schoolinfosystem.org
Gregg Toppo: Since 2002, when No Child Left Behind became law, states have spent millions of dollars giving standardized reading and math tests; one estimate puts the total cost above $5 billion through 2008. The law requires that about half of all students take the tests and that schools improve each spring so they can […]
Jim V: Moneyball didn’t lead to a paradigm shift for my students, but it did for me. I have not thought about my own work in the same way since reading it. How do we determine what counts as excellence in teaching? I wish I could be evaluated according to the nice things students write […]
Some see little change in picking top students Amy Hetzner Frustrated in her efforts over the years to have her son’s academic abilities recognized, Gina Villa-Grimsby finally asked the Oconto Falls School District to provide her with its criteria for identifying gifted students. What she got was its policy on how to appeal decisions in […]
Deborah Solomon: In Washington and statehouses across the country, preschool is moving to the head of the class. Florida and Oklahoma are among the states that have started providing free preschool for any 4-year-old whose parents want it. Illinois and New York plan to do the same. Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to spend $15 billion […]
Both articles below are at best, thinly related to this site’s purpose. However, I think they each merit a link and a read: Thailand to keep on repatriating Hmong to Laos by Pracha Hariraksapitak: Thailand has no plans to halt its repatriation of ethnic Hmong to communist Laos despite appeals by U.S. Congressmen and the […]
Robert Rothman: As the unprecedented push to improve American education enters the midpoint of its third decade, reformers can claim some success. Yet no one would argue that the job is done, particularly in the nation’s cities. Even the most successful urban school districts, the winners of the Broad Prize for Urban Education, would acknowledge […]
Julie Henry: A leading scientist has dismissed the latest approach to teaching that has been endorsed by the Government and embraced by teachers. Under the new system children are considered to have different “learning styles” and instead of being taught by the conventional method of listening to a teacher, they should be allowed to wander […]
I noticed the district is applying for a grant to the BOE in relation to the High School Small Communities. I have a couple of thoughts relating to this issue. First of all, I applaud your effort in making our large high school more intimate. It seem in an emotional way logical that the high […]
Oh, that every one of our high schools had a “AAA” (“African American Achievement”) Team. —LAF Susan Troller The Capital Times 8/1/2007 The only guy who can truly hold you back is the guy in the mirror,” cartoonist Robb Armstrong told a group of mostly male, mostly African-American students at La Follette High School on […]
Neal McCluskey: NCLB’s biggest problem is that it’s designed to help Washington politicians appear all things to all people. To look tough on bad schools, it requires states to establish standards and tests in reading, math and science, and it requires all schools to make annual progress toward 100% reading and math proficiency by 2014. […]
Andy Hall: Madison resident Allison Cizek, 5, is about to enter kindergarten, but a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that restricts the use of race in assigning children to schools may influence which school district she attends. Allison ‘s parents, Jeff and Jennifer Cizek, filed a petition in Dane County Circuit Court on Thursday seeking […]
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaking to the Urban League: “Next year is the 25th Anniversary of the publication of ‘A Nation at Risk,’ the landmark study that showed how American students were falling behind students in other nations – and the consequences we would face if it continued. Well, it did continue – and it […]
Arnold Kling: “We have been inexorably centralizing control over the schools in this country for 150 years. We’ve gone from one-room schoolhouses overseen directly by the parents of the children who attended them to sprawling bureaucracies that consume half of the operating budgets of their respective states. We’ve gone from 127,000 school districts in 1932 […]
Mike Stobbe: Fewer than half of American children who live close to school regularly walk or bike to classes, according to a new study that highlights a dramatic shift toward car commuting. Children in the South did the least amount of walking or cycling, partly because of safety concerns, experts say. The issue is considered […]
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Editorial Board: Kindergarten for 3-year-olds has been a smash hit at Bruce Guadalupe Community School on Milwaukee’s near south side, where, bucking what is supposed to be their fate, low-income students perform at a high academic level. Jill Matusin, who teaches 5-year-olds at the charter school, swears by 3K. “The difference – it […]
Charles Murray: The SAT got him into Harvard from a small Iowa town. But now, CHARLES MURRAY wants to abolish the test. It’s unnecessary and, worse, a negative force in American life. For most high school students who want to attend an elite college, the SAT is more than a test. It is one of […]
Rachel Tuinsta: Educators and parents say it’s a debate between conceptual vs. computational math. It’s a battle centered around curriculum, teaching materials and textbooks with the question on everyone’s mind: What is the best way for students to learn math? The debate has spurred Eastside parents to sign petitions and lobby district officials for changes; […]
A few weeks ago, the Madison BOE received a summary of what the board and its committees had done in its meetings during the past year. I am posting the entire document as an extended entry as community information. It provides a lot more detail, a good overview, and a glimpse at the pieces that […]
Motoko Rich: Of all the magical powers wielded by Harry Potter, perhaps none has cast a stronger spell than his supposed ability to transform the reading habits of young people. In what has become near mythology about the wildly popular series by J. K. Rowling, many parents, teachers, librarians and booksellers have credited it with […]
Jonathan Kozol: Congress has an opportunity to take advantage of the opening created by Justice Kennedy later this year when it reauthorizes the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The law gives children the right to transfer from a low-performing school to a high-performing school if the low-performing school has failed to demonstrate adequate improvement […]
Erin Zagursky: Choice is generally thought to be a good thing. But with any choice comes consequence–intentional or otherwise. When it comes to choosing where our children go to school, researchers have found as educational choices increase, our public schools become more racially segregated. Salvatore Saporito and Deenesh Sohoni, faculty in William and Mary’s sociology […]
www.tutorvista.com: Our mission is to provide world-class tutoring and high-quality content to students around the world. TutorVista.com is the premier online destination for affordable education – anytime, anywhere and in any subject. Students can access our service from the convenience of their home or school. They use our comprehensive and thorough lessons and question bank […]
Madison Metropolitan School District: This summer the Madison School District is again running a summer library access project. The project’s primary goal is to ensure that Madison elementary-age school children, from both public and private schools, have easy access to library materials during their summer break. By providing such access, the district hopes to minimize […]
Samuel Freedman: Allison Rabenau celebrated an inauspicious milestone on the otherwise unremarkable day of Oct. 18, 2004. Six weeks into her first year as a teacher, she finally taught a class. Ms. Rabenau had left a long career as a stage manager in the commercial theater to learn how to teach English as a second […]
Tom Shuford: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Thomas Jefferson The Fourth of July is fireworks, festivities and images of a gathering of remarkable men determined “to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and […]
Alan Borsuk: As the end of its budget year approached last week, Milwaukee Public Schools had not spent more than $50 million slated to be used for the 2006-’07 school year. Administrators say that if they hadn’t spent the money by June 30, it would have hurt MPS in the future because of state school […]
Norma Love: New Hampshire will be responsible to pay for more than the three Rs under a new law defining a constitutionally adequate education but taxpayers won’t get the bill for months. Gov. John Lynch signed the law yesterday, the first step in the state’s effort to answer a court ruling that it define its […]
Jon Boone: Two of the world’s most buccaneering education entrepreneurs have teamed up to build 60 multimillion-dollar schools in big cities across the world. The network of high-end international schools will cater to the children of bankers, diplomats and executives who have to regularly uproot their families. With annual fees between $15,000 and $40,000, depending […]
David Herszenhorn: The Beginning With Children Charter School, housed in a former factory in Brooklyn, landed on the state’s list of high-performing schools this year, thanks to rising English and math test scores among black and Hispanic students. But its founders and wealthy patrons, Joseph H. and Carol F. Reich, who have poured hundreds of […]
Madison School Board President Arlene Silveira: This is the first in a series of articles focusing on the Madison School Board. The purpose is to familiarize you with who we are, how we do our work, and how we can work together to keep the Madison Metropolitan School District strong. — July 1 marks the […]
Erin Einhorn: The Daily News spent two months tracking down the 23 kindergarteners who enrolled at Harlem’s PS 36 in 1994. Their journeys illuminate hardships students face in earning their high school degree. They were smart children who tested into a gifted kindergarten at Harlem’s Public School 36 in 1994, but Lance Patterson and Ronnie […]
Jay Matthews: Houston, where KIPP was born in 1994, and New Orleans, the site of a preliminary KIPP program before Katrina hit in September 2005, have been welcoming KIPP’s attempts to find more space for families who want a challenging public education for their children. The children who enrolled in KIPP NOW, all of them […]
Petter Kristensen and Tor Bjerkedal: Negative associations between birth order and intelligence level have been found in numerous studies. The explanation for this relation is not clear, and several hypotheses have been suggested. One family of hypotheses suggests that the relation is due to more-favorable family interaction and stimulation of low-birth-order children, whereas others claim […]
John Hechinger: The strategy backfired. One morning, Andrea swept an arm along the teacher’s desk, scattering framed photos of Ms. McDermott’s family across the classroom. A glass frame shattered, and another hit a student in the arm. Though no one was hurt, Ms. McDermott says she lost hours of instruction time getting the children to […]
Michael Alison Chandler: “It’s not that you don’t have some terrifically talented people going into teaching. You do,” said Richard J. Murnane, an economist at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. “The issue is that you don’t have enough. And many are the most likely to leave teaching, because they have lots of other opportunities.” […]
Samuel Freedman: The bridge between past and present, the ligament connecting her five years as an undergraduate, was a scholarship from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, one specifically intended for students like Ms. Alcazar who make the leap from a community college to an elite university. In its seven years of operation, the foundation has […]
Jane Gross & Stephanie Strom: The Wrights’ venture was also an effort to end the internecine warfare in the world of autism — where some are convinced that the disorder is genetic and best treated with intensive therapy, and others blame preservatives in vaccinations and swear by supplements and diet to cleanse the body of […]
Howard Rich: The flattened borders of the 21st century have made networking faster, global trade freer and competition more rigorous — meaning the premium we place on educating future generations is higher than ever before. Yet the nation’s monopolistic approach to education remains a millstone around our children’s necks, with America consistently lagging behind its […]
Carl Bialik: The potential benefits to citing the questionable numbers are clear: Raise awareness and rally support. The downsides are more subtle. Boiling down research into misleading soundbites risks credibility of the larger argument advocating early reading, and it obscures other indicators that have equal or greater impact on a child’s intellectual development. Todd Risley, […]
The Economist: AMONG the most commercial of cities, Hong Kong follows many markets; but none more intently than the trade in debentures tied to admissions to the city’s international primary and secondary schools. These non-interest-bearing bonds are typically issued to pay for construction or other costs. Bought by parents anxious to do the best by […]
Madison Metropolitan School District: The Madison Metropolitan School District and Madison Teachers Incorporated reached a tentative agreement yesterday on the terms and conditions of a new two-year collective bargaining agreement for MTI’s 2,400 member teacher bargaining unit. The contract, for the period from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2009, needs ratification from both the […]
Jonah Goldberg: Here’s a good question for you: Why have public schools at all? O.K., cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah and yada yada yada. We could say blah is common culture and yada is the government’s interest in promoting the general welfare. Or that children are the future. […]
Jay Matthews: And then we come to preschools. They have always struck me as beyond any sensible rating system, which is why I was stunned to find a new Web site, www.savvysource.com, trying to prove me wrong. I know how my wife and I, and our friends, found preschools when we had children that age. […]
Christina Samuels: The new law retains the previous measure’s concept of creating a “learning community” of the 11 districts, located in Douglas and Salpy counties, which educate about 100,000 children. The goal is for each school to have 35 percent students who are of low socioeconomic status. Students would be able to transfer freely between […]
Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce [330K PDF]: As will be seen, MPS already has many challenges: Declining student numbers and a host of viable options for K12 students and their families; Rising and, in some cases, difficult to control costs. Though MPS’s finances are similar to other large, diverse districts, […]
Mike Antonucci: The growth of education bureaucracy constitutes what former Education Secretary William Bennett once called “the education ‘blob.’” A 1998 study by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution defines “the blob” as nearly 40 Washington-based organizations, with more than 3,000 employees and combined budgets of more than $700 million. They have inter-locking directors, share staffs […]
Arlene Silveira: I want to clarify the facts about the Madison School Board’s decision on private school busing. This is a financial budget change with no hidden agenda. This is not about “us versus them.” This is not about Madison schools being “afraid of diversity.” We embrace diversity. Visit any of our schools and see […]
Gayle Worland: There are plenty of pages to turn in a library, though usually it’s between book covers. At the Pinney Branch Library, carefully arranged and locked behind glass, stand adventures in paper of a much different sort: “Origami By Children,” a traveling exhibit of tiny, ingeniously folded works selected in an international competition by […]
The Economist: NO exam question is as perplexing as how to organise schools to suit the huge variety of pupils they serve: rich and poor, clever and dim, early developers and late starters. Every country does it differently. Some try to spot talent early. Others winnow out the academic-minded only at 18. Some believe in […]
Amy Hetzner: What the law doesn’t mandate is how students such as Adam will be educated – even though state legislators have identified programming for students with gifts and talents as one of 20 essential components of public education. The result? A mixed bag of approaches for how Wisconsin students identified as gifted are educated. […]
She finds comfort in letters from hundreds of strangers, a campaign begun by Mill Valley sisters Ilene Lelchuk: Sitting in her living room amid stacks of handwritten letters from all over the nation and the world, 14-year-old Olivia Gardner of Novato said she no longer feels alone. A victim of extreme bullying that spanned two […]
Dodd, Alexander Call for Study of Access to Arts Education Introduce Resolution in Recognition of Music Education May 8, 2007 Today Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) sent a letter to David Walker, the Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), requesting that the GAO conduct a study on access to […]
Andy Hall: Wisconsin students’ performances improved in math and held steady in reading, language arts, science and social studies, according to annual test data released today. Dane County students generally matched or exceeded state averages and paralleled the state’s rising math scores, although test results in Madison slipped slightly on some measures of reading, language […]
David Stout: The Supreme Court ruled today that parents of children with disabilities need not hire lawyers if they want to sue public school districts over their children’s special-education needs. In a case of interest to parents and educators across the country, the justices ruled in favor of a couple from the Cleveland suburb of […]
Memorial is the only Madison High School in the top 1200 (1084), while Verona ranked 738th. Washington Post: The Washington Post Challenge Index measures a public high school’s effort to challenge its students. The formula is simple: Divide the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge tests a school gave by the number of […]
The Studio School Charter School: In a couple of years I hope to take another try at leading a charter school initiative. I continue to read so much educational research and literature that strongly supports The Studio School concepts. As you know, we spent some time looking into ways to create TSS as a private […]
Sally Squires: You know how hard it can be to say no. But our tendency to accept what we’re offered may have positive value when it comes to encouraging children to choose — and eat — healthier food at school. A new report suggests that there’s a simple, low-cost approach: Just offer it to them. […]
Superintendent Michael Bennet and the Denver School Board: The Rocky Mountain News series, “Leaving to Learn [Denver Public Schools Enrollment Gap],” tells a painful and accurate story about the state of our school district. It is hard to admit, but it is abundantly clear that we will fail the vast majority of children in Denver […]
Friedman Foundation; Dr. Susan L. Aud: A landmark new study finds that school choice programs throughout the country generated nearly $444 million in net savings to state and local budgets from 1990 to 2006. Contrary to opponents’ predictions, the analysis also finds that instructional spending per student has consistently gone up in all affected public […]
The Southern Education Foundation [2.3MB Report]: Over the last 140 years, Southern states have made significant progress in catching up with the nation in education and income, but in recent decades the South’s gains have virtually flattened as the world economy continues to elevate the critical role of education in innovation, productivity and income. Today, […]
Madison Parents’ School Safety Site: The charts below (click on each thumbnail to enlarge) summarize Madison Police Department calls for service to MMSD schools from September 1 through December 31, 2006. The data is summarized by school below the fold. Data like this provides a starting point for getting a sense of the type and […]
The decision to name the new school after General Vang Pao was necessary and proper, although difficult. The board did its job well. Remember that when you evaluate the reactions of some parts of the community. The reactions are not about the process. Three months of notice and opportunities to comment was sufficient process. They […]
The Capital Times: Members of The Capital Times nonsupervisory staff have chosen reporter Susan Troller as the winner of the 2007 Allegretti Award. They judged Troller’s work as best carrying on the legacy of former Capital Times reporter and editorial writer Dan Allegretti in exposing injustices in the community. Troller’s colleagues honored her coverage of […]
Sarah Carr: An 18-year-old punches his school’s football coach and grabs his genitals. • Two middle-school age sisters jump a police officer called to calm a disturbance. • A grandmother charges a group of students at an elementary school, and then strikes the principal. • A boy tries to sell a gun to his friend […]
Deborah Chamberlin: Ho, hum. Another sunny morning, another cup of coffee, another disgusting story about the Milwaukee Public Schools. How’s this for an idea? Shut down MPS because it sure doesn’t seem to be working. Initiate a 13-year plan (pardon the negative connotation) to eliminate grade levels, beginning next year with kindergarten. That way, students […]
There has been bitterness, surprise and resentment over my vote with respect to the Lapham/Marquette consolidation. I would like to let people know why I voted to move the alternative programs to Marquette. I have a mix of emotions several days after the storm and hope you find it helpful to understand the process from […]
It’s about time that this community approached the budget process with the honesty and integrity that we homeowners are required to do. For the past several years, the Superintendent and his associates have made a projected budget by increasing all categories of the budget by a certain percentage (about 5%) whether costs in that area […]
Jay Matthews: “From a student’s perspective, the odds of getting into college are a function of two things: the number of qualified students who apply, and the number of slots that colleges make available. It’s true that the number of prospective college students is growing, as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The […]
Susan Troller: Board members tussled over dozens of suggestions to try to find money to return various programs and services to the district that had been cut by the administration in an effort to balance the $339.6 million budget. The administration had originally proposed about $8 million in cuts, including $2 million from special education […]
Linton Weeks: : Edline — and other programs like it, such as SchoolFusion and School Center — provide students, teachers and parents with an online meeting place to discuss day-to-day assignments, tests and grades. But it also enables parents to keep track of a kid’s academic progress — or lack of progress — in a […]
A press release from the Urban League: Media Release April 26, 2007 Contact: Scott Gray (608) 251-8550 sgray@ulgm.org Cherokee Middle School Principal to Receive the 2007 Whitney M. Young, Jr. Equal Opportunity Award Madison, WI: The Urban League of Greater Madison recently announced that it will present Cherokee Heights Middle School Principal Karen Seno with […]
Via a reader’s email; Solomon Friedberg: Mathematics is crucial in the modern world. It is the foundation of modern science and engineering, and the prerequisite to any number of careers. Children’s formal learning of mathematics occurs throughout elementary school, and their success or failure at this level will have an impact on the entire rest […]
1. Kennedy Heights Community Center with the support of many other individuals and groups is organizing a walk from Kennedy Heights Community Center to Gompers Elementary School to raise awareness about the potential closings of Lindbergh Elementary School and Black Hawk middle school. Neighborhood Schools are a community resource for the children and families in […]
Sarah Carr: After hours of emotional debate, a Milwaukee School Board panel approved a measure Tuesday night that would allow safety aides to use flexible handcuffs to restrain students who demonstrate threatening behavior. “We’ve been in situations where we’ve had to restrain students for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour,” said Shawn Buford, a safety […]
Grade 5 elementary string students need your help. There are ways you can support the hundreds of ten-year olds who are in Grade 5 strings and this year’s Grade 4 students who would like the chance to take the course next year: A. Bring your child to play his/her instrument at Thursday’s Budget Hearing – […]
Please write the School Board about what is important to you and your state legislature about funding our public schools. Following is a copy of my letter to the school board on Grade 5 strings: Dear School Board Members (comments@madison.k12.wi.us), I am happy to serve as a member of the newly created Fine Arts Task […]
Channel3000.com: The largest cuts in the superintendent’s budget are through the consolidation of some schools. Lindbergh parents were surprised on Monday night to hear the superintendent is backing a plan that would close their school. They had anticipated their school being taken off the district’s chopping block. Many of the parents have been fighting to […]
The school advocates who rightfully point to the state’s inadequate funding of education want the legislature to adopt Assembly Joint Resolution 35 or the identical Senate Joint Resolution 27. The resolutions call for the following: 1. Funding levels based on the actual cost of what is needed to provide children with a sound education and […]
From Marj Passman’s Web site: Thank you Madison voters: This campaign began, in my mind, for the children of Madison. ALL the children. It wasn’t about the parents – let me repeat – it was about our young people. Every single person who came on board and worked their hearts out did it for the […]
AP & Amy Hetzner: The Bush administration is letting more children with disabilities take simplified tests under the No Child Left Behind education law. The change, outlined in final regulations Wednesday, would triple the number of children who can take tests that are easier than those given to most students under the 2002 law. Roughly […]
Dear Mr. Rainwater: I just found out from the principal at my school that you cut the allocations for SAGE teachers and Strings teachers, but the budget hasn’t even been approved. Will you please stop playing politics with our children education? It?s time to think about your legacy. As you step up to the chopping […]
Shane Samuels: There are those who like to work with numbers, and then there are those who figure school budgets. They’re not necessarily the same person. School finance consists of a labyrinth of property values, student enrollment totals, federal aid, and state aid. Only two people in Chetek claim to understand the funding formula from […]
Nancy Donahue, one of the organizers of The Studio School, sent this message to SIS: I have had the opportunity to talk with Maya Cole twice in the past two weeks and I am convinced that she would be an excellent addition to our school board …someone who can see the big picture and incorporate […]
By MICHAEL WINERIP Published: March 11, 2007 The New York Times I LIKE it!” said Yaniv Gorodischer. “What a night!” It was a big, big night at the group home. The three residents Mr. Gorodischer, 29, Jason Kingsley, 32, and Raymond Frost Jr., 28 along with an entourage that included their group home […]
Diana Jean Schemo: States and school districts nationwide are moving to lengthen the day at struggling schools, spurred by grim test results suggesting that more than 10,000 schools are likely to be declared failing under federal law next year. In Massachusetts, in the forefront of the movement, Gov. Deval L. Patrick is allocating $6.5 million […]
PBS: Imagine the sight and sound of American nine- and eleven-year-old children performing Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Henry V — and understanding every word they recite. Imagine them performing well enough to elicit praise from such accomplished Shakespearean actors as Ian McKellen and Michael York, and to be invited to perform with the Royal Shakespeare Company […]
Joanne Jacobs: From the Fayetteville, NC Observer: Superintendent Art Rainwater loves to discuss the Madison Metropolitan School District’s success in eliminating the racial achievement gap. But he won’t consult with educators from other communities until they are ready to confront the issue head on. “I’m willing to talk,” Rainwater tells people seeking his advice, “when […]
This powerful first-person account by Aleta Payne first appeared in the Washington Post earlier this month. It brought tears to my eyes as I read it in our own Cap Times last night. The piece drives home the multifaceted nature of the achievement gap, underscoring the fact that the search for a single solution is […]
Jane Galt: But it is not true that these kids are simply genetic train wrecks who we should be prepared to write off. Disadvantaged kids can be taught to read, write, and perform basic mathematical operations, and they can be taught to behave if their parents have neglected that task. In our system, however, any […]
TJ Mertz: In this morning’s Wisconsin State Journal there is a story that again misrepresents the place of Madison School Community Recreation and Fund 80 in the district and the community. The chart comparing Fund 80 levies in Madison to those in other districts ignores the fact that most or all of those locales have […]
East Side school plan opposed DEBORAH ZIFF 608-252-6120 March 19, 2007 Waving bright signs and chanting, dozens of parents, kids, and teachers converged at a School Board meeting Monday night to protest proposed budget cuts that could consolidate elementary and middle schools on the East Side. Earlier this month, Madison school officials proposed addressing a […]
The Economist: The hard lessons of segregation WAYNE CLOUGH, the president of the Georgia Institute of Technology, has just moved into a new office. The workmen are still in the corridors outside, generating noise and dust. A few years ago the site, in Atlanta, was full of drug addicts and prostitutes. The hotel across the […]
Thank you for your service and thank you for your request to hear from the community. My name is Shari Entenmann and I’m here as a parent of 3 young children entrusting you with their school experience. As you move forward with the budget process there are three things I’d like you to commit to: […]
(This letter is being distributed to parents of Franklin-Randall students, but should concern everyone in the MMSD and Regent Neighborhood) SCHOOL FUNDING CRISIS: Don’t get mad, get active!! March 16, 2007 The School Board recently announced sweeping budget cuts for the coming school year that will have a severe impact on Franklin-Randall, as well as […]
As some of you may recall, back in December, I posted a few questions to the members of Madison Partners for Inclusive Education. As a result of that posting, several members of each group have met a couple of times in order to try and make personal connections and identify areas of shared concern and […]
Paula via Paul Soglin: Federal law states that in the U.S. every child has a right to a free and appropriate education no matter if the child is gifted & talented, average, or below average. Some children will cost more to educate than others. There is an illusion that kids come with their abilities and […]
What makes this article from Fargo interesting is how it almost exactly mirrors the findings in my home district, Hortonville, and the recent analysis of Reading Recovery done in Madison. That being, a 50% success rate for RR students. From the article: “However, West Fargo student data over time, as presented by Director of Knowledge […]
Barry Garelick: If one could make a case against the perpetrators of reform math—complete with arrests and jail time—showing that such programs are a form of child abuse, the math wars would cease in a matter of days. As it is, however, reasoned arguments from those who oppose the reform programs haven’t seemed to carry […]
This post came from a listserve on reading: This is in response to the NY Times article about Madison’s reading program. Of course a quick response is often inadequate. But here goes. The simple fact is that correct decoding is necessary but not sufficient to comprehend what one is reading. Necessary but not sufficient appears […]
Amy Hetzner: About 500 parents, students and spectators packed a school auditorium Monday night, pleading for help from local legislators in dealing with a financial situation that some predicted would devastate the School District. “If we can pay for a stadium for a bunch of overpaid baseball players, we can certainly pay for an education […]