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Wisconsin School Choice & Student Testing

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett:

Choice students do not attend public schools, but Milwaukee property taxpayers still support their costs. In fact, until recently, Milwaukee property taxpayers actually paid more for students attending choice schools than they paid for students attending traditional Milwaukee Public Schools.
Over the past few years, I’ve worked with the state to correct this inequity. We have made a significant improvement from where we stood in the 2006-’07 school year, and Milwaukee taxpayers have benefited greatly.
But we have a lot more work to do to ensure this program is fair to all taxpayers.
For decades, our state has recognized that some communities have more wealth than others. That means that the amount spent on a child’s education could change dramatically depending on which “side of the tracks” a student lives on.

Anneliese Dickman:

The recent release of two comprehensive data sets marked a milestone in the 21-year-old Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. With the availability of school-by-school test score data for the first time, as well as the fourth year of results from a longitudinal study comparing voucher students to Milwaukee Public Schools students, citizens now have access to more information about the choice program’s performance than ever before.
As has often been the case with this controversial program, however, the release of new information may only create additional grounds for debate on whether the program truly works. For example, while voucher opponents will point to test score data showing the program’s achievement average is less than that of MPS, supporters will cite new data from the longitudinal study indicating that students who stayed in the choice program throughout their four years of high school had a 94% graduation rate and were more likely to enroll in four-year college than MPS graduates.
Indeed, the release of these seemingly contradictory results is likely to spur a new battleground in Milwaukee’s long-running war over school choice: Do we need to be concerned about low test scores and low achievement growth if, in the end, the students enroll in college?
That discussion is a relevant one given that higher educational attainment certainly is the overall goal for all Milwaukee students. Nevertheless, there are several reasons recent comparative test score results should not be dismissed.

Much more on the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, here.

MISSED ADJUSTMENTS and OPPORTUNITIES RATIFICATION OF Madison School District/Madison Teachers Collective Bargaining Agreement 2011-2013

The Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education and the Madison Teachers, Inc. ratified an expedited Collective Bargaining Agreement for 2011-2013. Several significant considerations were ignored for the negative impact and consequences on students, staff and taxpayers.
First and foremost, there was NO ‘urgent’ need (nor ANY need at all) to ‘negotiate’ a new contract. The current contract doesn’t expire until June 30, 2011. Given the proposals regarding school finance and collective bargaining processes in the Budget Repair Bill before the legislature there were significant opportunities and expectations for educational, management and labor reforms. With such changes imminent, there was little value in ‘locking in’ the restrictive old provisions for conducting operations and relationships and shutting the door on different opportunities for increasing educational improvements and performances in the teaching and learning culture and costs of educating the students of the district.
A partial listing of the missed adjustments and opportunities with the ratification of the teacher collective bargaining agreement should be instructive.

• Keeping the ‘step and advancement’ salary schedule locks in automatic salary increases; thereby establishing a new basis annually for salary adjustments. The schedule awards increases solely on tenure and educational attainment. This also significantly inhibits movement for development and implementation of ‘pay for performance’ and merit.
• Continues the MOU agreement requiring 50% of teachers in 4-K programs (public and private sites combined) to be state certified and union members
• Continues required union membership. There are 2700 total or 2400 full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers, numbers rounded. Full-time teachers pay $1100.00 (pro-rated for part-time) per year in automatic union dues deducted from paychecks and processed by the District. With 2400 FTE multiplied by $1100 equals $2,640,000 per year multiplied by two years of the collective bargaining unit equals $5,280,000 to be paid by teachers to their union (Madison Teachers Inc., for its union activities). These figures do not include staff members in the clerical and teacher assistant bargaining units who also pay union dues, but at a lower rate.
• Continues to limit and delay processes for eliminating non-performing teachers Inhibits abilities of the District to determine the length and configuration of the school day, length and configuration of the school year calendar including professional development, breaks and summer school
• Inhibits movement and placement of teachers where needed and best suited
• Restricts adjustments to class sizes and teacher-pupil ratios
• Continues very costly grievance options and procedures and litigation
• Inhibits the District from developing attendance area level teacher/administrator councils for collaboration in problem-solving, built on trust and relationships in a non-confrontational environment
• Continues costly extra-duties and extra-curricular agreements and processes
• Restricts flexibility for teacher input and participation in professional development, curriculum selection and development and performance evaluation at the building level
• Continues Teacher Emeritus Retirement Program (TERP), costing upwards to $3M per year
• Does not require teacher sharing in costs of health insurance premiums
• Did not immediately eliminate extremely expensive Preferred Provider (WPS) health insurance plan
• Did not significantly address health insurance reforms
• Does not allow for reviews and possible reforms of Sick Leave and Disability Leave policies
• Continues to be the basis for establishing “me too” contract agreements with administrators for salaries and benefits. This has impacts on CBAs with other employee units, i.e., support staff, custodians, food service employees, etc.
• Continues inflexibilities for moving staff and resources based on changes and interpretations of state and federal program supported mandates
• Inhibits educational reforms related to reading and math and other core courses, as well as reforms in the high schools and alternative programs

Each and every one of the above items has a financial cost associated with it. These are the so-called ‘hidden costs’ of the collective bargaining process that contribute to the over-all costs of the District and to restrictions for undertaking reforms in the educational system and the District. These costs could have been eliminated, reduced, minimized and/ or re-allocated in order to support reforms and higher priorities with more direct impact on academic achievement and staff performance.
For further information and discussion contact:
Don Severson President
Active Citizens for Education
donleader@aol.com
608 577-0851
100k PDF version

Clark Board of Education Approves 2011-2012 School Budget

Jessica Remo:

A proposed 2011-2012 school budget was approved unanimously by the Board of Education Tuesday night during a public hearing at the Clark Council Chambers. The spending plan would allocate just over $33.2 million, an increase of $225,000 over the previous year. The budget, if approved by voters, will mean a tax hike of three tax points, which translates into approximately $33 for the average taxpayer.
Tax increases to fund schools is nothing new. In 2010, Clark residents saw a $36 rise in their tax bills following a loss of more than $671,000 in state aid. For the 2011-2012 school year, the budget includes $414,448 in funding from the state, an increase of $325,460 over last year’s spending plan. Overall, the budget yields a 0.83 percent increase over the 2010-2011 plan, well below the state-mandated 2 percent cap.
Considering the economic climate and rising costs, Superintendent of Schools Kenneth Knops noted that the school board took on a daunting task — maintaining classroom quality while minimizing tax impact — and largely succeeded.

Clark schools spends $14,896.85 per student. Madison’s most recent 2010-2011 citizen’s budget document indicates total planned spending of $358,791,418, which yields $14,661.90 per student (24,471 students).

Charter school changes would hurt quality

Martin Scanlan:

On Wednesday morning at the state Capitol, the Senate Committee on Education will hold a public hearing on several bills: SB 20, SB 22 and SB 34. Senate Bill 22, which deals with public charter schools, is the bill with the most statewide effects. (The others focus solely on Milwaukee Public Schools.)
Two dimensions of SB 22 should give pause to citizens across the political spectrum because as written, the bill would make it less likely for charter schools to serve the common good. The effect will be to reduce the professionalism of the faculty and the level of local accountability for charter schools.
Clearly, the quality of education that occurs across sectors – public to private, preschool to postsecondary – is in the public interest. We all benefit when our schools educate children not only academically but in numerous other manners as well. Society is strengthened to the degree that children learn reflection, compassion, creativity and generosity. Schools can foster cross-cultural relationships and nurture respect amongst a populace that is growing increasingly pluralistic. While all schools serve the common good when they promote such learning, these characteristics define our expectations of public schools.

College Degree Fails to Promote Active Civic Engagement Beyond Voting

Intercollegiate Studies Institute

nlightened Citizenship: How Civic Knowledge Trumps a College Degree in Promoting Active Civic Engagement is the fifth report to the nation issued by ISI’s National Civic Literacy Board. While each past study has had a different point of emphasis, all share a common thread of examining the relationships that exist between higher education, civic knowledge, and citizenship.
Unfortunately, the results of ISI’s past civic literacy research does not inspire confidence that our institutions of higher learning are living up to their educative and civic responsibilities, responsibilities that almost all American colleges recognize as critical to their overall public missions.
In 2006 and 2007, ISI administered a sixty-question multiple-choice exam on knowledge of American history and institutions to over 28,000 college freshmen and seniors from over eighty schools. In both years, the average freshman and senior failed the exam.
In 2008, ISI tested 2,508 adults of all ages and educational backgrounds, and once again the results were discouraging. Seventy-one percent of Americans failed the exam, with high school graduates scoring 44% and college graduates also failing at 57%.

1 Billion Customers for Education

Sanjay Saigal:

The sixteenth century universalist poet Kabir captures the high Indian regard for education:
गुरु गोबिंद दोऊ खडे, काके लागूं पाये
बलिहारी गुरु आप की, गोबिंद दियो मिलाये
To whom should I bow, my Guru or the Lord?
I bow to thee, O Guru, for you have shown me God
A host to universities since before the time of Christ, India has long revered learning, which, along with spirituality have been the pillars of the Indian notion of civilization (Sankriti). Despite the history, at the time of independence in 1947, only one in five citizens was literate. In independent India, equitable access to education was considered of first importance, hence the sector came under the purview of the government.
Until economic liberalization in 1991, India’s best tertiary institutions were exclusively public funded. These included the well-known Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The first private university was recognized in 1995 – today, India has 77. Most private universities are run on unabashedly profit-oriented lines. While the better ones compete with the top public institutions, most do not. Philanthropic support of college and universities is weak, even as the ranks of the wealthy grows in strength.

Why America’s unions are not working any more

Christopher Caldwell:

During the holiday break this winter, a woman in my neighbourhood was at the supermarket with her son when they ran into the son’s teacher. “See you Monday,” the mother said. The teacher gaily informed her she would not be back until mid-month, as she had planned a vacation in Central America. Teachers used to content themselves with the months off they enjoy in summers and at holidays, but they have got used to more. One can understand why American public employees ardently defend their unions, and the benefits they win. But one can also understand why, in a time of straitened budgets, union-negotiated contracts might be among the first places to make savings.
A fierce budget battle has been running for more than a week in Madison, Wisconsin. It goes far beyond salaries and benefits, to touch on the deeper question of whether collective bargaining has any place in government employment. Governor Scott Walker, a Republican elected last autumn with support from the Tea Party movement, believes it does not. His “budget repair” bill not only requires state employees to contribute to their pension and health plans. It would also end collective bargaining for benefits. Democratic senators, lacking the votes to defeat the bill, fled the state, denying the quorum necessary to bring it to a vote.
Mr Walker is not making a mountain out of a molehill. Wisconsin has a $137m budget gap to fill this year and a $3.6bn deficit over the next two. The big year-on-year leap reflects, in part, the expiration of federal stimulus spending, much of which was used to avoid laying off government workers. Citizens of other advanced countries sometimes make the mistake of assuming that the US has a skeletal bureaucracy. That is wrong. Once you include state, county and city employees, it is a formidable workforce and an expensive one. State employees account for up to $6,000bn in coming pension costs. Wisconsin’s difficulties are milder than those elsewhere, which means that similar clashes are arising in other states, especially where Republicans rule.

American Teaching Standards: Don’t know much about history

The Economist:

Many states emphasise abstract concepts rather than history itself. In Delaware, for example, pupils “will not be expected to recall any specific event or person in history”. Other states teach children about early American history only once, when they are 11. Yet other states show scars from the culture wars. A steady, leftward lean has been followed by a violent lurch to the right. Standards for Texas, passed last year, urge pupils to question the separation of church and state and “evaluate efforts by global organisations to undermine US sovereignty through the use of treaties”.
Some states fare better. South Carolina has set impressive standards–for example, urging teachers to explain that colonists did not protest against taxation simply because taxes were too high. Other states, Mr Finn argues, would do well to follow South Carolina’s example. “Twenty-first century skills” may help pupils become better workers; learning history makes them better citizens.

The Economist:

Many states emphasise abstract concepts rather than history itself. In Delaware, for example, pupils “will not be expected to recall any specific event or person in history”. Other states teach children about early American history only once, when they are 11. Yet other states show scars from the culture wars. A steady, leftward lean has been followed by a violent lurch to the right. Standards for Texas, passed last year, urge pupils to question the separation of church and state and “evaluate efforts by global organisations to undermine US sovereignty through the use of treaties”.
Some states fare better. South Carolina has set impressive standards–for example, urging teachers to explain that colonists did not protest against taxation simply because taxes were too high. Other states, Mr Finn argues, would do well to follow South Carolina’s example. “Twenty-first century skills” may help pupils become better workers; learning history makes them better citizens.

Related: The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011: Wisconsin = F.

2010-2011 Madison School District Citizen’s Budget

Superintendent Dan Nerad, 74K PDF:

Attached to this memorandum you will find the Fall Revised Budget version of the 2010-11 Citizen’s Budget. The Citizen’s Budget is intended to present financial information to the community in a format that is more easily understood. The first report includes 2009-10 Revised Budget, 2010-11 Revised Budget and groups expenditures into categories outlined as follows:

• In-School Operations
• Curriculum & Teacher Development & Support
• Facilities, Other Than Debt Service
• Transportation
• Food Service
• Business Services
• Human Resources
• General Administration
• Debt Service
• District-Wide
• MSCR

The second report associates revenue sources with the specific expenditure area they are meant to support. In those areas where revenues are dedicated for a specific purpose (ie. Food Services) the actual amount is represented. In many areas of the budget, revenues had to be prorated to expenditures based on percentage that each specific expenditure bears of the total expenditure budget. It is also important to explain that property tax funds made up the difference between expenditures and all other sources of revenues. The revenues were broken out into categories as follows:

• Local Non-Tax Revenue
• Equalized & Categorical State Aid
• Direct Federal Aid
• Direct State Aid
• Property Taxes

Both reports combined represent the 2010-11 Fall Revised Citizens Budget. This report can also be found on the District’s web site.

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Enough with trickery; just fix the problem

The Milwaukee Journal – Sentinel:

Wisconsin’s fiscal crisis is real – not something ginned up by Gov. Scott Walker as a way to punish political opponents. The numbers don’t lie. Like many other states, Wisconsin is in a fiscal quagmire, and not one of Walker’s making.
The state has a budget hole of $3.6 billion for the 2011-’13 period. The budget must be balanced. But this time, it must not be “balanced” through trickery and gimmicks. This time, it should be balanced in fact as well as in theory. Walker intends to do that.
Walker is scheduled to deliver his budget address on Tuesday, although he may not release the budget document until later. We encourage the governor to show not only fiscal prudence but also ideological restraint. And we urge Walker to take special care with programs that help Wisconsin’s most vulnerable citizens. Fairness and compassion should not take a holiday.
Walker’s tough approach with state public employee unions in his budget repair bill is justified; their benefits for too long have been exempt from scrutiny. The governor’s proposals would save $300 million over the next two years, he says.

The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011: Wisconsin = F

Sheldon M. Stern, Jeremy A. Stern

Presidents’ Day 2011 is right around the corner, but George Washington would be dismayed by the findings of this new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Reviewers evaluated state standards for U.S. history in grades K-12. What they found is discouraging: Twenty-eight states–a majority–deserve D or F grades for their academic standards in this key subject. The average grade across all states is a dismal D. Among the few bright spots, South Carolina earns a straight A for its standards and six other jurisdictions–Alabama, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and the District of Columbia–garner A-minuses. (The National Assessment’s “framework” for U.S. history also fares well.) Read on to learn how your state scored.

The Wisconsin History Report Card:

Overview
Wisconsin’s U.S. history standards, for all practical purposes, do not exist. Their sole content is a list of ten eras in American and Wisconsin history, followed by a few brief and vague directives to understand vast swaths of history and broad historical concepts. Determining an actual course’s scope, sequence, and content rests entirely on the shoulders of local teachers and districts.
Goals and Organization
Wisconsin’s social studies standards are divided among five strands: geography, history, political science and citizenship, economics, and behavioral sciences. Each strand consists of a “content standard”–a one-sentence statement of the strand’s purpose–and a one- paragraph “rationale” justifying its importance. The history strand also includes short lists of ten chronological/thematic eras for Wisconsin, U.S. history, and world history. The ten listed eras of U.S. history are said to apply to grades 5-12, and those for Wisconsin history to grades 4-12.

ACE Statement Regarding MMSD (Madison School District) Actions

Don Severson, via email:

Attached is the Active Citizens for Education statement regarding the MMSD Board of Education and Administration actions related to the Governor’s Budget Repair Bill.
Here is the link to the video of the MMSD Board meeting on 02/14/11
http://mediaprodweb.madison.k12.wi.us/node/601 go to the 9:50 minute mark for Marj Passman.
Letters from the Board and Superintendent to Governor Walker are accessible from the home page of the MMSD website.
http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/

Glaringly, there is no leadership from the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education nor administration for the overall good of the community, teachers nor students as evidenced by their actions the past few days. Individual Board members and the Board as a whole, as well as the administration, are complicit in the job action taken by teachers and their union. The Board clearly stepped out of line. Beginning Monday night at its Board meeting, Board member Marj Passman took advantage of signing up for a ‘public appearance’ statement as a private citizen. She was allowed to make her statement from her seat at the Board table instead of at the public podium–totally inappropriate. Her statement explicitly gave support to the teachers who she believed were under attack from the Walker proposed budget repair bill; that she was totally in support of the teachers; and encouraged teachers to take their protests to the Capital. Can you imagine any other employer encouraging their employees to protest against them to maintain or increase their own compensation in order to help assure bankruptcy for the organization or to fire them as employees? All Board members subsequently signed a letter to Governor Walker calling his proposals “radical and punitive’ to the bargaining process. With its actions, including cancellation of classes for Wednesday, the Board has abdicated and abrogated its fiduciary responsibility for public trust. The Board threw their responsibility away as elected officials and representatives of the citizens and taxpayers for the education of the children of the District and as employers of the teachers and staff. The Board cannot lead nor govern when it abdicates its statutory responsibilities and essentially acts as one with employees and their union. Under these circumstances, it is obvious they have made the choice not to exercise their responsibilities for identifying solutions to the obvious financial challenges they face. The Board will not recognize the opportunities, nor tools, in front of them to make equitable, fair and educationally and financially sound decisions of benefit to all stakeholders in the education of our young people.

Don Severson
President, ACE

Much more, here.

Clips from Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad’s News Conference on Closed Schools & Teacher Job Action

Matthew DeFour: (watch the 15 minute conference here)

Madison School District Superintendent Dan Nerad discusses on Wednesday Gov. Scott Walker’s bill, teacher absences, and Madison Teachers Inc.

Related:

• Sparks fly over Wisconsin budget’s labor-related provisions (July, 2009)
• Isthmus event coverage roundup.
• WisPolitics Budget Blog
• Madison Teachers Website MTI PDF: At Issue Walker Attacks Public Employees MTI PDF: Events Week of 2/14/2011
• WEAC website
• NEA website
• Randi Weingarten
• AFT website
• Wisconsin, Tennessee seek sharpest curbs on collective bargaining by Susan Troller
• Wisconsin School boards association changes tune, fears harm from Walker bill
• Dane County’s efforts to ‘protect’ employees likely to backfire by Jonathan Barry
• MATC OKs contract that preserves no-cost pensions
• Walker to gut Milwaukee Public Schools, break up UW, education leaders say
• Madison Mayor wants to rush on city employee contracts extension
• The Racine post
• With Wisconsin’s QEO Gone, schools bargain harder on teachers’ contracts, much more on the QEO, here
• Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman: “the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee.”
• Active Citizens for Education Statement
• Madison School District recent communications.
• Was Wednesday’s ‘sick out’ by Madison teachers an illegal strike?
• Unions want to overturn election result.
• FDR: Public-sector unions must not be allowed to strike
• Democrat National Committee Playing a Role in Organizing the Protests
• Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding
  
  
  

Dave Baskerville is right on the money: Wisconsin needs two big goals:

For Wisconsin, we only need two:
Raise our state’s per capita income to 10 percent above Minnesota’s by 2030.
In job and business creation over the next decade, Wisconsin is often predicted to be among the lowest 10 states. When I was a kid growing up in Madison, income in Wisconsin was some 10 percent higher than in Minnesota. Minnesota caught up to us in 1967, and now the average Minnesotan makes $4,500 more than the average Wisconsinite.
Lift the math, science and reading scores of all K-12, non-special education students in Wisconsin above world-class standards by 2030. (emphasis added)
Wisconsinites often believe we lose jobs because of lower wages elsewhere. In fact, it is often the abundance of skills (and subsidies and effort) that bring huge Intel research and development labs to Bangalore, Microsoft research centers to Beijing, and Advanced Micro Devices chip factories to Dresden.

Grow the economy (tax base) and significantly improve our schools….

More on the Seattle School District Construction Management Audit

Melissa Westbrook:

I, along with other citizens, had written to the State Auditor several years back, complaining about the BEX capital building program. When you write to the Auditor, they log your letter and make sure you get a follow-up (I know that seems odd to have a public entity actually listen and keep track of your concerns but that’s just how the SAO rolls.)
The letter said some points made in the audit like:

Tuition Hike-oholism Hits Bottom?

Kristin Conklin:

“After decades of funding our eleven campuses on the basis of past appropriations and past expenditures, we have lost track of the rationale for each campus’s funding level. We must begin a new approach to funding higher education where we ask the board of higher education to develop a funding methodology that is based on the outcomes that education leaders and citizens would like to see from their college campuses.”
— North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple’s Jan. 4 state of the state address.
Faced with a 5 percent tuition rise and the likelihood of future increases, students at the City University of New York filed a lawsuit against the school protesting the tuition hike. Could we be on the verge of a student movement like that recently under way in England, where rioters incensed over tuition increases have thrown Molotov cocktails, smashed windows, and even attacked Prince Charles’s car?
CUNY’s was a modest hike, with average prices remaining well below the national average. CUNY takes pride in its history of serving low-income and first-generation students with a high-quality, affordable education.. But CUNY, like many public institutions in the U.S., is doing what led to student revolts in England: shifting the burden of paying for higher education from taxpayers to students. According to the State Higher Education Executive Officers association, tuition in the U.S. increased from 25 percent of all educational revenue to 37 percent from 1984 to 2009, even as total spending per student remained about the same.

Calculating the difference in New Jersey charter schools

Bob Braun:

It’s New Jersey School Choice Week. Gov. Chris Christie signed a proclamation encouraging all citizens to “join the movement for educational reform.”
Or, at least, his brand of reform, one that includes cutting $1 billion from traditional public schools while spending taxpayer money on independent schools that have somehow failed to enroll New Jersey’s neediest children, those with handicaps, language problems, and very low income.
In the last few days, the governor issued a study that purported to show charters “outperforming” traditional schools, approved 23 more charters, proposed laws making it easier to create the independent but publicly funded schools, and hired an organization run by Geoffrey Canada, the champion of New York charter schools, to try his magic in Paterson.
Some critics argue state studies comparing scores of charter schools with their home districts were not scientific and unbiased and, if they showed anything, proved test score averages can be improved by not enrolling children who don’t do well on standardized tests.

State of the Madison School District – January, 2011

The Madison School District: 2.6MB PDF

The Report
The 2011 State of the District Report brings into focus the great strengths and challenges of the Madison Metropolitan School District, and sheds light on our strategies, plans and priorities for keeping all of the community’s children on a secure path toward learning and healthy development.
Mission Critical
The mission statement of the Madison Metropolitan School District focuses on our commitment to ensuring that our students develop a love of learning, and the necessary citizenship skills that will allow them to function effectively in an evermore complex world and be of assistance to the communities in which they reside.
MMSD In Context
Students:
The MMSD is the second largest school district in Wisconsin with 24,796 students. This is the 3rd Friday of September 2010 count and includes pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.
Student Population by Race/Ethnicity:
White 47%
African-American 24%
Hispanic 17%
Asian 10%
Multiracial 6%
Native American 1%

• 49% Free and Reduced Price Lunch Students (37% State Avg.)
• 17% English Language Learners (6% State Avg.)
• 70 different languages spoken as the primary language in the homes of MMSD students
• 15% Students with Disabilities (14.1% State Avg.)

Employees FTEs*
Total 6,286 3,853.4
Some employee groups:
Teachers 2,626 2,500.61
Substitutes 729 N/A
Educational Assistants 625 480.55
Custodians 211 211.0
* Full-time equivalent; 1.0 FTE = a full-time position
Financial Status:
With the 2009-10 fiscal year ending June 30, 2010, the Madison Metropolitan School District’s General Fund (10) expenditures were less than budgeted, allowing the district to increase fund balance over last year by $5.15 million, to $40.49 million.
The adopted 2010-11 budget continues to put resources where they are most needed – in the classrooms. The budgeted spending for all funds is a total of $379,058,945 which is an increase of $8,771,475 or 2.37% over 2009- 10.
The total property tax levy increased by $10,823,758 or 4.62%, with a mill rate increase of $0.88 or 8.65%. The following graph shows the breakdown of 2009-10 Actual Revenue by four major categories.

1.5MB complete report.

Parsons takes over Marlboro County School Board

Patricia Burkett:

A major change took place in Bennettsville Tuesday evening as Lucy Parsons was sworn in as the new chairperson of the Marlboro County School Board.
Parsons previously served as the mayor of Bennettsville and also played a vital role among a group Citizens for Marlboro County, which opposes the construction of a landfill near the Wallace community.
Many residents say they felt there were a lot of issues that needed to be addressed not only when it came to the Marlboro County School Board, but in terms of the school district as well.
Some said tensions within the school board as well as news of an investigation over possible misuse of federal funds by the school district, played very influential roles when they cast their votes for the chairperson’s position in November.

Public School Districts – Return on Educational Investment: Madison Has a “Low ROI”

The Center for American Progress, via a kind reader’s email:

The Wisconsin school systems of Oshkosh and Eau Claire are about the same size and serve similar student populations. They also get largely similar results on state exams-but Eau Claire spends an extra $8 million to run its school system
This report is the culmination of a yearlong effort to study the efficiency of the nation’s public education system and includes the first-ever attempt to evaluate the productivity of almost every major school district in the country. In the business world, the notion of productivity describes the benefit received in exchange for effort or money expended. Our project measures the academic achievement a school district produces relative to its educational spending, while controlling for factors outside a district’s control, such as cost of living and students in poverty.
Our nation’s school system has for too long failed to ensure that education funding consistently promotes strong student achievement. After adjusting for inflation, education spending per student has nearly tripled over the past four decades. But while some states and districts have spent their additional dollars wisely–and thus shown significant increases in student outcomes–overall student achievement has largely remained flat. And besides Luxembourg, the United States spends more per student than any of the 65 countries that participated in a recent international reading assessment, and while Estonia and Poland scored at the same level as the United States on the exam, the United States spent roughly $60,000 more to educate each student to age 15 than either nation.
Our aims for this project, then, are threefold. First, we hope to kick-start a national conversation about educational productivity. Second, we want to identify districts that generate higher-than-average achievement per dollar spent, demonstrate how productivity varies widely within states, and encourage efforts to study highly productive districts. Third–and most important–we want to encourage states and districts to embrace approaches that make it easier to create and sustain educational efficiencies.
This report comes at a pivotal time for schools and districts. Sagging revenues have forced more than 30 states to cut education spending since the recession began. The fiscal situation is likely to get worse before it gets better because the full impact of the housing market collapse has yet to hit many state and local budgets. At a time when states are projecting more than $100 billion in budget shortfalls, educators need to be able to show that education dollars produce significant outcomes or taxpayers might begin to see schools as a weak investment. If schools don’t deliver maximum results for the dollar, public trust in education could erode and taxpayers may fund schools less generously.
While some forward-thinking education leaders have taken steps to promote better educational efficiency, most states and districts have not done nearly enough to measure or produce the productivity gains our education system so desperately needs. Some fear that a focus on efficiency might inspire policymakers to reduce already limited education budgets and further increase the inequitable distribution of school dollars. To be sure, our nation’s system of financing schools is unfair. Low-income and minority students are far more likely to attend schools that don’t receive their fair share of federal, state, and local dollars. But while the issue of fairness must be central to any conversation about education finance, efficiency should not be sacrificed on the altar of equity. Our nation must aspire to have a school system that’s both fair and productive.
Our emphasis on productivity does not mean we endorse unfettered market-based reforms, such as vouchers allowing parents to direct public funds to private schools. Nor do we argue that policymakers should spend less on education. Indeed, we believe neither of these approaches can solve the nation’s pressing education challenges. Transforming our schools will demand both real resources and real reform. As Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently said: “It’s time to stop treating the problem of educational productivity as a grinding, eat-your-broccoli exercise. It’s time to start treating it as an opportunity for innovation and accelerating progress.”

Madison’s results can be seen here. I asked Superintendent Dan Nerad what benefits citizens, students and parents received from Madison’s greater per student spending, then, for example, his former Green Bay school district in this recent interview.
Madison spent $15,241 per student according to the 2009-2010 Citizen’s Budget. I’ve not seen a 2010-2011 version.

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Young People Are Heeding Austin’s Call, Data Shows

Sabrina Tavernise:

Austin, Tex., drew the largest numbers of young Americans from 2007 through 2009, according to an analysis by a senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, replacing Riverside, Calif., which was the most popular destination for young people in the middle of the decade.
Migration slowed greatly during the recession, and rates have continued to remain low. But in an analysis of migration still occurring among some of the country’s most mobile citizens — people ages 25 to 34 — the cities at the top of the list were those that had remained economically vibrant, like Dallas, and those that were considered hip destinations, like Austin and Seattle, the demographer, William H. Frey, found.
In the middle of the decade, before the recession, the top five destinations were Riverside, Phoenix, Atlanta, Houston and Charlotte, N.C., according to the analysis, which was based on Census Bureau data. Austin ranked ninth in that period, and Las Vegas was No. 10.

Compare Wisconsin & Texas NAEP scores here (White students in Texas outscore Wisconsin students in Math) and have a smaller difference between black students.
A Capital Times perspective on Texas, here. A look at College Station vs. Madison, here

Q & A: Charter School Proposal for Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men

570K PDF:

APPENDIX MMM-7-21 January 31, 2011
Urban League of Greater Madison
SUMMARY
On December 6, 2010, the Urban League of Greater Madison presented an initial proposal for the establishment of Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men (a non-instrumentality all-boys secondary charter school) to the Planning and Development Committee of the MMSD Board of Education. During the discussion that followed, Board members agreed to submit follow-up questions to the Urban Leagne, to which the Urban Leagne would respond before the next meeting of the Planning and Development Committee. Questions were submitted by Ed Hughes and Lucy Mathiak. Furthermore, Arlene Silveira submitted questions presented to her by several connnunity members. Below each numbered Board member question, you will find the ULGM response.
1. Ed Hughes: Do you have a response to the suggestion that your proposal may violate Wis. Stat. sec. 118.40(4)(c) other than that you also intend sometime in the future to develop and operate a school for girls? If so, what is the response?
ULGM: Please refer to our letter to MMSD Board of Education members that responded to the ACLU’s opposition to Madison Prep. The answer to your question is contained in that letter. We have attached the letter to this document for your review.
2. Ed Hughes: To the extent the information is available to you, please list the 37 or so non instrumentality charter schools currently operating in Wisconsin.
ULGM: The following list of non-instrumentality charter schools currently operating in Wisconsin was compiled from the 20 I 0-20 II Charter Schools Yearbook published by the Department of Public Instruction. You can find the complete Yearbook online at: http://dpi.wi.gov/sms/pdf/2010.llyearbook.pdf
1. Barron, North Star Academy
2. Cambridge, JEDI Virtual High School
3. City of Milwaukee, Central City Cyberschool
4. City of Milwaukee, Darrell Lynn Hines (DLH) Academy
5. City of Milwaukee, Downtown Montessori Academy
6. City of Milwaukee, King’s Academy
7. City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Academy of Science
8. Grantsburg, Insight School of Wisconsin
9. Hayward, Hayward Center for Individualized Learning
10. Hayward, Waadookodaading Charter School
11. McFarland, Wisconsin Virtual Academy
12. Milwaukee, Carmen High School of Science and Technology
13. Milwaukee, Highland Community School
14. Milwaukee, Hmong American Peace Academy (HAPA)
15. Milwaukee, International Peace Academy
16. Milwaukee, La Causa Charter School
17. Milwaukee, Milwaukee Community Cyber (MC2) High School
18. Milwaukee, Next Door Charter School
19. Milwaukee, Wings Academy
20. Milwaukee, Wisconsin Career Academy
21. Nekoosa, Niikuusra Community School
22. New Lisbon, Juneau County Charter School
23. New Richmond, NR4Kids Charter School
24. Sheboygan, Lake Country Academy
25. UW-Milwaukee, Bruce Guadalupe Community School
26. UW-Milwaukee, Business & Economics Academy of Milwaukee (BEAM)
27. UW-Milwaukee, Capitol West Academy
28. UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee College Preparatory School
29. UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Renaissance Academy
30. UW-Milwaukee, School for Early Development & Achievement (SEDA)
31. UW-Milwaukee, Seeds of Health Elementary School
32. UW-Milwaukee, Tenor High School
33. UW-Milwaukee, Urban Day Charter School, Inc
34. UW-Milwaukee, Veritas High School
35. UW-Milwaukee, Woodlands School
36. UW -Milwaukee, YMCA Young Leaders Academy
37. UW-Parkside, 21st Century Preparatory School
38. Weyauwega-Fremont, Waupaca County Charter School
3. Ed Hughes: Do you have copies of any of the contracts Wisconsin non-instrumentality charter schools have entered into with their school districts? If so, please list the contracts and provide a copy of at least one of them.
ULGM: See attached contracts for Lake Country Academy in Sheboygan and the Wisconsin Virtual Academy in McFarland, which are both non-instrumentality charter schools.
4. Ed Hughes: To the extent the information is available to you, please list the amount ofper.student payment each non-instrumentality charter school in Wisconsin is contractually entitled to receive from its sponsoring school district.
ULGM: We have requested information from the DPI on the current per-student payments to each non-instrumentality charter school in Wisconsin, but we understand that DPI does not now have the information consolidated in one database. We expect that the per-student payment information will be available from DPI by January 17, and we will submit that information to the board and administration as soon as it becomes available from the DPI. The per-pupil payment to each district.authorized charter school in Wisconsin, including instrumentality and non-instrumentality charter schools, is determined through negotiations and mutual agreement between the school district, as the charter school authorizer, and the charter school developer/operator.
5. Ed Hughes: Please identify the minimum per-student payment from the school district that would be required for Madison Prep to be financially feasible from your perspective. If you don’t have a specific figure, provide your best estimate of the range in which that figure is likely to fall.
ULGM: The MMSD Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent-Business in agreement with us that more time is needed to present a projected minimum payment from the school district. DPI’s School Finance Data Warehouse indicates that MMSD reported $14,432 in revenue per student and spent $13,881 per student iu 2008-09. We are certain that we will not request more per student than what MMSD spends annually.
6. Lucy Mathiak: Do you know what Madison Prep will cost the district? And do you know where the money will come from?
ULGM: We have an idea ofwhat our school will cost but as stated in the answer to question number 5, we are working through several costs and line items with MMSD’s Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent-Business. In Wisconsin, public charter schools are funded primarily by school districts or the state legislature (non-school district authorized schools). Generally, private funding is limited to 5% of costs during the budgeting process. However we will raise significantly more in private funding during the pre-implementation and implementation years of the school than we will in out years.
7. Lucy Mathiak: How the financial commitment asked of the district compares to the financial commitment to its existing schools?
ULGM: Assuming you mean existing traditional public schools, we will require more information from MMSD’s administration to make this comparison. Given that Madison Prep will be a new school and a non-instrumentality, there will be costs that Madison Prep has that the school system does not, and vice versa. However, we are firmly committed to ensuring our school is operated within the annual per pupil cost MMSD now spends to educate students in middle and high schools.
8. Community Member, via Arlene Silveira: First of all, has the funding that is indicated as part of the proposal actually been acquired or promised? The proposal indicates $100,000/ year from the Madison Community Foundation, but I can’t find any information from MCF itself about funding Madison Prep. All I can see is that they donated to the Urban League’s capital and Workforce campaigns. Will you check into this? Also, the proposal indicates $250,000/ year for 3 years from Partners for Developing Futures. Last year, despite having received 25 applications for funding from “education entrepreneurs,” this organization did not fund any of them due to the quality of the applications. How is the Madison Prep planning team able to claim this as a source of funding? Have promises been made?
ULGM: The Madison Community Foundation and Partners for Developing Futures were listed as potential revenue sources; these dollars were not committed. Our business plan followed the same approach as most business plans for start-up initiatives: listing prospective revenue sources. However, we do intend to pursue funding through these and other sources. Our private fundraising goals and needs in our five-year budget plan are reasonable.
9. Lucy Mathiak: What additional resources are needed to make the Madison Prep model work?
ULGM: Our school is designed as a demonstration school to be replicable, in whole or in part, by MMSD and other school systems. Therefore, we will not request more than the district’s own annual costs per pupil at the middle and high school levels.
10. Lucy Mathiak: What resources are in hand and what resources will you need to raise?
ULGM: We presently have $50,000 to support the planning of the school, with the offer of additional support. However, we will secure additional private and public funding once the Board of Education formally approves the DPI planning grant application/detailed proposal for Madison Prep.
11. Lucy Mathiak: Ifthere is a proposed endowment, what is the amount of the endowment in hand, the estimated annual rate of return, and the estimated income available for use?
ULGM: New charter schools generally do not budget for endowment in their first few years of operation. We intend to build an endowment at some point and have line items for this in Madison Prep’s budget, but these issues will be decided by the Board ofDirectors ofthe school, for which we will not begin recruiting until the Board of Education approves our DPI plauning grant application/detailed proposal.
12. Ed Hughes: Which parts of your proposal do you require non-instrumentality status to implement?
ULGM: Non-instrumentality status will be vital to Madison Prep’s ability to offer an extended school day, extended school year, as well as the expectations we have of teachers to serve as mentors and coaches to students. The collective bargaining contract between the Board of Education and Madison Teachers, Inc. would not allow for this added instructional time. Yet this added instructional time will be necessary in order for students to meet Madison Prep’s ambitious achievement goals. In addition, our professional development program will also require more hours of training. We also intend to implement other special activities for students and faculty that would not be allowed under MMSD and MTI’s collective bargaining agreement.
13. Ed Hughes: What will be the school’s admission policy? Please describe any preferences that the admission policy will include. To what extent will students who live outside ofthe Madison school district be considered for admission?
ULGM: Madison Prep will comply with all federal and state regulations relating to charter school admissions. In its inaugural school year (20 12-20 13), Madison Prep will be open to any 61h and 7’h grade male student residing within the boundaries of MMSD.
All interested families will complete an Enrollment Form at the Urban League’s offices, online, during community meetings and outreach activities, through local partners, or during a visit to the school (after it opens). If Madison Prep receives less than 45 enrollment forms for either grade (6 and 7) in the tirst year, all students’ who applied will be admitted. If the school receives more than 45 enrollment forms for either grade level in the first year, or enrollment forms exceed the seats available in subsequent years, Madison Prep will hold a public random lottery at a location that provides enough space for applicant students and families. The lottery will be held in accordance with DPI guidelines for random lotteries. If Madison Prep does not fill all available seats, it will continue its grassroots recruitment efforts until it reaches its enrollment goal.
14. Community Member, via Arlene Silveira: We know that Madison Prep won’t accept girls. Will it except boys with Autism or Aspergers? If a boy has a learning disability, will he be allowed to attend? What ifthis learning disability makes it not possible for him to perform above grade level on a standardized test? Will he be allowed in? And can they kick him out if his test scores aren’t advanced/proficient?
ULGM: Please see our answer to question #13. To be clear, Madison Prep will accept students with special learning needs, including students who speak English as a second language. As always, IEP teams will determine on a case-by-case basis if Madison Prep is an appropriate placement for special education students. No Madison Prep student will ever be expelled for academic performance.
15. Ed Hughes: An attraction ofthe proposed school is that it could provide the kind ofiutense academic and other sorts of support that could change the trajectories of its students from failure to success. How will you ensure that your school serves primarily students who require the sort of approach the school will offer in order to be successful?
ULGM: Please see our answer to question #13 and question #16 below. We will go to great lengths to inform parents about Madison Prep as an option for their child, and to recruit students and families to our school. We will over-market our efforts in low-income communities and through media, sports clubs, community centers, churches, employers, and other vehicles that reach these students and their parents. We are also exploring the legality of our ability to set an income goal or threshold for student admissions. Nonetheless, we believe that any young man, regardless of their family background, would be well served by Madison Prep.
16. Ed Hughes: To the extent yon know them, describe what the school’s stndent recruitment and marketing strategies will be.
ULGM: Madison Prep’s marketing plan will support three priorities and goals:
1. Enrollment: Recruiting, retaining, and expanding student enrollment annually -share Madison Prep with as many parents and students as possible and establish a wait-list of at least 20 students at each grade level by June I each year (with the exception of year one).
2. Staffing: Recruiting and retaining a talented, effective, and committed faculty and staff -field qualified applicants for each position in a timeframe that enables us to hire by June 30 each year.
3. Public Image and Support: Building, maintaining, and solidifying a base of support among local leaders, financial contributors, key partners, the media, and the general public.
To ensure the public is well acquainted with the school, Madison Prep, with the support of the Urban League of Greater Madison, will make use of a variety of marketing strategies to accomplish its enrollment, staffing, fundraising, and publicity goals. Each strategy will be phased in, from pre.launch of the school through the first three years of operation. These marketing strategies are less expensive and more sustainable with the budget of a new charter school than television, radio, and popular print advertisements. They also deliver a great return on investment if executed effectively. Each strategy will enable Madison Prep, with its limited staff, to promote itself to the general public and hard-to-reach communities, build relationships, sustain communications and achieve its goals.
A. Image Management: Madison Prep’s logo and images of young men projecting the Madison Prep brand will be featured on the school’.s website, in informational and print materials, and on inexpensive paraphernalia (lapel pins, emblems, ink pens, etc). Students will be required to wear uniforms that include a red or black blazer featuring the Madison Prep emblem, a sweater, a red or black tie, white shirt, black or khaki pants, and black or brown dress shoes. They will also have a gym uniform and athletic team wear that features the Madison Prep emblem. Additionally, Madison Prep will ensure that its school grounds, educational facility, and learning spaces are clean, orderly and well-maintained at all times, and that these physical spaces reflect positive images of Madison Prep students, positive adult males, community leaders, families, and supporters. Madison Prep’s Core Values will be visible through the school as well, and its students, faculty, staff, and Board of Directors will reflect an image in school and in public that is consistent with the school’s Core Values and Leadership Dimensions.
B. Grassroots Engagement: Madison Prep’s founders, Board members, volunteers, and its key staff (once hired) will go door-to-door in target neighborhoods, and other areas within MMSD boundaries where prospective candidates can be found, to build relationships with young men, families, and local community resource persons and advocates to recruit young men to attend Madison Prep. Recruiters will be dressed in the Madison Prep uniform (either a polo shirt, sweater or suit jacket/tie, each showing the Madison emblem, and dress slacks or skirt) and will visit homes in two person teams.
Madison Prep will also partner with City Council members, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, and local libraries to host community meetings year-round to promote the school in target neighborhoods and military bases. It will also promote the school to citizens in high traffic residential areas of the city, including metro stops, restaurants, community centers, community health agencies, and at public events. Madison Prep will engage the religious community as well, promoting the school to church leaders and requesting to speak before their congregations or have the church publicize the school during their announcements on Sundays and ministry activities during the week. Area businesses, hospitals, government agencies, foster care agencies, and mentorship programs will be asked to make information available to their patrons, clients, and families. Madison Prep will also seek to form partnerships with the Police Department and Court System to ensure judges, attorneys, neighborhood police officers, and family advocates know about the school and can make referrals of young men they believe will benefit from joining Madison Prep’s school community.
C. Online Presence & Partnerships: Madison Prep will launch a website and update its current Facebook and Twitter pages prior ·to the school opening to expand its public presence. The Facebook page for Madison Prep presently has more than 100 members, has been operational for less than 2 months, and has not yet been widely marketed. The page is used to raise awareness, expand support, communicate progress, announce activities and events, and promote small-donor fundraising campaigns. The website will be used to recruit students, staff, and eventually serve as an entry-point to a member only section on the Internet for faculty, students, and parents. Madison Prep will also seek to establish strategic alliance partnerships with service associations (100 Black Men, Sororities and Fraternities, Civic Clubs or Organizations, etc.), enlisting their participation in the school’s annual events. In addition, Madison Prep will establish partnerships with other public and private schools in the Madison area to recruit students, particularly elementary schools.
D. Viral Marketing: Madison Prep will use email announcements and social networking sites to share its mission, activities, employment opportunities, and successes with its base of supporters and will inspire and encourage them to share the information with their friends, colleagues, parents and young men they know who might be interested in the school. Madison Prep will add to its base of supporters through its other marketing strategies, collecting names and contact information when and where appropriate.
E. Buzz Marketing: Madison Prep will use subtle forms of marketing to recruit students and faculty, increase its donor and support base, and develop a positive public image. The school will maintain an influential board of directors and advisors, will engage notable people and organizations in the school, and will publicize these assets to the general public. The school will also prepare key messages and strategically involve its students, staff, and parents in key events and activities to market its brand -high achieving, thoughtful, forward thinking, confident and empowered young men who are being groomed for leadership and success by equally talented, passionate and committed adults. The messages, images, and quality of interactions that the broader community has with members of the greater Madison community will create a positive buzz about the school, its impact, and the success of its students.
F. School Visits & Activity Participation: Each year, from the week after Thanksgiving through the end of the school year, Madison Prep will invite prospective students and parents, funders, and members of the community to visit the school. A visit program and weekly schedule will be established to ensure that the school day and learning is not interrupted by visitors. Madison Prep will also establish an open visit policy for parents, and will create opportunities for them to leverage their ongoing involvement with the school and their young men. Through nurturing positive relationships with parents, and establishing an enviromnent where they are wanted and respected, Madison Prep will create spokespersons in the community who help grow its student body and community support. Finally, Madison Prep will host an annual community event that engages its school community with the greater Madison community in a day of fun, competitive events for families, and will serve as a resource to parents whose children do not attend Madison Prep by inviting them to participate in its Destination Planning workshops.
G. Popular Media: Madison Prep will allocate resources to market itself on Urban and News Radio during the peak student recruitment season in two phases. Phase I will take place in November 2011 and Phase 2 advertising will take place between Jannary and May 2012. To defray costs, Madison Prep will enlist the support of local and national celebrities for feature interviews, spotlights, and PSAs with Madison Prep’s Leadership to promote the school.
17. Community Member, via Arlene Silveira: It looks like the Charter school is aiming for 50% of its population to be low-income. The middle school my children will go to, Sherman, is 71% low income. Blackhawk is at 62%. Wright is 83%. Sennett is 65%. Cherokee is at 63%. Toki is at 51%. Can we, in good conscious, start a new school-designed to help low income students -that has a lower percentage oflow-income students than six of our existing middle schools?
ULGM: The Urban League has set the 50% low-income target as a floor, not as a ceiling. In fact, we expect that more than 50% of Madison Prep students will qualifY for free or reduced lunch.
Furthermore, we have chosen to use the 50% figure to allow us to be conservative in our budgeting process. No matter what the level of low income students at Madison Prep -50% or higher-the student achievement goals and overall program quality will remain unchanged.
18. Ed Hughes: Have you considered limiting admission to students who have scored minimal or basic on their WKCE tests?
ULGM: No. Madison Prep will be open to any male student who wishes to attend, regardless of past academic performance.
19. Ed Hughes: Some have suggested that Madison Prep could skim offthe most academically.motivated African-American students from the District’s middle and high schools, leaving fewer role models and academic peers for the African-American boys who remain in our existing schools. What is your response to that concern?
ULGM: The notion that charter schools skim off the most motivated students is a common misconception. First, this argument is not logical. Parents/caregivers ofchildren who are academically motivated and doing well in traditional public schools have little incentive to change their students’ educational environment. Those kids will likely stay put. When a parent, teacher, social worker, or school counselor recognizes that a child isn’t doing well in the traditional school and seeks an alternative, the charter school that is sought as an alternative does not in this process gain some advantage. In fact, research suggests the opposite. A 2009 study by researchers at Michigan State University, the University of Wisconsin, and Mathematic Policy Research examined charter schools from across the country to test the “skimming” theory. The researchers found no evidence of skimming. In fact, they found students who go to charter schools typically have LOWER test scores than their counterparts in traditional public schools. (Read the full paper at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/schoolchoice/conference/papers/Zimmer_COMPLETE.pdf)
20. Ed Hughes: Have you extended preliminary or informal offers of employment at Madison Prep to anyone? If so, identify to whom the preliminary or informal offers were made and for which positions.
ULGM:No.
21. Ed Hughes: What will he your strategy for recruiting teachers? What qualifications will you establish for teachers? Please describe the general range of salary and benefits you expect to offer to teachers.
ULGM: Teacher Recruitment -The overarching goal of teacher recruitment will be to hire a highly qualified, passionate, hard-working, diverse staff. The recruitment effort will include casting a wide net that allows Madison Prep to draw from the pool oflocal teachers as well as teachers statewide and nationwide who will embrace the opportunity to help build a school from the ground up. We will recruit though typical both typical means (postings on our website, WECAN, charter school association job pages) as well as through recruitment fairs outside of the state. Our hiring process will take place in early and mid spring rather than late spring and summer so that we may have a competitive edge in recruiting the teachers that are the best fit for Madison Prep. While the Head of School will be responsible for the hiring of teachers, he/she will engage a committee of teachers, community members, parents, and students in the process ofselecting teachers and other staff. In addition to a thorough interview, teacher candidates will be required to teach a sample lesson to a group of students, as well as other interview committee members. Teacher Qualifications-All teachers at Madison Prep will be licensed by the Department of Public Instruction.
General Salary Range and Benefits*-For the 2012-2013 school year, the salary for Master Teachers (of which there will be two) is currently projected to be $61,406 with a signing bonus of $2,000 and a maximum performance bonus of $2,750. The salary for general education teachers is currently projected to be $50,055 for the 2012-2013 school year, with a signing bonus of$2,000 and a maximum performance bonus of$1,750. Madison Prep intends to provide a full range of benefits to its teachers. *Salary and bonus figures are subject to change
22. Ed Hughes: MMSD already has a charter middle school with a very diverse student population -James C. Wright Middle School. If the school district chose to continue James C. Wright as an instrumentality charter school but modeled on your Madison Prep proposal, which components of your proposal do yon think could be implemented at the school and which components of your proposal could not?
ULGM: The Urban League is not in a position to determine how the fundamental elements ofthe Madison Prep proposal could or could not be implemented at James C. Wright Middle School. That determination would have to be made by the district administration and c01mnunity at Wright.
23. Community Member, via Arlene Silveira: Here is the annual report from one of the Urban League charter schools that the proposal cites as a model for Madison Prep:
http://www.doe.mass.edu/charter/reports/2009/annual/0471.doc This is a report from the school’s lO'” year in existence. Please note the test achievement goals and scores on page 4 and compare them with the extremely overconfident goals of the Madison Prep proposal. IfMadison Prep is serious about attaining the goal of 75% oftheir students scoring 22 or higher on the ACT or 1100 or higher on the SAT, how do they plan to achieve this and what will happen with those students who fail to meet this standard? What will happen to the teachers who don’t meet their quota ofstudent test scores above this level? Please investigate these questions in detail and within the framework of Madison Prep processes from admissions through expulsion.
ULGM: The reference to the New Leadership Charter School in Springfield, Massachusetts in the Madison Prep initial proposal was meant to show the precedent for the establishment of charter schools by Urban League affiliates; the New Leadership Charter School is NOT a model for Madison Prep, nor was this ever stated in the initial proposal. That said, Madison Prep IS serious about our student achievement goals related to the ACT and SAT. We plan to meet these goals through-as the proposal states-an all-male student body, the International Baccalaureate Curriculum, college preparatory educational program, Harkness Teaching, an extended school day and year,mentoring and coll1111unity support, and a prep year. Students will be carefully assessed for years leading up to these tests to ensure their preparedness. When formative assessments indicate re-teaching is needed in order to meet the goal, students will receive further individualized instruction. Madison Prep teachers will not have student test score “quotas.”
24. Lucy Mathiak: What would a timeline for the counterpart girls’ school look like?
ULGM: We would like to initiate the process for the girls’ school in the fall of 2012, with an opening aimed at 2014-2015.

I continue to believe that the fate of this initiative will be a defining moment for the Madison School District. If approved and implemented, it will, over time, affect other traditional schools within the District. If it is rejected, a neighboring District will likely step in.
Finally, I found the Urban League’s response to Ed Hughes’ question #5 interesting:

DPI’s School Finance Data Warehouse indicates that MMSD reported $14,432 in revenue per student and spent $13,881 per student iu 2008-09. We are certain that we will not request more per student than what MMSD spends annually.

The Mayor Wants You to Lose Some Weight

Laura Landro

Frustrated with the high cost of health care, a number of communities around the country are taking new steps to push citizens to improve their health.
Some places have set 10-year goals to reach certain marks of good health. In San Francisco, for example, 79% of small children currently are fully immunized by the time they turn 2 years old; the county aims to increase that to 90% by 2020. Other places, like Kern County, Calif., which has one of the highest rates of obesity and heart disease in the state, are setting up farmers’ markets and constructing new trails and sidewalks to foster healthier lifestyles.

Can we strengthen the parents’ voice in education?

On Oct. 28, Tom Frank, chair of Anne Arundel County’s Countywide Citizen Advisory Committee, resigned.
“I was under the impression that the role of the CAC was to meet with a representative of each school, other interested parents and citizens, and to bring their educational concerns to the school board and the superintendent,” he explained. ”I have been told that I essentially have this backwards and the CAC is supposed to only bring items to the parents that the school board determines are important.”
In a certified letter, board of education President Patricia Nalley had written to Frank that the CAC must restrict its agenda to board-approved issues and would not be allowed to convene any type of candidates’ forum. Frank also was told he’d have to cancel the CAC candidates forum, which was to include the four board members on the ballot for November’s election.
It became apparent the CAC regulations had become a fantasy document. The democratic vision contained in these regulations had been greatly diluted over the decades and many surviving democratic provisions had long since stopped being consistently enforced.

Power to the People: Britains Big Experiment

Iam Birrell:

For those wanting a less colloquial explanation, the Big Society is an attempt to transform the relationship between the state and its citizens. Using the weapons of devolution and transparency, it seeks to empower individuals, improve public services that fail the most disadvantaged and reconnect the civic institutions that lie between the people and the state.
So why is the Big Society such a radical idea? As one of its leading proponents in government admits, it is a massive social experiment – stripping power from the state in the expectation that individuals, communities and enterprises will pick up the reins. “As in most such experiments, it is based upon instincts and understanding rather than empirical data,” he says. “It will be two to three years before we begin to see if it is playing itself out properly. But the direction of change will be remorseless and I’m confident it will transform Britain.”
This tussle between the responsibilities of state and citizens is at the centre of political struggles across the west, from France’s battles over pensions to the backlash against Washington in the US. Unsurprisingly, the Big Society ideas – far removed from the rampant individualism of the Tea Party – are being watched with growing interest by moderate Republicans.
In Britain, they fit comfortably with a nation fed up with over-bearing statism and corporate irresponsibility. The latest British Social Attitudes survey revealed growing distrust of both state and big business, combined with a desire for smaller, more local institutions.

Which States Manage Household Finances Best?

Now you can go to a new website, and see just how good or bad citizens in your state are at managing household finances.
Here’s a small spoiler: if you aren’t a citizen of New York, New Jersey or New Hampshire, you are less likely to be among the most financially adept individuals. Those three states were among the top five in at least three of five measures of financial capability, according to a survey of more than 28,000 people.
The interactive, clickable map of the U.S. is based on the State-by-State Financial Capability Survey released Wednesday that was developed in consultation with the Treasury Department and the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy. Find the full data here.

The Value of Higher Education Made Literal

Stanley Fish:

A few weeks ago at a conference, I listened to a distinguished political philosopher tell those in attendance that he would not be speaking before them had he not been the beneficiary, as a working-class youth in England, of a government policy to provide a free university education to the children of British citizens. He walked into the university with little knowledge of the great texts that inform modern democracy and he walked out an expert in those very same texts.
It goes without saying that he did not know what he was doing at the outset; he did not, that is, think to himself, I would like to be come a scholar of Locke, Hobbes and Mill. But that’s what he became, not by choice (at least in the beginning) but by opportunity.

Money Matters

Andy Rotherham:

Last week’s TIME column about the prospects for school spending occasioned some interesting responses. A common one, though, was the idea that the public is just clamoring to spend more on schools. You hear this a lot. Unfortunately, there are three problems with this argument:

Structural: The money just isn’t there (and annual increases are largely spoken for). The current trajectory of spending is simply not sustainable unless we’re prepared to made radical changes in policies, for example, affecting health care, senior citizens, or prisons. Whether or not we should make those changes is debatable. In many states all senior citizens get a break on property taxes, which are a key revenue source for schools. As the population ages this will ripple through public education budgets. Should these measures be means-tested for ability to pay? Perhaps. Given how politics works are they likely to be? Doubtful. Likewise, our correctional policies are a mess but most politicians are not lining up to fix them. So sure, today’s fiscal choices are just that, choices, but the implications of those decisions and prospects for change must be considered with an eye toward political and other realities realities. A second, related, structural constraint is how little discretionary money there is annually because of how much is tacked down for ongoing obligations. In practice this means that there are annual increases (excepting the last few years where in some places you’ve seen genuine reductions), which consume new money.

‘Defend the Humanities’–a Dishonest Slogan

John Ellis

College foreign language and literature programs have been in decline for some time, first shrinking, then being consolidated with other departments, and now in a growing number of cases actually closed down. But the recent decision to eliminate French, Italian, Russian and Classics at SUNY Albany appears to have struck a nerve, and caused an outcry: “Defend the Humanities!”
It’s a cry that has been heard many times in the past. As the segment of the university that has no direct link to a career-providing profession, the humanities have regularly been called upon to justify their usefulness, but the justification is easy to make, and it is an honorable one that instantly commands respect.
The case generally goes like this: exposure to the best of our civilization’s achievements and thought gives us the trained minds of broadly educated people. We learn about ourselves by studying our history, and understanding how it has shaped us and the institutions we live by. As European civilization developed it produced a range of extraordinary thinkers who grappled memorably with questions that will always be with us, leaving a rich and varied legacy of outstanding thought on philosophical, ethical, religious, social and political matters. Its creative writers left a record of inspired reflection on human life and its challenges. Studying the humanities make us better prepared for civic life and for living itself, and better citizens.

Duncan: Education System Must Reward Excellence

Sudeep Ready:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan asked business executives to pressure policymakers at every level of government to improve an education system that is falling behind the rest of the world.
The U.S., in a single generation, fell from first in the world in college graduates to ninth, Duncan told The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council. Too many students are dropping out of high school, he said. And in math and science education, at least 20 countries beat the U.S.
“We’re simply not producing the citizens, the workers, that you guys need,” Duncan said. “We have not had enough passion, enough push from the business community, and your collective voice is extraordinarily powerful.”

A Girl, a School and Hope

Nicholas Kristof

Given today’s economic difficulties, I thought I’d come to Pakistan to find Osama bin Laden, lug him back home in my duffel bag and declare him at American customs to pick up the $27 million reward.
More on that mission in a moment. First, another conundrum here in Pakistan:
The United States has provided $18 billion to Pakistan in aid since 9/11, yet Pakistan’s government shelters the Afghan Taliban as it kills American soldiers and drains the American Treasury. Meanwhile, only 8 percent of Pakistanis have confidence in President Obama, according to the Pew Research Center. That’s not even half as many as express confidence in bin Laden.
Meanwhile, Pakistan seeks postflood aid from Western taxpayers, yet barely taxes its own affluent citizens at home. And its feudal landholders have historically opposed good schools, for fear that poor Pakistanis — if educated — would object to oppression.

Well Worth Reading: Wisconsin needs two big goals

Dave Baskerville

Having worked some 40 years in the business world, mostly abroad, with many leaders in business, politics and religion, I believe the most important ingredient for success is setting one or two ambitious, long-term goals that are routinely and publicly measured against the best in the world.
For Wisconsin, we only need two:
Raise our state’s per capita income to 10 percent above Minnesota’s by 2030.
In job and business creation over the next decade, Wisconsin is often predicted to be among the lowest 10 states. When I was a kid growing up in Madison, income in Wisconsin was some 10 percent higher than in Minnesota. Minnesota caught up to us in 1967, and now the average Minnesotan makes $4,500 more than the average Wisconsinite.
Lift the math, science and reading scores of all K-12, non-special education students in Wisconsin above world-class standards by 2030. (emphasis added)
Wisconsinites often believe we lose jobs because of lower wages elsewhere. In fact, it is often the abundance of skills (and subsidies and effort) that bring huge Intel research and development labs to Bangalore, Microsoft research centers to Beijing, and Advanced Micro Devices chip factories to Dresden.
Our educational standards are based relative to the United States. So even if we “successfully” accomplish all of our state educational goals, our kids would still be in the global minor leagues. How about targeting Finland and Singapore in math, South Korea and Japan in science, Canada in reading?
As the saying goes: “When one does not know where one is going, any road will do” (or not do).
Without clear scorecards, we citizens will have little ability to coerce and evaluate politicians and their excuses, rhetoric and laws from the right and left. If JFK had not set a “man on the moon” stretch target, would we have landed there? Do the Green Bay Packers have a chance at winning another Super Bowl if they never tack that goal to the locker room walls?

Clusty Search: Dave Baskerville.

Rating America’s Smartest and Dumbest Cities

The Daily Beast:

For the second year in a row, The Daily Beast crunches the numbers for America’s 55 largest cities, ranking their brainpower from first-to-worst. How does your hometown fare?
The continuing economic malaise just reinforces a perennial fact: A city’s potential lies mostly with the ingenuity and brainpower of its citizens. Regions with intellectual vigor are more likely to bounce back; those without risk a stupor. As The Daily Beast again plays scorekeeper on which cities have what it takes, intellectually speaking, and which fall short, that chasm can be seen in stark relief when comparing the prospects at the top and bottom of our list.

Madison High School Redesign: 2006 Presentation & Links

via a kind reader’s email:

Four citizens spoke at Monday evening’s school board meeting regarding the proposed “high school redesign”.
Superintendent Art Rainwater’s powerpoint presentation and followup board discussion

There are many links in that post.

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Global Debt Clock

The Economist

The clock is ticking. Every second, it seems, someone in the world takes on more debt. The idea of a debt clock for an individual nation is familiar to anyone who has been to Times Square in New York, where the American public shortfall is revealed. Our clock shows the global figure for all (or almost all) government debts in dollar terms.
Does it matter? After all, world governments owe the money to their own citizens, not to the Martians. But the rising total is important for two reasons. First, when debt rises faster than economic output (as it has been doing in recent years), higher government debt implies more state interference in the economy and higher taxes in the future. Second, debt must be rolled over at regular intervals. This creates a recurring popularity test for individual governments, rather as reality TV show contestants face a public phone vote every week. Fail that vote, as the Greek government did in early 2010, and the country can be plunged into imminent crisis. So the higher the global government debt total, the greater the risk of fiscal crisis, and the bigger the economic impact such crises will have.

Fight over illegals’ tuition reaches high court

Bob Egelko

The issue of benefits for illegal immigrants landed at the state Supreme Court on Tuesday, as out-of-state students challenged a law allowing anyone who has graduated from a California high school to pay in-state tuition at a public university, regardless of immigration status.
The 2002 law, intended to encourage youngsters to attend college, enables undocumented students to pay the same lower fees as other state residents – at the University of California, $11,300 instead of $34,000 a year.
A lawyer for 42 non-Californians who pay the higher fees at UC, state university and community college campuses argued that the statute is discriminatory and violates federal immigration law.
“One of the privileges of U.S. citizenship is not being treated worse than an illegal alien,” attorney Kris Kobach told the court at a hearing in Fresno.

The Huge Dishonest Attack on Teachers

An interview from Truthout, via a Den Dempsey email:

“… We’re living in the darkest times for teachers that I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s hard to fully understand how the conversation about what makes a robust, vital education for citizens in a democracy has degraded to the point where the frame of the whole discussion is that teachers are the problem. It’s true that good schools are places where good teachers gather, but there’s another piece to that: Good teachers need to be protected to teach, supported to teach, put into relationships with one another – and with the families of the kids – so that they can teach. The attack on teachers is a classic example of what [cognitive linguist George] Lakoff calls “framing.” We’re hearing from every politician and editorial board in the land – including The New York Times and The Washington Post and The New Yorker – that we need to get the lazy, incompetent teachers out of the classroom. …
In the past five years, that attack on public education has ratcheted up to dimensions that were unthinkable 30 years ago. And so people talk about the public schools in a way that is disingenuous and dishonest – and also frightening in its characterization: they say the schools are run by a group of self-interested, selfish, undertrained, undercommitted teachers, who have a union that protects them.”

Great Schools? Not Without Great Teachers

Sarah Archibald:

ere is one of the great disconnects of our time: 60 percent of Wisconsin citizens rated the public schools in the state, with the exception of Milwaukee, as excellent or good. Two years ago, that number was even higher–just under 70 percent. People don’t seem to believe anything is holding education back in Wisconsin. But there are times when fact interferes with perception and–bad news here–this is one of those times. When compared to 17 other large urban districts including Chicago and New York City, Milwaukee’s students are in the back of the pack–only Detroit’s students score lower in math and reading in fourth and eighth grades. Largely driven by the abysmal performance of many of Milwaukee’s public schools, our state has the most persistent gap in achievement between black and white students in the country.
This isn’t just a Milwaukee problem; it’s a state problem. And the problems don’t end there.
Wisconsin employs more than 50,000 teachers, at an annual cost of approximately $3.65 billion,1 and yet it has no common means of measuring teacher effectiveness. The majority of these teachers have a continuing contract, which is another word for tenure — meaning, with few exceptions, they have that job for life if they want it. This might not be such a bad thing if teachers had to demonstrate their effectiveness in the classroom to get this lifelong contract–but they don’t. To put this in context, is your job guaranteed for life? And if it is, did you have to prove your ability in your job to get it?
Somehow, it has come to pass that most teachers are immune from the realities of the workplace that every other citizen faces. Can you imagine another profession in which it is against the law to fire someone from their job because they are not achieving the desired outcome?

Sustaining a Great Public University

Mike Knetter & Gwen Eudey:

Wisconsin faces a conundrum: Just when thestate and its citizens need a research universitymost to attract outside funding, fuel job growth, equip individuals to compete in a more knowledge-intensive labor market, and help spawn our own technology-intensive companies– the state is finding it harder to fund the university. There is, however, a logical solution.
Precisely because research universities are able to create much more economic value in today’s economy, they have the potential to be more self-reliant. This essay describes the value of a great research university to the state and the regulatory changes needed to enable the growth of that asset without imposing a greater burden on taxpayers.
The ability of UW -Madison to maximize its contribution to Wisconsin’s economy will require a new partnership between the university, the state, students, and alumni. The state and university will need to reduce regulations and increase flexibility in order to reduce costs and improve quality and efficiency.
UW-Madison students and alumni, who, because of their skills and education, are among the main beneficiaries of the recent economic trends, will need to assume greater responsibility for the operating costs in the future through higher tuition and philanthropy. UW-Madison will need greater autonomy to set and retain tuition and manage enrollment, while being held accountable for preserving the core values of educational and research quality, access and affordability that are vital to a public university.

San Ramon Valley Unified School District Candidate Q&A: Rachel Hurd

Jennifer Wadsworth

What is the primary reason you are running for this office?
Education is the most important thing a community provides for its youth to ensure that they grow up to be productive members of society. I am running for re-election because I want to continue to help shape and influence the quality of the educational experience of students in our schools. I want all children in our schools to graduate prepared to be productive, engaged and fulfilled citizens with viable options for their futures.
What will be your single most important priority if you get elected?
My most important priority is to ensure that we provide a quality educational experience for each of our students by continuing to improve student learning and engagement, within the constraint of maintaining our fiscal solvency. There may be different opinions about how to improve student learning and engagement, especially with limited resources. It’s important that the values and concerns of all stakeholders-students, parents, staff (at all levels and in all functions), and community members-be considered as the district sets direction and aligns initiatives. We also need to acknowledge and work positively with the natural tension between district direction and site-based initiative.

Where are the activists outraged over city’s failing schools?

Shirley Stancato

When the Michigan Department of Education classified 41 schools in the Detroit Public Schools system as “failing” last month, I braced myself for a thunderous public outcry.
After all, it was only a few weeks ago that a very energized group descended on the Detroit City Council to loudly and angrily express themselves about education in Detroit. Surely these concerned citizens, having just voiced such a strong concern about education, would leap to action to demand that something be done to fix these “failing” schools now.
But that hasn’t happened. The silence, as the old cliché goes, has been deafening.
Why would people who were so passionate and loud so recently remain silent about a report that shows our children are being severely shortchanged? Why would members of the school board who fought to preserve the status quo remain equally silent about such a devastating report?
After all, nothing is as important to our children’s future as education. And nothing is more important to our future as a city than our young people.

An analysis of Tennessee School Performance

Education Consumers Foundation:

Tennessee schools are measured on two things: achievement, seen in standardized assessment and ACT results; and growth, reported through the state’s value-added assessment system. For the first time, parents and other Tennessee citizens can plot the performance of their child’s school and others across the district or state through the ECF’s interactive Growth vs. Achievement Charts.
To view charts for each major grade level grouping, visit the following links:

Ouch! Madison schools are ‘weak’? and College Station’s School District

Wisconsin State Journal Editorial

Another national magazine says Madison is one of the nation’s best cities in which to raise a family.
That’s something to celebrate.
But Kiplinger’s, a monthly business and personal finance periodical, also raps ours city schools as “weak” in its latest edition.
That’s troubling.
“Madison city schools are weak relative to the suburban schools,” the magazine wrote in its analysis of the pros and cons of living here with children.
Really?
The magazine apparently used average test scores to reach its conclusion. By that single measure, yes, Dane County’s suburban schools tend to do better.
But the city schools have more challenges – higher concentrations of students in poverty, more students who speak little or no English when they enroll, more students with special needs.
None of those factors should be excuses. Yet they are reality.
And Madison, in some ways, is ahead of the ‘burbs. It consistently graduates some of the highest-achieving students in the state. It offers far more kinds of classes and clubs. Its diverse student population can help prepare children for an increasingly diverse world.

Madison School Board member Ed Hughes compares WKCE scores, comments on the Kiplinger and Wisconsin State Journal article and wonders if anyone would move from Madison to College Station, TX [map], which Kiplinger’s ranked above our local $15,241 2009/2010 per student public schools.
I compared Madison, WI to College Station, TX using a handy Census Bureau report.

93.8% of College Station residents over 25 are high school graduates, a bit higher than Madison’s 92.4%.
58.1% of College Station residents over 25 have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to Madison’s 48.2%

Madison does have a higher median household and per capita income along with a population about three times that of College Station.
Turning to the public school districts, readers might be interested in having a look at both websites: the College Station Independent School District and the Madison Metropolitan School District. 75% of College Station students took the ACT (average score: 22.6) while 67% of Madison students took the exam and achieved a composite score of 24.2.
College Station publishes a useful set of individual school report cards, which include state and national test results along with attendance and dropout data.
College Station’s 2009-2010 budget was $93,718.470, supporting 9,712 students = $9,649.76 per student. . They also publish an annual check register, allowing interested citizens to review expenditures.
Madison’s 2009-2010 budget was $370,287,471 for 24,295 students = $15,241 per student, 57.9% higher than College Station.
College Station’s A and M Consolidated High School offers 22 AP classes while Madison East offers 12, Memorial 25 (8 of which are provided by Florida Virtual…), LaFollette 13 and West 8.
College Station’s “student profile” notes that the District is 59.3% white, 31.4% are economically disadvantaged while 10.3% are in talented and gifted.
Texas’s 2010 National Merit Semifinalist cut score was 216 while Wisconsin’s was 207. College Station’s high school had 16 National Merit Semi-Finalists (the number might be 40 were College Station the same size as Madison and perhaps still higher with Wisconsin’s lower cut score) during the most recent year while Madison’s high schools had 57.

A Look at Wisconsin School Administrative Salaries; Madison has 45 employees earning > $100,000 annually.

Amy Hetzner

Public school districts in southeastern Wisconsin reported paying their top leaders an average salary of nearly $130,000 in the 2009-’10 school year, data released by the state Department of Public Instruction shows.
The average salary for the six-county region, which includes Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Washington and Waukesha counties, represents a 7.4% increase over superintendent salaries two years before and more than 40% more than such positions averaged a decade ago.
Teacher pay for the same school districts rose 7.6%, on average, between the 2007-’08 and 2009-’10 school years. Over the previous 10 years, however, average teacher salaries in southeastern Wisconsin school districts increased by 29%, according to the state information.
The data from the DPI is reported by school districts every fall, meaning that it might not capture salary increases given retroactively after teacher contracts are settled, which is also when many districts approve administrative compensation packages.
For that reason, the Journal Sentinel compared salaries reported in 2009-’10, the first year of negotiations for a new teacher contract, with the salaries from two years before at a similar stage in negotiations. The 10-year comparison also should eliminate some of the year-to-year fluctuations caused by the self-reporting method employed by the state.

Madison has 45 employees earning greater than $100,000.00, Green Bay has 21 (Madison’s Dan Nerad previously served as the Green Bay Superintendent), Milwaukee has 103, Racine 10, Waukesha 7 and Appleton 18. Madison spends $15,241 per student, according to the 2009-2010 Citizen’s Budget.
Search the Wisconsin public school employee database here.

Critical Thinking in Schools

Letters to the New York Times Editor

“Schools Given Grade on How Graduates Do” (front page, Aug. 10) was revealing of system failure on several levels.
Especially telling for me were the comments by a remedial writing teacher at a community college who noted: “They don’t know how to develop an argument. They have very little ability to get past rhetoric and critically analyze what is motivating the writer.”
This teacher’s observation highlights what may well be the school system’s worst deficiency in terms of skills development: a failure to promote critical thinking. That skill is fundamental if our youth are to become thoughtful workers and thoughtful citizens of a democratic society rather than robots. Developing it can’t be left to writing classes alone but must happen throughout the curriculum.

Illegals Estimated to Account for 1 in 12 U.S. Births

Miriam Jordan:

One in 12 babies born in the U.S. in 2008 were offspring of illegal immigrants, according to a new study, an estimate that could inflame the debate over birthright citizenship.
Undocumented immigrants make up slightly more than 4% of the U.S. adult population. However, their babies represented twice that share, or 8%, of all births on U.S. soil in 2008, according to the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center’s report.
“Unauthorized immigrants are younger than the rest of the population, are more likely to be married and have higher fertility rates than the rest of the population,” said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew in Washington, D.C.
The report, based on Pew’s analysis of the Census Bureau’s March 2009 Current Population Survey, also found that the lion’s share, or 79%, of the 5.1 million children of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. in 2009 were born in the country and are therefore citizens.

Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers

Nicholas Carr:

In a 1963 Supreme Court opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren observed that “the fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication constitute a great danger to the privacy of the individual.” The advances have only accelerated since then, along with the dangers. Today, as companies strive to personalize the services and advertisements they provide over the Internet, the surreptitious collection of personal information is rampant. The very idea of privacy is under threat.
Most of us view personalization and privacy as desirable things, and we understand that enjoying more of one means giving up some of the other. To have goods, services and promotions tailored to our personal circumstances and desires, we need to divulge information about ourselves to corporations, governments or other outsiders.
This tradeoff has always been part of our lives as consumers and citizens. But now, thanks to the Net, we’re losing our ability to understand and control those tradeoffs–to choose, consciously and with awareness of the consequences, what information about ourselves we disclose and what we don’t. Incredibly detailed data about our lives are being harvested from online databases without our awareness, much less our approval.

Putting Our Brains on Hold

Bob Herbert, via a kind reader:

The world leadership qualities of the United States, once so prevalent, are fading faster than the polar ice caps.
We once set the standard for industrial might, for the advanced state of our physical infrastructure, and for the quality of our citizens’ lives. All are experiencing significant decline.
The latest dismal news on the leadership front comes from the College Board, which tells us that the U.S., once the world’s leader in the percentage of young people with college degrees, has fallen to 12th among 36 developed nations.
At a time when a college education is needed more than ever to establish and maintain a middle-class standard of living, America’s young people are moving in exactly the wrong direction. A well-educated population also is crucially important if the U.S. is to succeed in an increasingly competitive global environment.

How will Portland schools fare when gifted education funding is cut?

Kristin Carle:

Few U.S. citizens would agree to cutting special education funds. After all, students with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) obviously learn differently and need increased time and attention from educators in order to ensure they are attending to and learning the academic standards. However, another group of students who learn differently and need time and attention to guide their learning of the academic standards are being denied this year. These are the gifted students.
According to the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Policy Insider, the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee met to draft the Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget for the Department of Education. Although the budget has increased 3.2% since FY 2010, the budget completely eliminates the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Student program. “The 20 year-old Javits program is the only federal program that supports the unique learning needs of America’s three million students with gifts and talents.”
Portland schools may not feel an immediate impact from the loss of the Javits Program. However, this program provides scholarships to the disadvantaged gifted student and research support in the area of effective instructional practices for these students who learn differently than their peers.

A setback for German education reformers

The Economist:

“SCHOOL reform chaos?” asked a frowning satchel depicted on posters plastered around Hamburg. “No thank you.” The sorrowful satchel was the mascot of a citizens’ rebellion against a proposed school restructuring in the city-state. Voters rejected the plan in a referendum on July 18th. The stinging defeat for Hamburg’s government, a novel coalition between the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Green Party, has national consequences, as it may make the CDU-Green alliance a less appealing model for a future federal government. Ole von Beust, Hamburg’s mayor, announced his resignation before the result, saying he had done the job for long enough. He is the sixth CDU premier to leave office this year. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who leads the CDU, must now promote a new generation of leaders.
More important are the implications for schools. Hamburg’s plan was a bold attempt to correct a German practice that many think is both unjust and an obstacle to learning. In most states, after just four years of primary school children are streamed into one of several types of secondary school: clever kids attend Gymnasien, middling ones Realschulen and the slowest learners Hauptschulen, which are supposed to prepare them for trades. (A few go to Gesamtschulen, which serve all sorts.) Early selection may be one reason why the educational achievement of German children is linked more closely to that of their parents than in almost any other rich country. Children at the bottom often face low-wage drudgery or the dole.

NO to Mayor control. YES to Community.

Shea Howell:

The debate over control of Detroit Public Schools is intensifying. Last week three important events happened.
First, the elected school board selected community activist Elena Herrada to join them. Herrada brings vision and passion to the board and a long history of working on behalf of the community.
Second, citizens under the name of We the People testified before the Detroit City Council, objecting to the very idea of mayoral control of the schools.
Finally, Council President Charles Pugh, who appears to be at least willing to listen to new thinking, indicated to Rochelle Riley that he is not necessarily in favor of mayoral control.
The Mayor’s effort to seize control of public schools is wrongheaded and dangerous. It is part of a larger scheme, backed by corporate interests, to destroy the democratic responsibilities of public education and to make money off the bodies of our children while limiting their minds.

Report dissects Indiana School districts’ spending

Niki Kelly:

Two Allen County school districts rank above the state average in the percentage of their budgets spent on classroom expenses, according to a report released Friday by the Indiana Office of Management and Budget.
The annual report – which includes revisions to the formula used to categorize spending – shows that statewide schools spent 57.8 percent of their funding on student instructional expenditures in the 2008-09 school year.
This is also known as the percentage of dollars going to the classroom.
“I encourage school board members, administrators, teachers and citizens across the state to closely examine the way dollars are currently allocated and evaluate whether their budgets truly put students first,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett said. “I will only be satisfied once we have driven every possible dollar toward increasing student achievement and success.”

Complete 5.6MB PDF report.

School hero not taking job loss quietly

Karen Heller:

At South Philadelphia High School on Dec. 3, when the school dissolved in racial violence, the community-relations liaison not once, but twice, put herself in harm’s way protecting Asian American students from being pummeled by rampaging mobs.
Seven students were hospitalized, though not one of the charges Sutton-Lawson so vigorously defended.
Citizens sent her thank-you cards. Elected officials offered commendations. Business leaders presented gift certificates.
The Philadelphia School District, she says, did virtually nothing.
Two weeks ago, Sutton-Lawson received the ultimate indignity. She was laid off.
“I was totally shocked. I felt like I was trying to make a difference in that school,” says Sutton-Lawson, 58, who worked with students who were pregnant and new mothers. “I got nervous. I got sick inside. I got scared about losing my health insurance.”

Taxpayers fund bonanza for for-profit colleges

Terry Connelly:

The U.S. taxpayer has unwittingly been the lead underwriter of the tremendous marketing success of the for-profit higher education sector but bearing most of the downside risks with few rewards.
Over the past three decades, for-profit colleges have designed a most successful business model, growing their enrollment at six times the rate of all universities.
Our future economy will need at least 40 percent of its citizens to earn college diplomas, but we are producing graduates at a rate of less than 30 percent of the population – and taking six years to do so. To their credit, the for-profits have made important progress in addressing the nation’s graduation gridlock by catering to working adult students while traditional universities have made only modest efforts to accommodate them.

Stanford program tries to improve education for China’s poor

John Boudreau:

Hu Yu Fan, a 12-year-old boy with doleful eyes, is the face of the other China — the one untouched by the nation’s economic miracle.
He is among tens of millions of young Chinese who have moved from rural provinces to major cities but are being denied the education needed to thrive in modern society. Instead, they end up in shabby migrant schools in places like Beijing and Shanghai, with few resources and few opportunities.
“I have never dreamed of anything for the future,” the boy said.
Hu and those like him are the focus of a program run jointly by Stanford University and Chinese research centers, called Rural Education Action Project, or REAP, which is researching ways to improve education for China’s rural and urban poor.
Financially supported by American companies such as San Jose’s Adobe Systems and Dell Inc., the researchers produce reports that are reviewed by the country’s top officials, including Premier Wen Jiabao. China’s leaders have grown increasingly concerned that the widening wealth and income gap between the country’s urban and rural citizens is a threat to social stability.

It’s the Public’s Data: Democratizing School Board Records

J. H. Snider, via a kind reader:

Consider just a few of the questions whose answers might help a community’s leaders and citizens make better decisions about how to improve their schools:

• What has been said and written about school start times in districts with comparable demographics and financial resources, but better student test scores?
• What is the relationship between student test scores and systems for electing school board members in comparable school districts?
• How do superintendent contracts vary in comparable districts?

Parents, teachers, administrators, and taxpayers have legitimate reasons to ask questions like these. But it has been incredibly hard for them to do so. One reason is that much public information remains locked in the file cabinets of America’s more than 14,000 school districts. Another is that even if the information is posted to school websites, it may be posted in ways, such as a scanned document, that Internet search engines cannot read. Public information that should be available instantaneously and at no cost, like so much other information now available via search engines, instead takes hundreds of work-lifetimes and a fortune to gather–if it can be gathered at all.

Why Liberal Education Matters

Peter Berkowitz:

The true aim of the humanities is to prepare citizens for exercising their freedom responsibly.
In 1867, when he discharged his main responsibility as honorary rector of St. Andrews University by delivering an address on liberal education to the students, the philosopher and civil servant John Stuart Mill felt compelled to defend the place of the sciences alongside the humanities. Today it is the connection of the humanities to a free mind and citizenship in a free society that requires defense.
For years, an array of influential voices has been calling for our nation’s schools and universities to improve science and math education. Given the globalized and high-tech world, the prize, pundits everywhere argue, goes to the nations that summon the foresight and discipline to educate scientists and engineers capable of developing tomorrow’s ideas.
No doubt science and math are vital. But all of the attention being paid to these disciplines obscures a more serious problem: the urgent need to reform liberal education.

Qatar Rewrites ABCs of Mideast Education

Margaret Coker:

A seven-year school revamp spearheaded by this gas-rich emirate’s first lady is emerging as test case for radical education overhauls in the Mideast.
The United Nations and World Bank have long blamed low educational standards for contributing to economic stagnation and instability across the region, which faces the highest rates of youth unemployment in the world and the threat of growing religious extremism.
Schoolteachers across the region have been bound by entrenched programs that emphasize religion and rote learning, often from outdated textbooks. Qatar, with a tiny population and outsize natural-gas export revenue, launched a new system in 2004 that stresses problem-solving, math, science, computer skills and foreign-language study. The final slate of new schools in the program was approved last month, giving Qataris over 160 new schools to choose from when the next school year begins in September.
“The old system churned out obedient but passive citizens. What good is that for a global economy?” says first lady Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned.

Don’t lose sight of why we have public schools

Marj Passman:

The need to succeed at teaching children is at the basic core of everything we do in Madison schools.
So why did the very society that depends on us to educate their most precious beings, their children, come to be so apprehensive about us? How did this happen? When did our state Legislature and many of our fellow citizens decide that an increase and/or a change in public financing of education was not in their interest?
Perhaps we all need to calm down and ask ourselves the very basic question of why we have public schools. The following tenets are a good start:
1. To provide universal access to free education.
2. To guarantee equal opportunities for all children.
3. To unify a diverse population.
4. To prepare people for citizenship in a democratic society.
5. To prepare people to become economically self-sufficient.
6. To improve social conditions.
7. To pass knowledge from one generation to the next.
8. To share the accumulated wisdom of the ages.
9. To instill in our young people a love for a lifetime of learning.
10. To bring a richness and depth to life.
Many Americans have either forgotten, disregard, or no longer view public schools as needed to achieve the above. Some, not all, view the public schools in a much more narrow and self-indulgent way — “What are the public schools going to do for me and my child?” — and do not look at what the schools so richly provide for everyone in a democratic society.

There are many reasons that public education institutions face credibility challenges, including:

• An increasing focus on “adult employment” vs educating the children – via Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman’s recent speech to the Madison Rotary Club.
• Ideology in certain spaces such as Reading Recovery, regardless of results.
• Poor communication and a lack of transparency on financial matters and safety matters.
• The ongoing question of whether more money makes a difference.

Having said that, there are certainly some remarkable people teaching our children, in many cases resisting curriculum reduction schemes and going the extra mile. In my view, our vital public school climate would be far richer and, overall, more effective with less bureaucracy, more charters (diffused governance) and a more open collaborative approach with nearby education institutions.
Madison taxpayers have long supported spending policies far above those of many other communities. The current economic situation requires a hard look at all expenditures, particularly those that cannot be seen as effective for the core school mission: educating our children. Reading scores would be a great place to start.
The two Madison School Board seats occupied by Marj Passman and Ed Hughes are up for election in April, 2011. Interested parties should contact the Madison City Clerk’s office for nomination paper deadlines.

Congratulations to Jill Jokela

Madison School District:

Anyone who has worked with Jill Jokela during her fifteen years as a parent of children in the Madison schools would agree that this Distinguished Service Award is long overdue. Administrators, teachers, parents and fellow concerned citizens hold Jill Jokela in the highest regard for her deep and altruistic commitment to our public schools.
Since 1995 when her first child entered kindergarten, Jill has been a generous PTO leader at Mendota Elementary, Black Hawk Middle and East High Schools. Her ability to ask very tough questions, closely examine data and work constructively through challenging issues such as school equity, boundary changes, funding and curriculum have demonstrated, time and time again, the invaluable role of the effective parent activist in a great school district.

Math Geek Mom: A Meeting 140 Years in the Making

Rosemarie Emanuele:

The idea of a tangent line is central to many aspects of mathematics. In geometry, we study when a line rests on another figure at just one point, the point of tangency. In calculus, the slope of the line tangent to a curve at a point becomes the “derivative” of that curve at that point. One can even think of tangencies in more than one dimension. Imagine an (x,y) plane drawn on a table with a three dimensional object resting on it. One can therefore find a point of tangency in the x direction, and also one in the y direction. I found myself thinking of this recently when two dates almost coincided this past week. This past week, I celebrated my birthday and in a few days I will celebrate Mother’s Day. In many ways, these two dates are tangential in two dimensions.
They are tangential in the sense that this year they both appear in the same week, with my birthday on Tuesday and Mother’s Day on Sunday. In the years in which we wanted to be parents but could not, Mother’s Day was a painful day that I often wished would just go away. I was most disturbed when the church I went to focused on mothers and Mother’s Day, leaving those of us without children feeling like second class citizens. I would often leave crying, with my heart even more broken.
It was during those years that I discovered the true history of Mother’s Day, which made the pain of the day seem less stinging. For, despite what the people at the greeting card companies want us to believe, Mother’s Day began as a day of Peace, with a call to all mothers to pause for a minute to work to create a world in which peace could thrive. I have a copy of the original declaration of Mother’s Day, written in 1870 by Juliet Ward Howe, hanging on my office door. It invites mothers to take a day away from their chores to help build a better world for all of our children. The celebration on Sunday is therefore much more than an excuse to buy flowers or chocolate (but I will still happily take the chocolate, thank you!)

Transforming (NJ’s) Urban Schools

New Jersey Left Behind:

a href=”http://www.nje3.org/blitz/crisisandhope.pdf”>Yesterday’s conference at Princeton University,“Crisis and Hope: Transforming America’s Urban Schools,” featured a star-studded roster of speakers: Ed. Comm. Bret Schundler, Martin Perez (President of the Latino Leadership Alliance of NJ), Rev. Reginald Jackson (Black Ministers Council of NJ), Dr. Marcus Winters of The Manhattan Institute, Dana Rone, Joe Williams (Democrats for Education Reform), Dr. Marc Porter Magee (ConnCan), Lisa Graham Keegan (Former Superintendent of the State of Arizona), Ryan Hill (Founder of TEAM Charter Schools), Patricia Bombelyn (Co-Counsel for the plaintiffs in Crawford v. Davy). The conference was sponsored by Excellent Education for Everyone, Citizens for Successful Schools, and

Brown v. Board at Fifty

Library of Congress:

After the abolition of slavery in the United States, three Constitutional amendments were passed to grant newly freed African Americans legal status: the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth provided citizenship, and the Fifteenth guaranteed the right to vote. In spite of these amendments and civil rights acts to enforce the amendments, between 1873 and 1883 the Supreme Court handed down a series of decisions that virtually nullified the work of Congress during Reconstruction. Regarded by many as second-class citizens, blacks were separated from whites by law and by private action in transportation, public accommodations, recreational facilities, prisons, armed forces, and schools in both Northern and Southern states. In 1896 the Supreme Court sanctioned legal separation of the races by its ruling in H.A. Plessy v. J.H. Ferguson, which held that separate but equal facilities did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.
Beginning in 1909, a small group of activists organized and founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). They waged a long struggle to eliminate racial discrimination and segregation from American life. By the middle of the twentieth century their focus was on legal challenges to public-school segregation. Two major victories before the Supreme Court in 1950 led the NAACP toward a direct assault on Plessy and the so-called “separate-but-equal” doctrine.

A Few Words on Teachers

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the 2010 Wisconsin Solo & Ensemble Festival. It is a true delight to enjoy the results of student and teacher practice, dedication and perseverance.
I very much appreciate the extra effort provided by some teachers on behalf of our children.
I thought about those teachers today when I received an email from a reader asking why I continue to publish this site. This reader referred to ongoing school bureaucratic intransigence on reading, particularly in light of the poor results (Alan Borsuk raises the specter of a looming Wisconsin “reading war“).
I’ll respond briefly here.
Many years ago, I had a Vietnam Vet as my high school government teacher. This guy, took what was probably an easy A for many and turned it into a superb, challenging class. He drilled the constitution, Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers and the revolutionary climate into our brains.
Some more than others.
I don’t have the ability to stop earmark, spending or lobbying excesses in Washington, nor at the State, or perhaps even local levels. I do have the opportunity to help, in a very small way, provide a communication system (blog, rss and enewsletter) for those interested in K-12 matters, including our $400M+ Madison School District. There is much to do and I am grateful for those parents, citizens, teachers and administrators who are trying very hard to provide a better education for our children.
It is always a treat to see professionals who go the extra mile. I am thankful for such wonderful, generous people. Saturday’s WSMA event was a timely reminder of the many special people around our children.

New Madison School District Senior Administrator Hiring Requests

Superintendent Dan Nerad:

In the approved Plan to Align the Work of the Administration to the District’s Mission and Strategic Plan, the Reorganization Plan, it states “For all revised or newly created positions, job descriptions will be developed and submitted to the Board of Education for approval.”
On the April 12, 2010 Regular Meeting agenda – Superintendent’s Announcements and Reports – I am seeking action on four position descriptions representing three new positions as a result of the approved reorganization plan and one revised description. These include:

• Deputy Superintendent / Chief Learning Officer
• Director Professional Development Director
• Early and Extended Learning
• Executive Director – Curriculum and Assessment

Action on these position descriptions is being sought at this time in order to allow the newly created positions to be posted in as timely a manner as possible.
When additional existing position descriptions are revised, as a result of the reorganization plan, they will be submitted to the Board for review and approval. Please let me know if you have any questions on these position descriptions.

The Deputy Superintendent / Chief Learning Officer adds a layer between the current Superintendent, Dan Nerad and a number of positions that formerly reported to him:

The Deputy Superintendent/Chief Learning Officer provides leadership in the ongoing development, implementation and (curriculum, instructional and responsible for the improvement of all learner-related programs within the all assigned administrators
Supervises:
Assistant Superintendents-Elementary and Executive Director of Educational Services Executive Director of Curriculum and Ksse:,snm Executive Director of Student Services Director of Professional Development Coordinator-Grants and Fund Development Executive Assistant

Historic Madison School District staffing levels can be reviewed here: 2004-2005 FTE counts were 3872. A 2010-2011 MMSD Budget Book document displays a FTE total of 3,755.03.

Hillsboro School District budget highlights for 2010-11 not encouraging

Wendy Owen:

Teachers in the Hillsboro School District may see even more students in each classroom next school year as the district seeks to cut the budget without “decimating” programs.
The school district’s budget committee, a mix of citizens and board members, took its first look at the funding “highlights” for 2010-’11 and it wasn’t good news.
“The best scenario is unhappiness,” said Sam Heiney, budget member.
Projecting a continued shortfall in state education funding, the district is considering plans to maintain staff levels. Enrollment, however, is expected to increase by 1 percent, which could bump up class sizes from the current average of 27.

New York parents turn up heat on ‘bake sales’ ban

Jonathan Birchall:

New York city’s standard-setting efforts to improve the heatlh of its citizens have provoked resistance in the past from bar owners, fastfood restaurants and global food and drink companies.
But this week it was the turn of parents selling muffins, brownies and spinach empanadas on the steps of City Hall.
About 300 people turned out to oppose new city regulations that in effect ban school “bake sales” – an all-American fundraising staple where students and parents sell homebaked cakes and cookies to fund museum trips and equip their sports teams.
The sales, which can raise as much as $500 a time, have fallen foul of efforts by the Department of Education to improve the nutritional quality of foods available in schools as part of its battle against rising levels of childhood obesity.

The Fordham Institute’s expert reviewers have analyzed the draft Common Core K-12 education standards (made public on March 10) according to rigorous criteria. Their analyses lead to a grade of A- for the draft mathematics standards and B for those in Eng

Sheila Byrd Carmichael, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Gabrielle Martino, Kathleen Porter-Magee, W. Stephen Wilson, Amber Winkler:

Two weeks ago, American education approached a possible turning point, when the National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released drafts of proposed new academic standards in English language arts and math for kindergarten through high school. Already the object of much interest–and some controversy–these are standards that, once revised and finalized, will be candidates for adoption by individual states in place of those they’re now using.
For months before they were made public, the “Common Core” standards were much discussed. Between now and April 2–the end of the public comment period on this draft–there will be plenty more. That is a healthy thing, both because the more thoughtful scrutiny these drafts receive, the better the final product is apt to be, and because the only way for these standards ever to gain traction in our far- flung, highly-decentralized, and loosely-coupled public education system is if peo- ple from all walks of life–parents, educators, employers, public officials, scholars, etc.–take part in reading, commenting, and shaping the final product.
But ought they gain traction? We think so. Assuming this draft only improves in the process of revision, the Common Core represents a rare opportunity for American K-12 education to re-boot. A chance to set forth, across state lines, a clear, ambi- tious, and actionable depiction of the essential skills, competencies, and knowledge that our young people should acquire in school and possess by the time they gradu- ate. Most big modern nations–including our allies and competitors–already have something like this for their education systems. If the U.S. does it well and if–this is a big if–the huge amount of work needed to operationalize these standards is earnestly undertaken in the months and years to follow, this country could find itself with far-better educated citizens than it has today. Many more of them will be “college- and career-ready” and that means the country as a whole will be stronger, safer, and more competitive.

British Students ‘Confused’ On Historic Facts

Morning Edition:

Queen Elizabeth may seem ancient to school children, but did she really invent the telephone? Ten percent of British students think so, according to a survey of science knowledge. They also believe Sir Isaac Newton discovered fire, and Luke Skywalker was the first person on the moon.

It’s not just the British. While on travel recently, a seatmate (probably 30) asked me where Denver and Chicago were on the map (we were flying to Denver). Another seatmate some time later mentioned that their retail business deals with many citizens who don’t know the difference between horizontal and vertical…

A $30 Million Puzzle ‘Solution’? What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate

Like many citizens, journalists, and some of my fellow board members, I have been struggling to make sense of the projected $30 million budget or tax gap. Like others who have tried to understand how we got to the number “$30,” I have tried several approaches to see if I could come to the same […]

Madison School District’s 2009-2010 Citizen’s Budget Released ($421,333,692 Gross Expenditures, $370,287,471 Net); an Increase of $2,917,912 from the preliminary $418,415,780 2009-2010 Budget

Superintendent Dan Nerad 75K PDF:

Attached to this memorandum you will find the final version of the 2009-10 Citizen’s Budget. The Citizen’s Budget is intended to present financial information to the community in a format that is more easily understood. The first report groups expenditures into categories outlined as follows:

• In-School Operations
• Curriculum & Teacher Development & Support
• Facilities, Other Than Debt Service
• Transportation
• Food Service
• Business Services
• Human Resources
• General Administration
• Debt Service
• District-Wide
• MSCR

The second report associates revenue sources with the specific expenditure area they are meant to support. In those areas where revenues are dedicated for a specific purpose(ie. Food Services) the actual amount is represented. In many areas of the budget, revenues had to be prorated to expenditures based on the percentage that each specific expenditure bears of the total expenditure budget. It is also important to explain that property tax funds made up the difference between expenditures and all other sources of revenues. The revenues were broken out into categories as follows:

• Local Non-Tax Revenue
• Equalized & Categorical State Aid
• Direct Federal Aid
• Direct State Aid
• Property Taxes

Both reports combined represent the 2009-10 Citizen’s Budget.

Related:

• 2010-2011 Madison School District Budget Comments
• A Primer on Wisconsin School Revenue Limits
• 2007-2008 $339,685,844 Citizen’s Budget
• 2006-2007 $333,101,865 Citizen’s Budget
• Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding
• Community Comments on the Madison School District’s current “Tax (increase) Gap” of $30M, in other words, the District has the ability to significantly raise local property taxes due to changes in redistributed state tax dollars and recent referendums.
• University of Wisconsin’s annual “redbook” summary of taxes & expenses.
• Declining enrollment affects public school district’s tax & spending authority.
• Outbound open enrollment (students leaving one district for another) reduces a District’s tax & spending authority.
• Madison School District Enrollment Data.
• 2009-2010 Madison School District enrollment: 24,295 = $15,241.30 per student based on the $370,287,471 net expenditure number.
• Historic Madison spending, staffing and student data.
• Questions & Answers from the Madison School Board to the Administration on the budget.
• TJ Mertz offers commentary and links on the budget

I’m glad to see this useful document finally available for the 2009-2010 school year. Thanks to the Madison School Board members who pushed for its release.

Education reformers making progress

Charles Davenport, Jr.:

ittle Johnny can’t read or write because, in government schools, the interests of teachers’ unions prevail over the interests of children. Unions may be beneficial to educators, but they are indifferent — if not hostile — to the intellectual development of children.
But education reformers nationwide are celebrating a rare victory for the kids. Last month in Rhode Island, Superintendant Frances Gallo fired the entire staff of Central Falls High School — a total of 93 people. The grateful citizens of Central Falls have erected a billboard in Gallo’s honor. Rightly so. Gallo, Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist and the Central Falls school board (which approved the firings on a 5-2 vote) are an inspiration to the public school reform movement.
Central Falls High is one of the worst schools in Rhode Island. Only 45 percent of the students are proficient in reading, 29 percent in writing and, incredibly, only 4 percent in math. Compare those abysmal numbers to Rhode Island’s (somewhat less embarrassing) statewide averages in the same subjects: 69, 42 and 27 percent, respectively. Furthermore, half of the students at Central Falls are failing every subject, and the school’s graduation rate is 48 percent.
Only teachers’ unions could defend such a spectacular failure. Several hundred bused-in, placard-waving educators and their union representatives showed up in Central Falls hours before the firings. “We are behind Central Falls teachers,” proclaimed Mark Bostic of the American Federation of Teachers, “and we will be here as long as it takes to get justice.” But on Tuesday, the Central Falls union publicly pledged to support Gallo’s reforms, and she said she’s willing to negotiate.

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: What’s Wrong with the Public Sector?

Charlie Mas:

I read this comment on Crosscut and I just have to share it.
Here is a link to the original article. It was about the (lack of a) Republican party alternative to the state budget.
The comment came from Stuka at 8:44pm on Thursday, March 4. I won’t quote all of it, but I absolutely want to share this part:

The fundamental problem with the public sector is not lack of taxes but lack of performance monitoring and improvement over time. Witness the public school system for evidence of the failure to monitor the quality of teachers, of teaching performance, of student performance, and of school performance. Same with the criminal-justice system: who is monitoring the quality of inmates produced by our prisons? The quality of justice by our judges and prosecutors? and the quality of policing by our police departments?
Unfortunately, we don’t pay for outcomes, but for staffing levels at fixed salary levels. A secondary effect of good government seems to be sometimes adequate government. Maybe we ought to reward for performance instead. That will happen only when compensation is tied to performance and not taking up space in a bureaucracy until the bureaucrat can collect a pension for enduring the bureaucracy, a feat that may be quite difficult and challenging, but in and of itself, produces no output that citizens value.
I highly value the services that government intends to provide (unlike many Republicans), but am unwilling to pay (unlike many Democrats) for monopolistic and ineffective government bureaucracies that have no handle on how to be effective and efficient in what they’re doing. This leaves me in a quandry since the demand for services is unceasing and the inertia of ineffective government is entrenched. Mostly I try to vote for anything that smacks of actual reward for performance, and vote against anything that looks like hoggish behavior (as in pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered).

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate & Local Property Tax Increase Rhetoric

Walter Alarkon:

President Barack Obama’s budget will lead to deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion over the next decade, the CBO estimated Friday.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said President Barack Obama’s budget would lead to annual deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion for the next decade.
The estimates are for larger deficits than the budget shortfalls expected by the White House.
Annual deficits under Obama’s budget plan would be about $976 billion from 2011 through 2020, according to a CBO analysis of Obama’s plan released Friday.

Susan Troller:

Madison school ‘budget gap’ really a tax gap
Try “tax gap” or “revenue problem.” These are terms that Superintendent Dan Nerad — who is slated to offer his budget recommendations to the School Board on March 8 — and other school district players are starting to use to describe the financial troubles the district is facing.
What’s commonly been defined as the district’s budget gap in the past — the difference between the cost to continue existing programs and salaries and what the district is allowed to tax under state revenue caps — is actually $1.2 million. That’s the amount the district would still have to cut if the board were willing to tax to the maximum amount allowed under the state revenue limits. (And in past years, Madison and almost every other district in the state have taxed to the limit.) But if you add in the drop in revenue from the state — about $17 million for the 2010-2011 budget — the gap grows to $18.2 million.
It’s fair to ask then, what makes up the other $11.6 million that the administration calls the $29.8 million 2010-2011 budget gap? In a rather unorthodox manner, Nerad and company are including two other figures: $4 million in levying authority the district was granted through the 2008 referendum and $7.6 million in levying authority within the revenue limit formula.
Confused? You’re not alone. It’s got many folks scratching their heads. But the bottom line is this: Although the district has the authority to raise property taxes up to $312 on an average $250,000 home, it’s unlikely the board would want to reap that amount of revenue ($11.6 million) from increased taxes. Large property tax hikes — never popular — are particularly painful in the current economy.

The Madison School District has yet to release consistent total spending numbers for the current 2009/2010 budget or a total budget number for 2010-2011. Continuing to look at and emphasize in terms of public relations, only one part of the puzzle: property taxes seems ill advised.
The Madison School District Administration has posted 2010-2011 “Budget Gap” notes and links here, largely related to the property tax, again. only one part of the picture. For reference, here’s a link to the now defunct 2007-2008 Citizen’s Budget.
Doug Erickson has more:

Madison school administrators laid out a grim list of possible cuts big and small Friday that School Board members can use as a starting point to solve a nearly $30 million hole in next year’s budget.
The options range from the politically painless — restructuring debt, cutting postage costs — to the always explosive teacher layoffs and school closings.
But the school-closing option, which would close Lake View, Lindbergh and Mendota elementary schools on the city’s North Side as part of a consolidation plan, already appears to be a nonstarter. A majority of board members said they won’t go there.
“It’s dead in the water for me,” said Lucy Mathiak, board vice president.
President Arlene Silveira said the option is not on the table for her, either. Ditto for board members Marj Passman and Maya Cole, who said she immediately crossed out the option with a red pen.
Board members could decide to raise taxes enough to cover almost all of the $30 million, or they could opt to not raise taxes at all and cut $30 million. Neither option is considered palatable to board members or most residents, so some combination of the two is expected.

Skydiving without Parachutes: Seattle Court Decision Against Discovery Math Implementation

Barry Garelick:

“What’s a court doing making a decision on math textbooks and curriculum?” This question and its associated harrumphs on various education blogs and online newspapers came in reaction to the February 4, 2010 ruling from the Superior court of King County that the Seattle school board’s adoption of a discovery type math curriculum for high school was “arbitrary and capricious”.
In fact, the court did not rule on the textbook or curriculum. Rather, it ruled on the school board’s process of decision making–more accurately, the lack thereof. The court ordered the school board to revisit the decision. Judge Julie Spector found that the school board ignored key evidence–like the declaration from the state’s Board of Education that the discovery math series under consideration was “mathematically unsound”, the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction not recommending the curriculum and last but not least, information given to the board by citizens in public testimony.
The decision is an important one because it highlights what parents have known for a long time: School boards generally do what they want to do, evidence be damned. Discovery type math programs are adopted despite parent protests, despite evidence of experts and–judging by the case in Seattle–despite findings from the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Cops deliver Monona Grove School Budget News

Susan Troller:

Uniformed police delivered a school budget meeting flyer door-to-door in Monona on Feb. 11. The flyer encouraged public attendance at a school district hearing that night to discuss the possible consolidation of Monona’s pre-kindergarten through second grade Maywood Elementary School with the community’s third through sixth grade Winnequah Elementary. It was signed by Monona mayor, Robb Kahl.
Depending on one’s perspective, it was either a waste of taxpayer money and an embarrassing move by Kahl or a necessary means of getting important news to citizens who haven’t gotten enough information on potential school budget cuts, especially when it comes to the possibility of closing the beloved Maywood school. Both points of view are represented in dozens of comments on Monona School Board Vice President Peter Sobol’s blog.

Contact the Seattle Public Schools’ board and administrators, asks Where’s the Math

Martha McLaren:

On February 4th, King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector ruled that last year’s Seattle School board decision to adopt the Discovering high school textbook series was arbitrary and capricious. Judge Spector’s ruling was heard and hailed across the country by private citizens and math education advocacy groups.
This unprecedented finding shows school boards and district administration that they need to consider evidence when making decisions. The voice of the community has been upheld by law, but the Seattle School district indicated they plan to appeal, demonstrating the typical arrogant, wasteful practices which necessitated the lawsuit in the first place.
Concerned individuals in Seattle and across the country need to speak up now, and let Seattle administration know that it’s time to move forward and refocus on the students, rather than defend a past mistake.
The ruling states:
“The court finds, based upon a review of the entire administrative record, that there is insufficient evidence for any reasonable Board member to approve the selection of the Discovering Series.”

Madison School District 2010-2011 Budget: Comments in a Vacuum?

TJ Mertz comments on Monday evening’s Madison School Board 2010-2011 budget discussion (video – the budget discussion begins about 170 minutes into the meeting). The discussion largely covered potential property tax increases. However and unfortunately, I’ve not seen a document that includes total revenue projections for 2010-2011.
The District’s Administration’s last public total 2009-2010 revenue disclosure ($418,415,780) was in October 2009.
Property tax revenue is one part of the MMSD’s budget picture. State and Federal redistributed tax dollars are another big part. The now dead “citizens budget” was a useful effort to provide more transparency to the public. I hope that the Board pushes for a complete picture before any further substantive budget discussions. Finally, the Administration promised program reviews as part of the “Strategic Planning Process” and the recent referendum (“breathing room”). The documents released to date do not include any substantive program review budget items.
Ed Hughes (about 190 minutes): “it is worth noting that evening if we taxed to the max and I don’t think we’ll do that, the total expenditures for the school District will be less than we were projecting during the referendum“. The documents published, as far as I can tell, on the school board’s website do not reflect 2010-2011 total spending.
Links to Madison School District spending since 2007 (the referendum Ed mentioned was in 2008)

• 2009-2010 $418,415,780
• Proposed 2008-2009 $367,806,712 budget
• 2007-2008 $339,685,844 Citizen’s Budget
• 2006-2007 $333,101,865 Citizen’s Budget

It would be great to see a year over year spending comparison from the District, including future projections.
Further, the recent “State of the District” document [566K PDF] includes only the “instructional” portion of the District’s budget. There are no references to the $418,415,780 total budget number provided in the October 26, 2009 “Budget Amendment and Tax Levy Adoption document [1.1MB PDF]. Given the organization’s mission and the fact that it is a taxpayer supported and governed entity, the document should include a simple “citizen’s budget” financial summary. The budget numbers remind me of current Madison School Board member Ed Hughes’ very useful 2005 quote:

This points up one of the frustrating aspects of trying to follow school issues in Madison: the recurring feeling that a quoted speaker – and it can be someone from the administration, or MTI, or the occasional school board member – believes that the audience for an assertion is composed entirely of idiots.

In my view, while some things within our local public schools have become a bit more transparent (open enrollment, fine arts, math, TAG), others, unfortunately, like the budget, have become much less. This is not good.
Ed, Lucy and Arlene thankfully mentioned that the Board needs to have the full picture before proceeding.

A study in intellectual uniformity: The Marketplace of Ideas By Louis Menand

Christopher Caldwell:

As his title hints, Louis Menand has written a business book. This is good, since the crisis in American higher education that the Harvard professor of English addresses is a business crisis. The crisis resembles the more celebrated one in the US medical system. At its best, US education, like US healthcare, is of a quality that no system in the world can match. However, the two industries have developed similar problems in limiting costs and keeping access open. Both industries have thus become a source of worry for public-spirited citizens and a punchbag for political opportunists.
Menand lowers the temperature of this discussion. He neither celebrates nor bemoans the excesses of political correctness – the replacement of Keats by Toni Morrison, or of Thucydides by queer theory. Instead, in four interlocking essays, he examines how university hiring and credentialing systems and an organisational structure based on scholarly disciplines have failed to respond to economic and social change. Menand draws his idea of what an American university education can be from the history of what it has been. This approach illuminates, as polemics cannot, two grave present-day problems: the loss of consensus on what to teach undergraduates and the lack of intellectual diversity among the US professoriate.
Much of today’s system, Menand shows, can be traced to Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard for four decades after 1869. Faced with competition from pre-professional schools, Eliot had the “revolutionary idea” of strictly separating liberal arts education from professional education (law, medicine, etc), and making the former a prerequisite for the latter. Requiring a lawyer to spend four years reading, say, Molière before he can study for the bar has no logic. Such a system would have made it impossible for Abraham Lincoln to enter public life. Funny, too, that the idea of limiting the commanding heights of the professions to young men of relative leisure arose just as the US was filling up with penurious immigrants. Menand grants that the system was a “devil’s bargain”.

Clusty Search: Louis Menand – “The Marketplace of Ideas”.

ACE Urges MMSD Board NO Vote on 4k and RttT

TO: MMSD Board of Education
FROM: Active Citizens for Education
RE: 4-year old Kindergarten
Race to the Top
I am Don Severson representing Active Citizens for Education.
The Board of Education is urged to vote NO on the proposal to implement 4-year old Kindergarten in the foreseeable future. In behalf of the public, we cite the following support for taking this action of reject the proposal:

• The Board and Administration Has failed to conduct complete due diligence with respect to recognizing the community delivery of programs and services. There are existing bona fide entities, and potential future entities, with capacities to conduct these programs

• Is not recognizing that the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Wisconsin authorizes the provision of public education for grades K-12, not including pre-K or 4-year old kindergarten
• Has not demonstrated the district capacity, or the responsibility, to manage effectively the funding support that it has been getting for existing K-12 programs and services. The district does not meet existing K-12 needs and it cannot get different results by continuing to do business as usual, with the ‘same service’ budget year-after-year-after-year
• Will abrogate your fiduciary responsibility by violating the public trust and promises made to refrain from starting new programs in exchange for support of the “community partnership” urged for passing the recent referendum to raise the revenue caps

To reiterate, vote NO for District implementation of 4-K.
The Board of Education is urged to vote NO to signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the State of Wisconsin as part of an application for funding through the U.S. Department of Education ACT “Race to the Top” (RttT).
In behalf of the public we cite the following support for taking this action to reject the signing the RttT MOU: The Board and Administration

• Does not have complete information as to the requirements, criteria, expectations and definitions of terms of the MOU or its material Exhibits; therefore, there has been serious inhibitors in time, effort and due diligence to examine, understand and discuss the significant implications and consequences of pursuing such funding
• Does not have an understanding through the conduct of interactive discussions regarding the roles and relationships of the Board of Education, the Administration and the union regarding the requirements of the MOU as well as any subsequent implications for planning, implementation, evaluation and results for receiving the funding
• Must understand that the Board of Education, and the Board alone by a majority vote, is the only authority which can bind the District in any action regarding the MOU and subsequent work plan. District participation cannot be authorized by the Board if such participation is contingent on actual or implied approval, now or in the future, of any other parties (i.e., District Administration and/or union)
• Does not have an understanding of its personnel capacity or collective will to establish needs, priorities and accountabilities for undertaking such an enormous and complicated “sea change” in the ways in which the district conducts its business in the delivery of programs and services as appears to be expected for the use any RttT funding authorized for the District
• Must also understand and be prepared for the penalties and reimbursements due to the state and federal governments for failure to comply with the provisions attached to any authorized funding, including expected results

To reiterate, vote NO for District approval for the MOU and application for funding through the RttT.

Make Milwaukee Public Schools discussion about children, not politics

Eugene Kane:

My plan to attend the first public hearing on the controversial mayoral takeover plan for Milwaukee Public Schools was both simple and practical.
Get there late after all the speech-making and political posturing was over.
The hearing at MPS’ central office at 5225 W. Vliet was scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Tuesday. As a veteran of countless public hearings during my career, I knew even if the room was packed with citizens, there would likely be a series of preliminary statements by various politicians and bureaucrats before members of the public got the chance at the microphone.
I figured arriving about an hour after the scheduled start would work just fine.
As it turned out, this was the kind of public hearing where most of the public had to wait for all of the elected officials in the room to have their say first.

Foreign Language Teaching in U.S. Schools: Results of a National Survey

Nancy Rhodes & Ingrid Pufahl:

CAL has completed a comprehensive survey of K-12 foreign language programs nationwide, describing how our schools are meeting the need for language instruction to prepare global citizens. For comparative purposes, the survey has collected statistical data in 1987, 1997, and 2008. Elementary and secondary schools from a nationally representative sample of more the 5,000 public and private schools completed a questionnaire during the 2007-2008 school year. The 2008 survey results complement and enhance the field’s existing knowledge base regarding foreign language instruction and enrollment in the United States.
The report of the survey, Foreign Language Teaching in U.S. Schools: Results of a National Survey, provides detailed information on current patterns and shifts over the past 20 years in languages and programs offered, enrollment in language programs, curricula, assessment, and teaching materials, qualifications, and trainings, as well as reactions to national reform issues such as the national foreign language standards and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation. The survey results revealed that foreign language instruction remained relatively stable at the high school level over the past decade but decreased substantially in elementary and middle schools. Moreover, only a small percentage of the elementary and middle schools not teaching languages planned to implement a language program within the next two years. The findings indicate a serious disconnect between the national call to educate world citizens with high-level language skills and the current state of foreign language instruction in schools across the country. This report contains complete survey results, along with recommendations on developing rigorous long sequence (K-12 programs whose goals are for students to achieve high levels of language proficiency, and are of interest to anyone interested in increasing language capacity in the United States. 2009.

Jay Matthews comments.

Pittsburgh Mayor Strikes a Deal to Abandon Tuition Tax

Ian Urbina:

In what he described as a “leap of faith,” Mayor Luke Ravenstahl of Pittsburgh agreed on Monday to shelve his plans for the nation’s first tax on college tuition in exchange for an increase in voluntary contributions from local colleges and universities to the city.
City officials said the mayor also had a promise from university officials to help lobby state lawmakers in Harrisburg for changes to enable the city to raise certain taxes and fees.
“This is a leap of faith for us all; the future of our city and of our citizens is riding on it,” Mr. Ravenstahl said. “But it is a leap of faith that, if successful, will result in the revenue, $15 million annually, that Pittsburgh needs to solve our legacy cost problem.”
City and university officials declined to offer details about the commitment, but at a joint news conference on Monday morning, officials from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University said they had pledged to make larger voluntary donations to the city than they did from 2005 to 2007. In addition, some local corporations, including the insurer Highmark, are contributing additional money.

Doyle calls special legislative session for Milwaukee Public Schools changes

Patrick Marley:

Citing low Milwaukee Public Schools’ scores on a new national assessment, Gov. Jim Doyle called for a special legislative session for Dec. 16 to give the Milwaukee mayor the power to appoint the school superintendent.
That’s the same day lawmakers hope to pass a bill to toughen drunken driving laws.
Doyle for weeks has pushed for the change to help secure a share of $4.35 billion in federal Race to the Top funds. But he faces strong opposition from some of his fellow Democrats who control the Legislature.
“I am calling a special session of the Legislature because we must act now to drive real change that improves students’ performance, month after month and year after year,” Doyle said in a statement. “The children at Milwaukee Public Schools are counting on the adults around them to prepare them for success.”
But opponents of the plan said they will continue to fight the measure.
“It is disappointing that Gov. Doyle has decided to ignore the will of Milwaukee’s citizens and continue his push for a mayoral takeover of Milwaukee Public Schools,” Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) said in a statement. “MPS needs serious reform, but the top-down approach for which he advocates lacks the level of community engagement and consideration that any proposal of this magnitude requires.”

The masters of education With the Gates Foundation grant in hand, Memphis City Schools will funnel incentives to develop the best and brightest teachers and seed the system with role models

Jane Roberts:

Kimberly Hamilton arrives and leaves work in the dark so often, custodians at Winchester Elementary School are on alert not to lock her in or out.
“If I leave at 5 o’clock, someone’s putting a hand to my forehead to see if I have a fever,” she says, laughing at the absurdity, but serious about the hours it takes to move children from barely proficient to mastery.
She teaches her third-graders to get along with others, be good citizens, live in a violent society and dream for the future.
The $90 million grant the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded this month to Memphis City Schools to improve the effectiveness of its teachers offers Hamilton the biggest one-time raise she could ever hope for in public education, going from the $49,000 she earned last year to the $75,000 base pay proposed for the district’s most talented teachers.

Fiscal Health of Colorado School Districts

Colorado State Auditor [270K PDF]:

This report provides information on the Fiscal Health Analysis of the State’s school districts performed by the Local Government Audit Division of the Office of the State Auditor (OSA). The Fiscal Health Analysis provides a set of financial indicators for each school district that may be used by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), school districts, local government officials, and citizens to evaluate the financial health of Colorado’s school districts. These financial indicators can warn of financial stress that may require examination and remedial action by the appropriate parties.
In Colorado, 178 school districts provide public education to more than 800,000 children enrolled in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). Funding for each school district’s total program is provided first by local sources of revenue, primarily through a property tax levy to finance the district’s local share. The General Assembly provides additional funding to supplement local revenue in order to fully fund the district’s program. This additional funding is based on a formula that considers, in part, the school district’s annual pupil count, as well as the district’s local share of revenues. In Fiscal Year 2008, the General Assembly provided more than $3 billion to school districts as the state share of districts’ total program funding.

Madison schools — “the biggest loser”

Susan Troller:

Despite an ailing economy, Madison School Board members were guardedly optimistic last spring as they put together the district’s preliminary 2009-2010 budget. The community had overwhelmingly passed a referendum the previous fall that allowed the district to exceed state revenue caps, providing an extra $13 million to the district through 2012.
As a result, the board was anticipating a rare year where public school programs and services were not on the chopping block and was looking forward to crafting a budget with minimal property tax increases. Initial projections worked out to a $2.50 increase on an average $250,000 Madison home on this year’s tax bill.
For once, it looked as if both parents and taxpayers would be happy with the budget, a rare scenario in Wisconsin where school spending formulas and revenue caps often seem tailor-made to pit taxpayers against school advocates.
But the preliminary budget plan the Madison district drew up and approved in May predated the news that Wisconsin’s revenue situation was far worse than predicted. The result was a steep reduction in what the state’s 438 school districts would get from Wisconsin’s general school aid fund. The drop in general school aid amounted to $149 million, or 3 percent.
These cuts, however, would not be shared equally across every district, and the formula used was particularly unkind to Madison, which overnight saw a gaping hole of more than $9 million, a drop in aid not seen by any other district in the state.
“We were so happy last spring. In retrospect, it was really kind of pitiful,” says Lucy Mathiak, vice president of Madison’s School Board. The mood was decidedly more downbeat, she notes, in late October when the board gave its final approval to the $350 million 2009-2010 school district budget.

I’m glad Susan mentioned the District’s total spending. While such budget changes are difficult, many public and private organizations are facing revenue challenges. The Madison School District has long spent more per student than most Districts in Wisconsin and has enjoyed annual revenue growth of around 5.25% over the past 20+ years – despite state imposed “revenue caps” and flat enrollment.
Some can argue that more should be spent. In my view, the District MUST complete the oft discussed program review as soon as possible and determine how effective its expenditures are. Board Vice President Lucy Mathiak again raised the issue of evaluating math curriculum effectiveness via University of Wisconsin System entrance exam results and college placement. This request has fallen on deaf ears within the MMSD Administration for some time. [Madison School Board Math Discussion 40MB mp3 audio (Documents and links).] I very much appreciate Lucy’s comments. The District’s extensive use of Reading Recovery should also be evaluated in terms of effectiveness and student skills. The District should be planning for a tighter budget climate in this, the Great Recession.
Finally, I found Marj Passman’s comments in the article interesting:

“I understand that the economy is terrible, but for years we heard that the reason we had this school funding mess was because we had Republicans in charge who were basically content with the status quo,” says board member Marj Passman. “I had expected so much change and leadership on school funding issues with a Democratic governor and a Democratic Legislature. Honestly, we’ve got Rep. Pocan and Sen. Miller as co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee and Democratic majorities in both houses! Frankly, it’s been a huge disappointment. I’d love to see that little beer tax raised and have it go to education.”

In my view, we’re much better off with “divided” government. The current Governor and legislative majority’s budget included a poor change to the arbitration rules between school districts and teacher unions:

To make matters more dire, the long-term legislative proposal specifically exempts school district arbitrations from the requirement that arbitrators consider and give the greatest weight to revenue limits and local economic conditions. While arbitrators would continue to give these two factors paramount consideration when deciding cases for all other local governments, the importance of fiscal limits and local economic conditions would be specifically diminished for school district arbitration.

Madison School District Spending History.
It’s good to see Susan Troller writing about local school issues.

Paul Solman Answers Students’ Economic Questions

NewsHour:

Economics correspondent Paul Solman takes his Business Desk blog inside classrooms across the United States to respond to high school students’ most pressing questions about Wall Street, the recession and unemployment.
Question: How does it happen that the whole world is in a recession? –Kavion, senior, Central High School, Phoenix, Ariz.
Paul Solman: The whole world isn’t in a recession. China is growing; so is India; so is Brazil. Among them, those three countries alone have something like two-thirds our GDP and maybe nine times as many people as we do.
As to the parts of the world that are in recession — largely in Europe — it looks like the reason is because their citizens borrowed and spent “beyond their means.”

10/26/2009 =, < or > 4/6/2010 in Madison?

How will tonight’s property tax increase vote play out on April 6, 2010? Three Madison School Board seats will be on the ballot that day. The seats are currently occupied by:

	Beth Moss	Johnny Winston	Maya Cole
Terms	1	2	1
Regular Board Meetings > 2007 election	28	28	28
Absent	4 (14%)	3 (10.7%)	3 (10.7%)
Interviews:	2007 Video	2004 Video (Election info)	2007 Video

I emailed Beth, Johnny and Maya recently to see if they plan to seek re-election in the April 6, 2010 election. I will publish any responses received.
What issues might be on voters minds in five months?:

• The District’s $418,415,780 2009/2010 budget [1.1MB PDF] ($412,219,577 2008/2009 and $399,835,904 in 2007/2008) and recent property tax increases (the decline in Wisconsin K-12 spending growth – after years of substantial increases is a factor), but dealing with less is a reality for many citizens.
• Governance, in terms of
  • program effectiveness review,
  • Madison School District & Madison Teachers Union Reach Tentative Agreement: 3.93% Increase Year 1, 3.99% Year 2; Base Rate $33,242 Year 1, $33,575 Year 2: Requires 50% MTI 4K Members and will “Review the content and frequency of report cards”
  • the math,
  • fine arts,
  • talented and gifted task forces
  • and the full implementation of “infinite campus“, which should reduce costs and improve services

  .

• The term high school redesign appears occasionally along with small learning communities.
• General district and possibly school governance issues may be topical as well.

• National conversations regarding
  • Education school rigor (The UW-Madison School of Education has significant influence on our local District),
  • teacher tenure
  • and Madison’s lack of substantial charter school options

  may also be on voter minds.

Pittsburgh’s model of school governance reform

Milwaukee Public Policy Forum:

In the past few weeks Milwaukee has had numerous town hall meetings, panel discussions, and presentations regarding the idea of school district governance reform. At issue is whether the mayor of Milwaukee should be in charge of the Milwaukee Public Schools, rather than an independent board of directors.

At each of these meetings, accountability has been thrown about as both an argument for and against a mayoral take-over of the district. Perhaps a mayor elected in a higher turn-out citywide election would provide more accountability; or maybe losing the opportunity to elect a school board representative would disenfranchise certain voters, diluting accountability.

In Pittsburgh, civic leaders, parents, and citizens decided to stop talking about accountability and actually implement it. A local nonprofit group, A+ Schools: Pittsburgh’s Community Alliance for Public Education, started an initiative called “Board Watch” last winter. The idea is quite simple: send volunteers to attend every board and committee meeting and have them report to the public whether the board is being effective in meeting the district’s strategic goals.

Harvard’s Hollow Core

“The philosophy behind the core is that educated people are not those who have read many books and have learned many facts but rather those who could analyze facts if they should ever happen to encounter any, and who could ‘approach’ books if it were ever necessary to do so.”

Caleb Nelson ’88 (Mathematics) writing in The Atlantic Monthly, September 1990:

Even before Harvard’s Core Curriculum made its debut, in 1979, Saturday Review hailed it as “a quiet revolution.” The magazine was wrong on both counts: not only was the core unrevolutionary but it rapidly became one of the loudest curricula in America. Time, Newsweek, and other popular periodicals celebrated the new program, which required undergraduates to take special courses designed to reveal the methods–not the content–of the various academic disciplines. “Not since…1945,” The Washington Post said, “had the academic world dared to devise a new formula for developing ‘the educated man.'” The reform was front-page news for The New York Times, and even network television covered it. Media enthusiasm continues today, with Edward Fiske, the former education editor of The New York Times advising readers of The Fiske Guide to Colleges: “Back in the mid-1970s Harvard helped launch the current curriculum reform movement, and the core curriculum that emerged ranks as perhaps the most exciting collection of academic offerings in all of American higher education.”
The core did indeed start a movement. A 1981 report issued by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching spoke of “the Harvard lead” and recommended a general-education program that put more emphasis on “the shared relationships common to all people” than on any particular facts. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill soon adopted the Harvard approach, and other schools have instituted programs that stress skills over facts. The structures of these programs vary, but the Harvard core’s singular influence is suggested by Ernest Boyer’s 1987 book College: The Undergraduate Experience in America. Boyer’s survey of academic deans at colleges and universities nationwide found that the Harvard core was the most frequently mentioned example of a successful program of general education.
For their part, Harvard officials seem delighted with the program. A. Michael Spence, who just finished a six-year term as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, has labeled it “a smash hit”; President Derek Bok has heralded its “enormous success.” Indeed, Bok, who will step down next year after two decades at the helm, said in 1983, when the faculty approved the continuation of the core, that the development of the program had given him more satisfaction than any other project undertaken during his presidency. In 1985 the members of Harvard’s chief governing board showed that they had no complaints either when the elected the core’s architect, Henry Rosovsky, to their number. (Rosovsky, who preceded Spence as dean of the faculty, has now been appointed acting dean while Harvard searches for Spence’s permanent replacement.) The program recently marked its tenth anniversary, and no fundamental changes are on the horizon.
Forty-five years ago Harvard had a clear idea of its mission. In 1945 it published a 267-page book laying out goals for educators, with the hope of giving American colleges and secondary schools a “unifying purpose and idea.” The thrust of this volume, titled General Education in a Free Society but nicknamed “the Redbook,” was that educational institutions should strive to create responsible democratic citizens, well versed in the heritage of the West and endowed with “the common knowledge and the common values on which a free society depends.” As James Bryant Conant, then the president of Harvard, once summed up his goal, “Our purpose is to cultivate in the largest possible number of our future citizens an appreciation of both the responsibilities and the benefits which come to them because they are Americans and are free.”
To accomplish this goal at Harvard, the Redbook recommended that every undergraduate be required to take two full-year survey courses, tentatively called “Great Texts of Literature” and “Western Thought and Institutions,” and a full-year course on the principles of either the physical or the biological sciences. The Harvard faculty balked at this specific program, but it endorsed the Redbook’s essence. In each of three areas–the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences–it established a short list of approved courses. The general education program was first required in the fall of 1949 and was fully phased in two years later, when all entering students were required to do two semesters of approved coursework in each area.

High School Civics: Mourning Constitutional

Matthew Ladner, via a kind reader’s email:

September 17 is Constitution Day, marking the day 222 years ago in Philadelphia when the Constitution of the United States was signed. Legend has it that a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, as he was leaving the constitutional convention, what sort of government had been created. Franklin’s reply: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
A major justification for supporting a system of public schools has been the promotion of a general diffusion of civic knowledge necessary for a well-informed citizenry. America’s founders, hoping to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” knew that our system of ordered liberty would endure only if its citizens understood the nation’s guiding principles. The endurance of American liberty, the founders believed, depends upon a broad knowledge of the nation’s history and an understanding of its institutions.
Charles N. Quigley, writing for the Progressive Policy Institute, once explained the critical nature of civic knowledge: “From this nation’s earliest days, leaders such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams recognized that even the well-designed institutions are not sufficient to maintain a free society. Ultimately, a vibrant democracy must rely on the knowledge, skill, and virtues of its citizens and their elected officials. Education that imparts that knowledge and skill and fosters those virtues is essential to the preservation and improvement of American constitutional democracy and civic life.
“The goal of education in civics and government is informed, responsible participation in political life by citizens committed to the fundamental values and principles of American constitutional democracy.”1
For its part, the State of Oklahoma also lays out the goals of social studies education. According to the state’s academic standards: “Oklahoma schools teach social studies in Kindergarten through Grade 12. … However it is presented, social studies as a field of study incorporates many disciplines in an integrated fashion, and is designed to promote civic competence. Civic competence is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required of students to be able to assume ‘the office of citizen,’ as Thomas Jefferson called it.

How To Remake Education

New York Times Magazine:

Beyond Testing
The single biggest problem in American education is that no one agrees on why we educate. Faced with this lack of consensus, policy makers define good education as higher test scores. But higher test scores are not a definition of good education. Students can get higher scores in reading and mathematics yet remain completely ignorant of science, the arts, civics, history, literature and foreign languages.
Why do we educate? We educate because we want citizens who are capable of taking responsibility for their lives and for our democracy. We want citizens who understand how their government works, who are knowledgeable about the history of their nation and other nations. We need citizens who are thoroughly educated in science. We need people who can communicate in other languages. We must ensure that every young person has the chance to engage in the arts.
But because of our narrow-minded utilitarianism, we have forgotten what good education is.
DIANE RAVITCH
Ravitch is a historian. Her book ”The Death and Life of the Great American School System” will be published in February.
Do Away With B.A.
Discredit the bachelor’s degree as a job credential. It does not signify the acquisition of a liberal education. It does not even tell an employer that the graduate can put together a logical and syntactically correct argument. It serves as rough and unreliable evidence of a degree of intelligence and perseverance — that’s it. Yet across much of the job market, young people can’t get their foot in the door without that magic piece of paper.
As President Obama promotes community colleges, he could transform the national conversation about higher education if he acknowledges the B.A. has become meaningless. Then perhaps three reforms can begin: community colleges and their online counterparts will become places to teach and learn without any reference to the bachelor’s degree; the status associated with the bachelor’s degree will be lessened; and colleges will be forced to demonstrate just what their expensive four-year undergraduate programs do better, not in theory but in practice.
CHARLES MURRAY
Murray is the W. H. Brady scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of ”Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality.”

Hungry for China business, Singapore is busily making Mandarin its first language

Nopporn Wong-Anan:

A cacophony of Mandarin and English echoes through the streets of Singapore’s Chinatown as crowds of shoppers buy mooncakes and other seasonal delicacies to mark the Mid-Autumn Festival.
English has long united the ethnically diverse city state, but Singapore’s leaders now foresee a time when Mandarin will be its dominant language and they are aggressively encouraging their citizens to become fluent in Chinese.
“Both English and Mandarin are important because in different situations you use either language. But Mandarin has become more important,” says Chinatown shopkeeper Eng Yee Lay.
Hit hard by the global slowdown, Singapore is seeking to leverage the language skills of its ethnic Chinese majority to secure a larger slice of the mainland’s rapidly expanding economic pie.

Literacy in Schools: Writing in Trouble

Surely if we can raise our academic standards for math and science, then, with a little attention and effort, we can restore the importance of literacy in our public high schools. Reading is the path to knowledge and writing is the way to make knowledge one’s own.
Education.com
17 September 2009
by Will Fitzhugh
Source: Education.com Member Contribution
Topics: Writing Conventions
[originally published in the New Mexico Journal of Reading, Spring 2009]
For many years, Lucy Calkins, described once in Education Week as “the Moses of reading and writing in American education” has made her major contributions to the dumbing down of writing in our schools. She once wrote to me that: “I teach writing, I don’t get into content that much.” This dedication to contentless writing has spread, in part through her influence, into thousands and thousands of classrooms, where “personal” writing has been blended with images, photos, and emails to become one of the very most anti-academic and anti-intellectual elements of the education we now offer our children, K-12.
In 2004, the College Board’s National Commission on Writing in the Schools issued a call for more attention to writing in the schools, and it offered an example of the sort of high school writing “that shows how powerfully our students can express their emotions”:
“The time has come to fight back and we are. By supporting our leaders and each other, we are stronger than ever. We will never forget those who died, nor will we forgive those who took them from us.”
Or look at the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the supposed gold standard for evaluating academic achievement in U.S. schools, as measured and reported by the National Center for Education Statistics. In its 2002 writing assessment, in which 77 percent of 12th graders scored “Basic” or “Below Basic,” NAEP scored the following student response “Excellent.” The prompt called for a brief review of a book worth preserving. In a discussion of Herman Hesse’s Demian, in which the main character grows up, the student wrote,

“High school is a wonderful time of self-discovery, where teens bond with several groups of friends, try different foods, fashions, classes and experiences, both good and bad. The end result in May of senior year is a mature and confident adult, ready to enter the next stage of life.”

It is obvious that this “Excellent” high school writer is expressing more of his views on his own high school experience than on anything Herman Hesse might have had in mind, but that still allows this American student writer to score very high on the NAEP assessment of writing.
This year, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has released a breakthrough report on writing called “Writing in the 21st Century,” which informs us, among other things, that:

That, my friends, is what totalitarianism is all about: Education in Venezuela

Thomas P.M. Barnett:

Last time Hugo started screwing with the schools, he got himself a coup attempt in response. Since then he’s spent a ton of time and money and police effort to try and eliminate all such enemies.
A new August law shoved through the rubber-stamp Parliament “already has the opposition talking of civil disobedience.”
Naturally, this will be an American plot, because any such spontaneous popular civil disobedience could ONLY come as a result of American meddling, and not the bad actions of dictators nor their fed-up and brutalized citizens.
Teaching will be structured now according to “Bolivarian doctrine.” Hmm, sounds promising all right. The ruling socialist party will run all the schools through their community store fronts known as “communal councils.” The central gov will directly determine who gets into college and will take control of the training of teachers.

The value of education: Obama’s message good for any classroom

Greg Jordan:

Tuesday I went to Bluefield Intermediate School and watched as fourth-grade students did something that just didn’t happen when I was their age — listen to the president of the United States.
President Obama urged them and other students across the country to stay in school and strive to succeed despite any adversity fate threw their way. He recounted his own struggles to acquire an education, and spoke about how education was a vital part of finding success.
He stayed off controversial topics such as health care and bills like cap and trade, and kept driving home the fact that students needed to take advantage of their opportunities to get an education.
The sight of those children getting to see a live broadcast of the president’s speech brought to mind that time so many years ago when I first heard the word “president.” Things have really changed.

Greg Toppo:

Obama to kids: ‘You can’t drop out of school and into a good job’
President Obama delivered a pointed message to U.S. students Tuesday, telling high-schoolers in a packed Washington-area school gymnasium, “I expect you to get serious this year.”
Ignoring a simmering controversy among political opponents over the planned speech, which was broadcast live coast-to-coast, Obama exhorted students at Wakefield High School to stay in school, ask for help when they need it and resist giving up when school gets difficult. “You can’t drop out of school and into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.”

Wall Street Journal:

A Real Education Outrage
President Obama’s speech to students this week got plenty of attention, and many conservatives looked foolish by fretting about “indoctrination.” They would have done far more good joining those who protested on Tuesday against the President’s decision to shut down a school voucher program for 1,700 low-income kids in Washington, D.C.
“It’s fundamentally wrong for this Administration not to listen to the voices of citizens in this city,” said Kevin Chavous, the former D.C. Council member who organized the protest of parents and kids ignored by most media. Mr. Chavous, a Democrat, is upset that the White House and Democrats in Congress have conspired to shut down the program even though the government’s own evaluation demonstrates improved test scores.

The Politics of President Obama’s “Back to School Speech” Beamed to Classrooms

Foon Rhee:

Here’s the latest exhibit on how polarized the country is and how much distrust exists of President Obama.
He plans what seems like a simple speech to students around the country on Tuesday to encourage them to do well in school.
But some Republicans are objecting to the back-to-school message, asserting that Obama wants to indoctrinate students.
Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer said in a statement that he is “absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology” and “liberal propaganda.”
Wednesday, after the White House announced the speech, the Department of Education followed up with a letter to school principals and a lesson plan.
Critics pointed to the part of the lesson plan that originally recommended having students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.”

Eric Kleefeld:

The Department of Education has now changed their supplementary materials on President Obama’s upcoming address to schoolchildren on the importance of education — eliminating a phrase that some conservatives, such as the Florida GOP, happened to have been bashing as evidence of socialist indoctrination in our schools.
In a set of bullet points listed under a heading, “Extension of the Speech,” one of the points used to say: “Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.”
However, that bullet point now reads as follows: “Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short‐term and long‐term education goals. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.”

Alyson Klein:

om Horne, Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction, put out his own statement, with an education-oriented critique of the speech and its lesson plans.
Here’s a snippet from his statement:

The White House materials call for a worshipful, rather than critical approach to this speech. For example, the White House communication calls for the students to have ‘notable quotes excerpted (and posted in large print on the board),’ and for the students to discuss ‘how will he inspire us,’ among other things. …In general, in keeping with good education practice, students should be taught to read and think critically about statements coming from politicians and historical figures.

Eduwonk:

Just as it quickly became impossible to have a rationale discussion about health care as August wore on, we could be heading that way on education. If you haven’t heard (don’t get cable news?), President Obama plans to give a speech to the nation’s schoolchildren next week. To accompany it the Department of Education prepared a – gasp – study guide with some ideas for how teachers can use the speech as a, dare I say it, teachable moment.
Conservatives are screaming that this is unprecedented and amounts to indoctrination and a violation of the federal prohibition on involvement in local curricular decisions. Even the usually level-headed Rick Hess has run to the ramparts. We’re getting lectured on indoctrination by the same people who paid national commentators to covertly promote their agenda.
Please. Enough. The only thing this episode shows is how thoroughly broken our politics are. Let’s take the two “issues” in turn.

Michael Alison Chandler & Michael Shear:

The speech, which will be broadcast live from Wakefield High School in Arlington County, was planned as an inspirational message “entirely about encouraging kids to work hard and stay in school,” said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor. Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to principals nationwide encouraging them to show it.
But the announcement of the speech prompted a frenzied response from some conservatives, who called it an attempt to indoctrinate students, not motivate them.

I think Max Blumenthal provides the right perspective on this political matter:

Although Eisenhower is commonly remembered for a farewell address that raised concerns about the “military-industrial complex,” his letter offers an equally important — and relevant — warning: to beware the danger posed by those seeking freedom from the “mental stress and burden” of democracy.
The story began in 1958, when Eisenhower received a letter from Robert Biggs, a terminally ill World War II veteran. Biggs told the president that he “felt from your recent speeches the feeling of hedging and a little uncertainty.” He added, “We wait for someone to speak for us and back him completely if the statement is made in truth.”
Eisenhower could have discarded Biggs’s note or sent a canned response. But he didn’t. He composed a thoughtful reply. After enduring Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who had smeared his old colleague Gen. George C. Marshall as a Communist sympathizer, and having guarded the Republican Party against the newly emergent radical right John Birch Society, which labeled him and much of his cabinet Soviet agents, the president perhaps welcomed the opportunity to expound on his vision of the open society.
“I doubt that citizens like yourself could ever, under our democratic system, be provided with the universal degree of certainty, the confidence in their understanding of our problems, and the clear guidance from higher authority that you believe needed,” Eisenhower wrote on Feb. 10, 1959. “Such unity is not only logical but indeed indispensable in a successful military organization, but in a democracy debate is the breath of life.”

Critical thinking is good for kids and good for society.
I attended a recent Russ Feingold lunch [mp3 audio]. He spoke on a wide range of issues and commendably, took many open forum questions (unlike many elected officials), including mine “How will history view our exploding federalism?”. A fellow luncheon guest asked about Obama’s use of “Czar’s” (operating outside of Senate review and confirmation). Feingold rightly criticized this strategy, which undermines the Constitution.
I would generally not pay much attention to this, but for a friends recent comment that his daughter’s elementary school (Madison School District) teacher assigned six Obama coloring projects last spring.
Wall Street Journal Editorial:

President Obama’s plan to speak to America’s schoolchildren next Tuesday has some Republicans in an uproar. “As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology,” thunders Jim Greer, chairman of Florida’s Republican Party, in a press release. “President Obama has turned to American’s children to spread his liberal lies, indoctrinating American’s [sic] youngest children before they have a chance to decide for themselves.” Columnists who spy a conspiracy behind every Democrat are also spreading alarm.
This is overwrought, to say the least. According to the Education Department’s Web site, Mr. Obama “will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning”–hardly the stuff of the Communist Manifesto or even the Democratic Party platform. America’s children are not so vulnerable that we need to slap an NC-17 rating on Presidential speeches. Given how many minority children struggle in school, a pep talk from the first African-American President could even do some good.
On the other hand, the Department of Education goes a little too far in its lesson plans for teachers to use in conjunction with the speech–especially the one for grades 7 through 12. Before the speech, teachers are urged to use “notable quotes excerpted (and posted in large print on board) from President Obama’s speeches about education” and to “brainstorm” with students about the question “How will he inspire us?” Suggested topics for postspeech discussion include “What resonated with you from President Obama’s speech?” and “What is President Obama inspiring you to do?”

Latino groups back Milwaukee Schools Mayoral takeover proposal; opponents rally at church

Georgia Pabst & Jessa Garza:

Two leading Latino organizations voiced support for the takeover of Milwaukee Public Schools proposed by Gov. Jim Doyle and Mayor Tom Barrett, while nearly 150 people rallied against the plan Friday at a north side church.
Darryl D. Morin, Wisconsin director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said his organization spent the last two years holding seminars on local educational issues and decided to endorse the proposal after evaluating various options.
But he also called for a mandatory reauthorization for the takeover so that voters could determine whether the new system is working.
“There’s an educational crisis in Milwaukee, and the primary question is how long will we wait,” he said. “It’s time to rise up together and say now is the time. Milwaukee can’t afford to fail its future.”
He was joined by Maria Monreal-Cameron, president and CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin, who said the city stands at a crossroads.
“We need to try something different because the current educational system is broken, and we need to fix it,” she said.
Their endorsement of the proposed takeover is the first organized public support for the plan, which has drawn fire from many, including School Board President Michael Bonds.

Madison Public Schools’ Arts education gets needed support

Anne Katz & Barbara Schrank, co-chairwomen, MMSD Arts Task Force, via a kind reader’s email:

Kudos and thanks to the Madison School District Board of Education and Superintendent Dan Nerad for their support of arts education opportunities for all students, with additional thanks to members of the Arts Education Task Force.
The task force of art teachers and citizens has worked since 2007 with Board members and administrative and teaching staff on a plan that supports, enhances and sustains arts education in Madison’s public schools. The Board approved the plan on July 20.
In adopting the plan, the Board showed support of the arts as a priority for a quality public education.
The process took hard work by committee members, administrative and teaching staff and input from over 1,000 community members who have been thoughtful, inquisitive and dedicated to nurturing students’ talent and creativity through the arts. These plans will move forward with leadership, support and a strong partnership between the district and the community.
We are proud to live in a community with educational leaders who understand that arts and creativity are essential components of a 21st century education.

Milwaukee Public Schools targeted in complaint over instruction of English as second language

Georgia Pabst:

Milwaukee Public Schools is not complying with civil rights law in effectively teaching English to Spanish-speaking students, according to a federal complaint filed by the League of United Latin American Citizens of Wisconsin.
The complaint, filed at the Office of Civil Rights in the U. S. Department of Education office in Chicago, claims MPS and the Milwaukee School Board are not complying with the Civil Rights Act.
The district receives federal funds for teaching English to students who speak another language, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that school districts must help such students overcome language barriers so they can succeed in all of their classes, said Darryl Morin, state director of LULAC.
“LULAC of Wisconsin has serious concerns regarding the education theory, programming and resources allocated to these efforts at MPS,” he said.
Morin said MPS has used uncertified and unqualified teachers in the program.
The U.S. Department of Education confirmed that its Office of Civil Rights has received the complaint. Jim Bradshaw, a spokesman for the department in Washington, D.C., said the office is evaluating the complaint to determine whether an investigation is appropriate. The evaluation process should take about a month, he said.
MPS spokeswoman Roseann St. Aubin said district officials can’t comment because they just received the complaint Tuesday and have not reviewed it.