin2.org
• Budget Cuts: We Won’t Be as Bold and Innovative as Oconomowoc, and That’s Okay.
• Madison’s disastrous reading results.
• Analysis: Madison School District has resources to close achievement gap
• Status quo governance
• Minneapolis teacher’s union approved to authorize charter schools
• A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School.
• Wisconsin State Journal columnist Chris Rickert appears to correlate the “achievement gap strategy and education outcomes with money spent. Madison has long spent more per student than most districts.
  The recent “expert review” concluded that the “Madison School District has resources to close achievement gap“.
  We have seen the results of an ongoing “same service” approach to school spending. There are no indications that this is changing.

The Madison School District’s recent rhetoric around annual property tax increases (after a significant increase in redistributed state tax dollars last year and a “return to normal” this year) is, to the ongoing observer, unsurprising. We appear to be in the Rainwater era “same service” approach to everything, from million$ spent on a partially implemented Infinite Campus to long-term disastrous reading scores.
Steve Coll’s 5 July 2013 New Yorker column nails it:

The most likely explanation is that President Obama never carefully discussed or specifically approved the E.U. bugging, and that no cabinet-level body ever reviewed, on the President’s behalf, the operation’s potential costs in the event of exposure. America’s post-September 11th national-security state has become so well financed, so divided into secret compartments, so technically capable, so self-perpetuating, and so captured by profit-seeking contractors bidding on the next big idea about big-data mining that intelligence leaders seem to have lost their facility to think independently. Who is deciding what spying projects matter most and why?

Much more on annual local property tax increases, here:

The Madison School Board should limit the school property tax hike to the rate of inflation next year, even if that means scaling back a proposed 1.5 percent across-the-board salary increase for school district employees, says member Mary Burke.
“I think in an environment where we’ve seen real wages in Dane County decrease, and a lot of people are on fixed incomes, we have to work as hard as possible to limit any increase to the inflation rate,” Burke said Tuesday in an interview.
…
But School Board discussions have focused around reducing the proposed salary hike, and cutting back on facility maintenance to pare down the $392 million proposed budget enough to bring the property tax increase to 4 or 5 percent, board President Ed Hughes told me.
The district under state law could increase its levy by as much as $18,385,847 or 9 percent. Keeping the increase to around the rate of inflation would mean an increase of less 2 percent.
…
Board member TJ Mertz can’t vote on salaries because his wife is a teacher’s aide with the school district, he told me, but he has long been outspoken in his belief in good pay for teachers to ensure the best academic achievement for students.
“As a citizen, I understand our staff needs to be compensated,” he said, adding that teachers have taken losses in take-home pay since they were required to begin making contributions to their pensions in 2011. “If the state won’t invest in our children, it has to come from the property tax,” he said.
Mertz said he would prefer a tax increase steeper than the 4 percent or 5 percent the board as a whole is focusing on. “I firmly believe the most important thing we can do is invest in our students; the question should not be what property tax levy can we afford,” he said.

I appreciate Schneider’s worthwhile questions, including a discussion of “program reviews”:

Several School Board members interviewed for this story stressed that the 2013-2014 budget will be a transitional one, before a broad re-evaluation of spending planned by Cheatham can be conducted.

Yet, it would be useful to ask if in fact programs will be reviewed and those found wanting eliminated. The previous Superintendent, Dan Nerad, discussed program reviews as well.
Madison Schools’ 2013-2014 Budget Charts, Documents, Links, Background & Missing Numbers.
The Madison School Board seat currently occupied by Mr. Hughes (Seat 7, and Seat 6 – presently Marj Passman) will be on the Spring, 2014 ballot (candidate information is available at the Madison City Clerk’s website).

Patrick O’Donnell:

The Cleveland school district’s improvement plan for 13 schools this upcoming school year will bring major changes for some and smaller, but substantial, ones for others.
Teachers will receive special training at all 13 schools, some of which will get new principals and see significant staff changes. And a few of the schools will have outside agencies come in to give the schools new styles and approaches.
All together, the district is spending more than $2 million this upcoming year on staff training and outside help to try to improve these schools, which the district has labeled “Investment Schools.”
“We’re looking to have 13 different plans for 13 unique needs,” said Eric Gordon, the district’s chief executive officer.
More changes are in the works. After the district met with staff, parents and community leaders at each of the schools in May, schools will host additional meetings over the summer to refine the plans.

Cleveland spent $15,072 per student during the 2012-2013 budget year, similar to Madison’s spending.

The Economist:

IN A small school on the South Side of Chicago, 40 children between the ages of five and six sit quietly learning in a classroom. In front of each of them is a computer running software called Reading Eggs. Some are reading a short story, others building sentences with words they are learning. The least advanced are capturing all the upper- and lower-case Bs that fly past in the sky. As they complete each task they move through a cartoon map that shows how far they have progressed in reading and writing. Along the way they collect eggs which they can use to buy objects in the game, such as items to furnish their avatar’s apartment. Now and then a child will be taken aside for scheduled reading periods with one of the two monitoring teachers.
The director of North Kenwood-Oakland school says this sort of teaching, blending software with human intervention, helps her pupils learn faster. It also allows teachers at this school–which, like other charter schools, is publicly funded but has some freedom to teach as it likes–to spend more time teaching and less time marking written work and leading pupils through dull drills of words and numbers. On top of that the school gains an accurate, continuous record of each child’s performance through the data its various programs collect and analyse.
As well as evidence from these schools, the effectiveness of particular bits of software has been studied. The Department of Education spent four years evaluating literacy programs; it concluded that Read 180, a program to help students who have fallen behind in reading, was good at combating adult illiteracy. A randomised control trial of Cognitive Tutor, which helps teachers identify weaknesses and strengths in maths, among 400 15-year-olds in Oklahoma found that children using the program reached the same level of proficiency as the control group in 12% less time.
Meanwhile, the Khan Academy, a creator of online tutorials widely used as a form of home tutoring, is beginning to provide hard evidence for why it is considered one of edtech’s rising stars. At Oakland Unity, in tough inner-city Oakland, test scores for 16-17-year-olds in algebra and geometry have risen significantly in the two years since Khan courses were introduced. These courses are now being adopted by the Los Altos school district, also in California, which is already one of the best-performing in America. Khan Academy pinpoints the way in which edtech can turn conventional education on its head: in its “flipped classroom” pupils are no longer given lectures in the classroom and set problems as homework, but watch instructional videos at home and work on problems in class, where teachers and peers can help them.

Related: Madison’s long-tem disastrous reading resultsa

Madison Times:

After two months on the job, Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham has released a report summarizing what she’s learned during her entry process and previewing the district’s planning work going forward.
“I’d like to thank our staff, parents, students and the Madison community for helping me build a shared understanding of our district’s strengths and challenges,” Cheatham said. “The work ahead will take urgency, determination and tenacity, but my experience over the past two months has made me so confident because I know that all of the ingredients for success are here in Madison.”
Over the past two months, Superintendent Cheatham has visited all 48 MMSD schools, as well as several after-school programs, alternative programs, community early childhood care and education centers, and the district’s alternative high school. Each visit included a meeting with teachers and staff, classroom observations and a meeting with the principal and members of their leadership team. In high schools, visits also included discussions with students and culminated in community meetings. The superintendent also met with parents, elected officials, community leaders, university partners, religious leaders, business leaders and union leaders.

Much more, here.

Wisconsin Elementary Teacher Prep Rating Distribution


Wisconsin Secondary Teacher Prep Rating Distribution


National Council on Teacher Quality:

Highly rated programs — The undergraduate secondary program at the University of Wisconsin – Stout is on the Teacher Prep Review’s Honor Roll, earning at least three out of four possible stars. Across the country, NCTQ identified 21 elementary programs (4 percent of those rated) and 84 secondary programs (14 percent) for the Honor Roll.
Selectivity in admissions — The Review found that 32 percent of elementary and secondary programs in Wisconsin restrict admissions to the top half of the college-going population, compared to 28 percent nationwide. Countries where students consistently outperform the U.S. typically set an even higher bar, with teacher prep programs recruiting candidates from the top third of the college-going population.
Some worry that increasing admissions requirements will have a negative effect on the diversity of teacher candidates. By increasing the rigor and therefore the prestige of teacher preparation the profession will attract more talent, including talented minorities. This is not an impossible dream: 83 programs across the country earn a Strong Design designation on this standard because they are both selective and diverse, although no such programs were found in Wisconsin.
Early reading instruction — Just 25 percent of evaluated elementary programs in Wisconsin are preparing teacher candidates in effective, scientifically based reading instruction, an even lower percentage than the small minority of programs (29 percent) providing such training nationally. The state should find this especially alarming given that Wisconsin now requires elementary teacher candidates to pass one of the most rigorous tests of scientifically based reading instruction in the country.
Elementary math — A mere 19 percent of evaluated elementary programs nationwide provide strong preparation to teach elementary mathematics, training that mirrors the practices of higher performing nations such as Singapore and South Korea. 25 percent of the evaluated elementary programs in Wisconsin provide such training.
Student teaching — Of the evaluated elementary and secondary programs in Wisconsin, 58 percent entirely fail to ensure a high quality student teaching experience, in which candidates are assigned only to highly skilled teachers and receive frequent concrete feedback. 71 percent of programs across the country failed this standard.
Content preparation — None of Wisconsin’s elementary programs earn three or four stars for providing teacher candidates adequate content preparation, compared to 11 percent of elementary programs nationwide. At the high school level, 23 percent of Wisconsin secondary programs earn four stars for content preparation, compared to 35 percent nationwide. The major problem at the secondary level is that programs’ requirements for general science or general social science certifications do not ensure that candidates are prepared in the content of every subject they will be licensed to teach, since the states licensing test requirements do not provide this assurance.
Outcome data — None of the evaluated programs in Wisconsin earn four stars for collecting data on their graduates, compared to 26 percent of evaluated programs in the national sample. In the absence of state efforts to connect student achievement data to teacher preparation programs, administer surveys of graduates and employers or require administration of teacher performance assessments (TPAs), programs that fare poorly on this standard have not taken the initiative to collect any such data on their own.

Related: “Transparency Central” National Review of Education Schools and Georgia, Wisconsin Education Schools Back Out of NCTQ Review.
Erin Richards

• Some of the education programs in Eau Claire, Platteville, River Falls, La Crosse and Madison received between two and two and a half stars.
• Other programs in Eau Claire, Green Bay, La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Platteville, River Falls, Stevens Point, Stout, Superior and Whitewater received between one and one and a half stars.
• About 1 in 3 teacher training programs reviewed restrict admission to the top half of the college-going population.
• About 1 in 4 elementary education programs reviewed prepare teacher candidates in effective, scientifically based reading instruction
• About 1 in 4 elementary ed programs reviewed provide strong preparation to teach elementary mathematics. That’s better than the national average of 19% of elementary education programs that offer strong math prep.
• No Wisconsin programs evaluated earned any credit for collecting data on their graduates, compared with 26% of programs that did so in the national sample.

Nationally, more than 200,000 candidates graduate from teacher preparation programs each year, then enter systems where teacher quality has long been a point of debate.

Finally, Wisconsin recently adopted Massachusett’s elementary teacher content knowledge licensing (English only, not math) requirements beginning in 2014 (MTEL).

Stephanie Banchero & Caroline Porter:

An educational curriculum that originally catered to the children of globe-trotting diplomats is making rapid inroads in K-12 public schools across the U.S., boosting test results and academic readiness even at inner-city schools.
An educational curriculum designed for the children of globetrotting diplomats is making rapid inroads in K-12 schools across the U.S., showing surprising improvements in test results and academic readiness even at inner-city schools. Caroline Porter has details.
Houston, Chicago, Tampa, Fla., and other cities are embracing the International Baccalaureate [SIS IB Link] program as a way to overhaul low-performing schools, attract middle-income families who might otherwise favor private schools, or offer more choice.
“It’s not a program for the elite,” said Samuel Sarabia, who runs the IB program for Houston Independent School District, where 10 schools have IB programs, including two where the majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Five more low-income schools are in the midst of an IB conversion process run by the nonprofit International Baccalaureate group.
The program began in Geneva in the 1960s as a two-year high-school diploma offering for the children of diplomats and itinerant business executives. It later expanded into elementary- and middle-school programs.
Today, there are 1,651 IB programs in the U.S.–including 1,493 public schools–up from 503 in 2003. About 90% of them are in public schools, and most are aimed at U.S. students, not the children of diplomats.
Officials tout the programs’ emphasis on critical thinking. Unlike the traditional model of teachers imparting knowledge in a lecture format, IB programs emphasize individual and group projects governed by a philosophy of “international mindedness.” Students are required to take a second language.

The Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter school in 2012, largely sponsored by the local Urban League.

Alan Borsuk:

Time, time, time, see what’s become of Oconomowoc High School.
The nearly 1,500-student high school 30 miles west of Milwaukee attracted a lot of attention a year ago with a transformation plan: Reduce the staff, give most teachers increased workloads and pay, and implement learning approaches that call for more initiative by students and a lot of technology.
As Superintendent Patricia Neudecker (now retired) and high school Principal Joseph Moylan saw it, it was a way to tighten spending while personalizing and improving learning. As critics, including many teachers and students, saw it, it was a way to make things worse.
One year into the new reality, Oconomowoc High still stands. The critics haven’t been proved wrong, but it appears it was a pretty decent year by many measures. Change did not derail the basic flow of a healthy, energetic school and in some ways it helped. But there are signs of the stress the approach is putting on all involved, and change does not come easily.
With a bow to Simon and Garfunkel (“Hazy Shade of Winter,” of course), consider this an update focused on time, time, time.
Teachers’ time: For about a decade, the high school has used a block schedule, which means the school day is built around four longer periods rather than six or seven periods. The conventional teaching load in such a situation is three blocks a day. Many Oconomowoc teachers now teach all four blocks, which means they are in front of students just about all day.
Neudecker said the change was made to reduce staff and save money without reducing offerings to students. “We haven’t cut one program,” she said. “We have not increased our class size.”
In exchange for the heavier workload, teachers receive an additional $14,000 a year. For those affected, that has raised salaries to $50,000 at the starting level and $70,000 or more for experienced teachers.

Related: May, 2012: Budget Cuts: We Won’t Be as Bold and Innovative as Oconomowoc, and That’s Okay. Indeed. Madison appears to have mastered the art of status quo governance.

Pat Schneider:

ALEC is still at it, Julie Underwood, dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, cautions in “School Boards Beware,” (PDF) a commentary in the May issue of Wisconsin School News.
The model legislation disseminated by the pro-free market American Legislative Exchange Council’s national network of corporate members and conservative legislators seeks to privatize education and erode the local control, Underwood says.
“The ALEC goal to eliminate school districts and school boards is a bit shocking — but the idea is to make every school, public and private, independent through vouchers for all students. By providing all funding to parents rather than school districts, there is no need for local coordination, control or oversight,” she writes in the magazine of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
Underwood, who says that Wisconsin public schools already face unprecedented change, last year co-authored a piece about ALEC’s grander plans, a “legislative contagion (that) seemed to sweep across the Midwest during the early months of 2011.”
In her recent piece, Underwood argues that a push to privatize education for the “free market” threatens the purpose of public education: to educate every child to “become an active citizen, capable of participating in our democratic process.”

Related:

• The state this year will start rating each school on a scale of 0 to 100 based on student test scores and other measurables. The idea, in part, is to give parents a way to evaluate how a school is performing while motivating those within it to improve.
• Several schools across the state — including Madison’s Shorewood Elementary, Black Hawk Middle and Memorial High schools — are part of Wisconsin’s new teacher and principal evaluation system, which for the first time will grade a teacher’s success, in part, on student test scores. This system is to be implemented across Wisconsin in 2014-15.li>And instead of Wisconsin setting its own student benchmarks, the state is moving toward using Common Core State Standards, which have been adopted in 45 other states. State schools are starting new curricula this year in language arts and math so students will be prepared by the 2014-15 school year to take a new state exam tied to this common core and replacing the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination.

Although Underwood says she generally backs most of these changes, she’s no fan of the decision announced last month that makes it easier for a person to become a public school teacher — even as those who are studying to become teachers must now meet stiffer credentialing requirements. Instead of having to complete education training at a place like UW-Madison en route to being licensed, those with experience in private schools or with other teaching backgrounds now can take steps to become eligible for a public teaching license.

“I think that’s really unfortunate,” says Underwood, who first worked at UW-Madison from 1986-95 before coming back to town as education dean in 2005.

Related:

• When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
• Many notes and links on Julie Underwood.
• The oft-criticized WKCE will soon be replaced by Wisconsin’s Common Core implementation.
• NCTQ Sues UW Ed Schools over Access to Course Syllabi.
• An Email to Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad on Math Teacher Hiring Criteria

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter (PDF), via a kind Jeannie Bettner email

Combined service of 2,687 years are departing the District, as 119 employees retire. Their pending June retirement was cause for celebration at the annual joint MTI-MMSD reception at Olbrich Gardens on May 15. Topping the list of MTI represented employees in years of service to Madison’s children are:
Teachers (MTI): Julie Riewe (40); Lori Hamann (39); Carol Kindschi (39); Julie Weis (37); George Marks (36); Margaret Schaefer (36); Steve Towne (36); Colleen Pfister (35); Janice Gavinski (34); Constance Kane (33); Celestine Richards- Gannon (33); Jane Mitchell (31); Diane Hawkins (30); and William Rodriguez (30).
Educational Assistants (EA-MTI): Cathy Bohnenkamp (26); Ann Feeney (24); Barbara Figy (24); Cynthia Secher (24); David Soward (22); and Gwen Peirce (22).
Supportive Educational Employees (SEE-MTI): Gay Huenink (32); Cynthia Michels (30); Anita Staats (30) and Deb Skubal (28).

Melissa Sargent, D-Madison, represents District 48 in the Assembly:

By now, most people have heard about Scott Walker’s proposal to expand the voucher school system to new districts, including Madison, yet many people aren’t clear as to what this means for our students as well as the administrators, teachers and parents. I’ve been asked by numerous constituents to give an explanation of how this would apply, in real terms, to our public education system.
The best way to break this down is in three parts: the fiscal effect on taxpayers and our public schools; a comparison between public school and private school accountability; and a comparison of the performance of students in voucher schools and public schools.
FINANCES: Madison currently has 4,202 private school students. Based on a conservative assessment of income levels, 1,387 of these students would be eligible for the voucher program. So what does this mean for Madison taxpayers?
If 1,387 private school students become voucher students, Madison taxpayers would subsidize private schools for about $3.8 million and see a reduction in state aid of that amount. The Madison district’s taxpayers would have to pay more to replace the $3.8 million, or the district would have to make $3.8 million worth of cuts in services for public school students. One thing that has been made abundantly clear to me by my constituents and other community members is Wisconsinites don’t like the idea of their taxpayer dollars going toward private education.

State Senator Fred Risser, Representative Jon Erpenbach, Representative Mark Miller:

As legislators, we hear about many important issues that will impact our state’s future. No issue we face has an impact as far reaching as the education of Wisconsin children. Providing future generations with the skills to be productive and successful must be a top priority.
Unfortunately, in the proposed state budget, corporate special interests won out over Wisconsin children.
In the proposed budget, the governor has chosen to increase voucher program funding by $94 million. The proposal also expands the voucher program to school districts with two or more “failing schools.”
Based on this language, the Madison School District would as failing, and therefore open to voucher expansion. As a result, Madison tax dollars would be invested in private, unaccountable schools, rather than its public schools.
We believe that just isn’t right. Every time a student leaves the public school and enters the voucher program, the state withholds $2,200 in funding from the public school. While it may mean one fewer student to educate, the school’s fixed costs remain the same, and the district is forced to raise property taxes to cover the difference.

Much more on vouchers, here. Madison’s long-term, disastrous reading scores.

Lisa Hansel, via a kind reader’s email:

So why haven’t we ensured that all children get a rigorous, supportive education?
This is a question I ask myself and others all the time. I think it’s more productive than merely asking “How can we?” Those who ask how without also asking why haven’t tend to waste significant amounts of time and resources “discovering” things that some already knew.
Okay, so I’ve partly answer the why question right there. Much better answers can be found in Diane Ravitch’s Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, E. D. Hirsch’s The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them, and Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.
But still, those answers are not complete.
Right now, Kate Walsh and her team with the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) are adding to our collective wisdom–and potentially to our collective ability to act.
NCTQ is just a couple months away from releasing its review of teacher preparation programs. The results may not be shocking, but they are terrifying. Walsh provides a preview in the current issue of Education Next. In that preview, she reminds us of a study from several years ago that offers an insiders’ look at teacher preparation:

The most revealing insight into what teacher educators believe to be wrong or right about the field is a lengthy 2006 volume published by the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Studying Teacher Education. It contains contributions from 15 prominent deans and education professors and was intended to provide “balanced, thorough, and unapologetically honest descriptions of the state of research on particular topics in teacher education.” It lives up to that billing. First, the volume demonstrates the paucity of credible research that would support the current practices of traditional teacher education, across all of its many functions, including foundations courses, arts and sciences courses, field experiences, and pedagogical approaches, as well as how current practice prepares candidates to teach diverse populations and special education students. More intriguing, however, is the contributors’ examination of the dramatic evolution of the mission of teacher education over the last 50 years, in ways that have certainly been poorly understood by anyone outside the profession.
Studying Teacher Education explains the disconnect between what teacher educators believe is the right way to prepare a new teacher and the unhappy K-12 schools on the receiving end of that effort. It happens that the job of teacher educators is not to train the next generation of teachers but to prepare them.

Huh? Really? How exactly does one prepare without training? Walsh goes on to explain that. But the only way to prepare yourself to comprehend the teacher educators’ reasoning is to pretend like “prepare them” actually means “brainwash them into believing that in order to be a good teacher, you have to make everything up yourself.” Back to Walsh:

Harking back perhaps to teacher education’s 19th-century ecclesiastical origins, its mission has shifted away from the medical model of training doctors to professional formation. The function of teacher education is to launch the candidate on a lifelong path of learning, distinct from knowing, as actual knowledge is perceived as too fluid to be achievable. In the course of a teacher’s preparation, prejudices and errant assumptions must be confronted and expunged, with particular emphasis on those related to race, class, language, and culture. This improbable feat, not unlike the transformation of Pinocchio from puppet to real boy, is accomplished as candidates reveal their feelings and attitudes through abundant in-class dialogue and by keeping a journal. From these activities is born each teacher’s unique philosophy of teaching and learning.
There is also a strong social-justice component to teacher education, with teachers cast as “activists committed to diminishing the inequities of American society.” That vision of a teacher is seen by a considerable fraction of teacher educators (although not all) as more important than preparing a teacher to be an effective instructor.

Kate Walsh:

Nowhere is the chasm between the two visions of teacher education–training versus formation–clearer than in the demise of the traditional methods course. The public, and policymakers who require such courses in regulations governing teacher education, may assume that when a teacher takes a methods course, it is to learn the best methods for teaching certain subject matter. That view, we are told in the AERA volume, is for the most part an anachronism. The current view, state professors Renee T. Clift and Patricia Brady, is that “A methods course is seldom defined as a class that transmits information about methods of instruction and ends with a final exam. [They] are seen as complex sites in which instructors work simultaneously with prospective teachers on beliefs, teaching practices and creation of identities–their students’ and their own.”
The statement reveals just how far afield teacher education has traveled from its training purposes. It is hard not to suspect that the ambiguity in such language as the “creation of identities” is purposeful, because if a class fails to meet such objectives, no one would be the wiser.
The shift away from training to formation has had one immediate and indisputable outcome: the onus of a teacher’s training has shifted from the teacher educators to the teacher candidates. What remains of the teacher educator’s purpose is only to build the “capacity” of the candidate to be able to make seasoned professional judgments. Figuring out what actually to do falls entirely on the candidate.
Here is the guidance provided to student teachers at a large public university in New York:
In addition to establishing the norm for your level, you must, after determining your year-end goals, break down all that you will teach into manageable lessons. While so much of this is something you learn on the job, a great measure of it must be inside you, or you must be able to find it in a resource. This means that if you do not know the content of a grade level, or if you do not know how to prepare a lesson plan, or if you do not know how to do whatever is expected of you, it is your responsibility to find out how to do these things. Your university preparation is not intended to address every conceivable aspect of teaching.
Do not be surprised if your Cooperating Teacher is helpful but suggests you find out the “how to” on your own. Your Cooperating Teacher knows the value of owning your way into your teaching style.

Related: When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?.
Wisconsin has recently taken a first baby step toward teacher content knowledge requirements (something Massachusetts and Minnesota have done for years) via the adoption of MTEL-90. Much more on teacher content knowledge requirements, here.
Content knowledge requirements for teachers past & present.

The Chicago Tribune:

Indiana lawmakers are proposing huge increases in state education funding this year. Ditto those in Wisconsin.
Here in Illinois, The Deadbeat State? Just the opposite. Education funding is being strangled by the same python that is strangling the rest of state government’s finances: pension obligations. Every day that the Legislature delays the enactment of pension reform, the unfunded liability of the state’s five pension funds grows by $17 million, according to Gov. Pat Quinn’s office.
In this state, we’re not arguing about how to, say, give more money to schools because great schools drive growth and innovation, attract businesses, create jobs.
No, we’re arguing instead about which school kids will get cheated more than other school kids because state lawmakers dither on a pension fix — kids from richer districts or those from poorer districts? That’s the depressing debate we’re having.
Here’s why: In Illinois, the Legislature sets a “foundation” funding level that the state says every student needs for an adequate education. That’s the starting point for a calculation that determines how much state aid each district receives. The calculation considers each district’s local taxing ability to meet that foundation level, and also looks at how many students in the district need extra support because they’re from low-income families. Districts that have relatively lower revenue and educate relatively more higher-need students receive more state aid.

Related: Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman’s 2009 Madison Rotary Speech:

“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).

Pamela Cotant:

Students at Wingra School only needed to travel across the street for a day in the outdoors as part of its annual all-school unit called Outdoor Odyssey.
Last week, students ages 5 to 14 culminated the unit by working in multi-age teams to complete a variety of challenges throughout the UW Arboretum, across Monroe Street from the school.
The challenges, created by Wingra teachers and UW Arboretum naturalists, included identifying animal skin and bones, a scavenger hunt, identifying scat and measuring the weather with different instruments made by the students.
Wearing a matching raincoat and boots with a bug design, kindergartener Leo Langer, 5, used a trowel to dig up invasive plants under the supervision of teachers and Arboretum staff. He said it was his favorite activity so far that day.
“I learned a new way to dig out (dame’s rocket) instead of just pulling stuff out with your hands,” he said.

Mike Ford:

I had my first chance to read through the new Milwaukee Public School (MPS) budget proposal yesterday, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. Compared to trends of the last decade or so, things are definitely looking better for the district.
Most important, MPS is increasing their staffing in key areas next year. Despite all the talk about governance structure the most important place in education is the school itself. MPS is increasing its school level staffing by 120.8 full-time-equivalent employees in FY14. A good number of those positions, 51, are teachers and educational assistants (though on the negative side the federal sequestration is responsible for the loss of 24 title 1 teachers). The district is also adding assistant principals, safety assistants, social workers, and nurse associates in schools. All of this is particularly impressive when overall enrollment is projected to decline 1%.
So how did they do this? A big part is the aggressive action the district has taken to reduce its benefit costs. MPS notes in their budget that their average teacher salary is increasing but their “school operations and categorical benefit” rate will drop to 58.4% from almost 70% just two years ago. Part of this is due to Act 10, and part of this is due to the willingness of MPS to take needed action.

Milwaukee’s $1,170,867,945 budget will spend $15,011 for each of its 78,000 students during the 2013-2014 school year. Madison spends a similar amount per student.

Christopher Levenick:

John Kirtley smiled. It was March in Tallahassee, and the morning sun was already warming the immense crowd before him. Some 5,600 people had gathered in front of the Leon County Civic Center–more than 1,000 of whom were arriving after a 14-hour overnight bus ride from Miami. Still, the energy in the air was palpable. Excited schoolchildren clutched hand-lettered signs: “Don’t Take Away My Dreams,” “Education Through Choice.” Parents chatted with teachers as clergymen greeted newcomers. It was a diverse crowd, predominantly black and Hispanic. Kirtley knew it had gathered for a single purpose: to convince the 2010 Florida legislature to strengthen the state’s school choice program.
A little after 10 a.m., the crowd began heading east along Madison Street. Kirtley walked at the head of the procession, alongside the Rev. H. K. Matthews, an 82-year-old African-American minister who had marched in Selma. Together they proceeded by the sprawling headquarters of the Florida Department of Education. They marched past the state’s tidy Supreme Court. When the crowd ultimately reached the capitol, it was the largest political rally in the state’s history.
Charlie Crist, then the Governor of Florida, welcomed the crowd. Dignitaries lined up to address them: Al Lawson, the Democratic leader of the Florida state Senate; Julio Fuentes, president of the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options; Anitere Flores, Florida state Representative. Representing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, James Bush III proclaimed the support of the civil rights organization founded by Martin Luther King Jr. The crowd roared.
Kirtley had helped organize the march to put the legislators on notice. Since 2001, Florida had offered dollar-for-dollar tax credits to corporations that contributed to state-approved scholarship organizations. (Those organizations in turn offered partial scholarships to low-income families, giving parents the resources to pay tuition at a private school of their choice.) Funding for the program, however, had always been capped. Offering more scholarships meant passing a new cap. The school choice program was forever in jeopardy, an election away from a hostile governor or legislature.

The Madison Urban League, via a kind Kaleem Caire email:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 23, 2013
Media contact: Kaleem Caire
kcaire@ulgm.org
608.729.1249
Click Here for Urban League’s 2013-14 Agenda
State Test Scores Confirm Urban League’s Concerns and Call to Action
Madison, WI – Today, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction released students’ results on the annual statewide achievement test, Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam (WKCE). The results confirm concerns raised by the Urban League of Greater Madison, that disadvantaged students and students of color are severely underperforming in many of Wisconsin’s public schools, particularly in the Madison Metropolitan School District.
All Wisconsin public school students completed the test in November 2012. This revised test raised the standards of performance for all students, thereby providing a more accurate picture of students who are on track to graduate from high school academically ready to succeed in college or a career. Test results show that all students, regardless of their race, socioeconomic status or disability, are struggling to achieve to high standards in Madison-area public schools.
This afternoon, the Urban League of Greater Madison joined Madison Metropolitan School District Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham, and leaders of other community organizations, at a press conference where Cheatham shared MMSD’s results. Cheatham presented data showing that an astounding 92% of African American and 85% of Latino students are reading below their grade level, and 90% of African American and 77% of Latino children are failing in mathematics. The data further showed that a large percentage of white students have fallen behind as well, with 42% are reading below grade level and 33% failing in math.
In reflecting on the scores, Darrell Bazzell, the Chair of Urban League’s Board of Directors said, “These numbers are a stark message that Madison’s public schools are at a tipping point and that our community must embrace change. The implications for our region are profound. For the sake of our community and our children, Madison can, and must, do better for all students and families.”
Bazzell further stated that, “Every citizen in our community must say that ‘we will no longer harbor these gaps; that we accept responsibility for addressing these challenges; and that we will commit to doing all that we can to ensure all of our children succeed. We must also acknowledge where we are not succeeding and commit to change in smart, innovative and effective ways that lead to real progress for our kids’.”
In response to these troubling statistics, Urban League President and CEO, Kaleem Caire, shared that, “When 90% of Black children cannot read at their grade level, we are significantly reducing the possibility of success for an entire generation. This issue negatively affects not only this generation of children, but also the vitality of our entire region. If not addressed quickly, it will affect the quality of the lives of all citizens who call Madison home.” To address these challenges, Caire said “The Urban League is working to build a pipeline of high quality cradle to career educational and employment services that positively impact the entire family, move all children towards high performance, and prepare youth and adults for career success.” He further highlighted, “We have already begun working with the Madison Schools, other area school districts, employers and community partners to ensure that we attack the persistence of underachievement and other contributing factors, such as poverty, at its core. ”
The Urban League’s 2013-14 Strategic Plan creates opportunities that will help the community overcome these challenges. Caire enthusiastically shared that, “We are a community of great people, great teachers and great families who are passionate about helping others transform their lives. But our passion now must become our reality.”
About the Urban League of Greater Madison
The Urban League of Greater Madison’s mission is to ensure that African Americans and other community members are educated, employed and empowered to live well, advance professionally and contribute to the common good in the 21st Century. We are committed to transforming Greater Madison into the Best [place] in the Midwest for everyone to live, learn, and work. We are working to make this vision a reality through a comprehensive strategic empowerment agenda that includes programs & services, advocacy, and partnerships & coalition building. www.ulgm.org
Urban League of Greater Madison | 2222 S. Park Street | Suite 200 | Madison | WI | 53713

Related: The rejected Madison Preparatory Academy IB charter school
Madison’s long term disastrous reading results.
The recently released WKCE results.

Madison Teachers, Inc. Newsletter (PDF), via a kind Jeannie Bettner email:

Pursuant to the Memorandum of Understanding negotiated by MTI, on behalf of elementary teachers, those who have completed Ready, Set, Goal (RSG) Conferences, and whose request for compensatory time cannot be accommodated due to the unavailability of a substitute teacher, may, upon written notice to their principal by May 1, choose among the following options: (1) request to be compensated for RSG conferences, travel time, and up to 15 minutes per conference for any reasonable administrative time associated with each conference; or
(2) have said day(s) added to the teacher’s Personal Sick Leave Account (PSLA) or, if the teacher has the maximum amount in that account, the day(s) may be added to the teacher’s Retirement Insurance Account (RIA) [ Any such days accumulated to one’s RIA from RSG services are not subject to the PSLA or RIA maximum]; or
(3) carryover one (1) paid RSG leave day into the following school year; or
(4) a combination of items 1-3 above.
Contact MTI Assistant Director Eve Degen (degene@madisonteachers.org) with questions regarding RSG compensation.

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter, via a kind Jeannie Bettner email (PDF):

Among the excellent benefits available to MTI members is the additional worker’s compensation benefit provided by MTI’s various Collective Bargaining Agreements.
Wisconsin Statutes provide a worker’s compensation benefit for absence caused by a work-related injury or illness, but such commences on the 4th day of absence and has a maximum weekly financial benefit.
MTI’s Contracts provide one’s full wage, beginning on day one of an absence caused by a work- related injury or illness, with no financial maximum. Also, MTI’s Contract provides that one’s earned sick leave is not consumed by absence caused by a work-related illness or injury.
Although MTI is working to preserve this benefit, it is at risk due to Governor Walker’s Act 10.

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter, via a kind Jeannie Bettner email (PDF):

Since the late 1960’s, MTI members have had the benefit of the best health insurance available. Stressing the importance of having quality health insurance in providing economic security, members have made known that health insurance is their #1 priority via their responses to the Union’s Bargaining Survey. And, the Union not only was able to bargain specific benefits, such as acupuncture and extended mental health coverage, as demanded by MTI members, but due to a 1983 MTI victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, MTI was able to have an equal voice in which insurance company would provide the plan. This is important because varied insurance companies have different interpretations of the same insurance provisions.
Unfortunately, the District Administration took advantage of the increased leverage in negotiations enabled by Governor Walker’s Act 10, and forced concessions in health insurance and other Contract provisions, in exchange for agreeing to Collective Bargaining Agreements for MTI’s five bargaining units through June 2014.
Members who elected Physicians Plus health insurance under the revisions made by the District, will now lose that coverage June 30, 2013. For coverage effective July 1, options available are via Dean Health Plan, Group Health Cooperative and Unity. Each offers an HMO and a Point of Service Plan. The Point of Service enables greater coverage options, but at a higher premium.
Note: The three current carriers enabling a special open enrollment/annual choice to add or change coverage to members of ALL five MTI bargaining units until April 26, 2013. Changes in coverage will be effective July 1, 2013. The deadline for application to change coverage must be received in Human Resources by 5:00 p.m., April 26, 2013. The District has scheduled two health insurance information sessions for those with questions to seek answers from the above-referenced plans.
Health Insurance Information Sessions:
April 8 – La Follette Room C17 – 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. April 9 – Memorial Neighborhood Center – 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.

USA Today Editorial:

Critics — whether district superintendents or teachers’ unions or school boards or a traveling band of academic doubters — snipe at the newcomers, arguing that they’re siphoning students and money from traditional public schools.
But as evidence from the 20-year-old charter experiment mounts, the snipers are in need of a new argument. There’s little doubt left that top-performing charters have introduced new educational models that have already achieved startling results in even the most difficult circumstances.
That doesn’t mean all charters are automatically good. They’re not. But it’s indisputable that the good ones — most prominently, KIPP — are onto something. The non-profit company, which now has 125 schools, operates on a model that demands much more of students, parents and teachers than the typical school does. School days are longer, sometimes including Saturday classes. Homework burdens are higher, typically two hours a night. Grading is tougher. Expectations are high, as is the quality of teachers and principals, and so are the results.
KIPP’s eighth-grade graduates go to college at twice the national rate for low-income students, according to its own tracking. After three years, scores on math tests rise as if students had four years of schooling, according to an independent study.

Related: Madison Mayor Paul Soglin: “We are not interested in the development of new charter schools”
.
A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB charter school.
Minneapolis teacher’s union approved to authorize charter schools
.

Benjamin Scafidi:

America’s K-12 public education system has experienced tremendous historical growth in employment, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Between fiscal year (FY) 1950 and FY 2009, the number of K-12 public school students in the United States increased by 96 percent, while the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) school employees grew 386 percent. Public schools grew staffing at a rate four times faster than the increase in students over that time period. Of those personnel, teachers’ numbers increased 252 percent, while administrators and other non-teaching staff experienced growth of 702 percent, more than seven times the increase in students.
That hiring pattern has persisted in more recent years as well. Between FY 1992 and FY 2009, the number of K-12 public school students nationwide grew 17 percent, while the number of FTE school employees increased 39 percent. Among school personnel, teachers’ staffing numbers rose 32 percent, while administrators and other non-teaching staff experienced growth of 46 percent, 2.3 times greater than the increase in students over that 18-year period; the growth in the number of teachers was almost twice that of students.
The two aforementioned figures come from “The School Staffing Surge: Decades of Employment Growth in America’s Public Schools.” This companion report contains more state-specific information about public school staffing. Specifically, this report contains:

Related: Richard Zimman’s 2009 speech to the Madison Rotary Club

Matthew DeFour:

The state’s top education official warned the Legislature’s budget committee Thursday that Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to tie funding and voucher expansion to new state report cards could undermine bipartisan reform efforts already underway.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers said the new report cards “aren’t ready for prime time” and will look “a lot different eight years from now.”
Evers agreed with Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, a member of the Joint Finance Committee and chairman of the Senate Education Committee, that the report cards should be used “as a flashlight and not a hammer.”

“If we use them as a hammer it’s going to make all the other transformative efforts we’re doing more difficult,” Evers said, referring to new curriculum, testing and teacher evaluation systems that were developed by a bipartisan coalition of teachers, administrators, school boards and political leaders in recent years.
“Teachers will back off,” he said.

2008: “Schools should not rely on only WKCE data to gauge progress of individual students or to determine effectiveness of programs or curriculum”. Parents, students and taxpayers might wonder what precisely the DPI has been doing since 2008? The WKCE has been long criticized for its lack of rigor.
Related: Matthew DeFour’s tweets from Mr. Evers recent budget appearance.

Matthew DeFour’s tweets tell the unsurprising story (Wisconsin Schools Superintendent Tony Evers is testifying before the State’s “Joint Finance Committee”):

Evers: If we use it as a hammer it’s going to make all the other transformative efforts we’re doing more difficult. Teachers will back off.

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Olsen: What you’re saying is report card needs to be used as a flashlight and not a hammer. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Klemke: Efficiency is good, but what we need is transformation. Evers: I agree. That’s what report cards, new tests and teacher evals are.

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Evers: Increases over last decade are close to cost of living. Efficiency measures have been put in place. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Klemke: What are you going to do to bend cost curve? You need to help me believe why your cost model isn’t high. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

LeMahieu: “We don’t think doing same old-same old for another decade is going to make it. We’re looking for something different.”

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

LeMahieu: Test scores stable and achievement gap growing over past decade, while spending grows from $9,000 to $13,000 per student #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Shilling: Rural schools that don’t receive report card scores because of size worried they won’t be eligible for incentive grants. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

GOP Rep. Dean Knudson says “key issue” facing budget comm., Legislature is whether to allow public school spending to increase

— Scott Bauer (@sbauerAP) March 21, 2013

Knudson: Won’t districts be able to avoid cuts with referenda? Evers: if we’re going to rely on referenda, the disequity will be tremendous.

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Evers on incentive grants: We should be focused on best practices and not more money for wealthy school districts. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Evers on report cards: this last year was a pilot year. It’s just not ready for prime time. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Strachota on incentive grants: We’re putting money into schools in a different way. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Evers: report cards were never meant to make high-stakes decisions, they’re deficient in high school, but they will get better. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Evers: Budget could mean new curriculum, testing, teacher evaluations in public schools “won’t happen or won’t happen well.” #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Mason: GOP keeps defunding public education and then gives us this red herring of vouchers. A generation later, Milwaukee still struggles.

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Mason: GOP keeps defunding public education and then gives us this red herring of vouchers. A generation later, Milwaukee still struggles.

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Nygren: Voucher grad rate may be no better, but spending is less. Evers: I understand it’s cheaper, but that shouldn’t be our goal.

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Nygren: to say we’re continuing to defund education simply isn’t accurate. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Darling: Why do we spend more than states that are ranked higher in Ed Week? Evers: that ranking rewards states with less local control.

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Evers: The budget as proposed creates too many winners and losers. It pits public school kids against charter and voucher kids. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Evers: $130M in GPR for roads, $64M for school incentives and $73M for vouchers should go toward increasing school aids. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Joint Finance has begun to hear testimony from State Sup. Tony Evers. #wibudget

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJExtraCredit) March 21, 2013

Related:


Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding.
Madison’s per student spending is $14,547 for the 2012-2013 school year (the number ignores differences in pre-k per student costs – lower, vs “full time” students).
Watch the committee hearing.

Tony Evers WISTAX 2013 Election Interview Word Cloud:


Don Pridemore WISTAX 2013 Election Interview Word Cloud:


Links: A recent Wisconsin State Journal Evers endorsement.
wuwm.com

Three weeks from today, Wisconsin voters will decide who will oversee K-12 public education for the next four years. Incumbent state Superintendent Tony Evers faces a challenge from Republican state Rep. Don Pridemore.
Evers says he’s proud of his accomplishments over the past four years. He highlights the implementation of Common Core Standards. The national initiative sets benchmarks for students to meet in English, Language Arts and Math, to make sure they’re prepared for the workforce.
“We’re developing new assessment systems and accountability systems. We have a new reading screener we’ve implemented at kindergarten that’s been very good as far as providing information for classroom teachers to intervene early,” Evers says.
Evers says his biggest challenge has been competing with choice or voucher schools for state funding. Students in Milwaukee and Racine can attend private schools – taking with them, the tax money that would have gone to the public system. Evers opposes Gov. Walker’s plan to expand the voucher program to nine more school districts and increase funding for participating students.
“There’s a zero dollar increase for our public schools per pupil and then on the voucher side there’s a $1,400 per student increase for $73 million. To me that’s a concept that isn’t connected in any good way for our public schools,” Evers says.
Evers opponent, Republican Rep. Don Pridemore of Hartford supports the expansion of choice. He says there would not to be need for it, if public schools better prepared students. Pridemore says if he’s elected, he’ll work to expand the program statewide.

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter (PDF), via a kind Jeannie Bettner email:

The University of Wisconsin is sponsoring a free 10-day public event which is designed to engage educators and community members in a conversation about efforts to renew and reinvigorate education in Wisconsin. All sessions are in the evening. Program titles, presenters and locations can be found on MTI’s website (www.madisonteachers.org) or by contacting your MTI Faculty Representative. This week’s sessions are:

• Politics of School Choice in New Orleans & Milwaukee
  Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor of Education, Moderator Monday, March 18, 7:00 p.m., Union South

• “The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World’s Most
  Surprising School System” Documentary Film Viewing & Discussion Tuesday, March 19, 7:00 p.m., Union South

• Higher Education Financing and Student Tuition Details Forthcoming (www.edtalkswi.org) Wednesday, March 20
• The Chicago Teachers Strike: Reframing Education
  Reform and Teacher Unions Sara Goldrick-Rab, Professor of Education, Moderator Thurs., March 21, 7:00 p.m., Wisconsin Idea Room

Related: www.wisconsin2.org
Much more on the Wisconsin School of Education, here.
Ed Talks notes and links.

Steven Verburg:

The minimum retirement age for public employees would increase by two years under a bill proposed by a state lawmaker who said the change would reflect increasing life spans and later retirement ages in general while possibly strengthening the pension system.
Democrats and a prominent retiree group were skeptical, and the state Department of Employee Trust Funds said a thorough actuarial study was needed to make sure the change wouldn’t cause unintended problems.
Most municipal workers, state employees and teachers in the Wisconsin Retirement System must work until they are 65 years old to collect full benefits, but they can retire at age 55 with reduced pensions.
Under a bill circulated by Rep. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, the minimum age would rise to 57. For police and firefighters, it would increase two years to 52.
“(Current laws) have been in place for many years and have not changed to reflect increased longevity, normal life work span or the changing demographics of our state,” Stroebel said Friday in an email sent to state legislators in an effort to find co-sponsors.
Stroebel’s bill would affect only people who are under 40, so nobody would be affected for more than a decade.

Jennifer Levitz:

Massachusetts lawmakers are considering eliminating a cap on the number of charter schools that can operate in the lowest-performing school districts, including here in the capital city.
While other states also have weighed lifting caps, charter advocates point to left-leaning Massachusetts as a somewhat unlikely model for the movement. “This demonstrates that charter schools are a viable reform,” said Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a nonprofit aimed at advancing the movement. “If it can happen in Massachusetts, it can happen anywhere.”
Charter schools receive public funding but, unlike public schools, employ mostly nonunion teachers and have autonomy in school districts, which allows them to set their own conditions, such as longer school days. They have long been embraced by Republicans for introducing choice in education, but have been assailed by some teacher unions and others as hurting traditional public schools.

Madison appears to be going in the opposite direction.
Related: Madison Mayor Paul Soglin: We are not interested in the development of new charter schools”

Madison Teachers, Inc. newsletter (PDF) via a kind Jeannie Bettner email

Does it matter to you when school begins in the fall? How about when and how long winter or spring break is? And, how about when the school year ends? Have you thought about how many days you work for your annual salary, or how many hours make up your school day? In members’ responses to many years of MTI bargaining surveys, all of these factors are “very important” to those in MTI’s various bargaining units.
It was MTI’s case in 1966 which gave teacher unions an equal voice on all of the above topics. Ruling for MTI, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the school calendar is a mandatory subject of bargaining, meaning that a school district in Wisconsin must negotiate with the Union to determine each of the factors described above. Unfortunately, Governor Walker’s Act 10 in effect overturned the Supreme Court’s ruling because Act 10 removed workers’ rights to collectively bargain.
Impact? Act 10 enables a school board without a good conscience to engage in mischief or abuse of all MTI-represented staff, especially teachers, because teachers are paid an annual salary not on an hourly basis.
So far, the Board of Education has continued to negotiate the school calendar with MTI. In 2012’s negotiations, the calendar was agreed upon through the 2013-14 school year. MTI is fighting to overturn Act 10 and to restore the Union’s right to negotiate over the school calendar.

The Wisconsin Reading Coalition, via a kind reader’s email:

The bad news: A Harvard Study using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) finds that Wisconsin ranks 38th out of 41 states in progress in reading and math between 1992 and 2011. Both low and high performing states from 1992 have outperformed us, and they tend to be states where serious reforms were made in instructional content and pedagogy. The top 10 show up on many lists of states with improved reading instruction: Maryland, Florida, Delaware, Massachusetts, Louisiana, South Carolina, New Jersey, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Virginia. Some of these states served as models for our recent Wisconsin legislation on early reading screening and a new reading exam for teacher licensure. A logical next step is to look at what they are doing for professional development for their in-service teachers of reading. Which leads to . . .
The good news: A committed group of 38 teachers and tutors will spend 12 Saturdays in 2013 being trained in LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling). LETRS is a comprehensive professional development program created by Louisa Moats, the primary author of the foundational reading standards of the Common Core State Standards. LETRS is quite common elsewhere in the country: in some states it is the official state-funded development tool for teachers of reading, and in some cases it is required for certain teaching licenses. Despite its popularity and proven value, it has not been available in Wisconsin. The current opportunity is being sponsored by the Milwaukee Summer Reading Project, an initiative of Howard Fuller’s Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University. UW-Milwaukee School of Continuing Education is hosting at their conference facilities in downtown Milwaukee. The training is being presented by Alicia Sparks through the Rowland Reading Foundation, which is a LETRS affiliate site. Participants include teachers from public and charter schools in Milwaukee and Wausau, as well as tutors from a variety of literacy programs for children and adults in Milwaukee and Madison. This training is at capacity, but other communities interested in sponsoring LETRS training can contact the Rowland Reading Foundation in Middleton.

Chris Rickert:

Shortly after Madison schools superintendent Dan Nerad resigned last year, School Board member Ed Hughes told me that when it comes to the Madison School District, “People want improvement, but they don’t want change.”
I thought about Hughes’ words last weekend after the school district announced it had hired Chicago Public Schools chief of instruction Jennifer Cheatham as Nerad’s replacement.
Cheatham is seen as the best bet for improvement — specifically to the long history of low-income and minority student under-achievement.
The question now is: Will people tolerate her changes?
Hughes told me Sunday he was “optimistic” they would. “I think she will earn teachers’ trust and inspire them to do their best work,” he said. “If she succeeds at that, everything else will fall into place.”
I hope he’s right, but I don’t yet share his optimism.
Back in 2011, it was the district’s long-standing inability to do anything bold about the achievement gap that left it vulnerable to the Urban League of Greater Madison’s bid to open its own charter school for minority and low-income students.
Madison Preparatory Academy brought the issue of the achievement gap to the fore. But the school’s rejection — largely due to opposition from the teachers union — left notoriously progressive Madison doing some uncomfortable soul-searching.

Related: And so it continues…..

Madison Teachers, Inc. Newsletter, via a kind Jeannie Bettner email (PDF):

Rights granted to an employee by the Union Contract are among the most important conditions of one’s employment. Those represented by MTI, in each of MTI’s five bargaining units, have numerous protections based on SENIORITY. Whether it is protection from involuntary transfer, being declared “surplus” or above staff requirements, or layoff, SENIORITY is the factor that limits and controls management’s action. Because of SENIORITY rights guaranteed by the Union’s Contract, the employer cannot pick the junior employee simply because he/she is paid less.
Making such judgments based on one’s SENIORITY may seem like common sense and basic human decency, but it is MTI’s Contract that assures it. Governor Walker’s Act 10 destroys these protections. MTI is working to preserve them.

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter (PDF), via a kind Jeannie Bettner email:

On Thursday, February 14, MTI members are called to the Capitol (State Street entrance) commencing at 4:45 p.m., to commemorate the second anniversary of the uprising against Governor Walker’s anti-public employee legislation which destroyed collective bargaining and has caused significant loss in wages.
The legislation (Act 10) has, in effect, frozen wages and caused most public employees to pay a greater share of health insurance premiums and 50% of pension deposits.
MTI members will be joined by Union members of Madison Firefighters, Madison Police, AFSCME, SCFL and TAA, as well as other supporters of public schools for a solidarity sing-a-long and candlelight vigil to commemorate the two-year anniversary of our historic effort to fight back. Wear MTI Red in support of your MTI colleagues and public education in Wisconsin.
MTI President Kerry Motoviloff Takes MTI Advocacy & Political Experience to Quebec
Kerry Motoviloff, MTI President and 22-year veteran teacher, describes herself as the proud great- granddaughter of union organizers for immigrant workers in Worchester, MA. She was a member of the MTI Board of Directors as Secretary in 2011, when MTI members led the uprising against Governor Walker’s proposed anti-public employee legislation. She ran for MTI President later that spring.
Motoviloff spoke last week at the “Stand Up! Stay Strong!” Annual Conference of the Ontario Coordinating Committee, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) which represents 55,000 education support workers in Toronto. Legislation that is similar to Wisconsin’s Act 10 is also threatening many other countries in the world, as well as public workers in numerous states. It is the product of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Quebec’s proposed legislation would curtail the ability of Unions to participate in political action; control the Union’s ability to organize within the labor movement; and otherwise have a negative impact on collective bargaining.

Kaleem Caire, via a kind email:

February 6, 2013
Dear Friends & Colleagues.
As the Board of Education deliberates on who the next Superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District will be, and as school districts in our state and across the nation wrestle with what to do to eliminate the racial achievement gap in education, while at the same time establishing world class schools that help prepare all children to learn, succeed and thrive in the 21st century, it’s important that we not lose sight of what the research continues to tell us really makes the difference in a child’s education.
More than 40 years of research on effective schools and transformational education have informed us that the key drivers for eliminating the racial achievement gap in schools and ensuring all students graduate from high school prepared for college and life continue to be:

• An Effective Teacher in Every Classroom – We must ensure every classroom is led by an effective teacher who is committed to and passionate about teaching young people, inspires all children to want to learn, has an appropriate depth of knowledge of the content they are teaching, is comfortable teaching and empowering diverse students, and coaches all of their students to high performance and expectations. Through its Race to the Top Initiative, the Obama Administration also defined an effective teacher as someone who can improve a students’ achievement by 1.0 grade levels in one school year while a highly effective teacher is someone who can improve student achievement by 1.5 grade levels annually. Schools with large numbers of students who are academically behind, therefore, should have the most effective teachers teaching them to ensure they catch up.
• High Quality, Effective Schools with Effective Leaders and Practices – Schools that are considered high quality have a combination of effective leaders, effective teachers, a rigorous curriculum, utilize data-driven instruction, frequently assess student growth and learning, offer a supportive and inspiring school culture, maintain effective governing boards and enjoy support from the broader community in which they reside. They operate with a clear vision, mission, core values and measurable goals and objectives that are monitored frequently and embraced by all in the school community. They also have principals and educators who maintain positive relationships with parents and each other and effectively catalyze and deploy resources (people, money, partnerships) to support student learning and teacher success. Schools that serve high poverty students also are most effective when they provide additional instructional support that’s aligned with what students are learning in the classroom each day, and engage their students and families in extended learning opportunities that facilitate a stronger connection to school, enable children to explore careers and other interests, and provide greater context for what students are learning in the classroom.
• Adequately Employed and Engaged Parents – The impact of parents’ socio-economic status on a child’s educational outcomes, and their emotional and social development, has been well documented by education researchers and educational psychologists since the 1960s. However, the very best way to address the issue of poverty among students in schools is to ensure that the parents of children attending a school are employed and earning wages that allow them to provide for the basic needs of their children. The most effective plans to address the persistent underachievement of low-income students, therefore, must include strategies that lead to quality job training, high school completion and higher education, and employment among parents. Parents who are employed and can provide food and shelter for their children are much more likely to be engaged in their children’s education than those who are not. Besides being employed, parents who emphasize and model the importance of learning, provide a safe, nurturing, structured and orderly living environment at home, demonstrate healthy behaviors and habits in their interactions with their children and others, expose their children to extended learning opportunities, and hold their children accountable to high standards of character and conduct generally rear children who do well in school. Presently, 74% of Black women and 72% of white women residing in Dane County are in the labor force; however, black women are much more likely to be unemployed and looking for work, unmarried and raising children by themselves, or working in low wage jobs even if they have a higher education.
• Positive Peer Relationships and Affiliations – A child’s peer group can have an extraordinarily positive, or negative, affect on their persistence and success in school. Students who spend time with other students who believe that learning and attending school is important, and who inspire and support each other, generally spend more time focused on learning in class, more time studying outside of class, and tend to place a higher value on school and learning overall. To the contrary, children who spend a lot of time with peer groups that devalue learning, or engage in bullying, are generally at a greater risk of under-performing themselves. Creating opportunities and space for positive peer relationships to form and persist within and outside of school can lead to significantly positive outcomes for student achievement.
• Community Support and Engagement – Children who are reared in safe and resourceful communities that celebrate their achievements, encourage them to excel, inform them that they are valued, hold them accountable to a high standard of character and integrity, provide them with a multitude of positive learning experiences, and work together to help them succeed rarely fail to graduate high school and are more likely to pursue higher education, regardless of their parents educational background. “It Takes A Whole Village to Raise a Child” is as true of a statement now as it was when the African proverb was written in ancient times. Unfortunately, as children encounter greater economic and social hardships, such as homelessness, joblessness, long-term poverty, poor health, poor parenting and safety concerns, the village must be stronger, more uplifting and more determined than ever to ensure these children have the opportunity to learn and remain hopeful. It is often hopelessness that brings us down, and others along with us.

If we place all of our eggs in just one of the five baskets rather than develop strategies that bring together all five areas that affect student outcomes, our efforts to improve student performance and provide quality schools where all children succeed will likely come up short. This is why the Urban League of Greater Madison is working with its partners to extend the learning time “in school” for middle schoolers who are most at-risk of failing when they reach high school, and why we’ll be engaging their parents in the process. It’s also why we’ve worked with the United Way and other partners to strengthen the Schools of Hope tutoring initiative for the 1,600 students it serves, and why we are working with local school districts to help them recruit effective, diverse educators and ensure the parents of the children they serve are employed and have access to education and job training services. Still, there is so much more to be done.
As a community, I strongly believe we can achieve the educational goals we set for our chlidren if we focus on the right work, invest in innovation, take a “no excuses” approach to setting policy and getting the work done, and hire a high potential, world-class Superintendent who can take us there.
God bless our children, families, schools and capital region.
Onward!
Kaleem Caire
President & CEO
Urban League of Greater Madison
Phone: 608-729-1200
Assistant: 608-729-1249
Fax: 608-729-1205
www.ulgm.org

Related: Kaleem Caire interview, notes and links along with the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter school (rejected by a majority of the Madison School Board).

The Wheeler Report, via a Matthew DeFour Tweet:

Today, the Department of Administration (DOA) issued a Notice of Intent to Award letter for the Statewide Student Information System (SSIS) project. DOA issued the letter to Infinite Campus, Inc., which was the highest scoring proposer in the SSIS competitive Request for Proposal process. The state will now move into contract negotiations with Infinite Campus for the company to establish and maintain DPI’s student information system for more than 440 school districts and non-district public charter schools in Wisconsin.
Cari Anne Renlund of the DeWitt, Ross & Stevens Law Firm conducted an extensive observation of the procurement, evaluation and selection process of the SSIS. Her report concluded:
1) The SSIS procurement, evaluation and selection process was open, fair, impartial and objective, and consistent with the RFP criteria;
2) The State and the Evaluation Team carefully followed the statutory and regulatory requirements applicable to the procurement process;
3) All proposing vendors were afforded an equal opportunity to compete for the contract award; and
4) The procurement, evaluation and selection process satisfied the goals and objectives of Wisconsin’s public contracting requirements.
Further, Renlund stated the Request for Proposal (RFP) “was drafted to identify the best possible vendor for the job at the best possible price.”

many notes and links on Madison’s challenges with Infinite Campus.
A few additional notes:
1. Wisconsin firm may challenge loss of statewide school data pact

A Stevens Point company providing school software to about half of Wisconsin’s districts has lost a bid to become the supplier of a new statewide student-information system, and now it’s moving to challenge the state’s decision to go with a different vendor.
The Wisconsin Department of Administration announced Friday that it intends to negotiate a contract with Minnesota’s Infinite Campus Inc. to create a centralized K-12 student data system. In response, Stevens Point-based Skyward Inc. called the evaluation process “flawed,” while some elected officials over the weekend urged the state to reconsider its decision.
The evaluation and selection process was already under heightened scrutiny after being paused and restarted in June, after it was discovered that Skyward had been offered tax breaks contingent on it winning the statewide contract.
Based in Blaine, Minn., Infinite Campus provides student data systems to about 10% of Wisconsin’s districts, including Milwaukee-area districts such as Greenfield, Whitnall, Elmbrook and New Berlin.
Financial details of the emerging contract have not been made public, but $15 million was initially appropriated to launch the project. The overall cost to implement and maintain the system will likely be millions more than that.
The blanket K-12 student-information system for Wisconsin is important because it would allow the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to better track student and teacher information in and between districts and schools.
Currently, each district and independent public charter school chooses its own system to track and manage student data. The robustness of these systems can vary from place to place, and none are obligated to “talk” to each other.
For the DPI, the goal is to raise the level of student performance by collecting and then synthesizing common data from all schools on everything from enrollment and student absences to discipline records and test-score results.
A common system also could assign teachers a unique identifier, allowing for richer data about their records of performance.

2. Many school districts have successfully implemented complete student systems where parents can follow a course syllabus, all assignments, attendance, notes and grades. Madison has spent millions of dollars for a system that is at best partially implemented. What a waste.
3. Kurt Kiefer was instrumental in Madison’s acquisition of Infinite Campus. Kurt is now with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. I like Kurt and was privileged to serve on a parent committee that evaluated student information systems. That said, I felt strongly then that no money should be spent on such systems if their use is not mandatory throughout the organization.
I wonder what sort of implementation strategies are part of this acquisition?

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter, via a kind Jeannie Bettner email (PDF):

JUST CAUSE does not mean “just because”. It sets standards and procedures which must be met before an employee can be disciplined or discharged. Fortunately, for those in MTI’s bargaining units, all have protection under the JUST CAUSE STANDARDS. They were negotiated by MTI to protect union members.
There are seven just cause tests, and an employer must meet all seven in order to sustain the discipline or discharge of an employee. They are: notice; reasonableness of the rule; a thorough and fair investigation; proof; equal treatment; and whether the penalty reasonably meets the alleged offense by the employee.
MTI’s various Contracts enable a review and binding decision by a neutral arbitrator as to whether the District’s action is justified and the burden of proof is on the District.
These steps are steps every employer should have to follow. They are not, but MMSD must follow them because of MTI’s Contracts. Governor Walker’s Act 10 destroys these protections. MTI is working to preserve them.

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity newsletter via a kind Jennie Bettner email (PDF):

As the Madison Metropolitan School District has evolved, so too has the membership of MTI. All public education employees face challenges that require collaboration to best serve the students and the staff. Given that many MTI members are now working in instructional, training and non-pupil contact positions such as Teacher Leaders, Instructional Resource Teachers and Dean of Students, it is important to remember that all MTI members are your fellow brothers and sisters in the union regardless of their work. What kind of union member you choose to be is dependent on your actions, not a job title; helping one another address concerns rather than pointing fingers, lending a hand when a colleague is struggling, and sticking together to achieve a shared goal. We have more strength when we work together, and in these changing times, we should not allow ourselves to be divided by dramatizing differences. Simply because one of your fellow MTI members works “downtown” or in an office, rather than a classroom, does not make them any more or less “union.” If we want to succeed, we must work together, even when we disagree, to advocate what is best for the membership, the District and the students we serve.

Motoko Rich:

In a report issued Monday, StudentsFirst ranks states based on how closely they follow the group’s platform, looking at policies related not only to tenure and evaluations but also to pensions and the governance of school districts. The group uses the classic academic grading system, awarding states A to F ratings.
With no states receiving an A, two states receiving B-minuses and 12 states branded with an F, StudentsFirst would seem to be building a reputation as a harsh grader.
Ms. Rhee said that the relatively weak showing reflected how recently statehouses had begun to address issues like tenure and performance evaluations. “We didn’t say in any way that we want to show people how bad it is,” she said in a telephone interview. “We wanted to show the progress that is being made, but in places where progress is slower to come, be very clear with leaders of that state what they could do to push the agenda forward and create a better environment in which educators, parents and kids can operate.”

Related: Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman:

“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).

Esther Cepeda

It’s “Too Many Tamales” season in selected classrooms. A contemporary classic by Gary Soto, it tells the story of Maria, a girl who loses her mother’s diamond ring as she and her family prepare tamales for their big holiday feast.
I discovered it with my class of first-graders when I taught English-language learners. Unfortunately, only my class experienced “Too Many Tamales.” As the holidays approached, the rest of the school read more “traditional” holiday books. Those students lost out.
My students would have missed out on themes the rest of their grade was involved in had I not insisted that the bilingual students be included in the general curriculum. The “mainstream” teachers thought this was bizarre, as if Hispanic students couldn’t possibly be expected to learn about the same topics as the other first-graders without a mountain of “culturally correct” learning materials.

Madison Teachers, Inc. via a kind Linda Doeseckle email (PDF)

We know all too well the many changes that have occurred since Scott Walker became Governor and, aided by big corporate money, anti-worker lobbyists and a right-wing legislature, destroyed Wisconsin’s public sector collective bargaining and what it has produced for workers and their families. Many MTI members worked tirelessly on the protests, elections, recalls, recounts and numerous forms of organizing when the troubles began almost two years ago.
Where do we go from here? While the fall elections are behind us, we must gear up for the next round; the spring of 2013. We need to rebalance the State Supreme Court, and we need to again make our voices heard by electing employee – friendly Board of Education (BOE) members. Three seats are up for election this spring: Seat 4, currently held by BOE president James Howard; Seat 3, currently held by Beth Moss (who has indicated that she will not run for re-election); and Seat 5, currently held by Maya Cole.
MTI members need to remain attentive, educated, and ready to act on all matters that affect their jobs and well-being. It was only a short time ago that the District began work on an employee handbook that DID NOT include any input from their own employees; fortunately, MTI got an opportunity, due to Judge Juan Colas finding Act 10 unconstitutional in several parts, to call for an additional year of collective bargaining, and the employee handbook has been shelved for now. With immediate and strong support, MTI members gave Board members a quick reminder that District staff demands a voice in the work they do and how they do it.
There are many forces within the District, the current Governor’s office, and other political and big corporations that will continue in their attempts to weaken the worker’s voice. MTI encourages members to attend Board of Education meetings to keep a watchful eye on what they’re doing and the direction they’re going. The Board meets in its various subcommittees almost every Monday night. Unlike the past, current Board committees discuss issues and make decisions by the time they meet as a full Board at the end of each month. Anyone may register to speak at any Board meeting, and Board members are listening to MTI members. Information on all Board meetings can be found easily – Google “mmsd boe” or go to the MTI website and scroll down the right hand column to “other links” and choose “MMSD BOE Info. Station”. Meetings will also be posted in each week’s MTI Solidarity! newsletter. Protect yourself by staying current, attending BOE meetings, and sharing information with your union brothers and sisters.

Joe Rodriguez:

In a recent opinion piece, James L. Huffman requests Oregonians to ask “why those who run our public schools have seen fit to increase their own ranks at three times the rate of growth in student enrollment while allowing for a small decline in the number of teachers relative to students” (“Oregon’s schools: Are we putting money into staff at students’ expense?” Commentary, Nov. 17).
He references a report by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice that uses data from the National Center for Education Statistics to document that K-12 personnel growth has outstripped K-12 student enrollment growth. The data are completely accurate, but the conclusions Huffman and the report reach are erroneous.
Huffman writes that some might be suspicious of the foundation as the source of the data. In reading the report’s conclusion (pages 19-22), such suspicion is justified.

Related: The School Staffing Surge: Decades of Employment Growth in America’s Public Schools:

America’s K-12 public education system has experienced tremendous historical growth in employment, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Between fiscal year (FY) 1950 and FY 2009, the number of K-12 public school students in the United States increased by 96 percent while the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) school employees grew 386 percent. Public schools grew staffing at a rate four times faster than the increase in students over that time period. Of those personnel, teachers’ numbers increased 252 percent while administrators and other staff experienced growth of 702 percent, more than seven times the increase in students.
In a recent Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, Lindsey Burke (2012) reports that since 1970, the number of students in American public schools increased by 8 percent while the number of teachers increased 60 percent and the number of non-teaching personnel increased 138 percent.
That hiring pattern has persisted in more recent years as well. This report analyzes the rise in public school personnel relative to the increase in students since FY 1992. Analyses are provided for the nation as a whole and for each state.
Between FY 1992 and FY 2009, the number of K-12 public school students nationwide grew 17 percent while the number of full-time equivalent school employees increased 39 percent, 2.3 times greater than the increase in students over that 18-year period. Among school personnel, teachers’ staffing numbers rose 32 percent while administrators and other staff experienced growth of 46 percent; the growth in the number of administrators and other staff was 2.7 times that of students.

1.2MBPDF report and,

Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman:

“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).

Joy Pullman:

Milwaukee Public Schools plans to expand districtwide a pilot program in which schools ditch traditional letter grades. Instead of A, B, C, D and F, teachers will compare students to a list of things the state expects students to know on core subjects in each grade and mark their skills advanced, proficient, basic or minimal. It’s called a “standards-based report card.”
The idea has some merits and several significant flaws.
Parents and students benefit from objective, specific standards for academic performance. If a father knows Julia must learn to define a story’s theme in second grade, he can ask her to do so when they read together. Grading metrics can also help counter grade inflation, where teachers give students high marks they have not earned. A 2005 ACT study found high school grades inflated 12.5% between 1991 and 2003.

The Madison School District implemented the ill-advised middle school “standards – based report cards” several years ago. Unfortunately, this initiative was incompatible with the multi-million dollar “Infinite Campus” system.

Karen Vieth:

In 2010, an anti-public education documentary made its debut. Waiting for Superman features Geoffrey Canada, a controversial education “reformer” who promotes anti-union sentiment and charter schools as a solution to the struggles that face our public education system. The documentary largely appeals to the heart, as it uses weak data and a faulty premise. For this reason, another documentary made its debut in 2011. The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman features the New York City teachers and counters the position taken in Waiting for Superman. With this documentary shedding light on the true nature of charter schools and faux reformers like Geoffrey Canada, I would hope this matter is settled, at least for those of us who rely on real data and results to drive decisions.
Why then is the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) listed as both a sponsor and partner of an upcoming event featuring the “legendary” Geoffrey Canada? Geoffrey Canada is the creator of the Harlem Children’s Zone. The two Charter Schools included in this zone are called “Promise Academy I” and “Promise Academy II.” Students win a spot in the schools based on a lottery. Canada believes that money is the answer for these children. The Harlem Children’s Zone invests $16,000 per student per year for expenses in the classroom, and thousands more per student for expenses outside the classroom. These expenses include student incentives, such as a trip to Disney World or the Galapagos Islands.

Madison Teachers, Inc., via a kind Linda Doeseckle email 82K PDF.

he Sick Leave Bank (see Section VII-G of MTI’s Teacher Collective Bargaining Agreement) is an innovative and progressive Contract provision. Because of its value to those in need, unions across the country have tried to emulate it. A sign of Union solidarity, the Sick Leave Bank (SLB) has provided income to many teachers who otherwise would go without.
The SLB was created by MTI’s 1980 negotiations, with each member of MTI’s teacher collective bargaining unit donating three sick days to fund the “Bank”. The Sick Leave Bank acts as a short-term disability policy for teachers needing to be off of work for medical reasons and who have consumed their earned sick leave. SLB benefits begin after a teacher has been absent eleven (11) consecutive work days and has exhausted his/her Personal Sick Leave Account. SLB benefits are payable for a maximum of forty-four (44) days, or until the Contract provided long term disability benefit begins, whichever occurs first. The SLB Contract provision enables pay at 100% of the individual’s daily rate of pay for each work day from the SLB. Without the SLB, teachers without sufficient sick leave to cover an extended illness would be forced to go without pay until long term disability benefits begin when one is absent for 55 work days; i.e. until one qualifies for long term disability coverage.
Teacher recipients are not required to “repay” the bank for days withdrawn; rather all teachers are assessed an additional day from their personal sick leave account, when the balance of days in the SLB drops below the contractually defined threshold of six (6) days per teacher. To help offset the need for assessment, MTI negotiated that 80% of the unused sick leave of the Retirement Insurance Account of one who resigns or dies is transferred to the SLB. This has minimized the need for members of the bargaining unit to be assessed days to fund the Bank.
The SLB is yet another way that, through our collective efforts, MTI members are able to assist each other.
Given that the Sick Leave Bank balance has now dropped below the contractual minimum, all teachers will be assessed one earned sick leave day on their February 1 paycheck. Teachers who do not have at least one sick day in their personal sick leave account may be docked one day’s pay on the February 1 paycheck. This is only the fourteenth (14th) time in the thirty-two (32) year existence of the SLB that an assessment has been necessary.

National Council on Teacher Quality, via a kind email:

Yesterday, a court in Minnesota delivered a summary judgment ordering the Minnesota State Colleges and University system to deliver the documents for which we asked in our open records (“sunshine”) request for our Teacher Prep Review.
At the heart of our Teacher Prep Review is a simple idea: the more information that aspiring teachers, district and school leaders, teacher educators and the public at large have about the programs producing classroom-ready teachers, the better all teacher training programs will be.
In our effort to produce the first comprehensive review of U.S. teacher prep, we’ve faced a number of challenges — perhaps the most serious of which has been the argument made by some universities that federal copyright law makes it illegal for public institutions publicly approved to prepare public school teachers to make public documents that describe the training they provide.
We want to make sure that everyone understands what this ruling does and does not mean. The Minnesota State colleges and universities system agreed with us that the syllabi we seek are indeed public record documents. Their case came down to the claim that because the course syllabi are also the intellectual property of professors, they should not have to deliver copies of their syllabi to us.
Minnesota’s open records law, the court ruled, is clear: public institutions must make documents accessible to individuals seeking them — which includes delivering copies to them. Delivering copies of these documents to us in no way, shape or form deprives the professors who created them of their intellectual property rights. NCTQ is conducting a research study, which means that our use of these syllabi falls under the fair use provision of the copyright law. This is the exactly the same provision that enables all researchers, including teacher educators, to make copies of key documents they need to analyze to make advances in our collective knowledge.

Related:

• NCTQ Sues UW Ed Schools over Access to Course Syllabi
• Georgia, Wisconsin Education Schools Back Out of NCTQ Review
• When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Dave Zweifel

According to the Department of Public Instruction, 272 of the state’s 424 public school districts will receive less aid for the 2012-2013 school year than they did last year. Although there was a slight increase in general school aid overall, public schools are receiving less because Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP Legislature not only trimmed a good billion dollars from public school spending, but expanded school choice vouchers and other goodies for private institutions at the expense of public schools.
All told, the state has taken away $900 from each of its public school students in the past five years, the bulk of which has come during Walker’s two years as governor. Much of that $900 decrease has been on the backs of public school teachers, who were stripped of their union representation and forced to pay more for their health insurance and pensions. In addition, some 2,300 teacher positions were eliminated in the 2011-2012 school year.

Related: Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding.

Madison Teachers, Inc. via a kind Jeannie Bettner email:

Act 10 & WEAC Reorganization
Governor Walker’s Act 10 was intended to kill public sector unions and it has caused a significant negative impact on them. Other than the urban unions, WEAC’s membership is about one-half of that prior to the enactment of Act 10. This has caused WEAC and the Wisconsin American Federation of Teachers to discuss merger. And, that is the subject of a Special WEAC Representative Assembly to be held December 1.
If you are interested in serving as an MTI Delegate contact Vicky Bernards at MTI Headquarters (608-257-0491 or bernardsv@madisonteachers.org) by October 24.
………
At its October 16 meeting, the MTI Faculty Representative Council re-elected Greg Vallee (Thoreau) to one of the at-large positions on the MTI Board of Directors. For the other position, the vote was tied between Pete Smith (Lowell) and Lauren Mikol (Lincoln). They will meet at MTI Headquarters today to participate in a drawing to determine the winner. The Board consists of the MTI President, President-Elect, Vice-President, Past-President, Secretary, Treasurer and four at-large positions. Officers are elected by the general membership each April, and two at-large positions by the MTI Faculty Representative Council each October.
In other elections, the Council re-elected Nancy Roth (West) and elected Susie Hobart (Lake View) to the MTI Cabinet on Personnel. The Cabinet, which oversees MTI’s employment relationship with its staff, consists of four at-large positions elected by the Council, the MTI President and Treasurer, and the Presidents (or his/her designee) from MTI’s educational assistant, school security assistant, substitute teacher, and clerical/technical bargaining units.
For the MTI Finance Committee, the Council re-elected Bruce Bobb (Shabazz/Cluster) and Andrew Waity (Crestwood) and elected Karen Lee-Wahl (Huegel). The Finance Committee oversees the development of the Union’s budget for presentation to and action by the MTI Joint Fiscal Group. The Committee consists of the MTI President and Treasurer, three at-large positions elected annually by the Council, and the Presidents (or his/her designee) from MTI’s educational assistant, school security assistant, substitute teacher, and clerical/technical bargaining units.
The Council also re-elected to MTI’s Political Action Committee (MTI-VOTERS) Andy Mayhall (Thoreau), Karen Vieth (Sennett), Kathryn Burns (Shorewood), and Liz Wingert (Elvehjem). The Committee consists of the MTI President, Treasurer, the Presidents (or his/her designee) from MTI’s educational assistant, school security assistant, substitute teacher, and clerical/technical bargaining units, and nine members elected by the MTI Faculty Representative Council, one of whom is a member of MTI’s retired teacher organization.
Due to a retirement, a vacancy existed as MTI Delegate to the South Central Federation of Labor. The Council elected David Fawcett (Allis) to fill the remainder of the term.
In addition, due to retirements and a person taking a position out of the bargaining unit, four vacancies existed on the MTI Bargaining Committee. The Council elected Laurie Solchenberger (Lincoln) for Elementary School Representative; Gabe Chavez (Jefferson) for Middle School Representative; Peggy Ellerkamp (La Follette) for High School Representative; and Matt Gray (Jefferson) for At-Large Representative.

Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes

The other major change to the CBA affects the hiring process for teachers. Currently, teachers have the opportunity to seek to transfer to vacant positions at other schools until four weeks prior to the start of the school year. Once the internal transfer process has been completed, principals can select applicants for teaching positions from outside the district. It is pretty obvious that the school district was placing itself at a competitive disadvantage in hiring if it could not tell a potential new hire where he or she would be teaching until a month before school starts.
According to the new procedure that is now set forth in the CBA, teachers who find themselves surplused will be placed in new positions by the school district by May 1 of each year. Then vacant positions will be posted for internal transfers. While a change was proposed in the district’s initial bargaining proposal, the final agreement retains the requirement that principals must select an internal transfer applicant if any applicants for a vacant position possess the minimum qualifications. The internal transfer process closes on June 15 and at that point principals can choose external candidates for any positions that remain unfilled. This change represents a big step toward a hiring process that maximizes our chances to hire the kind of skilled and diverse applicants we are looking for.
As I mention above, the new agreement does not address wages. At this point we don’t have sufficient information to make any sort of decision about raising salaries for the 2013-14 school year. Most importantly, we have no idea what the governor and new legislature will do about revenue limits for the next biennium and so we don’t know whether we will be able to increase our spending and by how much, or whether we will have to cut our per-pupil spending, as was the case for the first year of the current biennium.

Much more on the Madison School District’s rather unique action, here.

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity eNewsletter, via a kind Jeannie Bettner email:

Act 10, which Governor Walker designed to kill unions of public sector workers, caused massive protests in early 2011 because of it quashing peoples’ rights. And, that is the way Judge Colas saw it in ruling on MTI’s challenge to Act 10. Colas ruled that Act 10 violates the Constitutional rights of freedom of speech, freedom of association and equal protection of public sector union members (ruling did not address state employees). Enabled by Colas’ decision, MTI petitioned the Madison Metropolitan School District to commence negotiations over a Contract to succeed that which ends June 30, 2013.
Following Judge Colas’ order, both the City of Madison and Dane County negotiated new Contracts with their largest union, AFSCME Local 60. MTI, along with hundreds of supporters, pressed the MMSD to follow suit. After 37 hours of bargaining last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, negotiators for MTI, SEE- MTI (clerical/technical employees), EA-MTI (educational assistants and nurse assistants), SSA-MTI (security assistants) and USO-MTI (substitute teachers) were successful in reaching terms for a new Contract through June 30, 2014.
The Union achieved the #1 priority expressed by members of MTI’s five bargaining units in the recent survey, protecting their Contract rights and benefits, and keeping their Union Contract. The “just cause” standard for any kind of discipline or dismissal is in tact, as is arbitration by a neutral third party of any such action by the District, and of all claims that District administration violated the terms of an MTI Contract. The Union was also successful in preserving salary and wage schedules (except for substitutes), as well as fringe benefits, another priority of members responding to MTI’s recent survey.
Solidarity was evident from the outset as, for the first time ever, representatives from all five (5) of MTI’s bargaining units worked together to bargain simultaneously. Representatives from the Custodial and Food Service units, represented by AFSCME Local 60, also lent support throughout the negotiations, even as they were rushing to bargain new contracts for their members. And, in a powerful display of solidarity, MTI’s Teacher Bargaining Team repeatedly put forth proposals enabling the District to increase health insurance contributions for teachers, if the District would agree NOT to increase contributions from their lower paid brothers and sisters in MTI’s EA, SEE and SSA bargaining units. Unfortunately, the District rebuffed the offers, insisting that all employees work under the cloud of uncertainty that employee health insurance contributions may be increased up to 10% of the premium after June 30, 2013.
The District entered the negotiations espousing “principles that put student learning in the forefront, with a respect for the fact that our employees are the people who directly or indirectly impact that learning”. MTI heard these concerns and made major accommodations in many contractual areas to address these needs. Areas where MTI accommodated the District’s stated need to attract staff who can close the achievement gap: 1) enable the District to place new hires anywhere on the salary schedule; 2) give new hires a signing bonus of any amount; 3) appoint new hires and non-District employees to any coaching or other extra duty position (annual District discretion of continuing extra duty position); 4) current staff to have no right to apply for vacancies occurring after June 15, to enable District to offer employment to outsiders; 5) enable the District to assign new hires to evening/weekend teaching positions; and 6) enable the District to hold two evening parent-teacher conferences per school year.
Yet, other District proposals appeared to have nothing to do with either student achievement or respecting the employees who make that happen. The District insisted on eliminating sick leave benefits for all substitute teachers hired after July 1, 2013. The District insisted on language which would non-renew the contracts of teachers on medical leave for more than two years. And the District’s numerous other “take backs”, unrelated to either of their stated principles, but just to take advantage of the leverage enabled by the uncertainty of Act 10. These concessions were received bitterly by the thousand who gathered at Wednesday’s MTI meeting, hoping for positive signs that the District’s messages of respect would be reflected in the settlement.
On the downside was the District’s attack on other Contract provisions. In violation of the principles they espoused to Walker’s then-proposed Act 10, in February 2011, Board members enabled District management to demand concessions from AFSCME and MTI in exchange for a new Contract. All seven Board members said of Act 10, “The Governor’s proposals are a damaging blow to all our public services and dedicated public employees. The legislation’s radical and punitive approach to the collective bargaining process seems likely to undermine our productive working relationship with our teachers and damage the work environment, to the ultimate detriment of student achievement.”
Interim Superintendent Jane Belmore espoused similar feelings just last month. In referring to Act 10, she wrote District employees “… we still need to determine together how to go forward in the best interest of our employees and our district.”
The pledges of Board members and Supt. Belmore were not worth the paper they were written on. Demanding significant changes and deletion of terms which they had agreed – some since the 1960’s – the District negotiators were relentless.

Links:

• Madison School Board approves new agreements with some union employees
• Is Teacher Union “Collective Bargaining” Good for Students?
• “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.”

The Madison School Board has scheduled [PDF] a 2:00p.m. meeting tomorrow, Sunday 30 September for an “Initial exchange of proposals and supporting rationale for such proposals in regard to collective bargaining negotiations regarding the Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) for MMSD Madison Teachers, Inc. (MTI) Teachers, Substitute Teachers, Educational Assistants, Supportive Educational Employees (SEE), and School Security Assistants (SSA), held as a public meeting pursuant to Wis. Stat. §111.70(4)(cm)”.
The School Board along with other Madison area governments have moved quickly to negotiate or extend agreements with several public sector unions after a judicial decision overturning parts of Wisconsin’s Act 10. The controversial passage of Act 10 changed the dynamic between public sector organizations and organized labor.
I’ve contemplated these events and thought back to a couple of first hand experiences:
In the first example, two Madison School District teacher positions were being reduced to one. Evidently, under the CBA, both had identical tenure so the choice was a coin toss. The far less qualified teacher “won”, while the other was laid off.
In the second example, a Madison School District teacher and parent lamented to me the poor teacher one of their children experienced (in the same District) and that “there is nothing that can be done about it”.
In the third example, a parent, after several years of their child’s “mediocre” reading and writing experiences asked that they be given the “best teacher”. The response was that they are “all good”. Maybe so.
Conversely, I’ve seen a number of teachers go far out of their way to help students learn, including extra time after school and rogue curricula such as phonics and Singapore Math.
I am unaware of the School Board meeting on a Sunday, on short notice, to address the District’s long time reading problems.
A bit of background:
Exhibit 1, written in 2005 illustrating the tyranny of low expectations” “When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before”.
Exhibit 2, 60% to 42%: Madison School District’s Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags “National Average”: Administration seeks to continue its use.
Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman’s 2009 Madison speech to the Madison Rotary Club is worth reading:

“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).

William Rowe has commented here frequently on the challenges of teacher evaluation schemes.
This being said, I do find it informative to observe the Board’s priorities in light of the District’s very serious reading problems.
This article is worth reading in light of local property taxes and spending priorities: The American Dream of upward mobility has been losing ground as the economy shifts. Without a college diploma, working hard is no longer enough.

Unlike his parents, John Sherry enrolled in college after graduating from high school in Grand Junction, a boom-bust, agriculture-and-energy outpost of 100,000 inhabitants on Colorado’s western edge. John lasted two years at Metropolitan State University in Denver before he dropped out, first to bag groceries at Safeway, later to teach preschool children, a job he still holds. He knew it was time to quit college when he failed statistics two semesters in a row. Years passed before John realized just how much the economic statistics were stacked against him, in a way they never were against his father.
Greg Sherry, who works for a railroad, is 58 and is chugging toward retirement with an $80,000-a-year salary, a full pension, and a promise of health coverage for life. John scrapes by on $11 an hour, with few health benefits. “I feel like I’m working really hard,” he says, “but I’m not getting ahead.”
This isn’t the lifestyle that John’s parents wished upon their younger child. But it reflects the state of upward–or downward–mobility in the American economy today.

Related: Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding.
TJ Mertz comments on collective bargaining, here and here.
Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes: Didn’t See That One Coming: How the Madison School Board Ended Up Back in Collective Bargaining.
The Capital Times: Should local governments negotiate with employees while the constitutionality of the collective bargaining law is being appealed?

Emily Bazelon:

Why New Haven’s ambitious new education strategy might actually succeed.
As the recent Chicago teacher strike demonstrated, public school systems are phenomenally difficult institutions to change. The array of competing forces–unions, politicians, parents, principals, charter schools, state and national bureaucrats–gums up many reform efforts and frustrates all but the most persistent reformers. But what’s happening in the historically troubled New Haven, Conn., public school system suggests there may be ways around this, ways that all sides can support.
In 2009, New Haven’s school district and teachers’ union signed a groundbreaking contract for the 21,000-student system. The four-year deal included a small annual pay hike–and allowed the district to give merit bonuses, close failing schools, and evaluate teachers based in part on student performance. The contract’s reform-minded provisions brought praise to a struggling urban district, from admirers including Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, and New York Times columnists David Brooks and Nicholas Kristof. Three years later, there are signs that cultural change is coming, too, in fits and starts. It’s especially evident in the district’s unusual effort to groom future leaders by handing them over to a local charter network that it used to view as an upstart threat.

New Haven will spend $370,000,000 during the 2012-2013 school year for its 20,759 students or $17,823/student. Madison plans to spend $15,132/student during the same school year.

Matt Miller

In 2011, Chicago’s public schools spent $7,946 per pupil for instructional (that is, classroom) purposes; the New Trier school district, a short ride up the road, spent $12,043, or 51 percent more. In a class of 25 kids, that’s a difference of more than $102,000. This explains why starting and maximum salaries for teachers in New Trier are much higher than in Chicago; and why the average teacher salary in New Trier is $103,000 compared with Chicago’s $71,000. (These figures are from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability in Chicago, which tracks fiscal- equity trends.)
The point? When suburban schools pay better, have much nicer facilities and working conditions, and are filled with kids who are easier to teach (because they don’t have the many problems that come with poverty), it is no surprise that, over time, the best teachers gravitate to the best suburban schools. We are relying on the “missionary plan” to staff schools in poor neighborhoods.
The local property-tax basis of much school finance means wealthier communities can tax themselves at lower rates and still generate far more spending per pupil. New Trier has 7.5 times the property wealth per pupil that Chicago has, taxes its residents’ property at roughly half Chicago’s rate, and generates vastly more dollars per pupil.

Mr. Miller compares Chicago’s “instructional” spending, which is only a portion of spending. Chicago plans to spend $5,162,000,000 during the 2012-2013 school year for 404,151 students or $12,772/student. Madison will spend $15,132 per student during the same school year.

Sandy Banks:

It wasn’t about money. It was about respect.
That’s what Chicago teachers union president Karen Lewis kept reminding the public during the seven-day teachers strike that had parents scrambling and kept 350,000 children out of class.
But there was way more than respect at stake in the dispute. It was a clash between an impatient mayor and a demoralized teaching corps over competing visions of public schools — one side focused on job protection, the other on accountability.

Related: Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman in a 2009 speech to the Madison Rotary Club:

“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).

Joe Nocera:

“We have to find a way to work with teachers and unions while at the same time working to greatly raise the quality of teachers,” he told me recently. He has some clear ideas about how to go about that. His starting point is not the public schools themselves but the universities that educate teachers. Teacher education in America is vastly inferior to many other countries; we neither emphasize pedagogy — i.e., how to teach — nor demand mastery of the subject matter. Both are a given in the top-performing countries. (Indeed, it is striking how many nonprofit education programs in the U.S. are aimed at helping working teachers do a better job — because they’ve never learned the right techniques.)
What is also a given in other countries is that teaching has a status equal to other white-collar professionals. That was once true in America, but Tucker believes that a quarter-century of income inequality saw teachers lose out at the expense of lawyers and other well-paid professionals. That is a large part of the reason that teachers’ unions have become so obstreperous: It is not just that they feel underpaid, but they feel undervalued. Tucker believes that teachers should be paid more — though not exorbitantly. But making teacher education more rigorous — and imbuing the profession with more status — is just as important. “Other countries have raised their standards for getting into teachers’ colleges,” he told me. “We need to do the same.”

Related: When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That? and Wisconsin begins to adopt teacher content standards.

Dear WYSO Members and Families,
For the past 30 years, Mr. Tom Buchhauser has served as an exemplary music educator for over 1700 students who have played in WYSO’s Philharmonia Orchestra. At the end of the 2012-2013 season, Mr. Buchhauser will bring his productive and inspiring career at WYSO to a close.
In addition to his 30 seasons with WYSO, Mr. Buchhauser taught at Madison Memorial High School from 1966-1999, played cello for Madison Symphony Orchestra for nearly 20 years, served on the faculty of the National String Workshop for ten years and directed ensembles for the UW School of Music Pre-College Institute, the Madison Community Orchestra and the Madison Symphony Steenbock Young Artist Concerto Concerts.
He has received numerous awards for his excellence in teaching, including the Wisconsin Music Educators Conference Distinguished Service Award (1983), the National School Orchestra Association Director of the Year Award (1993), the American String Teachers Association Outstanding Service Award (1993), the Rabin Youth Arts Award (2001), and has scholarships named in his honor by the WSMA Honors Project, WYSO, and Madison Memorial High School. In 1999, Madison Metropolitan School District named the Memorial High School auditorium the “Thomas E. Buchhauser Auditorium.”
Mr. Buchhauser recently shared, “I have had many teachers and experiences that have shaped my life as a musician, teacher and conductor but none so profound as Marvin Rabin’s coming to Madison in 1966 to start WYSO and David Nelson asking me to be Associate Music Director of WYSO in 1983. It has been an honor to be part of such a great organization and I will be forever grateful to WYSO for all that it has given to me.”
We will treasure this final season with Mr. Buchhauser and applaud his tremendous efforts to embody the WYSO mission of enriching lives by providing transformational music experiences and opportunities.
Bridget Fraser
Bridget Fraser, Executive Director
Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras
455 No. Park Street
Humanities Building, Room 1625
Madison, WI 53706
608-263-3320 Ext 14
bfraser@wyso.music.wisc.edu
http://wyso.music.wisc.edu

Madison Teachers’, Inc. Solidarity enewsletter 80K PDF, via a kind Jeannie Bettner email:

Major changes to the manner in which teachers are evaluated in Wisconsin are on the horizon. The criteria for teacher evaluation which was first negotiated by MTI during a 1976 strike will be replaced effective with the 2014-15 school year by a state-mandated system and criteria. Driven by President Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative, teacher evaluation procedures are changing from those which relied primarily upon locally-developed evaluation procedures based on principal observations to state-mandated procedures requiring the inclusion of student test scores in the evaluation of teaching staff. The “Wisconsin Framework for Educational Effectiveness” is the new process required to be utilized by Wisconsin schools commencing with the 2014-15 school year. This new evaluation model will base teacher evaluations 50% on “models of practice” and 50% on “student outcomes”. A summary of this model can be found at the DPI website at http://www.dpi.wi.gov/tepdl/edueff.html.
In preparation for the 2014-15 implementation of the new evaluation model, DPI will be piloting the program with select school districts during the 2012-13 school year. Feedback from that pilot will then be utilized for modifications for a state-wide pilot in 2013-14. Feedback from that effort will then be used to tweak some more before full implementation.
The MMSD and MTI have agreed to have Madison participate as one of the pilot districts this school year. This does not mean that MTI is supportive of the model as currently designed. There are elements to the plan which certainly present concerns to many educators, especially in light of dramatic eliminations of contractual protections caused by Act 10. However, given the current political landscape, both at the State and Federal level, this may very well be the plan we will have to work with in the foreseeable future. The MTI Board of Directors concluded that it was better to participate in the pilot and offer feedback than leave that to others, provided: 1) that MTI had a say in selecting which schools participate in the pilot; 2) that teacher participation in the pilot be entirely voluntary; and 3) that the pilot will only be used to provide feedback to DPI, the MMSD and MTI and will not be utilized to evaluate staff during the pilot period. The District agreed to these provisions (the latter two of which are also mandated by DPI as part of the pilot).
The school selected to participate in the pilot is Black Hawk Middle School. The Principal has been notified and volunteers have been selected to participate. The school team will include two to three teachers who have agreed to be “evaluated” (one of whom is required to be an initial educator); one peer mentor to do informal observations and offer coaching and feedback to teachers (whose work is essentially to support the development and expertise of the teacher without doing any formal observation); and the principal who will be conducting the formal observations and the evaluation . The participants will be required to attend a three (3) day DPI training October 8-10, with two more training days to be scheduled later in the year. Participants will also be asked to attend a couple of meetings with MMSD and MTI staff along the way to provide feedback to MMSD/MTI as well.
By participating, we are hopeful that the experience and feedback provided by the participants will be utilized to make any necessary modifications to the planned evaluation system so that it can deliver on its promise to fairly and accurately measure teacher effectiveness. If not, the experience will inform our concerns and critiques.

Erin Richards:

“There’s a general recognition that our current testing regime is not getting the job done and that we always knew we were going to have to do something different,” he said. “When people understand the importance of measuring growth over time instead of raw test scores and getting testing information back to teachers in a more timely manner, I think they will look more favorably on spending money on new tests.”
Still, Kestell said $7 million was a lot, and probably would not have been considered at all two years ago when the state made significant cuts to education spending.
For the next budget cycle, he said: “It could very well happen, but it’s way too early to predict anything positive.”
The DPI’s Johnson pointed to Milwaukee Public Schools as a model district that has begun ACT testing for all juniors, setting aside time for them to take the four-hour exam in school. Though testing all juniors has lowered the district’s average ACT composite score, the move has received praise for opening opportunities to more students who may not have known they were ready for college, and for providing a broader measure of student performance.

Matthew DeFour:

Wisconsin would pay for all public high school juniors to take the ACT college admissions test starting in two years as part of a $7 million budget initiative State Superintendent Tony Evers announced Wednesday.
The proposal also includes administering three other tests offered by ACT to measure college and career readiness in high school. The tests would replace the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination, which is currently administered to 10th-graders to comply with federal testing requirements.
“We need to give our students and their families better resources to plan for study and work after high school,” Evers said. “It makes sense to use the ACT to fulfill state and federal testing requirements at the high school level with an exam package that provides so much more than the WKCE: college and career readiness assessments and a college admissions test score.”
Under the proposal, all public school ninth-graders would take the ACT EXPLORE assessment in spring of the 2014-15 school year. All 10th-graders would take the ACT PLAN test, and all 11th-graders would take the ACT and the WorkKeys tests.
The state would pay for students to take each test once. Those who want to take an ACT a second time to improve their score would have to pay for it themselves.
Also, by training all schools to administer the ACT, the proposal would help students in rural districts who lack access to certified ACT testing sites, Evers said.

Much more on the oft-criticized WKCE, here.

Julie Halpert:

WHEN ERIC WITHERSPOON became superintendent of Evanston Township High School (www site) near Chicago in 2006, he walked into a math class where all the students were black. “A young man leaned over to me and said, ‘This is the dummy class.'”
The kids at Evanston who took honors classes were primarily white; those in the less demanding classes were minority–a pattern repeated, still, almost 60 years after integration, across the nation. All of the Evanston kids had been tracked into their classes based on how they’d performed on a test they took in eighth grade.
Last September, for the first time, most incoming freshmen, ranging from those reading at grade level to those reading far above it, were sitting together in rigorous humanities classes. When I visited, students of all abilities and backgrounds met in small groups to discuss one of the required readings, which include A Raisin in the Sun and The Odyssey. This September, most freshmen will sit side-by-side in biology classes.
Mindy Wallis, the mother of a sophomore at Evanston Township High, agrees. She opposed the decision to detrack, and spearheaded a petition that advocated waiting for the results of a three-year evaluation before making changes that so substantively affected the freshman class. Angela Allyn, whose 14-year-old son just took a freshman humanities class, says her son was hungry to read more than two-thirds of The Odyssey, which was all the class required. He was encouraged by his teachers to read the entire book, but Allyn says the teachers didn’t help him navigate difficult portions during class, so she had to work with him into the late hours of the night. Her son was teased by classmates, she says, for “showing off and using big words,” something she believes wouldn’t have occurred if he’d been grouped with a similar cohort. Detracking, she contends, focuses “on bringing the bottom up–and there’s an assumption that our bright children will take care of themselves.” She acknowledges that because she’s seen as having “white privilege,” despite the fact that she put herself through school and even occasionally had to use soup kitchens to get by, she’s perceived as racist by merely making such a comment.

Adam Gamoran, director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, also believes that race is part of the debate: “People who support tracking are more interested in productivity and less concerned about inequality, and people who are critics tend to focus on inequality and don’t spend too much time thinking about productivity.” Gamoran argues that schools that want to keep ability-grouping need to do a better job with the students in the lowest tracks, but he also believes that the most capable students may not always be sufficiently challenged in mixed-ability classes. “There’s no single solution,” he says. “The point is to try to address the limitations of whatever approach is selected.”

Links:

• English 10
• Small Learning Communities
• Evanston will spend $75,200,000 for 2,974 students, or $25,285/student (!) Madison will spend $15,132/student during the 2012-2013 budget year.
• Adam Gamoran notes and links.
• Madison parents’ Talented & Gifted complaint.

Arthur Thomas:

For all the changes implemented in 2011, one thing hurt enrollment at schools of education more than others, said John Gaffney, recruitment and retention coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point’s School of Education.
“The message of teachers being the problem hurt us the most,” Gaffney said.
The Act 10 legislation affected teachers’ pocketbooks – with union bargaining largely eliminated, higher deductions for benefits were imposed – and the political firestorm that resulted put teachers at the center of attention.
Maggie Beeber, undergraduate advising coordinator at the UW-Stevens Point education school, recounted a story where she was meeting with incoming freshmen. She asked the students if anyone had tried to discourage them from becoming teachers. Nearly every hand went up. Then she asked if more than five people had discouraged them. Most of the hands stayed up.
“It’s easy to follow the public discourse about teaching right now and conclude that everything is doomed,” said Desiree Pointer Mace, associate dean for graduate education at Alverno College.

Related:

• When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
• Many notes and links on Julie Underwood.
• The oft-criticized WKCE will soon be replaced by Wisconsin’s Common Core implementation.
• NCTQ Sues UW Ed Schools over Access to Course Syllabi.
• An Email to Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad on Math Teacher Hiring Criteria

John Nichols:

The defeat AFC took was so sweeping that the group had to issue a statement Wednesday in which it “reaffirmed its support for legislators and candidates across Wisconsin who favor expanded educational options for families, following disappointing primary results last night.”
Yikes.
AFC, a group funded by billionaire right-wingers from Michigan (former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman Betsy DeVos and her husband, Amway heir Dick DeVos) and their wealthy allies across the country, poured more than $100,000 (perhaps a lot more) into “independent” campaigns on behalf of supporters of school “choice” and “voucher” schemes, which weaken public schools in Milwaukee and pave the way for privatization.
But the AFC candidates lost. Badly.
State Rep. Jason Fields, the Milwaukee Democrat whose re-election was the chief priority of AFC and its Wisconsin operative, former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, was defeated by community activist Mandela Barnes.

Related: Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman’s 2009 speech to the Madison Rotary Club:

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).

60% to 42%: Madison School District’s Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags “National Average”: Administration seeks to continue its use.

Yasmeen Abutaleb:

The Wichita School District is just one of a growing number in the nation cracking down on teacher apparel. Jeans are banned in at least one elementary school in New York City. A school district in Phoenix is requiring teachers to cover up tattoos and excessive piercings. And several Arizona schools are strictly defining business casual.
In an increasingly diverse nation where what you wear may be the ultimate self-expression, teachers are falling victim to the same dress code rules as their students.
In most cases, schools are taking the actions because they believe some teachers are dressing inappropriately. School board members received parental complaints about teacher dress at Arizona’s Litchfield Elementary School District, Superintendent Julianne Lein says.
The move comes at a time when the number of public schools requiring uniforms has nearly doubled over the past decade to 19%, reports the National Center for Education Statistics. The center doesn’t track teacher uniforms or dress codes. But it soon may have to, as schools have moved to:

Wichita’s 2011-2012 budget was $606,000,000 for 50,103 students ($12,095/student). Madison spent 18.6% more, or $14,858/student during the 2011-2012 budget cycle.

The Montgomery Business Journal, via a kind reader’s email:

The Grundels’ success story is exactly what Montgomery Public Schools Superintendent Barbara Thompson [bing blekko clusty google] wants to hear. She wants all the district’s nearly 32,000 students to achieve, succeed and enjoy learning.
This fall, the district will launch its International Baccalaureate program and will offer a career technical education program along with seven Career Academies; a growing magnet program for both the arts and academics; and an Advanced Placement (AP) program that continues to expand at a tremendous pace.
“It is a unique pathway for our students having all those programs,” Thompson said. “It means that your child can come into this school district and be challenged at any level. Some of those pathways are going to lead to a four-year college; some will lead to a two-year college; some will lead you right into the world of work. It’s giving students those career pathways that really fit with their strength area.”
Now, you begin to see what all those pieces mean and what the big picture is. “The master plan is to bring our traditional schools up to the level of the magnets,” Thompson said. “That really is the ultimate goal in terms of what we are doing with our rigor and expectations. That is the end game.”
“These are all steps to get us there. I think kids need deliberate steps to get from places, which is why you have the pre-AP program offered at middle school because they can’t just jump into AP in high school.
“It’s why you have the Career Exploratory at middle school because once again you want to go into the Career Academies or career tech. We are making sure that every child takes the explorer test in eighth grade and that goes over their aptitude and skills so when they reach high school they are supposedly doing a four-year plan. That’s every student.”
And the programs that the superintendent has implemented the past few years as well as expanding existing ones, support, encourage and excite targeted groups of students – all students.
The programs on the surface may appear to be disjointed – what does a pre-K program have in common with an Overage Academy – but the common thread is making sure the students succeed.
The pre-K program was expanded from six to 23 programs and turned the closed McKee Elementary School into a pre-K center. Those programs may be cut to 21 because of funding.
That’s the youngest targeted group. Here’s what the district has done for other groups of students:

• Increased graduation rates, although with the state’s new method of computing graduation rates – those numbers are likely to fall as will graduation rates across the state.
• Created a sixth-grade academy to help elementary school students make the transition to middle school.
• Created a ninth-grade academy to help middle school students make the transition to high school.
• Created an Overage Academy to help struggling ninth-graders who are two or more years older than the usual students further advance in their schooling.
• Created a Credit and Grade Recovery program to provide more one-on-one teacher assistance so the students will be able to graduate – and hundreds have.
• Launched an academic magnet program at Johnnie Carr Middle School.
• Reconfigured nearly all the middle schools for grades six through eight.
• Instituted a school-wide dress code.
• Placed a pre-AP program in middle schools.
• Placed a career tech program in middle schools.
• Will launch a Mandarin Chinese program with Auburn University Montgomery that will be at the new eastside high school (in fall 2013) as well as Carr and MacMillan International Academy.
• Consolidated the district by closing some schools and using others in a different way.
• Will bring at least 15 highly qualified Teach for America teachers to the district in the fall – and they usually stay for two years.
• Has begun the process for system-wide accreditation.
• Cut $37 million from the budget over three years and turned a $2.5 million deficit into a surplus of nearly $8 million.

“It really is a puzzle and you are trying to put it together so you create this environment where learning is really exciting for students,” Thompson said. “We are trying to meet those needs of all of our students.
“When I first came here, I gave you the three Rs: relevance, rigor and relationships. All of these programs fall under that category.”
You can imagine, a system with nearly 32,000 students has a lot of needs and you can imagine that Montgomery County’s third-largest employer – about 4,500 people – has a lot of needs. Tom Salter, senior communications officer for MPS, likes to point out that if you combine the students and employees, the school district would be the 13th-largest city in the state. “With that many folks compared to a single, private school that has a hand-picked 600 or 700 in it – it’s different, but it’s not necessarily better to be in a private school.”

“relevance, rigor and relationships” – well said.
Alabama participated in the 2011 TIMSS global exam along with Minnesota and Massachusetts. Wisconsin has never benchmarked our students via the global exams. We have been stuck with the oft-criticized WKCE.
The Montgomery, Alabama schools spent $283,633,475 for 31,470 students ($9,012.82/student) while Madison spent 39% more, or $14,858 per student. The 2011-2012 budget was roughly $369,394,753 for 24,861 students.

Lori Higgins, via a kind Brian S. Hall email

School districts crushed by surging retirement costs could save as much as $250 million this school year under a contentious bill that would make retirement benefits more expensive for public school employees but give districts millions they could use to decrease class size, restore cut programs or squirrel away more money for emergencies.
On Wednesday, the state Senate is expected to take up the bill — backed by Gov. Rick Snyder — that would require current and retired school employees to dig deeper into their pockets to keep their benefits. Some employees would get reduced benefits.
Supporters say the bill, already approved by the House by a 57-47 vote largely along party lines, would help address a $45-billion unfunded liability in the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System. Some Republicans believe it doesn’t go far enough — they want to end the pension system altogether for new employees, an extremely costly option the Snyder administration wants to study more.
The bill is hotly opposed by groups representing current and retired school employees.

Related: Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman in a 2009 speech to the Madison Rotary Club:

“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).

Laura Waters:

Andrew J. Coulson, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, has an editorial in the Wall St. Journal this week assailing the “explosive growth” in America’s public school work force. Since 1970, he charges, student enrollment has “flat-lined,” yet the number of teachers and instructional aides has doubled, from 3.3 million to 6.4 million, with concurrent increases in costs.
Coulson writes, “America’s public schools have warehoused three million people in jobs that do little to improve student achievement–people who would be working productively in the private sector if that extra $210 billion were not taxed out of the economy each year.”
But there’s a panacea readily available: create state voucher systems to send all our kids to private schools. (Also, elect Mitt Romney because President Obama’s education agenda is an “expensive and tragic failure.”)
Whoa, Nellie!
While it’s no doubt a challenge to squish a radical paradigm shift within the confines of the WSJ’s 600-word limit, that’s no excuse for specious logic or casual disregard for facts. Worse, this sort of inflammatory rhetoric gives education reform a bad name.
For example, let’s look at Mr. Coulson’s claim that American public schools hire too many teachers and aides (i.e., have too low a teacher/student ratio), and that private schools are cheaper and produce higher-achieving students.
He writes, “If we returned to the student-staff ratio of 1970, American tax payers would save about $210 billion in personnel costs.”

Madison School Board member Ed Hughes:

There is no mystery about the size of the overall pie. The last budget under Governor Doyle appropriated $5,025,190,300 for elementary and secondary school aids for 2009-10 and $5,271,555,900 for 2010-11. Under Governor Walker’s budget, this total was cut to $4,845,083,000 for 2011-12 and $4,913,986,100 for 2012-13. So Governor Walker slashed general state aid to schools by about $538 million over the biennium. This is hardly cause for celebration.
How next year’s $4.9 billion in general state aid is split up among the state’s 424 school districts is determined by the school funding formula. I describe how the formula works here. This year, to just about everyone’s surprise, the formula has turned out to be Madison’s friend.
Last year, application of the school funding formula resulted in MMSD qualifying for about $15 million in general state aid. This amount was increased to about $43 million by virtue of the hold-harmless provision of the law that capped each school district’s reduction in state aid at 10% of the previous year’s total.
How could it be that the same formula that calculated that MMSD was entitled to $15 million in state aid in 2011-12 would determine that the district was in line for $53 million for 2012-13?

Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding

• usgovernmentspending.com chart & data
• Wisconsin School Finance History
• PolitiFact on the current Wisconsin budget
• Wisconsin Budget Project
• Mike Ford on “Fair Funding for Our Future”.

Lisa Wachtel, Executive Director of Curriculum & Assessment [104 Page PDF]:

Grades K-2 Literacy Walkthroughs
Background: Observations of literacy classes, or, walkthroughs, were scheduled for seventeen of MMSD’ s highest poverty elementary schools during the months of April and May. Three administrators visited each school for a half-day for a minimum of 12 hours of observation per school. All K-2 classrooms are observed for at least an hour by one of the three administrators. Second/third grade classrooms were observed in schools with multi-aged instructional designs. When substitute teachers are present, follow-up observations were attempted.
The purpose of the walk throughs was to provide schools with a baseline of literacy practices and to communicate a district snapshot of K-2 observable literacy practices when student routines and independence are well established. Although not a complete picture, the walkthroughs provided evidence of teaching emphasis, expectations, school/district implementation efforts and additional anecdotal information that might suggest potential areas for consideration.
Timeline: April16- May 25, 2012 Observations
May 30-31,2012 Meet with principals to discuss results of the observations
Observation Tool: Please see the attached document. This is an observation protocol merging documents developed by Fountas and Pinnell and Dom. This observation tool was selected because it captured the general categories of literacy instruction that would be included in a 90-120 minute literacy lesson. Observers could capture any of the elements observed during the 60 observations. An additional section, classroom environment provides a way to document materials and classroom structures.
Preliminary Findings:
1. The majority of primary literacy environments were organized around a Balanced Literacy Model. However, within that model, there was significant variation in what the model looked like. This lack of consistency was seen both within and across all 17 schools.
2. Most classrooms were organized in a planned and thoughtful manner. Attention was given to the development and use of a classroom library, individual book boxes and areas where students could work in pairs or small groups.
3. Although classrooms in most schools were thoughtfully organized, some classrooms were cluttered and there were not optimal environments for learning. It is recommended that IRTs work with teachers to create good physical environments in all classrooms.
4. Although the majority of classrooms had at least a 90 minute literacy block, some did not. Attention to direct instruction for at least 90 minutes is crucial for the success of all learners. Principals must make this a clear expectation. The literacy block must also be implemented with fidelity.
5. There was a lack of consistency both within and across grade levels based on common core standards and best teaching practices. This should be an area of emphasis for all schools. IRTs and principals will need to develop a tight structure of accountability that supports the Common Core State Standards and the Curriculum Companion tool.
6. In most cases, instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness was clearly evident. This instruction reflected the professional development both at the district and school level around phonics instruction, phonemic awareness and word work. Instruction appeared to be more systematic, targeted and focused than in previous years.
7. Guided Reading Instruction was observed in the many of the classrooms. It should be noted that in several schools guided reading did not occur five days a week. A wide range of practices were observed during guided reading. Teaching points were often unclear. Observers noted few teachers administering running records or maintaining other types of formative assessments.
8. Targeted, focused instruction around a precise teaching point is a critical component of quality literacy instruction. Focused feedback emphasizing areas of student mastery was also inconsistent. Again, consistency related to core practices as well as ongoing specific assessment practices should be apparent within and across elementary grades.
9. Professional development work should continue around the use of assessment tools. Principals must require the practice of ongoing assessment in all classrooms.
10. The development and use of anchor charts and mini lessons are critical pieces of strong core instruction. Anchor charts and mini lessons were seen in some classrooms and not in others. Professional development should address these ideas so that there is consistency across the district.
11. In many classrooms, the quality of independent student work was of concern. Teachers in all classrooms must pay careful attention to independent student work. This work must support the structure of the literacy block, be consistent with the focus of guided reading and be at each student’s independent level. Emphasis must consistently be on authentic reading and writing tasks. Work should be differentiated. Coloring, cutting/pasting and copying of other printed work would not be considered quality independent literacy work and this was seen in many classrooms (bold added).
12. Teachers were inconsistent in giving feedback to students related to specific learning. Clear, corrective feedback and/or affirmation of solid understandings will accelerate individual student learning and help learners tie the known to the new.
13. All students should also be receiving ongoing, focused feedback related to independent work and independent reading. Regular conferencing and assessment of independent reading and writing is a crucial component of a rigorous literacy curriculum.

Related: 60% to 42%: Madison School District’s Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags “National Average”: Administration seeks to continue its use.

Scott Jaschik:

On Thursday David Dudley did something that surprised his colleagues at Georgia Southern University. He sent all of them an open letter [300K PDF] in which he described — in detail — the extent of dysfunction he sees at the university.
He described an administration disconnected from the faculty, with oversized ambitions that could move the institution away from its teaching mission. He described a faculty governance system willing to adopt the wrong resolutions just to make the administration pay attention. And he described professors who have spent their careers at the university (in November he’ll have been there 23 years; he currently serves as chair of literature and philosophy) who feel besieged by one idea after another from administrators destined to be short-termers.
While his colleagues were a little stunned when they opened their e-mail, it wasn’t because they disagreed. “I was so happy because someone stood up and said this out loud,” said Eric Nelson, one professor. “We all have these sentiments, but no one has said so like this.”

Related: Madison Schools’ Administration has “introduced more than 18 programs and initiatives for elementary teachers since 2009”.

Ty Tagami:

DeKalb County property owners will pay more in school taxes next year while class sizes rise under an austerity budget approved by the school board Thursday.
The board voted to raise taxes. It also increased class sizes, even for special education students, while adding two furlough days for teachers and cutting the number of their aides.
The Fernbank Science Center suffered, too, but not as badly as previously proposed. The board cut $1.9 million — about 40 percent — from the center’s $4.7 million budget; Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson had recommended a $3.2 million cut.

Dekalb County schools will spend $774,600,000 to support approximately 95,958 students ($8,072/student). Madison plans to spend about $15,132 / student during the 2012-2013 budget cycle, about 46% greater than DeKalb schools.

Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:

When I reviewed the many sound initiatives in the Achievement Gap Plan (AGP), I came to think that a piece was missing. The plan addresses the need for our teachers and schools, our community partners, and our parents all to do their part to assist in the academic achievement of our students. Nowhere in the plan, however, do we acknowledge the basic fact that ultimately our students are the ones responsible for their own learning.
The only way students who are behind will be able to catch up is by putting in the time and effort necessary to expand their learning and increase their skills. It’s pretty simple. If we are to narrow the achievement gap in the sense that we expect students of color to achieve at the same level as white students – and not merely expect that a higher percentage of students of color will achieve proficiency as measured on standardized tests – then the students of color will have to work harder than the white students in order to make up the ground between them. There is simply no other way. The white students aren’t going to just sit around and wait for the others to reach their level.

Related: Madison Schools Administration has “introduced more than 18 programs and initiatives for elementary teachers since 2009”

Madison Teachers, Inc. via a kind Jeannie Bettner email.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

If Wisconsin wants an educated workforce that can compete in a global economy, it has to stop thinking in terms of education pieces: K-12, colleges and universities, technical schools. It has to start thinking in terms of one system that students can navigate with ease to get the education they want and need, both in basic knowledge and upgrades when they want them; a system aimed at best serving their needs, offering them enrichment and skills.
An important step in that direction was taken Tuesday with the signing of a dual enrollment agreement by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers and University of Wisconsin Colleges and Extension Chancellor Ray Cross at UW-Marathon County in Wausau. The agreement allows high school students – mostly juniors or seniors – to earn credit that can be transferred easily to state four-year universities or two-year colleges after graduation, along with many private colleges.
Evers said in an interview Tuesday that the initiative “creates some synergy between systems that have not been directly connected in the past,” according to an article by Journal Sentinel reporters Erin Richards and Karen Herzog. “Even though we’re all differently governed, we need to make our systems look more like one instead of two or three or four.”
This helps students in several ways, including reducing the cost of a college degree. That’s more important than ever in light of the increasing cost of a college education. Just last week, UW officials announced a 5.5% hike in tuition.

The devil is in the details, as always.
Much more on credit for non-Madison School District courses, here.
Wisconsin DPI:

UW Colleges and DPI announce expanded dual enrollment program
Program will allow students to take UW Colleges courses at their high schools
High school students in Wisconsin will be able to earn college credits while still in high school under a new dual enrollment program announced by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the University of Wisconsin Colleges.
Tony Evers, state superintendent of public instruction, and Ray Cross, chancellor of UW Colleges and UW-Extension, signed an agreement and announced the new statewide model for dually enrolling high school students in high school and UW Colleges courses. They spoke at a June 12 ceremony at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County, one of the UW Colleges campuses in Wausau. UW Colleges is the UW System’s network of 13 freshman – sophomore campuses and UW Colleges Online.
Evers and Cross said the new partnership would allow students across Wisconsin to access UW Colleges courses in their high schools via classroom teachers and online. The new dual enrollment program would accelerate students’ ability to earn UW credits, reduce the cost of obtaining a college degree, and increase the readiness of high school graduates for either college or the workplace. The program should be in place no later than the 2013-14 school year.
“We’re trying to better serve high school students by bringing our University of Wisconsin courses right into their high schools in a cost-effective way,” said Cross. “We’re committed to making these UW credits as affordable as possible for high school students, their families, and the school districts.”
“More students need the opportunity to take advanced courses and earn high school and college credit simultaneously,” Evers said. “This statewide dual enrollment agreement is a great way for students to get an introduction to college coursework and earn credits before even enrolling in a school of higher education. This will increase the number of students who graduate from high school ready for college and careers.”
Additional information is contained in the complete news release. A copy of the Memorandum of Understanding is available online.

A few links related to Wisconsin’s recall election:
#wirecall on Twitter
Madison Teachers, Inc Twitter Feed; Pro-Recall
Madison’s Isthmus
True School Activists Vote for Walker by “Penelope Trunk”, via a kind reader’s email.
TJ Mertz: Why Scott Walker doesn’t recall the QEO and how to help recall him
WisPolitics Elections Blog (WisPolitics is now owned by the Capital Times Company)
MacIver Institute
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel All Politics Blog.
Daily Kos
Talking Points Memo
Five Thirty Eight Blog..
National Review
WEAC Twitter Feed
AFSCME Twitter Feed
Politico

Michael Johnson, via a kind email:

Madison Metropolitan School District, Verona Area School District, United Way of Dane County, Urban League of Greater Madison & Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County is collaborating to host a town hall meeting with one of the most respected urban school superintendents in the nation at Lafollette High School on May 26th at 1pm. Paul Vallas has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to support academic achievement, he has raised test scores in urban communities, built hundreds of schools while maintaining great working relationships with community leaders, teachers and unions. His efforts has been featured in Education Week, New York Times and hundreds of other articles profiling his work in urban school districts.
Arne Duncan the current US Secretary of Education served as his Deputy Chief of Staff and the current Superintendent of Schools in Milwaukee was his former Chief Academic Officer. During Vallas time in other cities he has led the effort to build over 175 new school buildings and renovated more than 1,000 existing buildings. According to several news outlets Paul Vallas managed consecutive years of improved reading and math scores in every school district he led. During his time in Chicago he organized the largest after school and summer programs in the nation. His education reforms produced double digit increases in test scores which was some of the highest in the nation among the 50th largest school districts in the United States. His leadership efforts was cited in two presidential state of the union addresses and CBS News highlighted that he is one of the most sought out school superintendents in the country. Recently he was invited by the Government of Chile to assume responsibility of turning around and improving test scores in 1,100 of Chile’s lowest performing schools. He was invited by the Government of Haiti to advise their Prime Minister and education team. He also served as an education adviser to London- Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Paul Vallas will share best practices, talk about school reform and take questions on how we can improve academic achievement for our kids. I hope you can join us on Saturday, May 26th at 1pm for this important discussion at LaFollette High School, 702 Pflaum Rd. Madison in the auditorium. To confirm your attendance please email Sigal Lazimy at slazimy@bgcdc.org. Thanks in advance and we look forward to seeing you! Below is a documentary of his work in New Orleans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLVpKpaYtRI

Directions.

Wisconsin State Journal:

Oconomowoc’s plans for next school year are undeniably bold:

• Reduce the number of teachers but pay the many who stay a lot more money for teaching an extra period.
• Use technology — including students’ own hand-held devices — to encourage and personalize learning.
• Save more than $500,000 to help balance the district’s budget without reducing class sizes or cutting programs for students.

Wisconsin will be watching closely for results.

Erica Breunlin:

The brightly colored walls of La Escuela Fratney Elementary School in Milwaukee used to reverberate the sounds of laughter and chatter as students painted their masterpieces and crafted pottery.
Today the art room echoes nothing but silence as it has stood nearly vacant all school year. In a year of budget cuts, La Escuela Fratney had to let go of its art teacher for the 2012-’13 school year, and with her, what MPS parent Jasmine Alindar describes as the “soul of the school.”
“She was and still is a very beloved member of the school community,” Alindar said. “So it was a really hard blow.”
Alindar, whose fifth-grade daughter, Alice, has attended La Escuela Fratney since first grade, said the elementary school also lacks specialized music and physical education teachers and has never offered courses in these subjects while her daughter has been enrolled.
La Escuela Fratney isn’t alone in Milwaukee Public Schools. Eighty-seven of 175 schools – many of them elementary schools – no longer have specialized teachers for art, music or physical education.

Related: 2012 WSMA State Festival Madison Area High School Student Event Counts

Patricia Neudecker:

I support the teaching profession, administration, school boards and public education. Above balancing the needs of adults, however, my main responsibility is for students and the environments necessary for their learning.
Hundreds of decisions must be made daily to support that learning environment. Some decisions are easy, obvious and routine; some are difficult, painful and even courageous. All decisions are subject to both support and criticism. In a democratic environment with local control for schools, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
A transformational plan for high school staffing was presented recently to the Oconomowoc School Board. The plan reallocates resources, human and financial, and deploys them where they are needed the most. Across seven departments at Oconomowoc High School, an original staff of 60 will be reduced to a staff of 45. The 45 teachers each will be assigned an additional class section and will be compensated $14,000 each for that addition and the loss of some preparation time within the school day.
Unfortunately, 15 positions will be eliminated and teachers will be personally affected. Some teachers are eligible for retirement, some will be reassigned based on licensure and, unfortunately, nine will be laid off. The plan also generates a recurring savings of over $500,000 annually, maintains all programs and services for high school students and does not increase class sizes.

An alternate view from Rose Locander: Gut education now, pay later

When I first read of the draconian hits to public education that the Oconomowoc Area School District is proposing, I thought this might be a belated April Fools’ joke. Who in their right mind guts their high school staff in an attempt to balance their budget?
The school district wants to reduce its high school teaching staff by about 20%. It has become obvious that the “tools” given to school districts by Gov. Scott Walker have turned into sharpened arrows directed at the heart of public education.
I have questions for the residents of Oconomowoc: Are you going to accept what is going on in your district? Is this what you want for your children? Are you willing to have overworked staff members try to help your children with key curricular subjects? Are you willing to watch as your district goes knee-deep into the abyss?

Related, in Madison: Budget Cuts: We Won’t Be as Bold and Innovative as Oconomowoc, and That’s Okay. Remarkable.

Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:

The doom-and-gloomers were wrong about our public schools.
Most Dane County districts have figured out ways to avoid teacher layoffs next year despite cuts in state aid and a tight revenue cap.
The State Journal last week surveyed Dane County’s 16 main school districts on preliminary non-renewal notices, which had to be issued by April 30. Monona Grove issued notices to one full-time and seven part-time employees, and Mount Horeb delivered one layoff notice.
That was about it.
Madison, Sun Prairie, Stoughton, McFarland, Verona, Oregon, DeForest, Waunakee and Deerfield reported no layoff notices to teachers this year. Belleville reduced hours for one position, and Cambridge cut a principal position in February.

Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:

Another approach might be eliminating programs or initiatives that are more closely aligned to student learning. Possibilities here could include reducing our school staff who are not classroom teachers, like Reading Interventionists, Instructional Resource Teachers, and Positive Behavior Coaches. We could also eliminate special interventions for struggling readers. The reading recovery program is the best-known example. While reading recovery is backed by research that supports its effectiveness, it’s an expensive program and, at least as of a couple of years ago, we hadn’t seen in Madison the level of successful outcomes in terms of students’ reading progress that had typically been achieved elsewhere with the program.
My view is that we should have in place an established schedule for evaluating the effectiveness of our intervention programs, like Reading Recovery, and we should be willing to make difficult decisions based on what the evaluations tell us. But that evaluation and review process should be separate from our budgeting process. We shouldn’t look at cutting programs like Reading Recovery strictly as a cost-saving measure. I doubt that we’re willing to eliminate all intensive interventions for struggling readers – I don’t even know if we could do so legally – and it’s far from obvious that substituting one intensive reading intervention program for another would end up saving us all that much money.

Related: 60% to 42%: Madison School District’s Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags “National Average”: Administration seeks to continue its use.
Much more on the Oconomowoc School District’s high school staffing an compensation plan, here.

MacIver Institute:

The MacIver Institute District Report Card takes an innovative look at the Wisconsin’s fifty largest public school districts and offers a vigorous analysis and traditional letter grading system in this unique analysis. It rates districts across several different measures to create a comprehensive look at how teachers and administrators are performing in their schools. The Report Card goes beyond the typical parochial comparison of neighboring communities to also focus on how children compete on a global level. With a dynamic global economy perpetually in front of us, a broader focus was needed to better understand how our districts stack up across many metrics.
The Report Card takes into account not only how a student is testing, but also how likely a district is to push their students to achieve more. The state has recently increased graduation requirements to include more coursework and more challenging classes. This metric works to gauge the progress that has been made in those departments. Finally, the MI District Report Card factors in a student’s basic background to better understand the challenges that a school district may face and their effectiveness as a result. Educating students from low-income families, as well as other students that have traditionally been difficult to teach, is critically important to the future of Wisconsin.
These rankings go beyond what standardized testing tells us. They take a closer look inside the classroom and assign grades based on achievement, attainment, and student population. Districts that have higher percentages of low-income and limited English proficiency (LEP) students, two factors that are traditionally linked to lower scores on state testing measures, earn extra points to address this greater degree of difficulty for their teachers.

Madison ranked 42nd out of 50 in academic achievement, 40th in student attainment, B- overall.

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter (PDF):

Chicken Little wasn’t kidding. While Governor Walker’s Act 10 stripped public employees of the right to bargain over virtually all wages, benefits and working conditions, the remaining “token” item, which unions theoretically had the continuing right to bargain, was the “total base wages”. Walker’s Act 10, however, limited said increase to no more than the consumer price index (CPI) over the prior 12 months (a higher amount would be subject to referendum). Now that the Walker-appointed Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) has issued Administrative Rules as to the implementation of Walker’s Act 10 calculation of “base wages”, rather than providing a cost-of-living increase for teachers, it COULD ACTUALLY RESULT IN A SUBSTANTIAL DECREASE IN PAY. The following helps explain this apparently ludicrous rule.
For example, a Madison teacher with a Master’s degree is at Track 4, Level 16 (approximately 12 year’s experience) of the current salary schedule is paid $54,985 per year. Assuming a 3% increase in the CPI, this teacher would need a salary increase to $56,635 to maintain the same standard of living. However, the new WERC rule defines the “base pay” not as the current salary ($54,985), but the salary this teacher would have received without the pay additive recognizing the achievement of additional educational credits (Walker’s Law would calculate this teacher’s CPI increase pay at Track 1 [BA], Level 16, or $51,497). The WERC’s defined “Base Pay” for this teacher is $3,488 LESS than the teacher’s current pay. Applying a 3% CPI increase to the Walker’s Law base of $51,497 yields a salary of only $53,042. Therefore, under the WERC’s new rules, this teacher’s “cost-of-living increase” could actually result in a pay cut of $1,943 per year. Rather than a 3% increase in pay, Walker’s Law could produce a 3.5% decrease in pay. The greater the educational attainment (e.g. PhD at Track 8), the greater the potential cut. One publicized example from Monticello School District shows a scenario where a teacher there could take a $14,000 pay cut.
The impact of the WERC Administrative Rule is beyond belief. Calculations illustrate that using this means to calculate wage increases for Madison’s teachers will actually produce only about 90% of the revenue to fund the wages now on the salary schedule – that’s right! Chicken Little wasn’t kidding! This does not necessarily mean that teachers will receive a pay cut after bargaining Walker’s “cost- of-living” increase. School districts could, and should, continue to provide salary schedules which encourage teachers’ continued education and reward them for same. Doing so will be to the advantage of each child enrolled in the district. But, as with all other wages, hours and working conditions under Walker’s Law, such is entirely at the district’s discretion. Walker’s Law even makes it a violation of law for school districts to negotiate over wages, other than the increase in the CPI. Should the employer utilize such discretion, salaries would not have to be cut and increases could occur. But, it’s a fallacy to think that Walker’s Law allows Unions to truly bargain cost-of-living increases for all of their members. While that may be true for employee groups without compensation plans connected to educational credits, such as MTI’s EA, SEE, SSA and USO units, under Walker’s WERC rules, it is certainly not the case for teachers. JUST ONE MORE REASON TO RECALL!

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter (92K PDF):

Layoff: Seniority is a right that is earned under MTI’s various Collective Bargaining Agreements. Seniority is based on one’s years of service and provides protection from indiscriminate layoff.
Under MTI’s Contracts, seniority protects members of MTI’s various bargaining units from subjective or discriminatory layoff. When layoff is necessary, the Contracts provide an objective means, including tie-breakers for those with the same seniority.
Governor Walker’s Act 10 puts seniority in jeopardy because all collective bargaining agreements in Wisconsin covering school district employees will disappear in 2013 under Walker’s Act 10 (blekko, clusty, google news).
What can you do to protect your employment security? Get involved in this spring’s RECALL ELECTION. There are only 15 days until the RECALL PRIMARY ELECTION. Candidates Barrett, Falk, La Follette and Vinehout have promised to reverse Act 10 and to restore public employees’ rights to collectively bargain.
Without your help, there is no chance of reversing the negative impact of Act 10 on school district employees. Call/email MTI Assistant Director Jeff Knight (jknight@madisonteachers.org / 608-257-0491) to offer assistance via your Union.

Philip Howard:

Successful schools don’t have a formula, other than that teachers and principals are free to follow their instincts.
America’s schools are being crushed under decades of legislative and union mandates. They can never succeed until we cast off the bureaucracy and unleash individual inspiration and willpower.
Schools are human institutions. Their effectiveness depends upon engaging the interest and focus of each student. A good teacher, studies show, can dramatically improve the learning of students. What do great teachers have in common? Nothing, according to studies — nothing, that is, except a commitment to teaching and a knack for keeping the students engaged (see especially The Moral Life of Schools). Good teachers don’t emerge spontaneously, and training and mentoring are indispensable. But ultimately, effective teaching seems to hinge on, more than any other factor, the personality of the teacher. Skilled teachers have a power to engage their students — with spontaneity, authority, and wit.

Related: Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman’s 2009 speech to the Madison Rotary Club.

Mike Ford:

In other words, MPS had a surplus of teachers because older teachers were not retiring so as not to lose state pension benefits. Hence, a second pension to offset any loss was created. However, since 1982 the early retirement penalty for teacher has been reduced or eliminated, turning the second pension into an additional benefit which MPS states it had “no intent to establish.”
The survival of the second pension long past its justifiable usefulness is a result of a collective bargaining process that rarely gives back established benefits (see, for example, MTEA’s 2011 rejection of concessions that would have saved teacher jobs). Former MPS superintendent Howard Fuller, school choice advocate George Mitchell, and former WPRI staffer Michael Hartman did a good job documenting in a 2000 book chapter (see figure one) the dramatic growth of the MPS/MTEA contract from an 18 page document in 1965 to a 232 page document in 1997. The most recent published contract? 258 pages.

Much more, here.

Notes: Fund Balance is a District’s reserve cash/assets. The Madison School District’s fund balance, or equity declined significantly during the mid-2000’s, but has grown in recent years.

*The most recent survey was conducted by the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators and used a different format. The other surveys were conducted by the Wisconsin Education Association Council. WEAC didn’t respond to questions about whether it had results for the 2008-09, 2009-10 or 2010-11.

SOURCE: WASDA/WEAC surveys with comments from local newspaper reporter Matthew DeFour & Clay Barbour:
Matthew DeFour & Clay Barbour:

Wisconsin superintendents survey last fall found state budget cuts prompted school districts to eliminate thousands of staff positions, increase class sizes, raise student fees and reduce extracurricular offerings this school year.
But this week, Gov. Scott Walker’s office said those results don’t tell the full story and that similar surveys from past years show school districts fared better after his education changes went into effect.
Further, the governor’s office contends the organizations that conducted those surveys — the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators and the Wisconsin Education Association Council — were unhelpful, and in WEAC’s case actually worked against the administration as staff tried to compare recent results to past surveys.
“It’s unfortunate that WEAC stands in the way of survey data that they have released in the past, which shows the governor’s changes are working and are good for their members and the state’s schoolchildren,” said Cullen Werwie, Walker’s spokesman.
The older surveys show more school districts increased class sizes, reduced extracurricular programs, raised student fees and tapped reserves to balance their budgets in each year between 2002 and 2008 than they did in 2011-12.
In past years, about two-thirds to three-quarters of districts reported increasing student fees each year. This year, 22 percent of districts reported doing so.

Related: WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators, Sparks fly over Wisconsin budget’s labor-related provisions and Teachers Union & (Madison) School Board Elections.
Describing the evil effects of revolution, Thucydides writes, “Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.” (P. 199 of the Landmark edition)
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell (1946).

2011 WISCONSIN ACT 166, via a kind reader:

Section 21. 118.19 (14) of the statutes is created to read:
118.19 (14) (a) The department may not issue an initial teaching license that authorizes the holder to teach in grades kindergarten to 5 or in special education, an initial license as a reading teacher, or an initial license as a reading specialist, unless the applicant has passed an examination identical to the Foundations of Reading test administered in 2012 as part of the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure [blekko]. The department shall set the passing cut score on the examination at a level no lower than the level recommended by the developer of the test, based on this state’s standards.
(c) Any teacher who passes the examination under par. (a) shall notify the department, which shall add a notation to the teacher’s license indicating that he or she passed the examination.
and….
115.28 (7g) Evaluation of teacher preparatory programs.
(a) The department shall, in consultation with the governor’s office, the chairpersons of the committees in the assembly and senate whose subject matter is elementary and secondary education and ranking members of those committees, the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, and the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, do all of the following:
1. Determine how the performance of individuals who have recently completed a teacher preparatory program described in s. 115.28 (7) (a) and located in this state or a teacher education program described in s. 115.28 (7) (e) 2. and located in this state will be used to evaluate the teacher preparatory and education programs. The determination under this subdivision shall, at minimum, define “recently completed” and identify measures to assess an individual’s performance, including the performance assessment made prior to making a recommendation for licensure.
2. Determine how the measures of performance of individuals who have recently completed a teacher preparatory or education program identified as required under subd. 1. will be made accessible to the public.
3. Develop a system to publicly report the measures of performance identified as required under subd. 1. for each teacher preparatory and education program identified in subd. 1.
(b) Beginning in the 2013-14 school year, the department shall use the system developed under par. (a) 3. to annually report for each program identified in par. (a) 1. the passage rate on first attempt of students and graduates of the program on examinations administered for licensure under s. 115.28 (7) and any other information required to be reported under par. (a) 1.
(c) Beginning in the 2013-14 school year, each teacher preparatory and education program shall prominently display and annually update the passage rate on first attempt of recent graduates of the program on examinations administered for licensure under s. 115.28 (7) and any other information required to be reported under par. (a) 1. on the program’s Web site and provide this information to persons receiving admissions materials to the program.
Section 18. 115.28 (12) (ag) of the statutes is created to read:
115.28 (12) (ag) Beginning in the 2012-13 school year, each school district using the system under par. (a) shall include in the system the following information for each teacher teaching in the school district who completed a teacher preparatory program described in sub. (7) (a) and located in this state or a teacher education program described in sub. (7) (e) 2. and located in this state on or after January 1, 2012:
1. The name of the teacher preparatory program or teacher education program the teacher attended and completed.
2. The term or semester and year in which the teacher completed the program described in subd. 1.

Related:

• A Capitol Conversation on Wisconsin’s Reading Challenges
• 9.27.2011 Wisconsin Read to Lead Task Force Notes
• Excellence in Education explains Florida’s reading reforms and compares Florida’s NAEP progress with Wisconsin’s at the July 29th Read to Lead task force meeting
• The Economist on Florida’s Education Reform
• July 29 Wisconsin Read to Lead task force meeting notes
• Notes and links on Wisconsins’s oft criticized WKCEGeorgia, Wisconsin Education Schools Back Out of NCTQ Review
• Grade Inflation for Education Majors and Low Standards for Teachers When Everyone Makes the Grade
• When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

This is a sea change for Wisconsin students, the most substantive in decades. Of course, what is entered into the statutes can be changed or eliminated. The MTEL requirement begins with licenses after 1.1.2014.

Fabu, Madison’s former poet laureate:

I’ve listened carefully to all of the School Board candidates — Nichelle Nichols and Arlene Silveira in one race, Mary Burke and Michael Flores in the other. After a panel in the Atrium of the Park Village, I wanted Silveira to look in my face and hear me say as a mother, a tax-paying citizen, educator and poet that I believe she has not done enough to support the success of African-American students in her time on the School Board. I moved on to Flores and we had a lively conversation. Flores said that he supports all children in Madison. I told him that when you have several children, and one is sick, you help the sickest one first even though you love all of your children. Flores told me that “first you have to determine who hurts the most.” Well, I know that African-American children, regardless of economic status, hurt the most in the current school district and we need new board members who will immediately address that pain, as well as to choose a new superintendent to begin the healing process.
After considering the positions of all of the candidates, I believe that Nichelle Nichols and Mary Burke are the candidates who will work urgently to help hurting children.

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

the Recall WEAC website is live, via a kind reader’s email:

Reforming Education And Demanding Exceptional Results in Wisconsin (READER-WI) is a non-partisan organization devoted to reforming and improving the education system in Wisconsin.
We are facing a critical time here in Wisconsin. Where is education going in the 21st century? Will we have an educational system designed to improve educational outcomes for all children in all income brackets and of all ethnicities? Or will we have an educational system designed to maximize Big Labor revenues, and designed to protect the worst teachers while driving out the best?
Click on the tabs at the top of this page to learn more about the crisis we are in. Then, join us in our fight to reform education. Children can no longer be used as political pawns. Let’s make a real, positive difference.

More, here, including the beltline billboard due tomorrow.
Al Shanker: Blekko or Clusty.
Related: WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators, Sparks fly over Wisconsin budget’s labor-related provisions and Teachers Union & (Madison) School Board Elections.
Joe Tarr:

The quote has been repeated many times, often by conservatives attacking unions as the bane of public education. Joe Klein used it in a June 2011 article in The Atlantic.
However, the Albert Shanker Institute made an extensive effort to find the source of the quote but failed. In a blog post, the Institute concluded: “It is very difficult — sometimes impossible — to prove a negative, especially when it is something like a verbal quotation…. So, we cannot demonstrate conclusively that Albert Shanker never made this particular statement. He was a forthright guy who was known for saying all manner of interesting and provocative things, both on and off the record. But we believe the quote is fiction.”
The Institute speculates that the quote might be a distortion of a speech Shanker gave in the 1970s at Oberlin College, where he said, “I don’t represent children. I represent teachers… But, generally, what’s in the interest of teachers is also in the interest of students.”
The Wikipedia entry lists other quotations from Shanker that are not disputed, including some that would fit perfectly with the stated goals of READER-WI.
Such as this one: “A lot of people who have been hired as teachers are basically not competent.”
And this one: “It is as much the duty of the union to preserve public education as it is to negotiate a good contract.”

The Capital Times

The contest between Mary Burke and Michael Flores presents a tough choice. Both candidates are outspoken critics of Gov. Scott Walker’s assault on public education, and defenders of the unions that represent educators. Both have genuine stakes in the Madison public schools — Flores as a parent and volunteer, Burke as a tutor, mentor and co-founder of AVID/TOPS, an innovative program for closing the racial achievement gap in Madison public schools.
We would be satisfied with either of these fine candidates, but our endorsement goes to Burke. She has a remarkable long-term record of engagement with public education at every level in Madison — as the co-founder of AVID/TOPS, board member of the Foundation for Madison Public Schools, a 13-year veteran of the Schools of Hope tutoring program at Allis Elementary School, a mentor at East High, a volunteer and board member for the Boys & Girls Club. She also knows the broader issues when it comes to state policy on education and achievement gap issues, as a former commerce secretary, Trek Bicycle executive, and active player in an initiative relating to the Milwaukee schools.

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

Matthew DeFour, a local newspaper writer:

Madison School Board candidate Mary Burke reported spending six times as much as her opponent Michael Flores between Jan. 1 and March 19, according to campaign finance reports filed Monday with the Madison City Clerk’s Office.
And two-term School Board incumbent Arlene Silveira collected twice as much in campaign contributions as challenger Nichelle Nichols during the same period.
Burke has already spent $27,554 — all of it her own money in keeping with a pledge not to accept contributions — on her campaign so far. She reported contributing a total of $30,025 to her own campaign.
Flores reported contributions of $7,175.34 in the first three months of the year. That includes $1,560 from the teachers union’s political action committee, MTI Voters. He reported spending $4,448.21.
MTI Voters reported spending $4,272 on independent radio, online and print ads for Flores and the same amount for Silveira. That amount is on top of the money the candidates reported spending on the campaign so far.

Matthew DeFour, a local education reporter:

Nichols said declining test scores and low graduation rates for minority students over the past six years have been a reflection of the board and superintendent not having shared priorities. She said a change in board leadership is necessary “because we can’t afford to lose more precious time.”
Silveira did not respond Wednesday to a request to discuss Nerad’s departure.
Burke said she would have liked to see Nerad stay and worries his departure could expend the momentum for addressing the achievement gap that has built up over the last year.
Hiring Nerad’s replacement, she said, is “probably the most important issue now facing the board.”
Flores said he has mixed feeling about Nerad’s departure. On one hand, the district now has a new issue to address on top of the achievement gap and the budget. At the same time, there arises the potential for finding a leader who the community embraces and will make difficult decisions.

Related:

• Omaha Superintendent Search: Wisconsin educator dealt with unions, protesting teachers
• Madison Superintendent Candidate Dan Nerad’s Public Appearance: January, 2008
• Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad to Leave when Contract Expires in 2013
• Oh, the Places We Go, Madison Superintendents…
• Is $14,858.40 Per Student, Per Year Effective? On Madison Superintendent & School Board Accountability…

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

Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter (63K PDF), via a kind Jeanie Bettner email:

Since the late 1960’s, MTI members have had the benefit of the best health insurance available. Stressing the importance of quality health insurance in providing economic security, members have made health insurance their #1 priority via their responses to the Union’s Bargaining Survey. And, the Union not only was able to bargain specific benefits, such as acupuncture and extended mental health coverage, as demanded by MTI members, but due to a 1983 MTI victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, MTI was able to have an equal voice in which insurance company would provide the plan. This is important because different insurance companies have different interpretations of the same insurance provisions.
Unfortunately, the District Administration took advantage of the increased leverage in negotiations enabled by Governor Walker’s Act 10 forcing concessions in health insurance and other Contract provisions in exchange for them agreeing to extend MTI’s five Collective Bargaining Agreements through June 2013.
Members of MTI’s teacher bargaining unit, who elected WPS health insurance under old Contract terms, will now lose that coverage June 30, 2012. The District is in the process of distributing materials by which members of the teacher bargaining unit can become familiar with the options available for coverage commencing July 1. They are Dean Health Plan, Physicians Plus and Group Health Cooperative. Each offers an HMO and a Point of Service Plan. The latter carries a higher premium, but enables broader choices for services.
The District has scheduled five sessions for those with questions to seek answers from the above-referenced plans.
April 9 – Doyle Auditorium -1:00-3:00 p.m.
April 11- La Follette C17 – 4:00-6:00 p.m.
April 17 – Memorial Wisconsin Center – 4:00-6:00 p.m.
April 19 -West LMC – 4:00-6:00 p.m.
April 23 – East LMC – 4:00-6:00 p.m.

The Madison School District’s support of the costly WPS health insurance option has been quite controversial over the years.