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“When enough people who can afford to leave New York State are gone, who will be left to pay for the infrastructure, health care, schools and other necessities?” said Sen. Tedisco. “This is a bi-partisan effort to shine the light on this problem that’s causing people to leave our Upstate communities and to find out why the Empire State is fast becoming the ‘Empty State’ so we can change the agenda to keep them here,” he said.
Roundtable discussions with small businesses, workforce development, health care, education, economic growth and development, manufacturing and technology representatives will be held once data from the questionnaires have been collected.
According to U.S. Census information, N.Y.’s population has steadily decreased over the past 4 years. The Empire Center said they estimate approximately 1.4 million residents have moved out of N.Y. and gone to other states.
Let’s Compare: Middleton and Madison Property Taxes
2019: Madison increases property taxes by 7.2%, despite tolerating long term, disastrous reading results
In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.
Meanwhile, Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 district continues to plan for a substantial tax & spending increase referendum this fall.
The nearby table borrowed from our friends at Cornerstone Macro captures the magnitude of the tax increases on labor and investment income that Democratic presidential candidates are proposing. The top marginal federal tax rate on labor is currently about 40% including the Medicare tax.
Eliminating the ceiling for the payroll tax would increase that to above 50% including both the individual and employer shares of the increase. Including both is right economically because it captures the full cost of hiring an additional worker. The much higher top marginal rate for Mr. Sanders in the table is for his Medicare for All tax.
And that’s before the candidates’ proposed income-tax hikes. It’s also before state and local taxes, which in some states could bring the marginal rate north of 60%.
And that’s before the Democratic tax increases on investment income, specifically capital gains. All of the leading candidates want to tax capital gains at the same rate as regular income or higher, which hasn’t been the law since the top individual tax rate on income was 28% after the 1986 Reagan tax reform. Higher taxes on capital reduce investment, which means slower productivity growth and ultimately slower wage growth.
Meanwhile, Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 district continues to plan for a substantial tax & spending increase referendum this fall.
The Madison Metropolitan School District could continue its expansion of the Community Schools program as soon as the 2021-22 school year.
School Board members will receive an update on the program, which offers expanded services at four schools to help serve as a “hub” to their surrounding community, at a Monday Instruction Work Group meeting beginning at 5 p.m. at the Doyle Administration Building.
MMSD began its Community Schools program in 2016-17 at Leopold and Mendota elementary schools, expanding it to Lake View and Hawthorne in the 2018-19 school year. The schools ask parents, students and neighborhood residents to help identify school issues and find solutions to address them. The district website defines them as “a welcoming and inclusive place that builds on the assets of the community to help serve the identified needs of the students, families and community through well integrated and coordinated, strategic partnerships.
Madison taxpayers spend far more than most K-12 school districts. Yet, we have long tolerated disastrousreading results.
Madison K-12 administrators are planning a substantial tax & spending increase referendum for 2020.
Madison School District projects loss of 1,100 students over next five years, yet 2020 referendum planning continues.
Madison School Board approves purchase of $4 million building for special ed programs
2013: What will be different, this time? 2019: Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison Experience
Recently these policies have been propelled by largely flawed notions that increasingly high density would make housing cheaper and produce lower GHG emissions. Actually, the densest places with the strongest regulation are almost always those with the highest levels of unaffordability. Yet it is in the energy arena where “green policies” have solicited the greatest push-back in a large number of countries.
Some, like British Marxist historian James Heartfield, see the emergence of “green capitalism” as a new ruse for the upper classes to suppress the lower by creating artificial scarcity in everything from energy to housing and food.
The high energy costs derive from zealous climate change politics claiming that any energy source outside solar and wind are inherently dangerous to the health of the planet. This has included both the largest contributor to emissions reductions — replacing coal with natural gas — and emissions-free nuclear power. This dogmatism underlies efforts by government planners to raise the price of fuel in order to reduce consumption and force people onto transit.
Madison is planning a large tax and spending increase referendum in 2020.
Let’s look at the biggest number first. Senator Booker hopes to throw $100 billion at HBCUs and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) in general. Under his plan, he would transform HBCUs into social-activist organizations in “the fight against climate change,”though it remains unclear why being historically black makes them particularly well qualified for this task.
This plan eclipses the spending idea of Senator Sanders, who wants to throw only $15 billion at HBCUs, forgive another billion or two of debt, and double current funding under the Strengthening HBCUs program of Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965.
Here’s what we’re already spending on HBCUs under Title III. In 2019 Congress gave these 101 institutions $282 million, plus $79 million in “mandatory” money (for which the institutions need to do little but fill out a form), plus $73 million for Historically Black Graduate Institutions (including law and medical schools), plus $9 million for master’s-degree programs. Doubling this amount gives them $443 million more, or an extra $4.43 billion over ten years.
Madison taxpayers spend more than $500M annually on a K-12 structure that has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
Alexandra Stevenson and Cao Li
Local governments borrowed for years to create jobs and keep factories humming. Now China’s economy is slowing to its weakest pace in nearly three decades, but Beijing has kept the lending spigots tight to quell its debt problems.
In response, a growing number of Chinese cities are raising money using hospitals, schools and other institutions. Often they use complicated financial arrangements, like lease agreements or trusts, that stay a step ahead of regulators in Beijing.
“Whether it is a financial lease or trust, they are just all tools for local governments to borrow,” said Chen Zhiwu, director of the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong. “Officials stop one today, and they come up with another tool tomorrow.”
“That’s why China has been talking about curbing local government debts for many years and it’s still not solved,” Mr. Chen said.
Increasingly these deals are going sour, as they did in Ruzhou, and the loans are going unpaid. Lenders have accused three of Ruzhou’s hospitals and three investment funds tied to the city of not paying back their debts.
Madison, which has long spent far more than most taxpayer supported K – 12 school districts is planning a large referendum for 2020.
City property taxes for their home are about $5,000 a year. “That’s a whole chunk of our total income, because our only income is Social Security,” he says.
But then they discovered a little-known city program for people in their situation. The “property tax assistance for seniors reverse mortgage loan program” allows seniors to defer paying their property taxes.
Property owners are eligible if they are 65 or older with less than $30,000 in assets and meet income guidelines (currently $52,850 for a single person or $60,400 for two people). When people qualify, a lien is placed on the property, meaning the property taxes will be paid when the owner sells the property or dies and their estate is settled.
The city charges an annual interest rate for the loan — depending on borrowing costs, between 2.5 and 6.5 percent.
Madison’s taxpayer supported school district is planning a substantial referendum for 2020.
T The idea that companies like Uber and WeWork and DoorDash don’t make a profit might come as a shock to the many people who spend a fair amount of their take-home pay each month on ride-hailing, shared office space, or meal delivery.
There is a simple explanation for why they’re not making money. The answer, for finance people, has to do with something called “unit economics.” Normal people should think of it like this: Am I getting ripped off by these companies, or am I kinda-sorta ripping them off? In many cases, the answer is the latter.
Let’s say you buy a subscription to a meal-kit company, which sends you fresh ingredients and recipes to cook at home. You pay $100 a month. The ingredients are tasty, so you renew for the second month. And the third. But by the fourth month, you’ve decided that you’ve learned enough basic tricks around the kitchen to handle roasted chicken or sautéed cod by yourself. You cancel the subscription.Your lifetime value to this company is $400—or $100 for four months. Since you quit, the meal-kit company has to find the next “you” to keep growing. So they advertise on podcasts. Let’s say that, on average, this company can expect to add 100 new users if it spends $50,000 on podcast advertising—or $500 per new user.
If the company spends millions on podcast ads, its user base and revenue base will grow and grow. Outside analysts will gasp and marvel: This meal-kit thing is on fire! But look closer: If it costs $500 to add a new user, and the typical marginal user—like you—only spends $400 on meal kits, there is no path to profitability. The road leads to the red.
Madison’s $500M taxpayer supported school district plans a substantial tax increase via 2020 referendum.
My friends at the Network of Public Education (NOPE) have an ongoing series under the hashtag #AnotherDayAnotherCharterSchool that aims to keep your eyes trained on the supposed never-ending abuses and fraud case in charter schools.
I applaud their commitment to public integrity and I share their vigilance in rooting out grift in public systems. Yet, their myopic focus on a small subset of public schools, in this case charters, is suspicious.
Why not expose all fraud, especially in the bigger system?
Well, you’ll have to ask them. They’ve mostly blocked me on twitter for asking such questions.
I guess their unionist funders and the privileged parents they cater to in America’s suburban hoarding schools want a clean message. Traditional schools with union teachers that work with privileged parents to rig the system in favor of white, middle-class, pampered children, well, that’s good.
Schools built for, by, or in favor of children so unfortunate as not to have suburban, white, progressive, college-educated families capable of obtaining mortgages for houses near the best hoarding schools, well, you know the drill, they must be stopped.
Thus, the campaign to turn public opinion against the most popular competitor to sputtering state-run schools that employ more people than they educate, and drown in so much pension debt that they can ill-afford parents choosing anything other than district failure farms.
In the interest of truth I should tell you that fraud in public education is indeed every bit the problem that NOPE says it is, but it’s much broader than they admit.
A discussion occurred – some of it public – about a Madison taxpayer supported maintenance referendum spending audit.
The changes would make it difficult to construct buildings funded by student fees, according to a UW-Madison student leader familiar with the approval process, which has attracted scrutiny from Republicans who say the fees are making college less affordable.
UW students will pay between roughly $1,000 and $1,600 in annual fees for bus transportation, student organizations and services such as mental health counseling. A portion of those fees may go to pay for construction of buildings such as student unions or sports recreation centers if a majority of students voting in a referendum approve such a move.
Starting in the fall, for example, each UW-Madison student will pay an additional $173 to help fund major upgrades to recreational facilities. About 87% of students approved the increase in a 2014 referendum that brought a third of campus to the polls.
The counties that make up Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia shed a combined 2 million domestic residents from 2010 to 2018. For many years, these cities’ main source of population growth hasn’t been babies or even college graduates; it’s been immigrants. But like an archipelago of Ellis Islands, Manhattan and other wealthy downtown areas have become mere gateways into America and the labor force—“a temporary portal,” in the words of E. J. McMahon, the founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy. “The woman from Slovakia comes to Queens, lives in her second cousin’s basement, gets her feet on the ground, and gets a better apartment in West Orange, New Jersey,” he said. Or a 20-something from North Dakota moves to Chicago after school, works at a consultancy for a few years, finds a partner, and moves to Missoula.
The Madison school board is planning various tax and spending increases referendums. I wonder what the various population forecasts reveal?
Yet, we have long tolerated disastrous reading results.
Suburban Madison area school districts grew substantially from 199-2019. Madison remained largely flat.
Parents blasted L.A. Unified officials at a school board hearing this week — one even bursting into tears — offering an angry glimpse into the fractured trust between the community and the district just one week after voters overwhelmingly rejected a new parcel tax.
Many of the more than 20 speakers at Tuesday’s four-hour session expressed ongoing frustration with the ambiguity of L.A. Unified’s $7.8 billion operating budget and Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), a three-year plan updated annually that outlines the district’s goals and actions for improving student outcomes. Tuesday’s meeting was the first since L.A. Unified’s bid for a $500 million-a-year “Measure EE” parcel tax failed at the polls, and was also the first time the finalized 2019-20 budget and the LCAP were formally presented to the public. The board will vote on both next Tuesday.
“All of the voters are tired of you,” parent Luz Maria Montoya said in Spanish. “We don’t know what work you are doing.”
Some parents said district documents don’t clearly explain changes to student programs and services for next year. Others added that there isn’t transparency or robust “monitoring” of how L.A. Unified’s expenditures, such as professional development and training for teachers and principals, yield actual results for students. Montoya, for example, called district services for English learners and special education students “an embarrassment.” A few also accused L.A. Unified officials and principals of keeping parents out of budget and policy discussions — treating them “as sheeps, as herds,” as one speaker said— rather than welcoming them to the table as a partner.
“We have a lot of barriers” to knowing what’s going on, said parent María Daisy Ortíz, who addressed the board in Spanish. “We want to work with you, not against you. But respect us. … No one returns the wasted time to our children.”
Voters rejected two out of three Madison school district referendums in 2005
The increased tax bills are driven largely by Evers’ plan to boost by 2% the amount counties and municipalities could collect through local property tax levies.
But a countervailing effect comes from Evers’ plan to give a $1.4 billion infusion of state aid to school districts in the next two years. That would enable the state to shoulder a larger share, relative to local property taxpayers, of school district costs.
Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, co-chairman of the Legislature’s budget committee, said in a statement that the report shows how Evers’ budget would mark a shift from budgets enacted under former Gov. Scott Walker.
“The fact is, the Governor’s budget raises property taxes by the largest amount in a decade,” Nygren said. “Republicans have a record of cutting taxes and remain committed to this goal, whereas the governor would rather increase taxes to grow government in Madison.”
Evers spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff said part of the projected property tax increase is due to voters approving referendums to increase their property taxes to fund their local school districts — which she said Evers can’t control.
Notes and links on Madison’s $20k per student budget.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction “DPI”, lead for many years by new Governor Tony Evers, has waived thousands of elementary reading teacher content knowledge requirements. This, despite our long term, disastrous reading results.
Chan Stroman tracks the frequent Foundations of Reading (FoRT) mulligans:
Yet the statutory FoRT requirement is now deemed satisfied by “attempts” to pass pic.twitter.com/xSS0lxgo8g
— Chan Stroman (@eduphilia) March 28, 2019
Contrary to what was represented to @usedgov in the approved state ESSA plan pic.twitter.com/fuNKxlc0Q7
— Chan Stroman (@eduphilia) March 28, 2019
DPI Rhetoric: “We set a high bar for achievement”.
Wisconsin DPI efforts to weaken the Foundations of Reading Test for elementary teachers
Foundations of Reading Elementary Reading Teacher Exam Results.
December, 2018: “The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
2013: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.
2011: A Capitol Conversation on Wisconsin’s Reading Challenges.
K-12 attempts to address learning include the implementation – and abandonment – of “one size fits all” courses, such as English 10 and “small learning communities“.
2009: An emphasis on adult employment.
2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine” – NOT!.
2005: Lowering the bar – When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:
Yet, spending continues to grow, substantially. Governor Evers has proposed a double digit increase in K-12 tax and spending for the next two years. Once in a great while, a courageous soul dives in and evaluates spending effectiveness: a proposed (not heard from again) Madison maintenance referendum audit.
“Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It’s as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands.” – Former Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman.
2011: A majority of the Madison School Board aborted the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School. Curiously, former school board member Ed Hughes, who voted against Madison Prep, is supporting Kaleem Caire for school board, 8 years hence. Yet, how many students have we failed as time marches on?
Of the 65 students plus or minus it kind of changes this year 24 of them are regular ed students.
Another way to say they don’t have an IEP so there is no excuse for that reading intervention in (that group).
12 of those 24 have been enrolled in Madison School since Pre-K kindergarten or kindergarden. 12 students have been in Madison Schools.
They have High attendance. They have been in the same (you know) feeder school they have not had high mobility. There is no excuse for 12 of my students to be reading at the first second or third grade level and that’s where they’re at and I’m angry and I’m not the only one that’s angry.
The teachers are angry because we are being held accountable for things that we didn’t do at the high school level. Of those 24 students, 21 of them have been enrolled in Madison for four or more years.
“Will massive increases in spending actually improve student outcomes?” WILL asks. According to an analysis of education spending and outcomes, WILL says, “probably not.”
WILL’s Truth in Spending: An Analysis of K-12 Spending in Wisconsin compares K-12 spending on Wisconsin public schools and student outcomes. Based on the most recent available data, Wisconsin’s K-12 education spending is comparable to the rest of the country, but it already spends more money, on average, than the majority of states, according to the report. Wisconsin spends $600 per pupil more than the median state spends.
Based on WILL’s econometric analysis, no relationship between higher spending and outcomes exists in Wisconsin. On average, high-spending districts perform the same or worse on state-mandated exams and the ACT relative to low-spending districts, the analysis found.
Slinger and Hartford school districts spend significantly less than the state average on education but their students’ Forward Exam performances are significantly higher than other districts, the report found. By comparison, White Lake and Bayfield districts have “woeful proficiency rates despite spending far more than the average district,” the report states.
In Evers’ budget address, he said, “more than one million Wisconsinites have raised their own property taxes to support local schools in their communities,” Matt Kittle at the MacIver Institute notes. “But they chose to do so,” Kittle says, “through the mechanism of referendum that offers school districts the ability to set their own priorities and not make taxpayers elsewhere pick up an ever-increasing portion of the tab.”
Evers’ budget plan calls for a return to the state picking up two-thirds of K-12 funding, but would put more money into the state’s long-failing schools, Kittle notes, “while he looks to punish Wisconsin’s school choice program.”
This is counterintuitive to the facts, WILL argues, as private choice schools and charter schools in Wisconsin achieve more with less. According to recent analysis, these schools achieve better academic outcomes despite spending thousands less per student than traditional public schools.
Madison spends far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts, now around $20,000 per student.
Yet, we have long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
Slinger and Hartford school districts spend significantly less than the state average on education but their students’ Forward Exam performances are significantly higher than other districts, the report found. By comparison, White Lake and Bayfield districts have “woeful proficiency rates despite spending far more than the average district,” the report states.
In Evers’ budget address, he said, “more than one million Wisconsinites have raised their own property taxes to support local schools in their communities,” Matt Kittle at the MacIver Institute notes. “But they chose to do so,” Kittle says, “through the mechanism of referendum that offers school districts the ability to set their own priorities and not make taxpayers elsewhere pick up an ever-increasing portion of the tab.”
Evers’ budget plan calls for a return to the state picking up two-thirds of K-12 funding, but would put more money into the state’s long-failing schools, Kittle notes, “while he looks to punish Wisconsin’s school choice program.”
Locally, Madison spends around $20,000 per student, yet we have long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”.
Madison’s property tax levy growth:
Wisconsin voters approved record levels of additional spending on K-12 schools by passing 90 percent of the referendum questions on ballots throughout the state in 2018.
More than $2 billion worth of referendum initiatives were approved over the course of the year, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum.
The number of referendum efforts to raise local property taxes in exchange for more spending on schools was the largest seen since 2001, at 157. Voters approved 90 percent of those questions, according to the Policy Forum analysis.
According to unofficial election results, a large chunk of the new spending — $1.37 billion — was approved on Nov. 6, when voters turned out in record numbers to vote in the state’s midterm elections. Nearly 80 referendum questions across 57 school districts were approved on midterm ballots.
Taxpayer funded k-12 school district tax base assessments have grown in recent years, somewhat “hiding” spending increases. Expanding assessments create more room for spending growth.
Spending far more than most, Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“I’m glad to see at least last year there was pretty broad-based support,” Walker said.
Immediately after Walker’s speech, Evers came on stage to hand out an award and deadpanned, “How ironic,” before responding: “Any time any governor adopts my budget, it’s a good day.”
In an interview with the State Journal afterward, Evers said he’s happy that Walker added money for K-12 schools — some $649 million in new spending over the biennium — “but the fact is for the last five years he cut $1 billion out (and) not counting inflation we’re not back to where we should be.”
“We’re still running behind,” Evers said. “That’s one of the reasons why I’m running (for governor). We haven’t made up that money they took from us in the past.”
Evers, who spoke at the convention on Wednesday, said school board members told him they saw the increased education funding as either not enough, given how many districts are still proposing referendums to exceed state-imposed revenue limits, or they see it as a political ploy.
Locally, Madison spends far more than most, now nearly $20,000 per student.
Nygren’s plan would allow school districts with the low-revenue caps to increase the amount they spend from the current $9,100 per student limit to $9,400 per student next school year. The limit would increase by $100 each school year until it reaches $9,800 per student by the 2022-23 school year.
According to the Department of Public Instruction, the proposal would apply to about 120 of the state’s 422 school districts, including Mount Horeb, Baraboo, Milton, Portage, Prairie du Chien, Watertown, Westfield, Sparta and Tomah.
If all of the eligible school boards voted to take full advantage of the increase, property tax levies would increase by at least $22.5 million next school year, according to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards. Seven school districts would not be able to take advantage of the proposal because of recent referendum rejections including Chilton, Darlington, Howard-Suamico and Southern Door school districts.
A spokesman for Nygren said he would begin seeking support from other lawmakers this week. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, did not respond to a request for comment.
Madison spends nearly $20,000 per student, despite tolerating Molly Beck:
Nygren’s plan would allow school districts with the low-revenue caps to increase the amount they spend from the current $9,100 per student limit to $9,400 per student next school year. The limit would increase by $100 each school year until it reaches $9,800 per student by the 2022-23 school year.
According to the Department of Public Instruction, the proposal would apply to about 120 of the state’s 422 school districts, including Mount Horeb, Baraboo, Milton, Portage, Prairie du Chien, Watertown, Westfield, Sparta and Tomah.
If all of the eligible school boards voted to take full advantage of the increase, property tax levies would increase by at least $22.5 million next school year, according to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards. Seven school districts would not be able to take advantage of the proposal because of recent referendum rejections including Chilton, Darlington, Howard-Suamico and Southern Door school districts.
A spokesman for Nygren said he would begin seeking support from other lawmakers this week. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, did not respond to a request for comment.
Madison spends nearly $20,000 per student, despite tolerating long term, disastrous reading results. long term, disastrous reading results.
Overall, Walker proposed $11.5 billion for schools, including the $649 million increase.
A spokesman for budget committee co-chairwoman Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, said the Joint Finance Committee reduced the increase to $639 million because of reductions to funding proposed by Walker for rural school districts and for schools in the Milwaukee School District that meet academic achievement goals.
Walker in a statement thanked the committee for its actions after the package was approved 12-4, with all Republicans voting for and all Democrats voting against.
Darling raised her voice at one point, arguing that Democratic policies before Act 10 had “put the teachers in the back room and put the unions at the table.”
“Come on,” Darling said. “We value teachers. I’m sick of this victimizing teachers. Let’s agree that education is all of our priority.”
One measure would allow people to take online classes to earn teacher certification in high-need subjects like technology, math, engineering and science. Another would offer loans for people seeking additional education and training to become principals or other education administrators.
Lawmakers also approved a measure proposed in Walker’s budget to eliminate expiration dates for teachers’ licenses following a three-year provisional period.
It also offers resources for school districts that elect to consolidate or share some services. Districts that completely consolidate would be eligible for aid equal to $150 per student for five years after the consolidation, gradually tapering off in the following years. Districts that choose to share a grade could receive $150 per student enrolled in that grade for four years, which would taper off in the fifth year. The package also sets aside $2 million for a pilot program to provide aid to districts that share some administrative services.
Also under the plan, districts could only hold referendums during already-scheduled election days or on the second Tuesday of November in odd-numbered years, with allowances made for special circumstances, such as increased costs resulting from a natural disaster.
“Thanks to the members of the Joint Finance Committee for supporting the education portion of my budget,” Walker said in a statement. “Once signed, this budget will include more actual dollars for K-12 education than ever before in our history.”
Locally, Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending nearly $20,000 per student.
Additional links:
Retired mechanic Adi Astl says he took it upon himself to build the stairs after several neighbours fell down the steep path to a community garden in Tom Riley Park, in Etobicoke, Ont. Astl says his neighbours chipped in on the project, which only ended up costing $550 – a far cry from the $65,000-$150,000 price tag the city had estimated for the job.
“I thought they were talking about an escalator,” Astl told CTV News Channel on Wednesday.
Astl says he hired a homeless person to help him and built the eight steps in a matter of hours.
Astl’s wife, Gail Rutherford, says the stairs have already been a big help to people who routinely take that route through the park. “I’ve seen so many people fall over that rocky path that was there to begin with,” she said. “It’s a huge improvement over what was there.”
I’ve seen similar situations in our schools, were maintenance is limited to union employees.
Related: maintenance referendum audit.
Madison school district budget information, now about $20k/student.
A Madison School District review of financial practices at Black Hawk Middle School found widespread disregard for proper accounting and money handling practices under then-principal Kenya Walker, who admitted using district credit cards for personal needs and oversaw school office operations so lax they resulted in the theft of at least $1,000 from a school fundraiser and more than $10,500 in credit card charges for which the district has no receipt, among other deficiencies noted in the review.
Walker, 45, who was paid $106,466 annually, effectively resigned on April 28 after spending months on a medical leave that began in late January and caused increasing concern among parents at the school. Also in January, the district hired external reviewer Shana Lewis to begin reviewing Black Hawk’s financial practices after concerns were noted by Central Office staff about spending there.
Many of the problems noted in the review revolved around the use of some 15 district-issued credit and procurement cards that are to be used by school staff members for the purchase of low-cost goods, usually under $500. They are designed to eliminate the use of petty cash and personal funds that have to be reimbursed to staff later, setting up a more secure, cost-effective method to purchase small-dollar items for district programs and activities.
Much larger spending questions arose several years ago after a large maintenance referendum.
Andy had been an investigative journalist at the Wisconsin State Journal, where he and Dee both worked back in 2006. But he, nearing 50 at the time, he was reassigned to cover education.
“It was a time at which I took a deep breath and considered what really mattered to me,” he said.
He wanted to be an investigative reporter again. He wanted to teach new generations of investigative reporters. And he and Dee wanted to stay in Madison.
Fascinating, given Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most, around $18k per student annually.
Ironically, The Madison School District’s 2005 maintenance referendum expenditures were the subject of a potential audit… Stillborn, apparently.
Andy Hall notes and leaks.
Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques, via a kind email:
Dear Superintendent Cheatham and Members of the Madison School Board:
We are writing as an update to our Public Appearance at the December 12 Board meeting. You may recall that at that meeting, we expressed serious concerns about how the District analyzes and shares student data. For many years, it has seemed to us that the District reports data more with an eye towards making itself look good than to genuinely meeting children’s educational needs. As social scientists with more than two decades of involvement with the Madison schools, we have long been frustrated by those priorities.
Our frustration was stirred up again last week when we read the newly released MMSD 2017 Mid- Year Review, so much so that we felt called upon to examine a specific section of the report more closely. What follows is expressly not a critique of the MMSD elementary school in question, its staff, or its students. What follows is solely a critique of what goes on in the Doyle Building.
MMSD 2017 Mid-Year Review and Van Hise Elementary School’s “Special Sauce”
Near the end of the MMSD 2017 Mid-Year Review, there is an excited update on the “extraordinary [student] growth” happening at Van Hise Elementary School:
School Update: Van Hise students and families build on strengths
In last year’s Annual Report, Principal Peg Keeler and Instructional Resource Teacher Sharel Nelson revealed Van Hise Elementary School’s “special sauce,” which helped students achieve extraordinary growth in the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments. We reported that seventy percent of the school’s African American third through fifth grade students were proficient or advanced and half of third through fifth grade students receiving Special Education services were proficient.
We recently caught up with Principal Keeler and Ms. Nelson to get an update on their students’ progress.
“In the past, we felt that one of our strengths as a school was to hold kids to very high expectations. That continues to be the case. We promote a growth mindset and kids put their best effort toward their goals,” said Principal Keeler. “Our older students are provided a process for reflecting on how they did last time on the MAP assessment. They reflect on areas they feel they need to continue to work on and the goals they set for themselves. They reflect on what parts were difficult and what they can improve upon.”
Nelson discussed the sense of community among Van Hise students and how the Van Hise equity vision encompasses families as partners. “We have a comprehensive family engagement plan. We are working together with our families – all on the same page. The students feel really supported. We’re communicating more efficiently and heading toward the same goals,” Nelson said.
Principal Keeler added, “It’s been a fantastic year, it continues to get stronger.”
We got curious about the numbers included in this update — in part because they are some of the few numbers to be found in the 2017 Mid-Year Review — and decided to take a closer look. All additional numbers used in the analysis that follows were taken from the MMSD website.
As you know, Van Hise is a K-through-5th grade elementary school on Madison’s near west side. In 2015-16, it enrolled 395 students, 5% (20) of whom were African American and 9% (36) of whom received special education services. (Note: These percentages are some of the lowest in the District.) For purposes of explication, let’s say half of each of those groups were in grades K-2 and half were in grades 3-5. That makes 10 African American and 18 special education students in grades three-through-five.
The Mid-Year Review states that in 2015-16, an extraordinary 70% of Van Hise’s African American third-through-fifth grade students were proficient or advanced (in something — why not say what?). But 70% of 10 students is only 7 students. That’s not very many.
The Mid-Year Review also states that in 2015-16, an equally extraordinary 50% of Van Hise’s third- through-fifth grade special education students scored proficient (in something). But again, 50% of 18 students is only 9 students.
To complete the demographic picture, it is important to note that Van Hise is the MMSD elementary school with the lowest rate of poverty; in 2015-16, only 18% of its students were eligible for Free/Reduced Lunch. (Note: The Districtwide average is 50%).
We would argue that this additional information and analysis puts the Van Hise Elementary School update into its proper context … and makes the numbers reported far less surprising
and “extraordinary.”
The additional information also makes the Van Hise “special sauce” – whatever it is they are doing in the school to achieve their “extraordinary” results with African American and special education students – far less relevant for the District’s other elementary schools, schools with significantly higher percentages of African American, low income, and special education students.
In terms of its demographic profile, Van Hise is arguably the most privileged elementary school in Madison. Perhaps, then, its “special sauce” is nothing more than the time-worn recipe of racial, socioeconomic, and other forms of political advantage.
But be that as it may, it is not our main point. Our main objective here has been to provide a clear- cut example of how the MMSD cherry picks its examples and “manages” its data presentation for public relations purposes.
We believe the overarching drive to make the District look good in its glossy reports is a misguided use of District resources and stands as an ongoing obstacle to genuine academic progress for our most disadvantaged and vulnerable students.
The Appendices attached to this report consist of a table and several graphs that expand upon the foregoing text. We hope you will take the time to study them. (When you look at Appendices E and F, you may find yourselves wondering, as we did, what’s going on at Lindbergh Elementary School, where the African American students are performing much better than one would expect, given their demographics? Similarly, you may wonder what’s going on at Randall Elementary School, where the African American students are performing much worse than one would expect?)
Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have about this analysis. As School Board members, you cannot work effectively on behalf of our community’s children unless you understand the District’s data. We are happy to help you achieve that understanding.
Respectfully,
Laurie Frost, Ph.D.
Jeff Henriques, Ph.D.
APPENDICES
Appendix A: MMSD Elementary School Demographics (2015-16)
Appendix B: Percentage of All Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s Poverty Level
Appendix C: Percentage of All Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s African American Student Enrollment
Appendix D: Percentage of All Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s Special Education Student Enrollment
Appendix E: Percentage of African American Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s Poverty Level
Appendix F: Percentage of African American Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s African American Student Enrollment
Appendix G: Percentage of Special Education Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s Poverty Level
Appendix H: Percentage of Special Education Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s Special Education Enrollment
Note:
Appendices B through H utilize Spring 2016 MAP data for MMSD third-through-fifth grade students only. The scores for each school are simple averages of the percentages of students scoring proficient or advanced in reading or math across those three grades. We freely acknowledge that these calculations lack some precision; however, given the data we have access to, they are the best we could do.
Source: https://public.tableau.com/profile/bo.mccready#!/vizhome/MAPResults2015- 16/MAPResultsWithSchool
The Madison School District’s 2016 “Mid Year Review“.
Madison expanded its least diverse schools, including Van Hise, via a recent tax increase referendum.
Just six years ago, Sun Prairie opened a new high school for students in 10th through 12th grades, part of a successful $96 million referendum in 2007.
The district now has 2,379 high school students, including ninth-graders who are in a different building. That gives Sun Prairie the second-largest high school population in the state, behind only Kenosha Indian Trail, and voters could be asked to build another high school in two years.
Six of the Sun Prairie School District’s seven elementary schools are over capacity, and more than 1,600 students could be added over the next decade in a city whose population has swelled 57 percent since 2000 to more than 32,000.
In November, Massachusetts voters will decide whether the Department of Elementary & Secondary Education (DESE) can raise the cap on the number of charter schools allowed, or increase enrollment in existing charters in underperforming districts. If the referendum is approved, the city of Boston—which currently has 27 Commonwealth charter schools that operate independently of the district and educate about 14 percent of the student population—will likely see an increase in charters over the next several years. It’s an advance that charter advocates firmly champion but opponents see as another little push in the direction of a very steep cliff.
How did public education get so contentious, even as Boston’s public school system is near the top on every available scoring index of the nation’s major urban districts? Why does Brooke Charter Schools founder Jon Clark, a quiet, straight-talking guy from Wellesley, become slightly unhinged when I share some of the views of the anti-charter folks? What is it about this debate that brings out the tinfoil-hatted paranoia in all of us?
Ideologically speaking, charter schools—which are publicly funded but operate outside of typical district and teachers union rules—are the muddiest of all political issues, simultaneously supported by neoliberals and ultraconservatives, progressives and regressives, hedge funders and immigrants. For those who favor them, charters represent our best hope for improving education. In fact, the pro-charter movement is predicated on the certainty that public education is in crisis, and it lays the blame squarely on government incompetence and union hegemony. Well-run charters, they argue, not only educate children more cheaply, but also more effectively. The data back that up: The average SAT composite score in Boston’s charter high schools in 2015 was 100 points higher (about 10 percentile points) than the district schools’.
A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB charter school.
Dale Farran, a researcher at Vanderbilt University, has been watching closely how that money is spent in Tennessee. She argues the programs there are flawed, and unlikely to move the needle for the poor kids who need them most.
What’s worse, Farran says, is that across states, nobody’s really watching the store when it comes to quality, so these mistakes are likely to be repeated.
“I’m so old I’m getting really grumpy about this,” she says. “I have cared about this for such a long time and it’s just making me crazy.” Farran outlines her criticisms in a new paper for the Brookings Institution.
Farran’s research team visited 139 preschool classrooms in the Memphis area and Nashville, all funded by the federal grant program. They observed the classes for a full 6 to 8 hour day to see just how the teachers and students spent their time. This is really important, because we know from other research that high quality preschool means lots of choice-based play in centers, small group instruction, and outdoor or gym play so that young children can move their bodies.
Perhaps local schools might evaluate the effectiveness of current programs (including reading) prior to simply spending more….
More than 100 school districts have spent $138 million above their state-imposed revenue limits without voter approval since 2009, according to an analysis from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.
Since that year, school districts have been able to spend above their revenue caps without first going to voters if the money is being used for projects that are intended to improve energy efficiency in the district. In all, 147 school districts have used the exception.
According to the report, school districts rarely took advantage of the exception until 2012 — after Gov. Scott Walker and Republican lawmakers tightened revenue limits for districts.
Dave Baskerville (7 April 2016)
Mr. Ed Hughes, Member, MMSD Board 4/7/16
Ed, I finally got around to reading your “Eight Lessons Learned” article in the 3/9/16 edition of CT. Interesting/thanks. As you know from our previous discussions, we have similar thinking on some of the MMSD challenges, not on others. For the sake of further dialogue and to continue your tutorial style (‘learned’, ‘not learned’) without my trying to be either facetious or presumptious., let me comment as follows:
LESSON ONE. “It’s Complicated”. Certainly agree, but not an excuse for catching up with the rest of the First World. Did you learn that? Challenges which you rightly say are ’multiyear and multipronged’ become far more complicated when there is not a clearcut, long term direction for a company or system. It seems that every responsible board of private/public or NGO institutions has that responsibility to the CEO (read Superintendant).
You talk of improvement (kaizen), but “better” for the status quo alone is not enough when we have been falling behind for several generations. What you apparently did not learn is that with our global rankings and radical changes in technology and the future world of work, serious transformation of our system is needed?
LESSON TWO. “No Silver Bullet”. There can be 1~3 long term goals, but agree, 426 WI school districts need to figure out in their own ways how to get there. (And where things are measured, they are more often done. Dare you provide, as 300 HSs around the country and 14 in WI have done, the PISA tests for all of our MSN 15 years olds. $15,000 per HS, and indeed, does that ever prod Supt’s, and citizens to set their goals long term and higher! And execute!)
LESSON THREE. “Schools Are Systems”. Agree with Gawande that “a system-wide approach with new skills, data-based, and the ability to implement at scale” is needed. Look at Mayo Clinic where my wife and I spend too much of our time! As you say, a significant cultural shift is required. But what you did not learn is what he said later: “Transformation must be led at the top”. That means clearly articulating for the CEO, staff and public the long term destination point for rigorous achievement and the quantitative means to measure. You did not learn that it does not mean getting involved in the vast HOW of ‘defining the efforts of everyone’, innovation, implementation and details. A good CEO and her team will handle all of that.
LESSON FOUR. “Progress Requires Broad Buy-in”. True. Yet, are you not as a Board getting way into the nitty gritty issues, while at the same time not having a clear long term goal with a Scorecard that not only educators can comprehend but all of us citizens? You did not learn that much of strategy and most all of tactics is not a Board’s prerogative to dwell in/muck around in. But the responsibility to articulate a few goals and a scorecard to vigorously monitor for the broader public is a critical constituency responsibility for the MMSD and the broader buy-in.
LESSON FIVE. “Buy-in can’t be bought”. Agree, many business values are not relevant in education.. But to me , what was not learned from the Zukerberg:Newark disaster was rather that you cannot transform a poorly performing system by simply pouring many more resources and monies into it and enabling/enhancing the status quo. (Believe now in San Francisco, Zuckerberg has learned that as well.)
LESSON SIX. “No substitute for Leadership”. Certainly. That’s why I give you folks a rough time! But your reference to a balance of ‘the best system’ and’ teacher /staff commitment’ is valid. Very much mutually needed for global achievement. And you certainly should be discussing those with Jen, as she sees fit.. But it’s not primarily your Board responsibilities. Again to repeat, by mucking around too much in those Supt. Management, and tactical areas and completely missing the long term, measurable goals/ direction, you have not learned the most critical Board role as I outlined in Lesson One above. In addition where management meets political or union road blocks to substantial progress towards those goals, boards must often step in.
And I would add in most institutions, charisma does not transfer. Milt McPike was a great leader that I’m sure considerably improved the achievement levels at East HS. But is not the Purgolders back to mediocre? If the MMSD Board would have had a transformed system with very clear long term goals for East with a PISA Scorecard that involved the public, I’m betting Milt’s accomplishments would be being built on. If we lose Jen in the next few years, I fear likewise. (Or better, you really challenge her with some 20 year global targets, get out of the way, and maybe she’ll stay with us that long.)
LESSON SEVEN. “Improvement Takes Time”. Of course. But you have simply not learned a sense of urgency. Finland, South Korea, Japan, Shanghai-China, etc….are not going to just watch and wait for 20 years our MMSD kids to catch up. They are all forthrightly after further improvement. Those countries unlike you MMSD Board Members really believe/expect their kids can be trained with the best in the world. Very high expectations! You look at where investment in the world is made…where in the USA millions of jobs lack needed skilled people….why over 65% of the UW-MSN doctoral/ post doc students in almost all of the critical science, engineering and math courses are non-Americans. You have not learned, ED, that a long term direction AND urgency must go together!
LESSON EIGHT. “Incremental progress is good progress”. Agree, lurching about in goals/system approach is not good. A “sustainable school…and coherent approach guided by a system-wide vision…” is good. But as said above, you’ve not learned that your ‘incremental progress’ is not enough! The MMSD approach essentially does not recognize the global job market our kids will walk into. Does not recognize that 20 years hence 65% of the careers now do not exist. ( So only major achievement/competency in the basics {MATH, Science, Reading} will provide some assurance of good work/salaries/further trainability during their lifetime.) That with todays transformation of technology, STEM and blue collar jobs as well as universties will definitely require those kinds of skills for social mobility and self-sufficiency.
That’s it for now. See you at the Club, give me a call if you wish to discuss further,
And either way, best regards,Dave Baskerville (608-259-1233) www.stretchtargets.org.
Much more on Ed Hughes, here.
Unfortunately, Madison’s monolithic, $17K+ per student system has long resisted improvement. We, as a community have tolerated disastrous reading results for decades, rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter school and astonishingly, are paying to expand our least diverse schools (Hamilton middle and Van Hise elementary) via a 2015 referendum….
Further reading, from 2005! When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before.
2006! “THEY’RE ALL RICH, WHITE KIDS AND THEY’LL DO JUST FINE” — NOT!
Two of the most popular — and most insidious — myths about academically gifted kids is that “they’re all rich, white kids” and that, no matter what they experience in school, “they’ll do just fine.” Even in our own district, however, the hard data do not support those assertions.
When the District analyzed dropout data for the five-year period between 1995 and 1999, they identified four student profiles. Of interest for the present purpose is the group identified as high achieving. Here are the data from the MMSD Research and Evaluation Report from May, 2000:Group 1: High Achiever, Short Tenure, Behaved
This group comprises 27% of all dropouts during this five-year period.
Characteristics of this group:
Finally, a few of these topics arose during a recent school board member/candidate (all three ran unopposed this spring) forum. MP3 audio.
Change is hard and our children are paying a price, as Mr. Baskerville notes.
Somewhat ironically, Madison has unused capacity in a number of schools, yet a successful Spring, 2015 referendum will spend another $41M+ to expand certain schools, including some of the least diverse such as Hamilton Middle School.
Madison School District (PDF):
Key Findings
1. Most MMSD schools are not over capacity. Six of the 32 elementary schools and one of the 12 middle schools had Third Friday enrollment numbers above their calculated capacities.
2. Thirteen of the 32 elementary schools, two of the 12 middle schools, and one of the five high schools had Third Friday enrollment numbers above the ideal 90% of capacity.
WHEN offices handle public money, said Aristotle, “there must of necessity be another office that examines and audits them.” Today’s equivalent is the “Supreme Audit Institution”, and 192 countries have one. These beancounters-cum-watchdogs check on behalf of legislatures and the public that their governments spend money cleanly and sensibly—and hold them to account when they do not. Though public, they are (or at least are supposed to be) independent of government.
In “The Art of Audit”, Roel Janssen, a veteran Dutch journalist, tells their story through conversations with former top auditors from eight countries. Number-crunching may be number-crunching, but their experiences, and the outfits they run, differ enormously.
America’s 94-year-old Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a bulky, sophisticated machine employing 3,000 people that holds the government’s feet to the fire on behalf of Congress. David Walker’s main achievement, as its head from 1998 to 2008, was to raise the alarm about America’s exploding federal debt. Running Iraq’s audit board from 2004 to 2014, Abdulbasit Turki Saeed worried more about being blown up himself. His predecessor was killed in the job, as were some people on Mr Turki’s team; he had a lucky escape when he discovered a bomb under his car.
Related: Spending issues on Madison’s last maintenance referendum lead to calls for a maibtenance audit.
“There should be some room for inflationary increases, and our schools have been really constrained for several biennia now. So zero is not a win. Certainly, it’s better than what it was but, frankly, nothing has changed over the last six months so maybe the budget should have been put in place as 0 percent to begin with and we could have worked from there. Now we’re working from a place of disadvantage.”
Some school districts have responded to state cuts by asking voters to approve referenda for funding. Last month, Madison voters approved a $41 million referendum that will pay for upgrades and expansions in 16 schools.
Evers said districts have a success rate of 60 to 70 percent when they go to referendum, but that kind of arrangement could lead to legal challenges.
Much more on Wisconsin’s K-12 tax & spending climate, here.
When Hall was early on the board, the university revealed to regents there were problems with a large private endowment used to provide off-the-books six-figure “forgivable loans” to certain faculty members, out of sight of the university’s formal compensation system.
Hall wanted to know how big the forgivable loans were and who decided who got them. He wanted to know whose money it was. He was concerned there had to be legal issues with payments to public employees that were not visible to the public.
University of Texas President William Powers painted the law school slush fund as a problem only because it had caused “discord” within the faculty. He vowed to have a certain in-house lawyer get it straightened up. Hall, who thought the matter was more serious and called for a more arms-length investigation and analysis, thought Powers’ approach was too defensive. In particular, Hall didn’t want it left to the investigator Powers had assigned.
“I had issues with that,” Hall says. “I felt that was a bad, bad deal. The man’s a lawyer. He lives in Austin. The people in the foundation are his mentors, some of the best lawyers in the state. They’re wealthy. He’s not going to be in the [university] system forever. He’s going to be looking for a job one day.”
But Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa and other members of the board of regents did not share Hall’s concerns. “I was overruled,” Hall says. “That’s when I first felt like, one, there’s a problem at UT, and, two, the system has set up a scheme that gives the opportunity for a less than robust investigation.”Since then, the university’s own in-house investigation, which cleared the law school of any real wrongdoing, has been discredited and deep-sixed. The in-house lawyer who did it is no longer on the payroll. The matter has been turned over to the Texas attorney general for a fresh investigation.
The head of the law school has resigned. The president of the university has resigned. Cigarroa has resigned.
Next, Hall questioned claims the university was making about how much money it raised every year. He thought the university was puffing its numbers by counting gifts of software for much more than the software really was worth, making it look as if Powers was doing a better job of fundraising than he really was.
When Hall traveled to Washington, D.C., to consult with the national body that sets rules for this sort of thing, he was accused of ratting out the university — a charge that became part of the basis for subsequent impeachment proceedings. But Hall was right. The university had to mark down its endowment by $215 million.
The really big trouble began in 2013 when Hall said he discovered a back-door black market trade in law school admissions, by which people in positions to do favors for the university, especially key legislators, were able to get their own notably unqualified kids and the notably unqualified kids of friends into UT Law School.
Local education issues that merit attention include:
A. The Wisconsin DPI’s decades long WKCE adventure: “Schools should not rely on only WKCE data to gauge progress of individual students or to determine effectiveness of programs or curriculum”… It is astonishing that we, after decades of DPI spending, have nothing useful to evaluate academic progress. A comparison with other states, including Minnesota and Massachusetts would be rather useful.
B. Susan Troller’s 2010 article: Madison school board member may seek an audit of how 2005 maintenance referendum dollars were spent. A look at local K-12 spending (and disclosure) practices may be useful in light of the planned April, 2015 referendum.
C. Madison’s long term disastrous reading results, despite spending double the national average per student.
D. Teacher preparation standards.
One day in 1967, Bob Thompson sprayed foam on a hunk of metal in a cavernous factory south of Los Angeles. And then another day, not too long after, he sat at a long wood bar with a black-and-white television hanging over it, and he watched that hunk of metal land a man on the moon.
On July 20, 1969 — the day of the landing — Thompson sipped his Budweiser and thought about all the people who had ever stared at that moon. Kings and queens and Jesus Christ himself. He marveled at how when it came time to reach it, the job started in Downey. The bartender wept.
On a warm day, almost a half-century later, Thompson curled his mouth beneath a white beard and talked about the bar that fell to make way for a freeway, the space-age factory that closed down and the town that is still waiting for its next great economic rocket, its new starship to the middle class.
Meanwhile, Madison schools’ plan to seek additional property tax increases (2015 referendum – pdf board document) to find bricks and mortar. This proposal, rather ironically, perpetuates decades long demographic gaps.
im Bender, president of voucher advocacy group School Choice Wisconsin, said Burke’s comments were misleading because funding for the voucher program comes from state general purpose revenue.
“You can’t talk about taking money away from K-12, unless you believe that money belongs to K-12,” Bender said. “It’s not possessive of any one particular place.”
Eskelsen García, who expressed support for Burke, told the audience to look to her home state of Utah, where the Utah Education Association helped trigger a voter referendum in 2007 that successfully overturned a law that had passed in the state legislature that would provide any student with a school voucher.
NEA spokeswoman Staci Maiers said in an emailed invitation to Monday’s event that “Burke is getting ready to release her K-12 education platform, and she wanted to talk with real teachers and other educators — who are actually in the classroom with students — to find out how best to improve education.”
Burke spokesman Joe Zepecki said there are no immediate plans for Burke to release an education plan, however.
In the meantime, it does appear that U.S. principals are overestimating poverty compared to principals in other countries. Does it matter? It depends on the principal. No matter how you measure it, child poverty is high in the U.S. compared to other developed countries, so the problems are real and present in many U.S. schools. But hyper-awareness of poverty can make a mediocre principal worse—by providing a compelling explanation for education failures that conveniently shifts much of the blame to the home and society at large. And when combined with the reductionist, blame-poverty narratives propagated in many U.S. education colleges, books and blogs, this mindset can excuse all manner of in-school failures.
One of the things I noticed while interviewing principals and teachers in other countries is that they were not nearly as conscious of poverty stats as their American peers. In every country I visited (including Poland and South Korea, which have higher poverty rates than, say, Finland), I asked principals roughly what percentage of their kids would be considered disadvantaged. None of them could tell me off the top of their heads.
In a strong system, that obliviousness can be an asset. One Finnish teacher who had a significant number of refugee students in his class explained it to me this way: “I don’t want to think about their backgrounds too much. I don’t want to have too much empathy for them because I have to teach. If I thought about all of this too much, I would give better marks to them for worse work. I’d think, ‘Oh, you poor kid. Oh, well, what can I do?’ That would make my job too easy.”
The pursuit of redistributed taxpayer funds (“grants”, referendums, annual spending growth, staffing) drives everything.
Can someone please tell me why this isn't more informative than the unemployment rate? pic.twitter.com/SaZoaDIQmG
— Amir Sufi (@profsufi) April 9, 2014
Related: Madison’s planned $39,500,000 fall property tax increase referendum.
Excessive household debt was crucial in explaining the severity of the Great Recession. So where are we now? Have households strengthened their financial position since 2009? Are household balance sheets strong enough to prevent another massive pull back in spending if there are significant job losses?
To answer to these questions, we look at evidence from the 2012 National Financial Capability Study by FINRA. (We are grateful to Annamaria Lusardi, an expert on financial literacy, for pointing us to the data used in this post.) This survey is a representative sample of 25,000 individuals who were asked mostly qualitative questions about their finances. The survey was put into the field three years after the worst of the Great Recession.
The survey responses are shocking, and should put fear into all of us about the financial vulnerability of U.S. households.
Related: MADISON SCHOOLS’ REFERENDUM & POSSIBLE BOUNDARY CHANGE COMMENTARY
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Highly educated Americans are choosing cheaper metropolitan centers in the West and South over more dominant—and expensive—population centers on the coasts and former industrial hubs.
After flocking to areas with ample employment opportunities such as New York City and Los Angeles for years, the nation’s most educated are fanning out in search of better jobs, lower housing costs and improved quality of life.
The 25 U.S. counties with the largest net inflow of people older than 25 with graduate or professional degrees arriving from out of state are nearly all linked to more affordable cities like Raleigh, N.C., and San Antonio, according to an analysis of census data by The Wall Street Journal.
Demographers cite several causes for the shift, including soaring property prices in coastal areas, stagnant paychecks and heightened wariness about the increase in debt that is often the price of admission in bigger cities. The proliferation of regional technology hubs in places such as Raleigh also plays a role, while taxes are often lower in parts of the South.
“It’s a kind of middle-class flight—a bright flight,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a think-tank in Washington, D.C. “People are moving to where the cost of living is reasonable.”
Madison is considering a further property tax increase via referendum this fall.
BUSINESS-SCHOOL students are a pampered bunch. Scholars sipping a glass of red in the posh rooftop bar of Oxford’s Saïd Business School could be forgiven for thinking they had wandered into the nearby Randolph Hotel by mistake. Stanford students can view an impressive modern-art collection housed in its own museum. Harvard Business School MBAs can book a masseuse to relieve the stress of a hard day slaving over case studies.
Life for the next generation of business students is to get even cushier. In the past few years the leading schools have been raising vast amounts to spend on new facilities. On January 9th Yale’s School of Management formally opened its swanky new home, designed by Foster + Partners, Norman Foster’s architecture practice. The Kellogg School of Management in Illinois will soon start work on a new headquarters (see artist’s impression, above) for its MBA programme on the shores of Lake Michigan, at a cost of $200m. Stanford’s business school spent $345m on its new campus, largely thanks to the largesse of Phil Knight, the founder of Nike.
Meanwhile, Madison’s K-12 world considers another $39,500,000 on bricks and mortar despite issues with previous spending and long term disastrous reading results.
Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham is proposing a $39,500,000 November, 2014 maintenance referendum (page 38 of 39), according to her “Strategic Framework Progress” update [1MB PDF]. Questions remain on where the money went from the $26,200,000 2005 maintenance referendum. The District has, according to page 3, launched a “zero based budget”. I am hopeful that the District will address past spending initiatives and provide a complete, easy to understand look at its finances.
Finally, bricks and mortar have their place, but nothing is more important than addressing Madison’s disastrous reading results.
Compare: Three reporters assigned to the Urban League’s governance transition:
1. Steven Elbow: Madison Urban League chair: Kaleem Caire’s credit card use an ‘internal’ issue.
2. Dee Hall: Urban League head: Kaleem Caire’s ‘integrity intact’.
3. Dean Mosiman: Kaleem Caire’s departure followed concerns about credit card use, overwork.
2005 a reporter follows a story with a Madison School Board member: Susan Troller: School Board member may seek audit of 2005 referendum dollars: “For more than a year, Madison School Board member Lucy Mathiak has been asking Madison school district officials for a precise, up-to-date summary of how $26.2 million in 2005 maintenance referendum dollars were spent over the last five years.”.
I’ve not seen any followup on the maintenance referendum spending, not to mention the tens of millions spent on Madison’s reading programs. Those programs have, to be charitable, been ineffective.
Much more on Kaleem Caire, here. Perhaps an Ash Wednesday reflection on John 8 might be in order.
Bread & circuses, indeed.
Local school boards prioritize spending and programs, hire top staff and help shape curriculums. They set long-term goals and schedule building referendums.
Too many school board races go uncontested. And a big reason for the lack of competition is simple: Being a school board member is a difficult, time-consuming and in many ways thankless job.
Yet strong school leadership is crucial to the success of your city, village or town.
Four candidates competed for two Madison School Board seats last spring. It wasn’t just an opportunity to pick leaders for the local district. It was a chance to have a high-profile conversation about how our schools and students are doing — and what they need to do better.
Three Madison school board seats will be on the Spring, 2013 ballot. Beth Moss recently announced that she does not plan to seek re-election during the spring, 2013 contest. James Howard is running. Maya Cole, according to Matthew DeFour’s article will decide after Thanksgiving if she plans to seek re-election.
Overcrowding at the elementary schools and aged facilities at Kromrey Middle School will be corrected after voters in the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a nearly $60 million referendum.
The proposal was the largest in the state this fall and was approved after voters turned back referendums in 2005 and 2009.
“What we tried to do is combine and do a common-sense plan that everyone could understand, was fiscally responsible and looked at the long-term needs of the community,” Superintendent Don Johnson said.
The district was among nine area school districts that combined to ask 12 referendum questions in south central Wisconsin.
Related: Minnesota voters approve most school levy requests
Most Minnesota school districts with levy referendums on the ballot yesterday met with success.
Voters in 29 of 40 districts approved levies, essentially pledging local taxpayer support for their schools, in addition to state-provided funds.
This year’s approval is better than average in a year crowded with local, state and federal races, said Greg Abbott, a spokesman for the Minnesota School Boards Association.
“This passing percentage is a good 20, 25 percent above what a presidential [election] year usually runs,” Abbott said. “That means they really did their work and they got out there and got people to the polls.”
But both are deeply concerned about what the school district’s ability to serve children, and the achievement gap is on the front burner. In the wake of a bitter fight over Madison Preparatory Academy — a proposed but ultimately rejected charter school aimed at fighting that gap — Nerad proposed a detailed achievement gap plan of his own. Even after scaling it back recently, it would still cost an additional $5.8 million next year.
And then there are the maintenance needs. “It’s HVAC systems, it’s roofs, it’s asphalt on parking lots,” Nerad says. “It’s all those things that don’t necessarily lead to a better educational outcome for young people, but it ensures that our buildings look good and people feel good about our buildings, they’re safe for children.”
He pauses, and adds, “My point is that we have a complex set of issues on the table right now.”
Madison teachers made about $20 million in voluntary pay and benefit concessions before the anti-collective bargaining law was enacted, according to district figures. But Nerad says state school support has been in relative decline for more than a decade, long before Walker’s campaign against teacher rights.
Related:
Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter (PDF):
Chicken Little wasn’t kidding. While Governor Walker’s Act 10 stripped public employees of the right to bargain over virtually all wages, benefits and working conditions, the remaining “token” item, which unions theoretically had the continuing right to bargain, was the “total base wages”. Walker’s Act 10, however, limited said increase to no more than the consumer price index (CPI) over the prior 12 months (a higher amount would be subject to referendum). Now that the Walker-appointed Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) has issued Administrative Rules as to the implementation of Walker’s Act 10 calculation of “base wages”, rather than providing a cost-of-living increase for teachers, it COULD ACTUALLY RESULT IN A SUBSTANTIAL DECREASE IN PAY. The following helps explain this apparently ludicrous rule.
For example, a Madison teacher with a Master’s degree is at Track 4, Level 16 (approximately 12 year’s experience) of the current salary schedule is paid $54,985 per year. Assuming a 3% increase in the CPI, this teacher would need a salary increase to $56,635 to maintain the same standard of living. However, the new WERC rule defines the “base pay” not as the current salary ($54,985), but the salary this teacher would have received without the pay additive recognizing the achievement of additional educational credits (Walker’s Law would calculate this teacher’s CPI increase pay at Track 1 [BA], Level 16, or $51,497). The WERC’s defined “Base Pay” for this teacher is $3,488 LESS than the teacher’s current pay. Applying a 3% CPI increase to the Walker’s Law base of $51,497 yields a salary of only $53,042. Therefore, under the WERC’s new rules, this teacher’s “cost-of-living increase” could actually result in a pay cut of $1,943 per year. Rather than a 3% increase in pay, Walker’s Law could produce a 3.5% decrease in pay. The greater the educational attainment (e.g. PhD at Track 8), the greater the potential cut. One publicized example from Monticello School District shows a scenario where a teacher there could take a $14,000 pay cut.
The impact of the WERC Administrative Rule is beyond belief. Calculations illustrate that using this means to calculate wage increases for Madison’s teachers will actually produce only about 90% of the revenue to fund the wages now on the salary schedule – that’s right! Chicken Little wasn’t kidding! This does not necessarily mean that teachers will receive a pay cut after bargaining Walker’s “cost- of-living” increase. School districts could, and should, continue to provide salary schedules which encourage teachers’ continued education and reward them for same. Doing so will be to the advantage of each child enrolled in the district. But, as with all other wages, hours and working conditions under Walker’s Law, such is entirely at the district’s discretion. Walker’s Law even makes it a violation of law for school districts to negotiate over wages, other than the increase in the CPI. Should the employer utilize such discretion, salaries would not have to be cut and increases could occur. But, it’s a fallacy to think that Walker’s Law allows Unions to truly bargain cost-of-living increases for all of their members. While that may be true for employee groups without compensation plans connected to educational credits, such as MTI’s EA, SEE, SSA and USO units, under Walker’s WERC rules, it is certainly not the case for teachers. JUST ONE MORE REASON TO RECALL!
From today’s Wisconsin State Journal.
Two Madison School Board races are shaping up as the city’s most high-profile election contests this spring, with the board’s vote last month against a controversial charter school proposal front and center.
All four candidates who filed paperwork by Tuesday’s 5 p.m. deadline say the election is about more than Madison Preparatory Academy, the proposed single-sex charter school that was voted down by the board last month.
But they agree the issue that drove the charter school debate — raising achievement levels of low-income, minority students — will be a key issue over the next three months.
Madison last had multiple contested School Board races in 2007. In the past four years, only two of nine races were contested.
The election will be a referendum on both the district’s handling of Madison Prep and the achievement gap, said former School Board member Ray Allen, a Madison Prep supporter.
“The community has a unique opportunity,” Allen said. “They’ve got choices and they can voice their opinions.”
The achievement gap has been a critical issue for the district for the past 20 years, said former School Board member Carol Carstensen, a Madison Prep opponent. The Madison Prep debate elevated the conversation about the issue, but there are “a host of issues that you have to deal with as a School Board member.”
“You want people coming in who don’t have a set agenda, but who have principles that are important to them,” Carstensen said. “They are elected to represent the entire district ultimately.”
Other major issues include the future of the teachers union contract after it expires in 2013, school building maintenance needs, limited state funding and how to reverse the increasing number of families opting to leave the district.
Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/madison-prep-at-front-and-center-of-school-board-races/article_534767e0-367c-11e1-a2e2-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1iUwbMeNv
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/madison-prep-at-front-and-center-of-school-board-races/article_534767e0-367c-11e1-a2e2-0019bb2963f4.html
Last week I walked into West High School for the first time since our daughter, Kate, graduated in 2001.
I’d been warned I might be taken aback by how much the place had changed in a decade. But in fact, I had the opposite reaction. Based on my few hours there, it doesn’t seem to have changed much at all.
It had the same delightful, eclectic, intellectual vibe and ethnic diversity one would expect at the public high school located nearest the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
Its student body of 2,100 — largest of the city’s four high schools — hails from 55 countries. It routinely has more semifinalists for National Merit Scholarships, 26 last year, than any school in Wisconsin.
Related: Madison School District maintenance referendums.
Despite a competitive economy in which success increasingly depends on obtaining a college degree, one in four students in this country does not even finish high school in the usual four years.
Matthew Kelly was in danger of becoming one of them.
Tests showed he had a high intellect, but Mr. Kelly regularly skipped homework and was barely passing some of his classes in his early years of high school. He was living in a motel part of the time and both his parents were out of work. His mother, a former nurse, feared that Matthew had so little interest he would drop out without graduating.
Then his guidance counselor suggested he take some courses at a nearby vocational academy for his junior year. For the first time, the sloe-eyed teenager excelled, earning A’s and B’s in subjects like auto repair, electronics and metals technology. “When it comes to practicality, I can do stuff really well,” said Mr. Kelly, now 19.
Related Madison College (MATC) links:
In a city hit hard by the recent economic downturn, school officials have set an ambitious agenda for turning around a struggling school system.
Within five years, Racine Unified School District officials say, their goal is to have 90% of third-graders reading at grade level or higher – a dramatic improvement over the 65% proficiency rate posted on the recent state test.
What they’re asking for in return in a Tuesday referendum is an additional $118.5 million. If approved, it would be the largest successful referendum in Wisconsin, not even counting another question on the ballot that seeks an additional $10 million for district reserves.
“What this referendum is about is us, as a district, making a commitment, but also having the community make a commitment, to make us demonstrably better,” Racine Unified Deputy Superintendent Alan Harris said.
Harris was formerly Principal of Madison’s East High School.
Let’s face it: Teachers union president John Matthews decides when to open and when to close Madison schools; the superintendent can’t even get a court order to stop him. East High teachers marched half the student body up East Washington Avenue Tuesday last week. Indoctrination, anyone?
This Tuesday, those students began their first day back in class with the rhyming cadences of professional protester Jesse Jackson, fresh from exhorting unionists at the Capitol, blaring over the school’s loudspeakers. Indoctrination, anyone?
Madison Teachers Inc. has been behind every local referendum to blow apart spending restraints. Resist, as did elected school board member Ruth Robarts, and Matthews will brand you “Public Enemy Number One.”
When then-school board member Juan Jose Lopez would not feed out of the union’s hand, Matthews sent picketers to his place of business, which happened to be Briarpatch, a haven for troubled kids. Cross that line, kid!
The teachers union is the playground bully of state government. Wisconsin Education Association Council spent $1.5 million lobbying the Legislature in 2009, more than any other entity and three times the amount spent by WMC, the business lobby.
Under Gov. Doyle, teachers were allowed to blow apart measures to restrain spending and legislate the union message into the curriculum. Student test scores could be used to determine teacher pay — but only if the unions agreed.
The most liberal president since FDR came to a school in Madison to announce “Race to the Top” grants for education reform. How many millions of dollars did we lose when the statewide teachers union sandbagged the state’s application?
On 4 August 1822, James Madison wrote a letter to W.T. Barry about the importance of popular education and, by inference, the importance of the relationship of the First Amendment to the task of holding an elected government accountable for its actions. He concluded his opening paragraph, setting the tone for the entire letter, by saying, “A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
Nowhere is the farce and tragedy feared by James Madison more evident than in the national debate over if, or how much, the defense budget should be cut back as part of our efforts to reduce the deficit. With the defense budget at war with Social Security, Medicare, and needed discretionary spending in education, investments in infrastructure, and elsewhere, it is a tragedy that must be undone if we are to protect our middle class way of life.
Related: A Madison Maintenance referendum audit?.
Supervisors of all political stripes need to work together this budget cycle to give and take in ways that don’t push up the property tax burden even higher than it’s already heading.
The city is considering hiking its tax burden by close to $100 on the average Madison home. The Madison school district plans to hike its average bill by more than $200.
The Madison Area Technical College wants to up its average Madison bill by about $30 – plus the college is seeking additional dollars for a building referendum.
It all adds up to several hundred dollars of additional tax burden on ordinary people when they can least afford it. As Falk notes in her budget memo to county supervisors, more than 5,000 Dane County properties are already behind on their payments.
Madison schools’ property taxes are set to increase 9+% this winter.
The state health department is requesting $675 million more from state taxpayers in the next two-year budget to maintain services such as Wisconsin’s health care programs for the poor, elderly and disabled, according to budget estimates released Thursday.
That figure, included in a budget request by the state Department of Health Services, shows how difficult it will be for the next governor to balance a budget that already faces a $2.7 billion projected shortfall over two years.
One of the chief reasons the state faces the steep increase in costs is because federal economic stimulus money for health care programs will dry up before the 2011-’13 budget starts July 1.
That scheduled decrease in funding would come even as high unemployment lingers, driving many families into poverty and keeping enrollment in the programs relatively high. State Health Services Secretary Karen Timberlake said the state needs to find a way to keep health care for those who need it.
“People need this program in a way many of them never expected to,” she said.
But maintaining health programs at existing levels could cost even more than the $675 million increase over two years – a 16% jump – now projected in the budget request, which will be handled by the next governor and Legislature.
Dane County Board Urges State Action on School Reform 194K PDF via a TJ Mertz email:
This evening the Dane County Board of Supervisors enthusiastically approved a resolution urging the Wisconsin Legislature to make comprehensive changes in the way schools are funded. The Board encouraged the Legislature to consider revenue sources other than the local property tax to support the diverse needs of students and school districts.
“I hear over and over again from Dane County residents that investing in education is a priority, said County Board Supervisor Melissa Sargent, District 18, the primary sponsor of the resolution. “However, people tell me they do not like the overreliance on property taxes to fund education – pitting homeowners against children,” she added.
For the last 17 years, the state funding formula has produced annual shortfalls resulting in program cuts to schools. In 2009-2010, cuts in state aid resulted in a net loss of over $14 million in state support for students in Dane County, shifting the cost of education increasingly to property taxpayers. More and more districts are forced to rely on either program cuts or sometimes divisive referenda. In fact, voters rejected school referendums in five districts Tuesday, while just two were approved.
“The future of our children and our community is dependent on the development of an equitable system for funding public education; a system the recognizes the diverse needs of our children and does not put the funding burden on the backs of our taxpayers, said Madison Metropolitan School
Board member Arlene Silvera. “I appreciate the leadership of the County Board in raising awareness of this critical need and in lobbying our state legislators to make this happen,” she said.Jeffery Ziegler a Member of the Marshall Public School District Board of Education and Jim Cavanaugh, President of the South Central Federation of Labor, both emphasized the need to get the attention of state officials in statements supporting the resolution. Ziegler described how state inaction has forced Board Members to make decisions that harm education.
State legislators can apparently decide to just not make the tough decisions that need to be made. School boards have a responsibility to keep our schools functioning and delivering the best education they can under the circumstances, knowing full well that those decisions will have a negative effect on the education of the children in their community.
Cavanaugh observed that the consensus that reform is needed has not led to action and pointed to the important role local governmental bodies can play in changing this by following the lead of the Dane County Board
“Legislators of all political stripes acknowledge that Wisconsin’s system for funding public schools is broken. Yet, there doesn’t appear to be the political will to address this very complicated issue. Perhaps they need a nudge from the various local units of government.”
In passing this resolution, Dane County is taking the lead on a critical statewide issue. Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES) board member Thomas J. Mertz said that WAES thanked the Dane County Board and said that WAES will seek similar resolutions from communities around the state in the coming months.
“All around Wisconsin districts are hurting and we’ve been working hard to bring the need for reform to the attention of state officials,” said WAES board member Thomas J. Mertz. “Hearing from local officials might do the trick,” he concluded.
Gubernertorial candidates Tom Barrett (Clusty) and Scott Walker (Clusty) on education.
The current economic climate certainly requires that choices be made.
Perhaps this is part of the problem.
Finally, The Economist on taxes.
We’ve taken data from other federal reporting systems and compared it with the data found in USASpending.gov across three categories: Consistency, Completeness and Timeliness. How close are the reported dollar amounts to the yearly estimates? How many of the required fields are filled out in each record? And how long did it take the agency to report the money once it was allocated to a project?
The inability to keep track and report on public expenditures does not inspire confidence. Related: Madison district got $23M from taxpayers for aging schools; where did it go?. More here. I’ve not seen any additional information on the potential audit of Madison’s most recent maintenance referendum.
The College Station School District publishes all annual expenditures via their check registers.
A proposed audit of West Virginia’s education spending enjoys widespread support, but that may not make its undertaking any less tricky.
Officials have yet to decide who would conduct the in-depth review, or even how to authorize it. Then there’s the scope. An estimated 14 cents of every dollar spent by the state goes to public education, from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.
The American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia included an audit in its wish list for next month’s special legislative session focused on education.
“We are not aware of any recent or ongoing investigation regarding the spending practices by governmental departments, agencies and boards of education funded with public education dollars and whether the funds are being used for the intended purpose,” the group said in its outline of the proposal, one of eight it wants lawmakers to consider.
Related: Madison School Board member may seek audit of how 2005 maintenance referendum dollars were spent.
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 conclusion. Some of them focused on an unexpected major rise in spending, or, an unexpected or unexplained loss of revenue beyond the $17 million in state cuts. (See Susan Troller’s Madison School’s ‘Budget Gap’ is Really a Tax Gap, for example.)
The answers for the portion of the gap that I could not understand or explain kept coming back to the tax levy. District staff were patient and helpful in trying to answer my questions, but we still didn’t understand each other. The shortest version of the tax levy explanation comes from the district’s Budget Questions and Answers handout.
To recap, the MMSD $30 million budget gap has been explained thusly by
administration. There are two parts to the gap, $1.2 million in expenses that cannot be met, and $28.6 million shortfall from a combination of state funding cuts and tax levy. To date, administration has explained the gap thusly:
This gap is $28.6 million. This total is composed of three parts:
* $9.2 million cut in state aid the MMSD sustained this year;
* $7.8 million cut in state aid the district will sustain next year;
* $11.6 million of increased costs that come with levying authority – broken out in two parts:
— $7.6 million of increased costs in order to deliver the same services next year that the MMSD is delivering this year, and which the state funding formula allows;
— $4.0 million of increased costs and with levying authority from the approved 2008 referendum)
$28.6 million Tax Shortfall Total
For me, and for others, the sticking point has been the idea that additional levying authority through the referendum and the state funding formula, would add to the shortfall in funds to run our schools. That is, how could more funds turn into a funding loss? Or, put in mathematical terms, how could -17 + 11.6 become -28.6? My math is rusty, and I don’t understand connected math, but it did seem to me that it was unlikely that a negative number would get larger after adding a positive number to it.
Full post on-line at lucymathiak.blogspot.com
Count the Dodgeland School District in central Dodge County as among those that have closed schools in outlying communities. Voters in 2001 approved a $17 million referendum to construct one school facility on Juneau’s south side to house all of the district’s students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
That meant closing a middle school in Reeseville and an elementary school in Lowell. An elementary school in Clyman had closed in the late 1990s, according to Superintendent Annette Thompson.
She said trying to adequately fund the previous school arrangement in today’s fiscal environment would be difficult. The change has been for the better.
“It was a hard transition, but we recognized that to be the most cost-effective, we needed a facility that meets the needs of all students,” Thompson said. “I think we’re moving in a really positive direction.”
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.
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.
When the Stoughton Area School District shuttered its Yahara Elementary School last June because of declining enrollments, shrinking funds and a failed school referendum in 2005-06, the total $1 million cost savings was meant to help balance the district’s books into the next decade.
But despite that move, plus 68 staff layoffs and reduced bus routes in recent years, the district now faces another gap — of $3 million over the next three years — and the school board is considering taking a referendum to voters in April.
“The sense was that we would be okay for the 2010-11 school year,” former Yahara principal Cheryl Price, now principal of the new Sandhill Elementary School, said of Yahara’s closing. “They knew that this was one fix. But we thought we had a couple of years” without having to make more drastic cuts.
Those cuts could range from more staff reductions, increasing class sizes, raising athletic fees and eliminating talented and gifted programming.
Related: K-12 Tax & Spending Climate.
Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
Something big needs to happen with Milwaukee Public Schools to boost student performance and graduation rates.
And Gov. Jim Doyle’s push to give the city’s mayor more influence is worth a shot.
The Legislature should accept Doyle’s call for a special floor session this week to change how Milwaukee chooses its school superintendent.
Doyle wants the city’s mayor, rather than the Milwaukee School Board, to appoint the superintendent. In addition, Senate Bill 405 would give the superintendent more power over the district’s budget, contracts and staff.
If city voters didn’t like the results by 2017, they could change back to the current system through a binding referendum.
The Legislature is already planning to meet this week to OK tougher drunken driving laws. So it can easily take up SB 405 as well. The bill needs quick action to help Wisconsin compete for federal “Race to the Top” innovation grants.
via a TJ Mertz and Jackie Woodruff email: July 15, 2009
The school referendum approved overwhelmingly by Madison Metropolitan School District voters in November 2008 was based on a “Partnership Plan” that promised to maintain educational quality, initiate a community-wide strategic planning process, and mitigate the impact on property tax-payers in a variety of ways.
While the school district remains committed to the principles of this Partnership Plan, with the uncertain economy many things have changed since November. Most significantly, the recently enacted state budget has left MMSD facing what now looks like a $9 million reduction in state aid as well as requiring an almost $3 million reduction in expenditures for the 2009-10 school year.
As the MMSD Board of Education seeks ways to address the shortfalls created by the state budget, Community and Schools Together (CAST) believes it is important that the community recognize that this problem was created by state officials, not local decisions. The reductions in revenues and in funding for targeted programs (via categorical aids) will impact every district in the state. Madison is one of about 100 districts that have had their general state aid cut by 15%, but almost all districts are experiencing significant reductions in state support and will be contemplating higher than anticipated property tax increases.
These cuts come after 16 years of inadequate funding, annual cuts in most districts as well as reductions of the state’s portion of education costs in recent years. This recent state budget moves us further away from the sustainable, equitable and adequate educational investments that are needed to keep Madison and Wisconsin strong and competitive.
It is also important that the community understand that the tax and revenue projections in the Partnership Plan and those used in the preliminary district budget passed in May were good projections made in good faith based on the best available information. That preliminary budget strengthened education and held property tax mil rate increase to 1¢ (far below the 11¢ increase anticipated prior to the referendum).
In the coming months the Board of Education must find ways to meet the shortfalls created by the state budget. There are no good choices.
These choices involve some combination re-budgeting and re-allocating, potential new cuts, use of the district’s recently growing fund balance, temporarily employing targeted stimulus monies, or increasing the local tax levy. CAST urges the Board to retain their commitment to quality education and community involvement. We also ask the community to take advantage of opportunities to let all our state and local elected officials know that Madison values education.
###
Community and Schools Together (CAST) is a grass roots organization dedicated to securing sustainable, adequate and equitable public education investments in Madison and Wisconsin.
(Contact) CAST Co-Chairs:
Thomas J. Mertz – 608-255-1542, Carol Carstensen – 608-255-8441, Troy Dassler — 608-241-5183
West High School students will have a grand new entrance to come through next fall. But to help finance it, organizers are looking down the street and across the country — to alumni.
Later this month, about 20,000 West High graduates will find in their mailboxes a donation plea for “The Ash Street Project,” a $400,000, front yard reconfiguration of a building that many consider a Near West Side landmark. Designed by Madison landscape architect Ken Saiki, a West High alum, the new entry will have a symmetrical, formal staircase, decorative walkway and performance area.
Referendum funds and grants will cover $250,000 to replace the school’s crumbling steps and make the new entry comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. But it’s up to West to raise another $150,000 to fund Saiki’s design, a vision approved by a community committee, said Principal Ed Holmes.
“Technically the district money is enough to take down what we have and put it back the way it is,” Holmes said. “It’s time for a renovation, kind of a starting over. The Ash Street entrance is really the symbol and the image of West High School that people have had over the generations.”
Joe Quick:
Dear MMSD Advocate,
Every two years, state government adopts a biennial budget that funds nearly every program in state government. Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget mostly protects K-12, but many K-12 programs were cut by 1%. Due to the floundering national/state economy millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds for Wisconsin are being used to provide a one-time boost to state funding for schools over the next two years.
Short-term, there are some important items in the budget that will help MMSD; but long-term, little is being done to end the annual ritual of either going to referendum or determining what programs and services for students must be cut to balance the local budget.
In the two-year legislative cycle, April in odd years is probably the most important time to contact your legislator to advocate for school programs. Whether it’s SAGE, the K-3 class size reduction program funded by the state, or funding for students in special education — the biennial budget provides the resources.
If you want to advocate to protect school programs/services, please come to the State Budget Forum on April 1st (see attached flier [54K PDF]) to learn about the issues, receive information to help you with that advocacy and find out what is being done to bring about comprehensive school funding reform.
Please forward this information to others who might be interested. Hope to see you April 1st,
Joe Quick
Legislative Liaison/Communication Specialist
Madison Schools
608 663-1902
No time is really a good time to ask taxpayers to vote on three expensive school referendums, but in the current economic climate, Ellen Lindgren hopes Middleton and Cross Plains voters choose hope over fear.
“Some people think that it’s bad timing,” said Lindgren, president of the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School Board. “But unfortunately we didn’t have a say on when the economy tanks.”
The Middleton-Cross Plains Area School Board voted in November to ask taxpayers for extra spending to ease overcrowding in Middleton elementary and middle schools.
“We are out of space, and we have a need to provide for basic classrooms for students,” said Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District Superintendent Don Johnson.
Johnson said the district’s elementary schools are about 350 students over capacity, and the middle schools are struggling with about 150 more children than they can fit in the space.
The district will also ask voters on April 7 for funds to beef up security and to purchase instructional materials, including textbooks and computers.
Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
It also says something about Madison that, despite a troubled economy, people still felt they could afford to pay more. No other school referendum across the state passed with such a big majority — and many failed.
By more than a 2-1 margin, voters gave Madison schools permission to spend millions more than the state would otherwise allow.
The public seemed to recognize the difficult predicament the district is in. And good vibes from the historic election of Barack Obama framed every question on Tuesday’s ballot with a theme of hope.
Another factor in the school district’s favor was the vote of the many residents who don’t directly pay property taxes because they’re in college or rent apartments.
The Madison Metropolitan School District has announced that the school portion of the local property tax will be lower than anticipated in 2008-09.
The drop in the rate translates to an anticipated savings of $67.50 in 2008-09 for a home assessed at $250,000.
“What this means is that property tax rates will be lower because the overall district property values have increased more than we originally expected, while building the 2008-09 budget estimates,” according to Superintendent Dan Nerad.
“The referendum on November 4, 2008 is still necessary to avoid $8.1 million of reductions to direct programs to students within the classroom for the 2009-10 school year,” according to Nerad. “This positive news simply reduces the school portion of individual property tax bills beginning in the 2008 tax year. The Madison School District would still need permission to go above state imposed revenue limits on property tax increases to meet increasing annual expenditures such as utilities, transportation, and employee compensation increases guided by state law.”
With a successful passage of a referendum on November 4, 2008 the Madison School District is committed to creating efficiencies or reducing services by $3.1 million in the 2009-10 school year. This will be accomplished by planned cost saving measures and further financial strategies that will have the least impact on learning in the classroom.
Under the current funding formula in Wisconsin, the property tax levy is set by a state law referred to as the revenue limit formula. The total levy for the 2008-09 school year was approved to increase by $6,039,802 or 2.74% over the prior year. Due to property values increasing at a higher rate than expected, residents within the school district boundaries will see a direct benefit as the property tax bill into the future. With a successful referendum passage for a home valued at $250,000 in 2007-08 the total property tax bill is projected to increase $22 by the 2011-12 school year.
This chart shows the estimated tax impact to owners of a $250,000 in 2007 from 2007-08 through 2011-12.
Estimated school tax rate 2007-08 to 2011-12
Y
Year Tax Rate Tax Bill
2007-08 $10.08 $2,520.00
2008-09 $ 9.81 $2,452.50
2009-10 $ 9.92* $2,480.00*
2010-11 $ 9.70* $2,522.00*
2011-12 $ 9.40* $2,542.00*
*These amounts are estimates
Original estimate of property value increase in 2008 for Madison area property values was 4%
Actual increase in property value in 2008 for Madison area property values was 5.60% (SOURCE: WI Department of Revenue)
Just two months after opening a $25 million new middle school, the Monona Grove School Board is considering closing an elementary school and busing students between Monona and Cottage Grove.
Any of those moves could plunge the district into another tense struggle like the one in 2006 that ultimately led to voters approving the new middle school.
On Nov. 12, the board will consider forming a committee to study whether to close Maywood Elementary in Monona and whether to move Monona sixth-graders to Glacial Drumlin Middle School in Cottage Grove.
Glacial Drumlin opened in September for fifth- through eighth-graders from Cottage Grove, and seventh- and eighth-graders from Monona.
The board may also ask the committee to study changes in Cottage Grove, where Taylor Prairie Elementary is at its enrollment capacity and Cottage Grove Elementary is about 35 students over. Potential moves range from building a $2 million to $3 million addition at Cottage Grove Elementary to using portable classrooms to busing fourth-graders to Monona, where classroom space is abundant. With its price tag, a Cottage Grove Elementary building addition would require a referendum.
Educators say Arnold Schwarzenegger told them to prepare for immediate cuts of $2 billion to $4 billion. They say the governor also plans to keep pushing for a sales tax hike.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told education leaders this morning that he will push for a tax hike and deep cuts to schools to help close the state’s yawning budget gap, according to several participants in the meeting.
The news, delivered in a conference room outside the governor’s office, came as a shock to the educators, who were told to prepare for immediate cuts in the range of $2 billion to $4 billion.
“There is just no way we would be able to cut that much,” said Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Assn., who was at the meeting. “For virtually every district I know of, this would be catastrophic.”
Administration officials confirmed that the meeting took place but refused to discuss details.
Related:
Facing a $3,000,000,000 deficit, it is hard to see how significant increases in redistributed state tax dollars will find their way to K-12 school districts over the next few years.
From the Wisconsin State Journal (similar article in Cap Times). Counter-intuitive but true.
Madison School Board OKs tax rate cut
Wisconsin State Journal
The Madison School Board approved lowering taxes on the average Madison home by $67.50, or 2.70 percent, at its meeting Monday night.
The tax rate will be $9.81 per $1,000 of assessed value, down from $10.08 for the 2007-2008 school year, a decrease of 2.7 percent. The owner of a $250,000 home in Madison will pay $2,452.50 in school taxes for 2008, according to the district. Last year, school taxes on a $250,000 home were $2,520.
Of the total budget, $226 million will come from the local property tax levy, an increase of $6 million, or 2.74 percent, according to district figures. The vote was 7-0.
A preliminary budget was approved in the spring. The board makes adjustments in October after enrollment and state aid figures are in for the school year.
A referendum appearing on voters’ ballots next week would increase property taxes for schools by $13 million over three years. If passed, the referendum would add about $28 to the property tax bill of a home assessed at $250,000.
I recently had an opportunity to visit with Todd Barry, President of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance [29 minute mp3]. A summary of this timely conversation follows:
[2:25] Post Retirement Liabilities: Milwaukee Public Schools Post Retirement Health Care Liabilities: $2.2 to $2.5 billion
[3:01] Wisconsin’s $2.44 Billion structural deficit. The State debt load ($4billion to $9billion from 2000 to 2007) is now among the top 10.
[7:48] On property values and assessment changes. Two years ago, property values grew 9%, last year 6%, 3% this year with most of the recent growth coming from commercial properties.
[8:57] Wisconsin Income Growth: Per Capita personal income “The canary in the mineshaft” and how we lag the national average by 6% or more.
Why?
The population is aging. Senior population will double by 2030. School age population is stagnant.
Employment growth peaked before the nation (04/05)
Wisconsin wages per worker is about 10% less than the national average. 1969; 4% below national average, 1980’s; 10 or 11% below national average. Wisconsin wagers per worker are now 14% below national average. We’ve been on a 40 year slide.
We’ve hid this because the labor force participation of women has increased dramatically.
Wisconsin is losing corporate headquarters.
[18:18] What does this all mean for K-12 spending?
“If there is going to be growth in any state appropriation,it is going to be schools and Medicaid“. The way the Legislature and Governor have set up these two programs, they are more or less on auto-pilot. They will grab whatever money is available and crowd out most everything else. So you get this strange situation where state aid to schools has tripled in the last 25 years while funding for the UW has barely doubled. That sounds like a lot, but when you look at it on a year by year basis, that means state funding for the University of Wisconsin System has grown less than the rate of inflation on an annual average basis while school aids has outpaced it (inflation) as has Medicaid.”
Is there anything on the horizon in terms of changes in school finance sources? A discussion of shifting state school finance to the sales tax. “It’s clear that in states where state government became even more dominant (in K-12 finance) than in Wisconsin, the net result, in the long run, was a slowing of state support for schools. The legislature behaves like a school board, micromanaging and mandating. California is the poster child.
[20:52] On why the Madison School District, despite flat enrollment and revenue caps, has been able to grow revenues at an average of 5.25% over the past 20 years. Barry discussed: suburban growth around Madison, academic competition amongst Dane County high schools. He discussed Madison’s top end students (college bound kids, kids of professionals and faculty) versus the “other half that doesn’t take those (college entrance) tests” and that the “other half” is in the bottom 10 to 20% while the others are sitting up at the top on college entrance exams.
[23:17]: This is a long way of saying that Madison has made its problem worse and has put itself on a course toward flat enrollment because of social service policies, school boundary policies and so forth that have pushed people out of the city.
[23:42] “If there is a way within state law to get around revenue caps, Madison has been the poster child”. Mentions Fund 80 and frequent and successfully passing referendums along with Madison’s high spending per pupil.
People think of the Milwaukee Public Schools as a high spending District. When you really look start to dig into it, it is above average, but Madison is way out there compared to even MPS. People argue that argue that MPS is top heavy in terms of administrative costs per student, Madison actually spends more in some of those categories than Milwaukee. (See SchoolFacts, more)
[26:45] On K-12 School finance outlook: The last time we blew up the school finance system in Wisconsin was in 1994. And, it happened very quickly within a span of 2 to 3 months and it had everything to do with partisan political gotcha and it had nothing to do with education.
[28:26] “Where are the two bastians of Democratic seats in the legislature? Madison and Milwaukee. Madison is property rich and Milwaukee is relatively property poor. Somehow you have to reconcile those two within a Democratic environment and on the Republican side you have property rich suburbs and some very property poor rural districts.
Hubbert said he expects Education Trust Fund revenues to fall short at least 5 percent, or at least $318 million, of what the Legislature budgeted for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. As bad as that sounds, it could get worse. Hubbert said if the economy continues to slide, the shortfall could top $400 million.
Trust fund revenues already are more than $200 million below what lawmakers expected. That’s mainly because tax collections for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 grew $146 million less than forecast, and Riley last year drained a $440 million reserve to avoid education spending cuts. Lawmakers had expected to have from $64 million to $109 million left in the reserve fund to spend this year. Instead, that money is gone.
The Legislature didn’t help matters by passing a $6.36 billion education budget for 2009. That amount exceeds by $102 million the average revenue forecasts of the state finance director and the Legislative Fiscal Office. Essentially, lawmakers decided that cutting almost $370 million from the $6.7 billion education budget from 2008 was hard enough, and they didn’t want to carve another $100 million-plus for 2009.
Tax base growth is certainly not a given at the moment. Related: November 2008 Madison School District referendum notes and links.
Click to view a map displaying Leopold and nearby schools.
Five days after Madison Metropolitan School District and Madison School Board officials learn if voters approved a referendum to help finance the district budget, they’re expected to vote on options to ease overcrowding at Leopold Elementary.
Wisconsin State Journal & The Madison School District:
A long-term plan for coping with Leopold Elementary’s crowded classrooms would be delayed until June, and the school’s fifth graders would be shuttled to two middle schools for two years under a proposal released today by Madison schools Superintendent Daniel Nerad.
In a report to the Madison School Board, Nerad acknowledged that residents living in the Leopold area on Madison’s South Side would prefer that a new school be built in the area.
However, he recommended the stopgap measures while delaying the long-term plan, which had been expected to be announced this fall. District officials have been studying the problem since April.
Under Nerad’s plan, Leopold’s fifth graders would attend Cherokee and Wright middle schools in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years. About three-fourths of the fifth graders would be sent to Cherokee.
Distance from Leopold Elementary to:
Much more on Leopold here.
A video tape of the entire presentation and discussion with Dr. Nerad may be viewed by visiting this internet link: https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2008/09/ madison_superin_10.php
Dan Nerad opened his remarks by stating his commitment to efforts for always continuing change and improvement with the engagement of the community. He outlined four areas of focus on where we are going from here.
Dr. Nerad discussed five areas about which he sees a need for community-wide conversations for how to meet needs in the district.
a. A stronger curriculum helping people relate with other people, their differences and conflicts.
b. A response system to safety. Schools must be the safest of sanctuaries for living, learning and development.
c.Must make better use of research-based technology that makes sense.
a. Good news: several recommendations for curriculum, instruction and policies for change.
b. Bad news: our students take less math than other urban schools in the state; there are notable differences in the achievement gap.
- Fine Arts: Cited recent Fine Arts Task Force Report. Fine arts curriculum and activities in the schools, once a strength, has been whittled away due to budget constraints. We must deal with the ‘hands of the clock’ going forward and develop a closer integration of the schools and community in this area.
via WISTAX
WISTAX published a fascinating chart in their most recent issue of FOCUS [Page 1, Page 2]:
However, the state pledge to provide two-thirds of schools revenues in 1996-97 changed the budget landscape. By 2006-07, state-tax support for the UW System had almost doubled during Ihe 25 years prior. However, inflation (CPI, up 115%). school aids/credits (320%). and overall slate GPR expenditures (222%) rose more.
Related:
Further proof that there is no free lunch. The ongoing calls for additional state redistributed tax dollars for K-12 public education will likely have an effect on other programs, as this information illustrates. I do think that there should be a conversation on spending priorities.
In the first major test for newly hired Superintendent Daniel Nerad, Madison school officials this week will begin public discussions of whether to ask voters for additional money to head off a potentially “catastrophic” $8.2 million budget gap for the 2009-10 school year.
The Madison School Board’s meetings in August will be dominated by talk of the possible referendum, which could appear on the Nov. 4 ballot.
The public will be invited to speak out at forums on Aug. 12 and 14.
Related:
Props to the District for finding a reduced spending increase of $1,000,000 and looking for more (The same service budget growth, given teacher contract and other increases vs budget growth limits results in the “gap” referred to in Hall’s article above). Happily, Monday evening’s referendum discussion included a brief mention of revisiting the now many years old “same service” budget approach (28mb mp3, about 30 minutes). A question was also raised about attracting students (MMSD enrollment has been flat for years). Student growth means additional tax and spending authority for the school district.
The Madison school board has been far more actively involved in financial issues recently. Matters such as the MMSD’s declining equity (and related structural deficit) have been publicly discussed. A very useful “citizen’s budget” document was created for the 2006-2007 ($333M) and 2007-2008 ($339M) (though the final 2007-2008 number was apparently $365M) budgets. Keeping track of changes year to year is not a small challenge.
Lisa Downs Henry’s father and stepmother opened Downs Preschool in 1984 as a private day care center in Watkinsville, Ga. Business was good, but it really took off in 1995 after the state approved state lottery receipts to pay for pre-kindergarten classes.
The family converted the day care center into a preschool, which has since become a kind of institution in Oconee County, an hour’s drive east of Atlanta. Of 12 preschool classes countywide, Downs boasts seven.
Each fall, Henry, the school’s director, welcomes a new class of 140 children, all 4-year-olds, all attending tuition-free.
“Since it’s state-funded, you just don’t have to hound parents about money,” she says.
Related: Missed opportunity for 4K. I’ve heard that there has been some discussion regarding 4K and a potential fall, 2008 Madison School spending referendum. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, given the short amount of time between now and November.
Gov. Jim Doyle is telling most state agencies not to expect any increase in funding over the next two years.
Doyle is also telling state officials to prepare plans for a 10 percent cut. He gave the same order to agencies two years ago.
The governor’s instructions come in a letter that outlines what to expect in the next two-year budget plan he will submit to the Legislature in February.
Something to ponder as the Madison School Administration and Board consider a fall referendum.
Leopold Elementary School is getting a new principal this summer but for many teachers and parents, it seems like déjà vu all over again.
For years, Leopold has dealt with a series of temporary remedies to deal with overcrowding, including sending students to different schools, a new addition and remodeling space to accommodate more classrooms.
The Leopold Parent Faculty Organization is asking the Madison Metropolitan School Board to find a long-term solution to the problem, although it might accept some temporary measures en route to a “real” solution.
Some worry that some of temporary solutions, such as carving out more classroom space, may turn out to be the status quo, as has happened when “temporary” classrooms came to be considered in determining the school’s capacity.
A 2005 Leopold expansion referendum which would have created an 1100 student facility failed.
Dozens of parents and staff members attended Monday night’s Madison Metropolitan School District’s Board of Education meeting to shed new light on an old problem: overcrowding at a local elementary school.
The issue of overcrowding at Aldo Leopold Elementary School is prompting some parents and teachers to tell the board solutions they’d like to see to relieve the problem.
Some said that the obvious solution would be to build a new Leopold Elementary or perhaps to adjust the school’s boundaries. The group presenting the board with the findings of a parent-teacher survey about the challenges at the school, WISC-TV reported.
The school is at 99 percent attendance with 718 students and can only handle eight more students, officials said.
Monday evening’s Board meeting included a brief discussion of a much larger Leapold School – perhaps similar to the failed 2005 referendum that would have created a building suitable for 1100+students.
Lucy Mathiak’s recent comments regarding the lack of substantive local media education coverage inspired a Mitch Henck discussion (actually rant) [15MB mp3 audio file]. Henck notes that the fault lies with us, the (mostly non) voting public. Apathy certainly reigns. A useful example is Monday’s School Board’s 56 minute $367,806,712 2008/2009 budget discussion. The brief chat included these topics:
Rick Berg notes that some homes are selling below assessed value, which will affect the local tax base (property taxes for schools) and potential referendums:
But the marketplace will ultimately expose any gaps between assessment and true market value. And that could force local governments to choose between reducing spending (not likely) and hiking the mill rate (more likely) to make up for the decreasing value of real estate.
Pity the poor homeowners who see the value of their home fall 10%, 20% or even 30% with no corresponding savings in their property tax bill, or, worse yet, their tax bill goes up! Therein lie the seeds of a genuine taxpayer revolt. Brace yourselves. It’s gonna be a rough ride.
The Wisconsin Department of Revenue noted recently that Wisconsin state tax collections are up 2.3% year to date [136K PDF]. Redistributed state tax dollars represented 17.2% of the District’s revenues in 2005 (via the Citizen’s Budget).
Daniel de Vise dives into Montgomery County, Maryland’s school budget:
The budget for Montgomery County’s public schools has doubled in 10 years, a massive investment in smaller classes, better-paid teachers and specialized programs to serve growing ranks of low-income and immigrant children.
That era might be coming to an end. The County Council will adopt an education budget this month that provides the smallest year-to-year increase in a decade for public schools. County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) has recommended trimming $51 million from the $2.11 billion spending plan submitted by the Board of Education.
County leaders say the budget can no longer keep up with the spending pace of Superintendent Jerry D. Weast, who has overseen a billion-dollar expansion since his arrival in 1999. Weast has reduced elementary class sizes, expanded preschool and kindergarten programs and invested heavily in the high-poverty area of the county known around his office as the Red Zone.
“Laudable goals, objectives, nobody’s going to argue with that,” Leggett said in a recent interview at his Rockville office. “But is it affordable?”
It’s a question being asked of every department in a county whose overall budget has swelled from $2.1 billion in fiscal 1998 to $4.3 billion this year, a growth rate Leggett terms “unacceptable.”
Montgomery County enrolls 137,745 students and spent $2,100,000,000 this year ($15,245/student). Madison’s spending has grown about 50% from 1998 ($245,131,022) to 2008 ($367,806,712) while enrollment has declined slightly from 25,132 to 24,268 ($13,997/student).
I’ve not seen any local media coverage of the District’s budget this week.
Thanks to a reader for sending this in.
Oxymoron
Wisconsin Heights, a cash-hungry school district on the western edge of Dane County, is among a growing number of area school systems considering consolidation to deal with financial pressures.
Kay Butcher, a Wisconsin Heights School Board member who backed two referendums rejected by voters this year and last year, said it’s important to start discussions with other districts.
“I brought up the issue of consolidation because I feel if we can’t pass a referendum, we have to find an alternative,” said Butcher, who raised the issue at an April 14 board meeting.
“I wouldn’t say that there’s anybody out there that’s gung-ho about the idea, but we have to talk about what are we going to do.”
The board is scheduled to continue that discussion tonight as part of a wide-ranging look at options for the district, which faces a budget shortfall estimated at $500,000 to more than $700,000 in the 2008-09 school year and larger deficits in later years.
An interesting “District” oriented perspective. The real question: what’s best for the students?
This report on the attitudes and lives of the American middle class combines results of a new Pew Research Center national public opinion survey with the center’s analysis of relevant economic and demographic trend data from the Census Bureau. Among its key findings:
Fewer Americans now than at any time in the past half century believe they’re moving forward in life.
Americans feel stuck in their tracks. A majority of survey respondents say that in the past five years, they either haven’t moved forward in life (25%) or have fallen backwards (31%). This is the most downbeat short-term assessment of personal progress in nearly half a century of polling by the Pew Research Center and the Gallup organization.
When asked to measure their progress over a longer time frame, Americans are more upbeat. Nearly two-thirds say they have a higher standard of living than their parents had when their parents were their age.
Related: Latest local school budget and referendum discussion.
Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
For more evidence of why Wisconsin residents should demand reform of the state ‘s school financing system, consider this:
On Tuesday, 41 school districts — nearly one of every 10 in the state — will be responding to a financial squeeze by asking voters for permission to spend more money.
That ‘s in addition to the 14 districts that did the same in last month ‘s primary election.
A few districts are requesting to borrow money to build or renovate or to buy land. But the majority are districts with leaky roofs to fix, outdated textbooks to replace, heating systems to repair and parking lots and athletic fields to maintain.
And they have no money to do it with because the state has boxed school boards, and the public they serve, into a no-win situation.
Whether these referendums deserve approval — or, even if they do, whether taxpayers can afford the cost — will be up to the voters.
Related: K-12 Tax & Spending Climate notes that Wisconsin K-12 spending has increased by an average of 5.10% annually (Madison is 5.25%).
Protests from this small school district nestled in the Texas Hill Country are reverberating across the state’s school finance landscape.
School board members – backed by parents and local business owners – have decided to say “no” when their payment comes due next month under the state’s “Robin Hood” school funding law.
Wimberley is one of more than 160 high-wealth school districts – including several in the Dallas area – that are required to share their property tax revenue with other districts. But residents here insist that their students will suffer if they turn the money over to the state.
“We’re not going to pay it,” said Gary Pigg, vice president of the Wimberley school board and a small-business owner. “Our teachers are some of the lowest-paid in the area. Our buildings need massive repairs. We keep running a deficit – and they still want us to give money away.
“It’s unconstitutional – and I’m ready to go to jail if I have to.”
Mr. Pigg and the rest of the Wimberley school board voted last fall to withhold the payment of an estimated $3.1 million in local property taxes – one-sixth of the district’s total revenue – that was supposed to be sent to the state under the share-the-wealth school finance law passed in 1993. The law was passed in response to a series of court orders calling for equalized funding among school districts.
Wisconsin’s school finance system takes a similar approach: High property assessement values reduce state aids. Unlike Texas, Wisconsin simply redistributes fewer state tax dollars to Districts with “high” property values, such as Madison. Texas requires Districts to send some of their property tax receipts to the state to be redistributed to other districts. School finance has many complicated aspects, one of which is a “Robin Hood” like provision. Another is “Negative Aid“: If Madison increases spending via referendums, it loses state aid. This situation is referenced in the article:
Regarding the possibility of a tax hike, Mr. York noted that an increase would require voter approval – something that is not likely to happen with residents knowing that a big chunk of their money will be taken by the state.
One of the many ironies in our school finance system is that there is an incentive to grow the tax base, or the annual assessment increases. The politicians can then point to the flat or small growth in the mill rate, rather than the growth in the total tax burden.
Finally, those who strongly advocate for changes in Wisconsin’s school finance system must be ready for unintended consequences, such as reduced funding for “rich” districts, like Madison. Madison’s spending has increased at an average rate of 5.25% over the past 20 years, while enrollment has remained essentially flat (though the student population has changed).
Some in a big Madison neighborhood are outraged over the latest plan to change West Side school boundaries to make way for a new school opening near Hawk’s Landing next fall.
Residents in the Valley Ridge neighborhood are pledging to start a petition drive and to do whatever it takes to stop the proposal.
The new, yet-to-be-named school on the far West Side has prompted officials to try to rearrange boundary lines on the West Side. But, the boundary lines are different than initially proposed and some in Valley Ridge said they are in shock.
“I feel very deceived,” said parent and homeowner Beth Todd, vice president of the Glenn Stephens PTO.
Todd, her husband and other parents said they were always told their children would not be affected by the new boundary changes in meetings with school officials before the referendum for the new school passed.
Currently, Valley Ridge children go to Stephens school as well as Jefferson Middle School. But under a new proposal, that would all drastically change, and, some contend, for no good reason.
A few articles on the current tax and spending climate:
In some markets where real-estate values had been rising sharply for years, property taxes are still climbing. That is because it can take a long time for assessments, which commonly are based on a property’s estimated market value, to catch up with the realities of the real-estate market.
The lag time has led to an outcry to cut property taxes reminiscent of the 1970s, says Gerald Prante, an economist with the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group in Washington.
“In many cases, incomes were growing faster than property-tax bills in the 1990s,” Mr. Prante says. “Recently, property-tax bills have grown faster than incomes, on average.”
State and local property-tax collections increased 50% from 2000-06, according to Census Bureau data. During the same time period, the median household income rose 15%, before adjustment for inflation.
Property taxes supply $65% of the Madison School District’s $349M budget (2007-2008) [Citizen’s Budget with 2.5MB PDF amendments]
Despite all the deductions, loopholes and clever accountants the federal income tax is strongly progressive. Moreover the federal tax system remains progressive even if you include the payroll tax, corporate taxes and excise taxes. The chart below with data from the Congressional Budget Office, shows the effective tax rate by income class from all federal taxes. Effective tax rates are considerably higher on the rich than the poor.
The effective tax rate is higher on the rich and the rich have more money – put these two things together and we can calculate who pays for the federal government. The final column in the table shows the share of the 2.4 trillion in federal tax revenues that is paid for by each income category.
School taxes increased more than 7 percent statewide, the biggest increase in 15 years, fueling renewed cries for reform of the state school funding system.
The state school finance system is “broken, ” said Pete Etter, interim superintendent of the tiny Black Hawk School District about 60 miles south of Madison, which had the highest local school property tax increase of any district in the state. “It ‘s not only Black Hawk. It ‘s every district in the state. ”
Critics say the system is flawed because state revenue limits for districts don ‘t grow enough, if at all. If state aid is insufficient, districts must turn to taxpayers, sometimes through referendum.
Dane County range
School taxes — as well as the total tax bill — depend mostly on where you live.
un Prairie School District has spent the past few years warning residents that the schools there are becoming too crowded as the city expands.
This referendum wasn’t the first, but it was the first to pass. The District will get a new High School that will house 10th, 11th and 12th graders. The current High School will be used for 8th and 9th grade.
It’s a $96 million dollar cost for the new school.
Meanwhile, West Bend’s $119M referendum was defeated 62.6% to 37.4%.
I hope your school year is going well. Below is the October BOE update.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact myself at
asilveira@madison.k12.wi.us or the entire board at
comments@madison.k12.wi.us
Arlene Silveira
Superintendent Search: Our consultants presented a summary of the
community input sessions on the desired characteristics for a new
superintendent. Read the entire report at www.mmsd.org/topics/supt/.
The desired superintendent characteristics approved by the BOE are
also available at this site. The consultant firm is recruiting and
screening candidates and will bring a slate of candidates back to the
BOE in January.
Fine Arts Task Force (FATF): The FATF is seeking community input on
their goals for Fine Arts education. The survey is available at
www.mmsd.org/boe/finearts/.
Referendum: The District will receive an approximate $5.5M windfall
from the city as a result of closing 2 tax incremental districts (TID).
The BOE voted to use this money to close our projected budget gap for
the ’08/09 school year. Because we will use the money to close the
projected gap, we also made the decision that we will not go to
referendum in the Spring ’08. In the summer of ’08, the BOE will begin
discussions of a possible operating referendum to cover the gap for the
’09/10 school year and beyond.
Performance and Achievement Committee: (Lawrie Kobza, Johnny Winston
Jr., Maya Cole). The committee started discussions on different school
models (charter, magnet, neighborhood, etc.). Discussions will continue
in committee. The committee reviewed a plan/proposal to expand our Play
and Learn program by making the program “mobile”. Further discussion
will continue at full BOE. The committee began the discussion of
updating district performance goals to make them more measurable and
relevant. The first goal being evaluated is focused on improving
student achievement.
Human Resources Committee: (Johnny Winston Jr., Lawrie Kobza, Beth
Moss). The committee reviewed the results of a study that had been
requested by the BOE to determine how the MMSD Administrator pay and
benefits structure and related policies compare to other selected school
districts in Wisconsin. Discussion will continue in committee.
Communications Committee: (Beth Moss, Lawrie Kobza, Carol Carstensen).
WAES (Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools) made a presentation on
state funding. A legislative update on the state budget was also
provided.
Finance and Operations Committee: (Lucy Mathiak, Carol Carstensen, Maya
Cole). The committee took the lead at analyzing the TID and referendum
options and making recommendations to the full BOE for vote (above).
Long Range Planning: (Carol Carstensen, Lucy Mathiak, Beth Moss).
There was a presentation on all of the initiatives in the District’s
Energy Management Program. There are many exciting programs in place
across the District. Since our program was put into effect, we have
decreased consumption rates and expenditures. Had we continued to
consume at 1997 consumption rates, our utility expenditures would have
been $4,400,000 more.
Community Partnerships: (Maya Cole, Johnny Winston Jr., Lucy Mathiak).
The committee is in the process of defining “Partnerships”. They are
also reviewing the policy on parent involvement in the schools.
The Board of Education of the Madison Metropolitan School District, after consulting staff, students, parents and community members, seeks an educational leader who is student-centered and demonstrates the following characteristics:
Possessing:
Ability to:
The individual selected is expected to be highly visible in and engaged with the schools and community. Successful experience as a superintendent or district level administrator in a similar urban environment and school district size is preferred.
Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, Ltd. Executive Summary 960K PDF File:
This report summarizes the findings of the Leadership Profile Assessment conducted by Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, Ltd. (HYA) for the Board of Education of Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD). The data contained herein were obtained from reviewing approximately 185 completed Leadership Profile Assessment forms, 220 emailed responses and interviews with approximately 240 persons identified b y the Board, in either individual, focus group or community input settings, on September 19 and 20, 2007. The questionnaire, interviews and focus groups were structured to gather data to assist the Board in detennining the primary characteristics it might seek in its next superintendent of schools. Through this process, the consultants attempted to identify the personal and professional characteristics desired in the superintendent, as well as the skill sets necessary to maintain what constituent groups value and to address current and emerging issues which the District might be facing.
Information obtained through interviews, emails and completed questionnaires reflects similar views from all groups with respect to the multiple strengths of MMSD. Respondents were extremely proud of their District’s national recognition for educational excellence. They voiced pride in their students’ excellent test scores, the District’s exceedingly high number of National Merit Semifinalists and its ability to provide top quality academic programs in an environment of rapidly changing demographics. Given the changes in the socio-economic, racial and ethnic make-up of the student body, residents identified as major strengths the District’s commitment to reduce the achievement gap between Caucasian and minority students, its willingness to address issues of diversity and its provision of training in best practices to assist staff in meeting the special needs of a diverse student population.
Respondents also pointed to MMSD’ s commitment to neighborhood schools, retention of small class sizes in most elementary schools, rigorous curriculum, support of music programs and the arts, broad range of sports and other extra-curricular activities, high expectations of a well educated parent constituency and its excellent special education program with the focus on the inclusion of students in regular classrooms. Residents cited the strong support for the District by caring, involved parents and by a community that values high academic standards and achievement. Other strengths cited included the District’s bright, motivated students and its highly competent, dedicated, hard-working teachers and support staff committed to the success of all students. Building administrators were commended for their dedication, accessibility and innovative leadership in providing programs that reflect the needs of their individual school populations. All respondents cited MMSD’s proximity to and partnership with UW-Madison and Edgewood College as invaluable assets.
The over-arching challenge cited by all respondents centered on the MMSD’ s future ability to maintain its excellent academic programs and student performance, given the District’s insufficient financial resources, significant budget cuts and ever-growing low-income and ELL student populations. These concerns are interrelated and if not addressed successfully could eventually become the self-fulfilling cause of what respondents feared the most: the exodus of a considerable number of high-performing upper/middle class students to private or suburban schools as a “bright flight” mentality overrides parental desire to provide children with a “real world” enviromnent of socio-economic, ethnic and racial diversity.
Concern over the funding issue was expressed in several ways: failure to cut the personnel costs of a “top heavy” central office, more equitable funding of the various schools, state level politics that restrict local access to property taxes and fail to increase state funding, the cost of responding to the arbitrary mandates of t he NCLB law, the future need for a referendum to increase property taxes and a strong teachers’ union perceived as placing its salary/benefit issues, restrictions on management prerogatives and undue influence over the Board ahead of the District’s interests. The impact of continued budget cuts strikes at the quality and reputation of the educational program, with fear of an erosion of the comprehensive curriculum and after-school activities, reduction in aides who help classroom teachers with ELL and special education students; curtailment of music, fine arts and gifted programs; increases in class size; lack of classroom supplies; postponed maintenance and renovation of aging facilities; need to update technology and the lack of long-range financial planning as the District confronts one financial crisis after another.
Concern over the impact of the changing demographics was also expressed in various ways: fear that the rising cost of responding to the special needs of an increasingly diverse student population and efforts to close the achievement gap will reduce the dollars available to maintain electives and enrichment programs for regular and gifted students; the changing school culture in which gang activity, fights between students, a pervasive lack of respect by students toward authority are perceived as the norm, which in turn generates fear that the schools are no longer as safe as they used to be; the need to provide more relevant programs for the non-college bound students and the need to address the high minority student dropout rate. Concern that students from minority group populations are disproportionately disciplined, suspended and/or expelled was also expressed.
Almost all constituent groups felt that the Board and Administration need to gain the trust of parents and the community through communication that clearly identifies the fiscal issues and the criteria on which funding and budget decisions are based. Many expressed the view that the Board and Administration’s lack of transparency in district decision-making and show of disrespect toward those who question administrative proposals have eroded constituent support. A concerted effort by the Board and Administration to become more creative in publicizing the successes of MMSD’s outstanding educational opportunities might encourage mor e young upper/middle class families to move into the District and convince others to remain.
Respondents agreed on many of the attributes that would assist a new superintendent in addressing the issues confronting MMSD. They want a student-centered, collaborative educational leader of unquestioned integrity with superior communication, interpersonal and management skills. He/she should have strategic plmming skills and feel comfortable with the involvement of parents, teachers and community members in shaping a vision for the District’s future direction. The successful candidate should be a consensus builder who has had experience in meeting the needs of an ethnically and socio-economically diverse student population. He/she should b e sensitive and proactive in addressing diversity issues and a strong advocate of effective programs for ELL and gifted students and of inclusion programs for special education students. The new superintendent should be open to new ideas and encourage staff to take risks with research-based initiatives that engage students in learning and maintain high academic expectations as they work together toward common goals. When confronted with controversial issues, he/she should be willing to seek the views of those affected, examine all options and then make the tough decisions. The new superintendent should have the courage of his/her convictions and support decisions based on what is best for all students
The successful individual should have a firm understanding of fiscal management and budgets, K-12 curriculum and best practice and the importance of technology in the classroom. He/she should be a strong supporter of music, fine arts and after-school activities. The new superintendent should have successful experience dealing collaboratively with a Board and establishing agreement on their respective govemance roles. He/she should have a proven record of recruiting minority staff and hiring competent people who are empowered to strive for excellence and are held accountable.
He/she should b e visible in the school buildings and at school events, enjoy interacting with students and staff, be actively involved in the community and seek opportunities to develop positive working relationships with state and local officials, business and community groups. The individual should be a personable, accessible, open-minded leader who engages staff, students, parents and the community in dialogue, keeps them well informed and responds respectfully to inquiries in a timely, forthright manner.
While it is unlikely tofind a candidate who possesses all of the characteristics desired by respondents, HYA and the Board intend to meet the challenge of finding an individual who possesses many of the skills and character traits required to address the issues described b y the constituent groups. We expect the new superintendent to provide the leadership that inspires trust and unites the community in its support for MMSD’s efforts to achieve an even higher level of performance for its students and staff.
Respectfully submitted,
Marvin Edwards
Jim Rickabaugh
Joan Levy
An unprecedented windfall is on the horizon for the city of Madison and Madison School District, promising to relieve some budget pressures and affect major issues such as the city ‘s hiring of 30 police officers and the School Board ‘s debate over whether it still needs to ask voters for more money in a referendum.
Under a proposal from Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, the city would receive $3.7 million and the School District would get $5.4 million in money flowing from two fast-developing special taxing districts created years ago by the city. In addition, Dane County and Madison Area Technical College would receive a little less than $1 million apiece.
“It ‘s significant news, and very good news, for the School District and the city, ” Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said Wednesday. “The amount is unprecedented. ”
The one-time payouts would occur by the end of next year if the City Council votes to close the two tax incremental financing districts as recommended by city staff members who say the move is necessary under state law.
The Madison School District said Tuesday it will provide bus rides for children attending private schools this year because it missed a legal deadline to notify families that the service was ending.
Hoping to save about $229,000, the School Board voted last spring to abolish bus routes that carried 208 children to six Catholic schools.
Instead, the district would pay their parents a transportation subsidy of about $450 per student.
The district has been working this summer with the Catholic Diocese of Madison to help it set up an alternative transportation system, but it did not realize there was an Aug. 4 deadline for notifying parents affected by the change, Superintendent Art Rainwater said Tuesday.
“We were so engrossed, it just went by us, ” he said. “The statute is very clear and we did not meet it. ”
Michael Lancaster, superintendent of schools for the diocese, said he ‘s happy that children will be receiving safe rides to school.
“Safety was a huge parental concern and ours as well, ‘ ‘ he said.
The financial effect on the district will be evaluated in October when it deals with “hundreds of pluses and minuses ‘ ‘ in making final budget adjustments after receiving data on enrollment, state aid and other factors, Rainwater said.
“We really don ‘t know until October how this fits in,” he said.
Much more on last spring’s private school busing budget change and commentary.
Perhaps this matter is related to gaining voter support for a 2008 referendum, which was discussed at Monday’s Madison School Board meeting:
Approval of Minutes dated April 30, May 7, May 14, May 22, May 29, June 27, July 16 (two sets), 2007
Announcements
There are no announcements.
Initial Discussion of Potential 2007-08 Referendum.
An oversight by the Madison school district’s administration means that the prayers of some Catholic school parents have been answered.
The school district announced Tuesday that it must continue to provide yellow school bus service for students at six local Catholic schools through the 2007-08 school year because it missed a deadline for notifying parents that there would be a change in transportation policy.
The Madison School Board voted last spring to eliminate busing for parochial school students and instead provide a stipend of $450 per child so parents can pay the cost of transportation themselves. State statutes mandate that public schools must provide transportation to all students in their districts, even those attending private schools.
According to Superintendent Art Rainwater, the district has been working over the summer with the Catholic Diocese of Madison to establish alternative means of getting parochial students to school, and it inadvertently missed the 30-day legal deadline for notifying individual parents that there would be a change in transportation policy.
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 didn’t make it into the print and broadcast media.
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.
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July 1 marks the start of the 2007-08 fiscal school year. For the Madison School Board, this will be a year filled with many challenges and tremendous opportunities. We are coming off several rocky months.
State-imposed revenue caps forced us to make budget cuts that will affect every school and student in the District. Special interest groups lobbied for specific schools and programs for their children and sometimes found themselves pitted against other groups. Decisions had to be made where there were no good choices. In addition, the public was divided on the naming of a new school. As a community we were fragmented in actions yet united in our belief that quality schools are vital for the future of our children and society.
A new year provides us with an opportunity to look ahead and make plans to move the District forward. As a Board, we are committed to working hard to make this happen. We have set our Board priorities for the year, all integral to the success of our District and our community.
Our single most important priority is to hire a new Superintendent to lead our District. This will be an exciting process, directed by the Board, that will involve staff and the community in developing a leadership profile for the new Superintendent and the future of our District. Ways in which you can participate in this effort will soon be announced.
In other priorities, we will evaluate the need and weigh the options for going to another referendum in order to eliminate painful budget cuts again next year. We will consider revisions to the Board’s equity policy and the development of guidelines to implement this policy. We will develop specific, measurable goals to evaluate student progress and success. We will study and address the issues that affect educational environment and student achievement such as attendance, dropouts, truancy, expulsions and bullying.
Sue Arneson, Jason Delborne, Katie Griffiths, Anita Krasno, Dea Larsen Converse, Diane Milligan, Sich Slone, Grant Sovern, Lara Sutherlin:
Dear School Board Members:
A group of neighbors from the Marquette and Tenney-Lapham communities met this morning with Enis Ragland, Assistant to the Mayor. While we didn’t claim to represent any organizations, many of us have been tapped into various discussions and email threads over the last few days. We put forth the following points:
- The city’s vision for downtown development is sorely compromised by the consolidation plan. It goes against all the investments in business development, affordable housing, central park, improved transportation, and the building of a strong community that spans the isthmus.
- The school board’s own projections predict that Lapham (as the sole elementary campus) will become overcrowded in 5 years – perhaps sooner if we reinstate reduced class sizes. Where will the city find a ‘new’ school to open in the downtown area?
- The Alternatives programs DO need a permanent home, but their own director stated last year that the worst possible site is next to a junior high. Other options are available, including the possibility of the Atwood Community Center once it is completed.
- The Lapham/Marquette consolidation passed purely for financial reasons – there is no convincing or consensed-upon programmatic advantages.
A letter to the editor from The Capital Times:
Dear Editor: With the multitude of challenges it’s facing, the Madison Metropolitan School District needs all the friends it can get. But the district is alienating central city neighborhoods that value quality public education and the people who are willing to pay for it.
At election time, voters in Ward 34 on Madison’s near east side always turn out in huge numbers to support schools. In May 2005, Ward 34 cast the most votes in the district in favor of all three referendum questions, including one calling for a new Leopold School on the south side. In fall 2006, Ward 34 cast the most yes votes — 1,849 of them — on the referendum that included building an elementary school on the far west side.
So where is MMSD planning to cut costs to deal with its latest budget crisis? Ward 34!
O’Keeffe Middle and Marquette Elementary (where Ward 34 votes) are two of the most successful schools in the district, by any measure. But for some reason, the district thinks it’s a good idea to save money by uprooting and consolidating Marquette at the Lapham site and transforming O’Keeffe into a mega-middle school of as many as 800 students. That’s some gratitude.
The district will need a lot of support as it struggles with state-imposed spending caps, exploding health care costs, changing demographic patterns, and other threats. But if the district follows through on its plans for Marquette and O’Keeffe, it can no longer take that support for granted.
Joseph Rossmeissl, Madison
A controversial plan to close and consolidate schools on Madison’s North and East sides appears dead a week before the Madison School Board’s self- imposed deadline for determining $7.9 million in spending reductions.
Four of the board’s seven members plan to vote against Superintendent Art Rainwater’s proposal to save $1 million by closing tiny Lindbergh Elementary and reshuffling hundreds of other students in elementary and middle schools, according to interviews with all board members.
The plan could be revived, however, if board members fail to find a comparable amount of cost savings elsewhere in the district’s 2007-08 budget.
Related 2007-2008 MMSD Budget (07/08 budget is either $339M or $345M (- I’ve seen both numbers used); up from $333M in 06/07) Posts:
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 Force for the next year. The second charge to the committee is: ” Recommend up to five ways to increase minority student participation and participation of low income students in Fine Arts at elementary, middle and high school levels.”
I noticed in the Grade 5 strings report you received last week there was no information on low-income and minority student enrollment. Our task force received this specific demographic information at our March 26th meeting along with additional information, so I would like to share it with you, because I think it is important. As the program has been cut in the past two years, the low-income and minority student enrollment (numbers and percentage) has remained strong [but the cuts have affected hundreds of low-income students as the numbers show]. For this school year, 44% of the string students are minority students (47% of all Grade 5 students are minority students), and 35% of the string students are low income (44% of Grade 5 students are low income students). This information is captured in the attached Chart for the this year and the previous two years when the program was offered to students in Grades 4 and 5. I’ve also included information on special education student enrollment. I was not able to access ELL information for the previous years.
Decreasing academic opportunities to develop skills at a younger age is more likely to hurt participation at higher grades for low income and minority students who often lack support outside school to strengthen and reinforce what is learned in school either at home or through additional, private opportunities.
I hope you make the decision to give the Fine Arts Task Force an opportunity to complete its charge before making additional cuts to courses, because these cuts may prove to be more harmful to those students we want to reach than we realize. Also, if changes are made, I hope they are done equitably and with time for transitions. I’m asking this not only for arts education but also for other programs and activities Madison values in its public education. Eliminating elementary strings entirely would be the third year of major cuts in either funds or instruction time for students in this program. This seems to me to be overly harsh, especially when you consider that no extracurricular sports have been cut (nor would I support that).
Elementary strings is one arts course, but it has taught up to 2,000+ children in one year and is valued highly by parents and the community. I have 500+ signatures on a petition, which I will share with the board next week that says: “Madison Community Asks the MMSD School Board: Don’t Cut, Work with the Community to Strengthen and Grow Madison’s Elementary String Program. I have many emails with these signatures, and I’m planning to ask folks to write you about what this program means to them, so you hear their words and not only my words.
As I stated when I spoke before you earlier this year, there are those activities where a mix of public and private funding along with fees and grants might work for the arts and for extracurricular sports, for example. Please consider support of this and please consider helping with transitions toward different approaches.
Thank you for your hard work and support for public education.
Barbara Schrank
P.s. – note, I am speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the fine arts task force.
I would also like to add for SIS readers – I know due to the current financing scheme, the state is not funding public schools adequately nor fairly and is placing a huge burden on personal income and property taxes. I also know there have been cuts in previous years to the arts, increases in class sizes, fewer SAGE classes, etc. Just so you know, that is not the point of this letter. I see the need to work both locally and at the state. I also feel we need to be doing something more than referendums at the local level, and I don’t mean cut or referendum. I think in the areas of extracurricular sports, some of the arts, we may be able to put in place a financial package of public, private, fees, grants – but this takes time and planning and commitment by our school board following public discussions on the topic.
Not all minority children are low income, but by far, the majority of low income children are minority. By not working with the community on funding for this high demand, highly valued program, several hundred fewer low income students are receiving skill-based training on an instrument, which scientific research is showing more and more has a positive effect on other areas of academics.
No where else in this city do so many low-income children have the opportunity to learn how to play an instrument and to do so as inexpensively per student. This is a program where “thinking outside the box” for the School Board could come in handy, so we can continue this academic program as part of the school day for so many children.
The month of April brings showers; however, for the Madison BOE it brings new beginnings, budget challenges and community dialogue.
First, regarding new beginnings, let me congratulate Beth Moss and Maya Cole on their election onto the Madison School Board. They will be replacing the retiring Shwaw Vang and Ruth Robarts. Our community should be proud of Mr. Vang and Ms. Robarts’ years of service. I was also re-elected to a second term and look forward to continued public service in this position.
In addition to new Board members, the Board decided unanimously to name the new school General Vang Pao Elementary.
Second, the Madison School District faces a $7.9 million dollar shortfall, which has the Board discussing school closings and consolidations, increasing elementary class sizes in several schools, increasing class sizes across the district in elementary art, music, gym and REACH, and eliminating the 5th grade strings program. After 14 years of being under the state imposed revenue limits, the budget cuts are now reaching the point of cutting into the foundation of our educational values.
Third, several public hearings on the budget reductions will be held throughout the community including on Tuesday April 17th at La Follette and Thursday April 19th at Memorial. Both hearings are at 6:30 pm. The 2007-08 budget will be finalized in late April or early May.
Fourth, the Board voted down an operating referendum proposal that could have taken place in the summer. However, given our budgetary situation I won’t be surprised to see an operating referendum on the ballot in February 2008.
Fifth, the Board approved a Request For Proposals for consultants to conduct a superintendent search, and decided on health insurance contributions for administrators.
Board Committees
A full month of public hearings and Board workshop agendas kept many committees from meeting since my last report. However, the committees have played an important part in analysis and discussion this year.
Finance and Operations (Lawrie Kobza, Chair) continues its work on the citizen’s budget. Long Range Planning (Carol Carstensen, Chair) held public hearings in the community regarding the proposed closings and consolidations.
Communications (Arlene Silveira, Chair) held a special workshop regarding community advocacy efforts regarding lobbying our state government for additional K-12 funding. Community Partnerships (Lucy Mathiak, Chair) received a presentation regarding the process and procedure the UW Foundation uses to engage people to make contributions.
MMSD News
On Monday March 26th, the MMSD held its annual recognition awards honoring district staff, students and citizens who have made significant contributions to Madison’s outstanding schools. Nine students received the Joe Thomas Community Service Award, five teachers were recognized for their work toward the Kohl Teacher Fellowship, and eleven individuals received the Distinguished Service Award. For more MMSD news click here: http://mmsd.org/today/
Thank you for your interest and support of the MMSD.
Johnny Winston, Jr., President, Madison Board of Education
jwinstonjr@madison.k12.wi.us
Want district information? Go to www.mmsd.org
Write to the entire school board at comments@madison.k12.wi.us.
Sign up for MMSD communications at http://mmsd.org/lists/newuser.cgi
Watch school board meetings and other district programs on MMSD Channel 10 & 19.
Ken Syke
Public Information
Madison School District
voice 663 1903; cell 608 575 6682; fax 608 204 0342
WSJ Editorial – The next time you’re shocked by the announcement of yet another school referendum in your community, don’t tee off on the school board.
schoolinfosystem.org