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What Apple’s Supply Chain Says about US Manufacturing & Middle-Skill Training
In January, The New York Times released a front-page report on the iEconomy, Apple’s vast and rapidly growing empire built on the production of tech devices almost exclusively overseas. The fascinating story created a wave of attention when it was published, and it’s back in the news after NPR’s “This American Life” retracted its story about working conditions at Foxconn, one of Apple’s key suppliers of iPhones and iPads.
The end of the “This American Life” episode includes a discussion (audio | transcript) between host Ira Glass and Charles Duhigg, the NYT reporter who wrote the iEconomy piece, on Apple’s supply chain and the reason the tech giant doesn’t produce its insanely popular devices in the U.S. Perhaps you thought the main reason was labor costs; Apple would have to pay American workers much more than the estimated $17 a day (or less) many Chinese workers at Foxconn make. That’s part of it, but “an enormously small part,” Duhigg told Glass.
Duhigg explained that, in terms of labor costs, producing the iPhone domestically would cost Apple an additional $10 (on the low end) to $65 (on the high end) more per phone. “Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward,” he wrote in the NYT piece.
Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad to Leave when Contract Expires in 2013
Madison Metropolitan School District Superintendent Dan Nerad announced on Monday that he will retire and not seek a contract extension.
Nerad made the announcement at a press conference on Monday afternoon. Nerad’s contract runs through June 2013 and he said he will remain through then.
He said calling this announcement a “resignation” would be accurate.
Nerad said that decision came to a culmination in the last 10 days and that he has been in the process of deciding on retirement for several months.
He cited his reason for retiring for a variety of factors.He said that controversy over achievement gap was “a factor.”
“I wish I could’ve done more to develop a consensus on how to move forward on issues, including (the) achievement gap,” he said.
Nerad said that a new leader could provide a spark on the achievement gap that he could no longer provide.
Madison schools superintendent Dan Nerad will leave the job when his contract expires in the summer of 2013.
Nerad, 60, made the announcement Monday hours before the Madison School Board was scheduled to vote on whether to extend the contract.
School board president James Howard didn’t offer a timeline for hiring a replacement.
Nerad said he had been thinking about leaving the Madison district for several months, and made a decision within the last 10 days.
Madison School District Press Release 52K PDF.
Pat Schneider:
A community leader who has had a ringside seat to the struggles to forge a plan to end the academic achievement gap in the Madison schools thinks Superintendent Dan Nerad’s announcement Monday of his planned departure next year just might be the break needed to make real progress.
This view isn’t universally shared, but Steve Goldberg, executive director of the CUNA Mutual Foundation who has worked closely with the Madison Metropolitan School District, its teachers union and community leaders, says Nerad’s announcement could put him in a position to have a greater influence over acceptance of a plan he recently put forward to close the race-based achievement gap.
With any inkling that Nerad is working to preserve his job removed from the equation, the likely efficacy of his proposals might become a tighter focus of discussion, Goldberg said.
“This might change the way he is perceived,” Goldberg told me. “Since he no longer has ‘an axe to grind,’ he may be viewed as more objective.”
Nerad, 60, said he had been thinking about leaving the job for several months, and made a decision within the last 10 days.
He said there were multiple factors that contributed to his decision. When pressed to identify examples, he said division on the board over his performance and division in the community about how to address the district’s persistent achievement gap between minority and white students were factors, though not primary ones.
“I wish I could have done more to try to develop a broader base of consensus around how we best serve children,” Nerad said.
Nerad, a former social worker, came to Madison after six years as superintendent in Green Bay, where he had been credited for his work on addressing the community’s achievement gap.
Soon after taking the reins in Madison, Nerad oversaw the passage of a $13 million operating referendum. He launched 4-year-old kindergarten, developed a five-year strategic plan, expanded the dual-language immersion and summer school programs, reorganized central office staff, introduced curricular alignment among all schools and restored the district’s AAA bond rating.
Don Severson, president of a conservative watchdog group, said he wasn’t surprised by the announcement given the lack of overwhelming support for Nerad’s leadership.
“You can’t behave as a social worker and run a massive complex organization,” Severson said. “He had to be much more proactive and take some risks, make some decisions, go in some direction where he knows he won’t have unanimity.”
I’m glad Matt DeFour and the Wisconsin State Journal obtained the most recent Superintendent Review via open records. We, as a community have come a long way in just a few short years. The lack of Board oversight was a big issue in mid-2000’s competitive school board races. Former Superintendent Art Rainwater had not been reviewed for some time. These links are well worth reading and considering in light of the recent Superintendent review articles, including Chris Rickert’s latest. Rickert mentions a number of local statistics. However, he fails to mention:
What Does Your MTI Contract Do for You? Health Insurance
Madison Teachers, Inc. Solidarity Newsletter (63K PDF), via a kind Jeanie Bettner email:
Since the late 1960’s, MTI members have had the benefit of the best health insurance available. Stressing the importance of quality health insurance in providing economic security, members have made health insurance their #1 priority via their responses to the Union’s Bargaining Survey. And, the Union not only was able to bargain specific benefits, such as acupuncture and extended mental health coverage, as demanded by MTI members, but due to a 1983 MTI victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, MTI was able to have an equal voice in which insurance company would provide the plan. This is important because different insurance companies have different interpretations of the same insurance provisions.
Unfortunately, the District Administration took advantage of the increased leverage in negotiations enabled by Governor Walker’s Act 10 forcing concessions in health insurance and other Contract provisions in exchange for them agreeing to extend MTI’s five Collective Bargaining Agreements through June 2013.
Members of MTI’s teacher bargaining unit, who elected WPS health insurance under old Contract terms, will now lose that coverage June 30, 2012. The District is in the process of distributing materials by which members of the teacher bargaining unit can become familiar with the options available for coverage commencing July 1. They are Dean Health Plan, Physicians Plus and Group Health Cooperative. Each offers an HMO and a Point of Service Plan. The latter carries a higher premium, but enables broader choices for services.
The District has scheduled five sessions for those with questions to seek answers from the above-referenced plans.
April 9 – Doyle Auditorium -1:00-3:00 p.m.
April 11- La Follette C17 – 4:00-6:00 p.m.
April 17 – Memorial Wisconsin Center – 4:00-6:00 p.m.
April 19 -West LMC – 4:00-6:00 p.m.
April 23 – East LMC – 4:00-6:00 p.m.
The Madison School District’s support of the costly WPS health insurance option has been quite controversial over the years.
Wisconsin Education K-12 Jobs Fund Spending Increased 10.6% from 2006-2011; Higher Ed: 14.1%
Jennifer Cohen, via a kind reader’s email
Despite the revenue drops these state reported, their MOE submissions show that they increased education spending significantly from 2006 to 2011, particularly for K-12 education. For example, Utah’s submission shows a 28.4 percent increase in funding for K-12 education from $1.8 billion to $2.3 billion. Oregon shows an increase of 19.2 percent and Illinois shows an increase of 19.8 percent. Increases in Indiana and Nevada are both over 65 percent. Only three states – Arizona, Minnesota, and Mississippi – showed increases below 3.0 percent.
Of course, it wouldn’t be unusual for states to increase K-12 education spending over a 5-year period under more normal budget circumstances due to increasing enrollment and costs. What the MOE data could be telling us is that many states protected K-12 spending during the economic downturn that began in 2007.
But these numbers are also curious, if not dubious. Large contractions in state tax revenues and repeated media reports of states cutting education spending make some of these data difficult to believe.
The MOE data for the 31 states also show growth in higher education spending, though not at as high of rates as K-12 spending. New York State showed an increase of 22.3 percent from $3.3 billion to $4.0 billion from 2006 to 2011 and Connecticut showed an increase of 17.6 percent. But many states showed increases below 3.0 percent – 13, including Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Low growth for higher education in many states is not surprising. States often make cuts (or delay increases) to higher education before K-12 education because it has a smaller constituency and they can rely on tuition increases to make up the difference. However, many public higher education systems have faced dramatic increases in enrollment as a result of the economic downturn, placing greater pressure on their strapped systems.
Fascinating rhetoric: the numbers tell us spending is up, but the writer mentions “data difficult to believe”. In my brief 8+ years observing the K-12 world, spending always goes up. Some want it to increase more than others, which is where the “schwerpunkt” can be found.
View a chart of US State tax collections and Education (K-12 and Higher Ed) spending from 2006 to 2011.
Related: Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding
College Presidents Say $10,000 Degrees Available Now
Speaking today on a SXSWEdu panel in Austin, officials from a few Texas community colleges and universities said that $10,000 bachelor’s degrees are available now — and more will be within the year.
Gov. Rick Perry famously called on the development of a $10,000 degree in his State of the State address in 2011. The proposal met with criticism at the time, but Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Chairman Fred Heldenfels said it was misunderstood. “It’s not intended to be a bargain degree,” he said, offering the metaphor of a no-frills, rapid-rail route rather than an ocean-going cruise.
Called “The Evolving Role of University Systems in Higher Education,” today’s panel mostly focused on efforts to lower the cost of college. It was moderated by Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp and featured Heldenfels, Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes, and two pairs of university and community college leaders actively collaborating: Texas A&M-San Antonio President Maria Ferrier and Alamo Colleges Chancellor Bruce Leslie, and Texas A&M-Commerce President Dan Jones and South Texas College’s Chief Academic Officer Juan Mejia.
Madison Teachers’ Solidarity: What Does Your MTI Contract Do For You? School Calendar
MTI Solidarity, via a kind Jeanie Bettner email:
Does it matter to you when school begins in the fall? How about when and how long winter or spring break is? When school ends for the year? Or, does it matter to you how many days you work for your annual salary, or how many hours make up the school day? In members’ responses to MTI’s Bargaining Survey, all of these factors are “very important” to those in MTI’s teacher bargaining unit.
It was MTI’s case in 1966 which gave teacher unions an equal voice on all of the above topics. Ruling for MTI, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the school calendar is a mandatory subject of bargaining, meaning that a school district in Wisconsin must negotiate with the Union to determine each of the factors described above. Governor Walker’s Act 10 in effect overturned the Supreme Court’s ruling because Act 10 removed workers’ rights to collectively bargain.
Impact? Act 10 enables a school board without a good conscience, to engage in mischief or abuse of all MTI represented staff especially teachers because they are paid an annual salary not on an hourly basis.
MTI is fighting to overturn Act 10 and to restore the Union’s right to negotiate over the school calendar.
Class acts: how top teachers get results
Professor Chung Yue-ping of Chinese University smiles a lot. It’s not because he is one of eight recipients of the university’s latest Outstanding Teacher Award, though. That’s just the way he is.
Since working as a primary school teacher in the early 1970s, he has made a point of focusing on his students’ strengths rather than their weaknesses, so he is not easily frustrated in his work. His open, non-judgmental style made him popular with students of all ages, some of whom are now school principals and even professors.
Challenging 100 Years of Sleep Guidelines for Children
For parents who feel like they’re failing to make sure their kids get enough sleep, this may be comforting: Your parents also failed, as did your grandparents and great-grandparents.
At least that’s according to a study released Monday in the journal Pediatrics, which found that children haven’t been getting the recommended hours of shuteye for at least a century.
The study looked at 32 sets of recommendations from the years 1897 to 2009. The researchers then gathered data on actual sleep time from roughly the same time period.
The Classes Drift Apart: Can the rich save the American dream by preaching what they practise?
JUST because he belongs to it himself does not make Newt Gingrich wrong when he grumbles that America is run by an out-of-touch elite. If you want evidence, the data can now be found in a book published this week by Charles Murray, the co-author in 1994 of “The Bell Curve”, which became controversial for positing a link between race and intelligence. That controversy should not deter you. “Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010” brims with ideas about what ails America.
David Brooks, a conservative columnist for the New York Times, thinks it will be the most important book this year on American society. And even if you do not buy all Mr Murray’s ideas about what ails America, you will learn much about what conservatives think ails America, a subject no less fascinating. Though it does not set out to do so, this book brings together four themes heard endlessly on the Republican campaign trail. They are the cultural divide between elite values and mainstream values (a favourite of the tea-partiers); the case for religion and family values (think Rick Santorum); American exceptionalism (all the candidates); and (a favourite of Mitt Romney’s) the danger of America becoming a European welfare state.
More on Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad’s Achievement Gap Presentation: $105,600,000 over 5 Years
Madison Schools Superintendent Dan Nerad packed the house Monday night for what he termed “a call to action” to the community to join his administration in a strategy to close the racial achievement gap that has haunted the school district for decades.
His blueprint for change, “Building our Future,” weighs in at 100 pages and took an hour to outline with a Power Point presentation to an audience of about 200 at the Fitchburg Community Center. The proposal will be digested, dissected and debated in the weeks to come, including at a series of community meetings hosted by the school district.
But one thing is clear: from Nerad’s point of view, the future of children of color in our city lies not only in the hands of the teachers and administrators who shape their lives at school, but also in the hands of their families, their neighbors, and members of the community who live and work all around town.
“It can’t be the schools alone; it has to be the schools working with the community if we’re going to have outcomes,” he said.
Madison Read Your Heart Out Day set for Feb. 10
Research supports parental involvement as a viable means of enhancing children’s academic success. Once again, Michelle Belnavis, a cultural relevance instructional resource teacher (K-5) for MMSD, has organized an event that brings African American community leaders, families, staff, students, and neighborhood organizations together to provide inspiration and information to schools and neighborhoods in honor of National African American Parent Involvement Day.
“We have been doing a lot of research in looking at the effect of having parents’ actively involved in their children’s education and a big part is that relationship-building,” Belnavis tells The Madison Times. “This gives an opportunity for teachers and families and parents to come together for the purpose of celebrating unity. I think a lot of times when parents come into school there’s a feeling like, ‘I don’t really belong here’ or ‘My children go to school here but I don’t really have a connection with the teacher.’
Worried parents are increasingly turning to surveillance software to monitor their children’s online activities
Sales manager Eric Wong Yiu-wai began to monitor the online activities of his younger son two years ago. The software he installed on his computer tracks the websites his son visits, instant messaging between him and his buddies, and the updates he posts on social networks. His phone will get instant alerts if his son uses offensive language in his posts or visits an unsavoury website. Wong says rising online perils make electronic surveillance of his 15-year-old son necessary.
“He spends a lot of time online every day. As I am working most of the time, I don’t know what he is doing on the computer.”
Rankings of the States 2010 and Estimates of School Statistics 2011; Wisconsin Ranks 18th in K-12 Staffing
National Education Association Research via a kind reader’s email:
The data presented in this combined report―Rankings & Estimates―provide facts about the extent to which local, state, and national governments commit resources to public education. As one might expect in a nation as diverse as the United States–with respect to economics, geography, and politics–the level of commitment to education varies on a state-by-state basis. Regardless of these variations, improvements in public education can be measured by summary statistics. Thus, NEA Research offers this report to its state and local affiliates as well as to researchers, policymakers, and the public as a tool to examine public education programs and services.
Part I of this combined report–Rankings 2010–provides state-level data on an array of topics relevant to the com- plex enterprise of public education. Since the 1960s, Rankings has presented facts and figures useful in determining how states differ from one another–or from national averages–on selected statistics. In addition to identifying emerging trends in key economic, political, and social areas, the state-by-state figures on government financing, state demographics, and public schools permit a statistical assessment of the scope of public education. Of course, no set of tables tells the entire story of a state’s education offerings. Consideration of factors such as a state’s tax system, pro- visions for other public services, and population characteristics also are needed. Therefore, it is unwise to draw con- clusions based solely on individual statistics in this report. Readers are urged to supplement the ranked data with specific information about state and local service activities related to public education.
Part II of this combined report–Estimates 2011–is in its 67th year of production. This report provides projections of public school enrollment, employment and compensation of personnel, and finances, as reported by individual state departments of education. Not surprisingly, interest in the improvement and renewal of public education continues to capture the attention of the nation. The state-level data featured in Estimates permit broad assessments of trends in staff salaries, sources of school funding, and levels of educational expenditures. The data should be used with the un- derstanding that the reported statewide totals and averages may not reflect the varying conditions that exist among school districts and schools within the state.
Public education in the United States is a joint enterprise between local, state, and federal governments. Yet, progress in improving public education stems primarily from the efforts of state education agencies, local districts, and indi- vidual schools. These public organizations deserve credit for recognizing that spending for education needs to be ac- knowledged as an investment in our nation’s most valuable resource–children. Similarly, this publication represents a collective effort that goes well beyond the staff of the National Education Association. Individual state departments of education and the NEA’s state affiliates participate in collecting and assembling the data shown here. As a result, the NEA appreciates and acknowledges the cooperation it receives from all those whose efforts make this publication possible.
Wisconsin ranks 21st in average teacher salaries (page 35), 10th in property tax revenue as a percentage of total tax revenue (page 52), 16th in per capita state individual income tax revenue (page 53) and 15th in public school revenue per student.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Opinion: A California tax increase in 2012? Don’t bet your 1040 on it
It looks like the biggest traffic jam in California next year may well be the various tax increases being pushed for the November ballot.
So far, at least five big tax measures are in play. Think Long Committee for California, a group of high-powered movers and shakers funded by billionaire Nick Berggruen, has proposed a $10 billion revenue increase by expanding the sales tax to services. A teachers’ union is advocating an income tax increase on those who earn more than $1 million annually to fund schools. Environmental activists are trying to generate $1.1 billion for clean energy by taxing out-of-state businesses. Another measure would tax oil and gas generation to help pay for education and state universities.
And then there’s Gov. Jerry Brown’s recently announced measure to temporarily increase the sales tax and bump up income tax rates for the state’s top earners. Brown had hoped to have a ballot measure last June to extend a temporary increase in income, sales and vehicle license fee rates that went into effect in 2009, but was unable to coax a single Republican legislator into voting even to put such an extension on the ballot. Hence, the tax increases have all expired.
The $19 billion question: Kalamazoo economist Tim Bartik offers 10 thoughts on reforming Michigan schools
Last week, I posted an item that asked readers for their suggestions on how to reform Michigan schools. It drew a good number of comments, and I’ll be posting some of them later this week.
But today I’m offering offering more food for thought, in the form of a memo written by my good friend Tim Bartik, an economist for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and a former school board president for Kalamazoo Public Schools. Through his work as an economist and as a school board member, Bartik is one of the best-informed people around on best-practices in education and here’s what he has to say:
Law, contract limit Madison Prep plan’s promise
Let’s see: Longer school year, parent report cards, meaningful teacher evaluations and bonus pay, union staff, teacher compensation of between $60,000 and $65,000.
Sounds about right to me. Where do I sign up?
Unfortunately, I can’t, because while this seems like a pretty good model for a proposed charter school targeting under-performing, low-income minority students — really, for any public school — it was looking less and less possible last week.
The sticking points are an overly rigid Madison teachers union contract and a punitive new state law that pretty much makes tinkering with that contract tantamount to killing it.
Or, to put it another way, the issue, as it so often is, is money.
Under the proposal released last month by the backers of Madison Preparatory Academy, the school would employ union teachers at salaries of about $47,000, with benefits bringing total compensation to between $60,000 and $65,000.
In its own analysis of Madison Prep’s financials, though, the district found the school would be required to pay about $76,000 per teacher, with benefits bringing total compensation to about $100,000.
Much more on the proposed Madison Preparatory IB charter school, here.
Comparing Rhetoric Regarding Texas (10th) & Wisconsin NAEP Scores: Texas Hispanic and African-American students rank second on eighth-grade NAEP math test
Texas Hispanic and African-American students rank
second on eighth-grade NAEP math test
Texas Education Agency:
Texas Hispanic and African-American students earned the second highest score among their peer groups on the 2011 eighth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics test. The state’s white eighth grade students ranked fourth, missing out on the second place position themselves by less than one point.
Only Hispanic students in Montana earned a higher scale score on the math test than did eighth-grade Hispanic Texans. Only African-American students in Hawaii earned a higher average score than did their counterparts in Texas.
White students in the District of Columbia earned an average scale score of 319, the highest score for that ethnic group. Texas students ranked fourth, with less than a fraction of a point separating this group from students in Massachusetts and New Jersey. Massachusetts students had the second highest scale score at 304.2876, while Texas received an average score of 303.5460.
Overall, the state ranked 10th among the states with an average scale score of 290, substantially above the national average score of 283.
NAEP math on upward trend, state reading results stable
Wisconsin DPI:
Wisconsin’s biennial mathematics and reading results held steady on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card. The state’s overall trend in mathematics is improving.
For fourth-grade mathematics, the state’s 2011 scale score was 245, up one point but statistically the same as in 2009, compared to the national scale score of 240, a one-point increase from 2009. Wisconsin results for fourth-grade math are significantly higher than in 2003 when the average scale score was 237. At eighth grade, the Wisconsin scale score for mathematics was 289,
the same as in 2009 and up five points from 2003, which is statistically significant. For the nation, the 2011 mathematics scale score was 283, up one-point from 2009. State average scale scores in mathematics at both grade levels were statistically higher than the national score.
Average scores for fourth grade
| All | White | Black | Hispanic | Asian Amer-Pac.Island | Native Amer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | 240 | 249 | 224 | 229 | 256 | 227 |
| Texas | 241 | 253 | 232 | 235 | 263 | *** |
| Wisconsin | 245 | 251 | 217 | 228 | 242 | 231 |
| Average scores for eighth grade | ||||||
| US | 283 | 293 | 262 | 269 | 302 | 266 |
| Texas | 290 | 304 | 277 | 283 | 316 | *** |
| Wisconsin | 289 | 295 | 256 | 270 | 290 | *** |
via a kind Richard Askey email.
Erin Richards has more on Wisconsin’s results.
Steve Dykstra’s comments on Wisconsin’s NAEP reading scores.
Related: Madison and College Station, TX.
Lawsuits for School Reform?: Parent Power May Insert Itself in L.A. Unified’s Teachers’ Contract; Demand that the LAUSD Immediately Comply with the Stull Act
Earlier this year, Dropout Nation argued that one way that school reformers — including school choice activists and Parent Power groups — could advance reform and expand school choice was to file lawsuits similar to school funding torts filed for the past four decades by school funding advocates. But now, it looks like Parent Power activists may be filing a lawsuit in Los Angeles on a different front: Overhauling teacher evaluations. And the Los Angeles Unified School District may be the place where the first suit is filed.
In a letter sent on behalf of some families Wednesday to L.A. Unified Superintendent John Deasy and the school board — and just before the district begins negotiations with the American Federation of Teachers’ City of Angels unit over a new contract — Barnes & Thornburg’s Kyle Kirwan demanded that the district “implement a comprehensive system” of evaluating teachers that ties “pupil progress” data to teacher evaluations. Kirwan and the group he represents are also asking for the district to begin evaluating all teachers “regardless of tenure status” and to reject any contract with the American Federation of Teachers local that allows for any veteran teacher with more than a decade on the job to go longer than two years without an evaluation if they haven’t had one in the first place.
We represent minor-students currently residing within the boundaries of the Los Angeles Unified School District (the “District” or “LAUSD”), the parents of these students, and other adults who have paid taxes for a school system that has chronically failed to comply with California law.
Our clients seek to have the District immediately meet its obligations under the Stull Act, a forty year old law that is codified at California Education Code section 44660 et seq. (the “Stull Act“).
In relevant part, the Stull Act requires that “[t]he governing board of each school district establish standards of expected pupil achievement at each grade level in each area of study.”
Cal. Educ. Code § 44662(a). The Stull Act requires further that “[t]he governing board of each school district … evaluate and assess certificated employee performance as it reasonably relates to … [t]he progress of pupils toward the standards established pursuant to subdivision (a) and, if applicable, the state adopted academic content standards as measured by state adopted criterion referenced assessments ….” Cal. Educ. Code§ 44662(b)(l).
In the forty years since the California Legislature passed the Stull Act, the District has never evaluated its certificated personnel based upon the progress of pupils towards the standards established pursuant to Education Code section 44662(a) and, if applicable, the state adopted academic content standards as measured by the state adopted criterion referenced assessments; never reduced such evaluations to writing or added the evaluations to part of the permanent records of its certificated personnel; never reviewed with its certificated personnel the results of pupil progress as they relate to Stull Act evaluations; and never made specific recommendations on how certificated personnel with unsatisfactory ratings could improve their performance in order to achieve a higher level of pupil progress toward meeting established standards of expected pupil achievement.
Minority Student Achievement Network Plan of Action
Madison School District Superintendent Daniel A. Nerad 215K PDF Presentation
During the annual conference the team of students engaged in.
1. College planning including a tour of Missouri University
2. Participated in Achievement Gap Readings including discussions and student action planning
3. Shared their ideas about how to motivate students to succeed and how their school could be made a meaningful and interesting place
4. Developed plans of action to implement these strategies for change and report these valuable messages to the academic leaders of their schools and districts (See Attached- MSAN Students Conference Agenda)
10.7.2011 Draft; Proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School Business Plan
2.6MB PDF, via a kind reader’s email:
Black and Latino boys are grossly over-represented among youth failing to achieve academic success, are at grave risk of dropping out of school before they reach 10th grade, are disproportionately represented among adjudicated and incarcerated youth, and are far less likely than their peers in other subgroups to achieve their dreams and aspirations. Likewise, boys in general lag behind girls in most indicators of student achievement.
Research indicates that although boys of color have high aspirations for academic and career success, their underperformance in school and lack of educational attainment undermine their career pursuits and the success they desire. This misalignment of aspirations and achievement is fueled by and perpetuates a set of social conditions wherein men of color find themselves disproportionately represented among the unemployed and incarcerated. Without meaningful, targeted, and sustainable interventions and support systems, hundreds of thousands of young men of color will never realize their true potential and the cycle of high unemployment, fatherless homes, overcrowded jails, incarcerated talent, deferred dreams, and high rates of school failure will continue.
Likewise, girls of color are failing to graduate high school on-time, underperform on standardized achievement and college entrance exams and are under-enrolled in college preparatory classes in secondary school. The situation is particularly pronounced in the Madison Metropolitan School District where Black and Latino girls are far less likely than Asian and White girls to take a rigorous college preparatory curriculum in high school or successfully complete such courses with a grade of C or better when they do. In this regard, they mimic the course taking patterns of boys of color.
Additionally, data on ACT college entrance exam completion, graduation rates and standardized achievement tests scores provided to the Urban League by the Madison Metropolitan School District show a significant gap in ACT completion, graduation rates and standardized achievement scores between students of color and their white peers.
Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men and Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Women will be established to serve as catalysts for change and opportunity among young men and women in the Greater Madison, Wisconsin area, particularly young men and women of color. It will also serve the interests of parents who desire a nurturing, college preparatory educational experience for their child.
Bidding Adieu to the Madison School Board; “Facts are an Obstacle to the Reform of America”
Lucy Mathiak, via a kind email:
Dear Friends,
I am writing to thank you for your encouragement and support in my decision to seek election to the MMSD Board of Education in late fall 2005. Your help in getting elected, your support during tough times, and your help in finding solutions to problems, have made a great difference to my service on the board.
I am writing to let you know that I will not seek re-election in 2012. I continue to believe that the Board of Education is one of the most important elected positions for our community and its schools, and encourage others to step forward to serve in this capacity. MMSD is facing significant challenges, and it is more important than ever that thoughtful citizens engage in the work that will be needed to preserve the traditional strengths of our public schools while helping those schools to change in keeping with the times and the families that they serve.
At the same time, I do not view school board service as a career, and believe that turnover in membership is healthy for the organization and for the district. I have been fortunate to have had an opportunity to serve on this board, and to work with many fine community organizations in that capacity. For that I am grateful.
Again, thank you for your interest, support, and collegiality.
Lucy J. Mathiak
716 Orton Ct.
Madison, WI 53703
Madison School Board
Seat #2
I am appreciative of Lucy’s tireless and often thankless work on behalf of our students.
Every organization – public or private, deteriorates. It is often easier to spend more (raise taxes), raise fees on consumers – or a “rate base”, reduce curricular quality and in general go along and get along than to seek substantive improvements. Change is hard.
Citizens who seek facts, ask difficult and uncomfortable questions are essential for strong institutions – public or private. Progress requires conflict.
Yet, very few of us are willing to step into the theatre, spend time, dig deep and raise such questions. I am thankful for those, like Lucy, who do.
Her years of activism and governance have touched numerous issues, from the lack of Superintendent oversight (related: Ruth Robarts) (that’s what a board does), the District’s $372M+ budget priorities and transparency to substantive questions about Math, reading and the endless battle for increased rigor in the Madison Schools.
In closing, I had an opportunity to hear Peter Schneider speak during a recent Madison visit. Schneider discussed cultural differences and similarities between America and Germany. He specifically discussed the recent financial crisis. I paraphrase: “If I do not understand a financial vehicle, I buy it”. “I create a financial product that no one, including me, understands, I sell it”. This is “collective ignorance”.
Schneider’s talk reminded me of a wonderful Madison teacher’s comments some years ago: “if we are doing such a great job, why do so few people vote and/or understand civic and business issues”?
What, then, is the payoff of increased rigor and the pursuit of high standards throughout an organization? Opportunity.
I recently met a technical professional who works throughout the United States from a suburban Madison home. This person is the product of a very poor single parent household. Yet, high parental standards and rigorous academic opportunities at a somewhat rural Wisconsin high school and UW-Madison led to an advanced degree and professional opportunities.
It also led to a successful citizen and taxpayer. The alternative, as discussed in my recent conversation with Madison Mayor Paul Soglin is growth in those who don’t contribute, but rather increase costs on society.
Lucy will be missed.
Nearly all Wisconsin teachers unions without pact seek recertification
Almost every local teachers union in the state without a contract has filed to keep its official status, according to a State Journal analysis.
Of 156 local teachers unions in school districts that did not extend a collective bargaining agreement for this year, only 12 filed with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission to hold votes later this fall.
“That’s a very high number, higher than I would have anticipated,” said John Witte, a UW-Madison political science professor who studies education issues in Wisconsin. “It very clearly shows that the teachers are not giving up on their unions at this point.”
Another 268 local teacher unions — 63 percent, which is more than previous estimates — did not have to decide about recertification this year because their contracts continued through this school year. Among those with contracts are unions in 10 of the 11 largest school districts in the state.
Many of the districts continue to collect union dues from employees with contracts, though some negotiated changes to end that practice.
The irrational use of antibiotics is accelerating the trend of bacteria becoming resistant to the drugs we rely on to keep diseases at bay. And without a plan to tackle the problem, we risk a global health crisis
The outbreak of scarlet fever in Hong Kong earlier this year caught the attention of specialists at the World Health Organisation. We think of scarlet fever in developed societies as a disease that was pretty well vanquished decades ago. So the emergence of a scarlet fever outbreak in a modern city like Hong Kong and in mainland China was something of an unexpected event. But more disquieting was the suggestion that the bacteria causing the disease had become resistant to certain antibiotics. Happily, the worst of the outbreak is over, but the global problem of drug resistance is definitely not.
The discovery early last century of penicillin and antimicrobial drugs changed the course of history. Science began to gain the upper hand in the war on disease, and, at last, scourges such as leprosy, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, syphilis and many more could be mastered. But now many of those miracle drugs and the generations of others that followed could finish up in the rubbish bin as increasing levels of drug resistance threaten their effectiveness.
Math Curriculum: School District’s Activities Should be an Open Book
Since January 2007, I’ve attempted repeatedly and in myriad ways to persuade Spokane Public Schools‘ leadership to provide teachers with good math materials so that our children will gain sufficient basic math skills. It’s an effort you’d think would be welcome, respected, and relatively painless. Alas.
In 2008, after repeated failed efforts to get a conversation going with the district or with the daily newspaper, I decided to take that conversation public. Thus was born my blog, Betrayed. Shortly after that, I began writing my book, Betrayed: How the Education Establishment Has Betrayed America and What You Can Do about it. The book was published in January 2011, and shortly thereafter, I worked with two professionals to hold public forums in Spokane and talk directly with the people. The district leadership does not appear to appreciate my efforts to inform the people and try to get the children the mathematics they need.
A school district’s activities should be an open book to the community that pays for them. My blog, book and advocacy all required thorough and accurate information. Therefore, over these nearly five years of effort, I’ve had to file public records requests with the district in order to obtain pertinent information that wasn’t available in any other venue. For records other than internal district communications, my searches usually went like this:
AP & ACT Results Over the Years at Madison’s Edgewood High School
Last year, 120 students took 223 Advanced Placement exams from 15 different exams last year. Congratulations to all of our faculty and staff who contributed to our students’ success.
- 34% of juniors – over 40% of seniors and over a quarter of juniors took at least one AP course and exam in 2010-2011. The most recent report available shows the national figure in 2010 was 2010 was 26% for Wisconsin.
- 86.7% of EHS students who took an AP course scored a 3 or higher (passing), compared with 69.9% in the State of Wisconsin and 60.2% globally.
- 38.2% of the EHS graduating class passed (scored 3, 4 or 5) at least one AP exam. According to the 2010 AP report, the national average was 16.9% and Wisconsin average was 18.3% for any time during high school.
- EHS offers one AP course for every 13-14 seniors.
For the period 1997-2011:
- Edgewood’s average ACT score rose about 2 points to 25.0 with an average of 96% of EHS students taking the test over that period. During the same period, state and national averages remained essentially unchanged from the low 22s and about 21, respectively. In 2010-11, 71% of Wisconsin students and 49% of all US students took the test.
- The total number of students taking Edgewood’s AP courses more than tripled.
- The average number of tests taken per EHS AP student per year rose from 1.34 to 1.86.
- The percent of students receiving passing scores (3, 4 or 5) rose from 54% to 87%.
Living and Working to 100
Advocating for the value of online education, Angel Cabrera told us that he takes issue with those who are concerned that online education will dilute quality. In fact, says Cabrera, “online eucation can dramatically improve quality.” Cabrera is President of Thunderbird School of Global Management that was ranked #1 Best in International Business Full-Time MBA by The Financial Times 2011 for the fifth consecutive year, and #1 by U.S. News and World Report 2012 for the sixteenth consecutive year; the list goes on. “The traditional campus, centered around large lecture halls, will have to reinvent itself.” Thunderbird offers a variety of educational models, including distance-learning.
“Online education will move from the add-on to the centerpiece,” Cowen told me. “Higher education will move towards a hybrid approach with top faculty teaching online, and motivational coaches working with students on a personal level.” Cowen sees the hybrid model making college education more affordable. He envisions new job opportunities in statistics, search, programming, and logic, “since you need people behind smart machines.” Cowen also envisions job growth in the motivational sector.
Fight about affirmative action in school admissions all about context
The most striking thing about Tuesday’s press conference on UW-Madison’s alleged affirmative-action-driven bias against white and Asian applicants was not the loud, mildly violent protest that overran it.
It was the university professor who publicly touted the rising admission rate for white students and the declining rate for blacks. This from an institution that only 11 years ago was so worried about its less-than-diverse image that it Photoshopped a black student onto an admissions catalog.
That aside, nothing about the presser/protest was all that ground-breaking, and Roger Clegg, president of the conservative outfit that did the study showing UW’s bias, got to the nut of the whole affair in only about 35 minutes.
“I view discrimination as something that happens to individuals, rather than something that happens to aggregate groups,” he said.
Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/chris_rickert/article_af9f024e-df35-11e0-a10f-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1Y4bqeYTM
One of the world’s oldest publishing companies brought in a ringer to revolutionize the way the company does business. The result? The first fully-interactive textbook
Nature Publishing Group, which publishes several highly regarded scientific journals and textbooks, was founded in England in 1869, eight years before electric lights illuminated the streets of London. Now, 140 years later, with the help of Harvard Classics scholar Vikram Savkar, the company is beginning to disrupt the traditional textbook model that it helped to create. This month at California State University, the company released Principles of Biology, an interactive, constantly updating biology textbook that retails for less than $50. Like most digital textbooks, the software is accessible on laptops and tablets, but unlike most digital textbooks, it’s not just a scan of a .pdf. The company calls it a “digital reinvention of the textbook,” meaning that students can interact with the material; they can literally match amino acids and corresponding DNA with their fingers. Inc.com’s Eric Markowitz spoke with Vikram Savkar about what it takes to create a culture of innovation in an old-school company.
Teachers at 3 small schools act early to approve longer school day By opting out of union pact, teachers will get bonuses and schools will get discretionary funds
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard landed a pre-Labor Day body blow in the fight over longer school days, getting three small CPS elementary schools on Friday to sign waivers opting out of their teachers union contract and extending their school day 90 minutes.
The teachers will be rewarded with bonuses and the schools with discretionary funds for agreeing to the changes before a new state law allows CPS to institute a longer day without union agreement.
The votes are “a historic step forward in bringing the kind of change we need in the classroom to help our children get the world class education they deserve,” according to a written statement issued by CPS and attributed to Emanuel and Brizard.
Arrests, citations reach lowest level in 10 years at Madison high schools
The number of arrests and citations for incidents at Madison’s four main high schools dropped last year to the lowest level in more than a decade, according to police data.
But arrests and citations at West and Memorial were twice the number at East and La Follette — a reversal of the situation 10 years earlier when there were more than twice as many at the city’s East Side high schools.
West was the only school with an increase from the previous year.
The Wisconsin State Journal obtained the data from the Madison Police Department amid a debate over whether the Madison School District should use drug-sniffing police dogs in random sweeps of high schools. The School Board was to consider the issue Monday but delayed a vote until late September — in part to review the arrest and citation data.
District officials say an increase in drug-related disciplinary referrals in recent years, and the use of drug dogs in area school districts, support the use of police dogs. Community surveys also have showed strong support.
Luis Yudice, the School District’s security coordinator, who introduced the drug-sniffing dog proposal with the support of Madison police, is concerned drugs in schools can lead to more gang activity, fights and weapons in schools as students arm themselves in self-defense. He views the police dog policy as a possible deterrent that could prevent a crisis.
Related: Madison police calls near local high schools: 1996-2006.
Gangs & School Violence Forum Audio/Video.
7 in 10 Students Have Skipped Buying a Textbook Because of Its Cost, Survey Finds
For many students and their families, scraping together the money to pay for college is a big enough hurdle on its own. But a new survey has found that, once on a campus, many students are unwilling or unable to come up with more money to buy books–one of the very things that helps turn tuition dollars into academic success.
In the survey, released on Tuesday by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit consumer-advocacy organization, seven in 10 college students said they had not purchased a textbook at least once because they had found the price too high. Many more respondents said they had purchased a book whose price was driven up by common textbook-publishing practices, such as frequent new editions or bundling with other products.
“Students recognize that textbooks are essential to their education but have been pushed to the breaking point by skyrocketing costs,” said Rich Williams, a higher-education advocate with the group, known as U.S. PIRG. “The alarming result of this survey underscores the urgent need for affordable solutions.”
ACT Scores Decline Somewhat in Madison, Wisconsin Slightly Up, 32% of Badger Students “Ready” for College Level Courses in 4 Areas
The average ACT score among the Madison School District’s 2011 graduates dipped to its lowest level in 15 years, while the gap between white and minority student scores shrank for the first time in five years.
Though Madison’s average score dipped from 24.2 to 23.9, district students still outperformed the state average of 22.2 and national average of 21.1. A perfect score on the college entrance exam is 36.
Madison’s average scores in recent years have ranged from 23.5 in 1995 to 24.6 in 2007. The average score was also 23.9 in 2003.
With the highest percent of students taking the ACT in state history, Wisconsin’s Class of 2011 posted an average score slightly above that from the previous year’s graduates and maintained the state’s third-place ranking among states in which the test is widespread.
Seventy-one percent of the 2011 graduates from Wisconsin private and public schools took the college admissions test, averaging a 22.2 composite score on the 36-point test, according to information to be publicly released Wednesday. The nationwide average was 21.1 on the ACT Assessment, which includes tests in English, reading, mathematics and science.
State schools superintendent Tony Evers credited the results to more high school students pursuing more demanding coursework.
“The message of using high school as preparation for college and careers is taking hold with our students,” Evers said in a news release. “Nearly three-quarters of our kids said they took the rigorous classes recommended for college entry, up from just over half five years ago.”
Even so, ACT reported that only 32% of Wisconsin’s recently graduated seniors had test results that showed they were ready for college-level courses in all four areas. Results for individual subjects ranged from 39% readiness in science to 75% in English.
A few somewhat related links:
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.
On November 7 (2005), Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As he did last fall, the superintendent made some interesting claims about the district’s success in closing the academic achievement gap “based on race”.
According to Mr. Rainwater, the place to look for evidence of a closing achievement gap is the comparison of the percentage of African American third graders who score at the lowest level of performance on statewide tests and the percentage of other racial groups scoring at that level. He says that, after accounting for income differences, there is no gap associated with race at the lowest level of achievement in reading. He made the same claim last year, telling the Wisconsin State Journal on September 24, 2004, “for those kids for whom an ability to read would prevent them from being successful, we’ve reduced that percentage very substantially, and basically, for all practical purposes, closed the gap”. Last Monday, he stated that the gap between percentages scoring at the lowest level “is the original gap” that the board set out to close.
Unfortunately, that is not the achievement gap that the board aimed to close.
“Penelope Trunk”: (Adrienne Roston, Adrienne Greenheart(
10. Homeschool. Your kids will be screwed if you don't.
The world will not look kindly on people who put their kids into public school. We all know that learning is best when it's customized to the child and we all know that public schools are not able to do that effectively. And the truly game-changing private schools cost $40,000 a year.
Notes and links on the recent, successful Madison Talented & Gifted parent complaint.
Handbooks replace union contracts in Wisconsin schools
Some are calling it the summer of the teacher handbook.
With the start of school approaching on Sept. 1, about two-thirds of Wisconsin’s school districts are rushing to finalize employee handbooks to replace now-extinct collective bargaining agreements that for decades outlined duties and salaries for workers.
The passage of the state’s new “Act 10” legislation – in effect for all districts that didn’t extend a contract with teachers before the passage of the law – gives administrators the ability to make sweeping changes to teachers’ pay scales, hours and working conditions without having to negotiate them with unions.
Some sacred cows are disappearing, such as teacher tenure, layoffs based on seniority and the guarantee of 10 years’ worth of post-retirement health insurance. Other big and complex changes on the horizon include new salary structures and pay-for-performance plans.
Wisconsin teachers union tops list of biggest lobbying groups for 2009-10, report shows
The statewide teachers union led in spending on lobbying state lawmakers even before this year’s fight over collective bargaining rights.
The Wisconsin Education Association Council spent $2.5 million on lobbying in 2009 and 2010, years when Democrats were in control of all of state government, a report released Thursday by the Government Accountability Board showed.
WEAC is always one of the top spending lobbyists in the Capitol and they took a central role this year fighting Gov. Scott Walker’s plan curbing public employee union rights, including teachers.
Back in 2009, when Democrat Jim Doyle was governor and Democrats controlled the Senate and Assembly, WEAC wasn’t helping to organize massive protests but it was a regular presence in the Capitol.
Much of its lobbying in 2009 was in support of removing caps on raises for teachers during contract negotiations, a move supported by Doyle and approved by the Legislature.
A New Tactic To Encourage Mothers To Breast-Feed
Public-health officials are shifting tactics in an effort to encourage more women to breast-feed their babies–they are pushing hospitals to change their maternity practices.
The percentage of women who breast-feed is well below public-health goals, according to recent reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospitals are key to encouraging breast-feeding because the steps taken immediately after birth are essential to help women establish an adequate milk supply and effective nursing practices. If a woman doesn’t really try breast-feeding until a week after giving birth, she probably won’t be successful, experts say.
“What happens in the first three days can make or break your breast-feeding success,” says Jane Morton, a pediatrician at Burgess Pediatrics in Menlo Park, Calif., who helped develop a breast-feeding medicine program at Stanford University.
Detroit Public School union leaders creating response to contract break
Detroit Public School union leaders said today they will use the weekend to strategize a response to the district breaking eight union contracts Friday to impose a 10 percent wage cut and increase employees’ health insurance contributions.
“We’re meeting with attorneys over the weekend and on Monday to outline what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it,” said Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. The response could include a court challenge, Johnson said.
Emergency Manager Roy Roberts’ order affects nearly 10,000 union and nonunion employees. The district, with a $327 million deficit, would save $81.8 million, officials said.
Teachers will have to contribute 20 percent toward their health care. Teachers will see a 10 percent cut in pay starting with their Sept. 20 paycheck, Johnson said.
The 10 Commandments of Bad Parenting
Ever have a moment when you realize the thing you always thought you were the best at, is suddenly the thing you’re least skilled at doing?
I’m there with parenting, and that’s why my friend Margit Crane’s “10 Commandments of Bad Parenting” strikes me:
I. Be sarcastic
Don’t let it bother you at all that the word means “to tear flesh.” Kids are plenty sophisticated enough to understand that when you say, “Yes, of course I think you’re stupid,” you don’t in any way mean it. Plus! You’ll love it when they reach their teens and start dishing it back to you. Nothing is more lovable than a sarcastic teen!
II. Lecture, yell, nag, and be smug
Dude. Who doesn’t love to cuddle up for a good lecture? And yelling just makes it that much easier to be heard. Of course, if you’re one of those who (cough) doesn’t believe in yelling, acting smug works great too. Saying to your kids “I’m sorry I ever birthed a sinner like you” in a calm voice is totally different than saying it in a loud voice. Besides, listening is so last century.
The New Chinese Exclusion Act
With Washington focused on a last-minute debt deal, one California congresswoman wants her colleagues to turn their attention to an anti-immigration law that’s been off the books for 70 years. Democrat Judy Chu of the 32nd District in Los Angeles County has called on fellow members to join her in a “Resolution of Regret” over the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882–a bill that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi endorsed on Wednesday.
Setting aside Ms. Chu’s sense of priorities, there’s a deep irony in her resolution. Even as she calls public attention to sins committed while Chester A. Arthur was president, Ms. Chu staunchly supports the most harmful form of anti-Asian discrimination in the U.S. today: racial preferences in hiring and university admissions.
Ms. Chu’s resolution rightly notes that the Chinese Exclusion Act was “incompatible with the basic founding principles of equality recognized in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.” It goes on to call on Congress to “reaffirm its commitment to preserving the same civil rights and constitutional protections for people of Chinese or other Asian descent in the United States accorded to all others.” Yet “the same” rights aren’t what Ms. Chu wants for Asians today.
Law Schools Get Practical With the Tight Job Market, Course Emphasis Shifts From Textbooks to Skill Sets
Looking to attract employers’ attention, some law schools are throwing out decades of tradition by replacing textbook courses with classes that teach more practical skills.
Indiana University Maurer School of Law started teaching project management this year and also offers a course on so-called emotional intelligence. The class has no textbook and instead uses personality assessments and peer reviews to develop students’ interpersonal skills.
New York Law School hired 15 new faculty members over the past two years, many directly from the ranks of working lawyers, to teach skills in negotiation, counseling and fact investigation. The school says it normally hires one or two new faculty a year, and usually those focused on legal research.
Kaukauna Area School District projects $1.5 million surplus after contract changes to health care, retirement savings; Milwaukee Plans to Lay Off 354 Teachers
As changes to collective bargaining powers for public workers take effect today, the Kaukauna Area School District is poised to swing from a projected $400,000 budget shortfall next year to a $1.5 million surplus due to health care and retirement savings.
The Kaukauna School Board approved changes Monday to its employee handbook that require staff to cover 12.6 percent of their health insurance and to contribute 5.8 percent of their wages to the state’s pension system, in accordance with the new collective bargaining law, commonly known as Act 10.
“These impacts will allow the district to hire additional teachers (and) reduce projected class sizes,” School Board President Todd Arnoldussen wrote in a statement Monday. “In addition, time will be available for staff to identify and support students needing individual assistance through individual and small group experiences.”
Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Gregory Thornton announced at a news conference this afternoon that 519 layoff notices would be issued for next school year, including 354 teachers.
Most of the teacher cuts come at the elementary level. The district has about 125 elementary schools. The elementary schools most affected are those that lost funding for a program that reduces class sizes.
The layoffs are the result of a number of budgetary factors, including the loss of $84 million in state aid to MPS for the next fiscal year, Thornton said.
Thornton called on the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association to reconsider the district’s request that teachers pay 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions, which would have reduced the number of layoffs by about 200 teachers.
More on Kaukana, here.
Science’s 10 hottest fields
Understanding the genome
The sequencing of the 6 billion chemical “letters” of human DNA was completed in draft in 2000 and in final form in 2003. But clinical benefits have arrived more slowly than the initial hype suggested. This is mainly because the human genome actually works in a much more complex way than predicted by the late-20th-century model.
Twenty-first-century research shows that we have only 21,000 genes, one-fifth of the number predicted when the project started, and that just 1.5 per cent of the genome consists of conventional protein-coding genes. Efforts are under way to understand the vital regulatory and other functions of the non-coding regions of the genome, once dismissed wrongly as “junk DNA”.
The 10 Steps To Make Your Kid A Millionaire
We’re spending our children’s money. So goes the refrain from people appalled at the government’s deficits. As long as entitlement spending and tax collections continue on their present course, it’s an undeniable truth.
Instead of wringing your hands, do something about it. Make your children so prosperous that they can withstand the Medicare cutbacks and tax increases that lie ahead. Here are ten tactics for boosting the net worth of your offspring.
1 Don’t Overeducate
That master’s degree your son or daughter wants to get may be a bad investment. This heretical thought comes from Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economist who studies earning and consumption patterns. An advanced degree confers a higher salary, but it comes at a high cost, too. It includes tuition, often borrowed, plus a year or more of lost earnings.
Encouraging young entrepreneurs to leave school $100,000 drop-outs
“WE’RE excited to be working with them, and we hope they will help young people everywhere realise that you don’t need credentials to launch a company that disrupts the status quo,” declared the Thiel Foundation on May 25th as it announced its first batch of “20 Under 20” fellows.
The lucky winners were all under 20 when they applied. There are actually 24 fellows, rather than 20, and each will receive $100,000 over two years, along with mentorship from a network of entrepreneurs and innovators selected by the initiative’s sponsor, Peter Thiel (pictured above). The only condition set by Mr Thiel, who made his billions first by co-founding PayPal then investing early in Facebook, is that they drop out of college (or high school) to focus full-time on building a business. A few of the new fellows appear to have dropped out–or, as the press release quaintly puts it, “stopped out”–before they were chosen, to launch a start-up or even to climb mountains.
The MIT factor: celebrating 150 years of maverick genius
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has led the world into the future for 150 years with scientific innovations. Its brainwaves keep the US a superpower. But what makes the university such a fertile ground for brilliant ideas?
Yo-Yo Ma’s cello may not be the obvious starting point for a journey into one of the world’s great universities. But, as you quickly realise when you step inside the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), there’s precious little about the place that is obvious.
The cello is resting in a corner of MIT’s celebrated media lab, a hub of techy creativity. There’s a British red telephone kiosk standing in the middle of one of its laboratories, while another room is signposted: “Lego learning lab – Lifelong kindergarten.”
The cello is part of the Opera of the Future lab run by the infectiously energetic Tod Machover. A renaissance man for the 21st – or perhaps 22nd – century, Machover is a composer, inventor and teacher rolled into one. He sweeps into the office 10 minutes late, which is odd because his watch is permanently set 20 minutes ahead in a patently vain effort to be punctual. Then, with the urgency of the White Rabbit, he rushes me across the room to show me the cello. It looks like any other electric classical instrument, with a solid wood body and jack socket. But it is much more. Machover calls it a “hyperinstrument”, a sort of thinking machine that allows Ma and his cello to interact with one another and make music together.
Actually, College Is Very Much Worth It
Lately it’s become fashionable — especially among the highly credentialed — to question whether it’s really “worth it” to go to college. A recent report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education proposed deemphasizing college as the primary goal of our education system in favor of “multiple pathways” for students. Earlier this month, New York Magazine devoted almost 4,000 words to profiling venture capitalists (and college graduates) James Altucher and Peter Thiel and their efforts convince Americans that they’d be better off skipping college. Thiel is even creating a $100,000 fellowship for young people who agree to delay going to college in favor of an internship.
Make no mistake, there is widespread dissatisfaction with higher education. According to a new survey released by the Pew Research Center, only 40 percent of Americans felt that colleges provided an “excellent” or “good” value for the money. At the same time, 86 percent of college graduates still felt the investment was a good one for them.
The Surprising Number of Milwaukee Public Schools “Administration” Staff Who Make More Than $100,000 a Year
As the debate continues over the anticipated funding cuts coming to the Milwaukee Public School system, a lot of the blame for funding shortfalls has been placed squarely on the shoulders of public school teachers.
To be sure the compensation packages for teachers – especially those who’ve worked in the district for a long time – do play a part in the discussion. But for the focus and blame to be solely on how much teachers in MPS make is unfair and unproductive. I’ve made a fair amount of noise over the past several years about an issue no one else seems to want to discuss when it comes to cuts within MPS: administrative staff in central office.
I live a half block north of MPS central office and it’s always surprised me how many people actually work there. When my wife Jenny started working within MPS I learned a lot more about the infrastructure that runs MPS and I’ve come to see it for what a bureaucratic nightmare it is.
It’s been frustrating for me to see the “boots on the ground” teachers and others who work in the classrooms across Milwaukee to be vilified while central office staff always seem to escape the budget cuts. While we’ve been happy to cut 1000’s of teachers over the past few years, the staff within central office has remained largely untouched. They’re not part of the “evil teachers union” after all.
2010 Wisconsin State Salaries
The MacIver Institute’s new Open Government site provides you with one location for data on Wisconsin public employee salaries, benefits and labor contracts. We have worked hard to not just allow “access” the way many government information sites do, but to give you all of the data in a format that allows you to select and sort the information as you see fit.
Most areas of our site are available to anyone, including some basic tabular information, but our more extensive analysis and graphics pages require an initial sign-in as users of the Open Government site – but the good news is that sign-in is free and easy! All we need is your name, email, city, and state. We will use your email address to let you know when we add more data sets to the website.
The first time you click on a link to our analysis and graphics pages you will be routed to the sign-in page. Then, if you use the same computer and the same internet browser in the future, you should not have to enter your sign-in information again.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: T he Great Recession’s Impact on State Pension and Retiree Health Care Costs
In the midst of the Great Recession and severe investment declines, the gap between the promises states made for employees’ retirement benefits and the money they set aside to pay for them grew to at least $1.26 trillion in fiscal year 2009, resulting in a 26 percent increase in one year.
State pension plans represented slightly more than half of this shortfall, with $2.28 trillion stowed away to cover $2.94 trillion in long-term liabilities–leaving about a $660 billion gap, according to an analysis by the Pew Center on the States. Retiree health care and other benefits accounted for the remaining $604 billion, with assets totaling $31 billion to pay for $635 billion in liabilities. Pension funding shortfalls surpassed funding gaps for retiree health care and other benefits for the first time since states began reporting liabilities for the latter in fiscal year 2006.
Precipitous revenue declines in fiscal year 2009 severely depleted state coffers and constrained their ability to pay their annual retirement bills. States’ own actuaries recommended that they contribute nearly $115 billion to build up enough assets to fully fund their promises over the long term, but they contributed only $73 billion–or 64 percent of the total annual bill. This 2009 payment represents a three percentage point decline from the previous fiscal year’s contribution, when they set aside just under $72 billion toward a $108 billion requirement.
The PhD factory The world is producing more PhDs than ever before. Is it time to stop?
David Cyranoski , Natasha Gilbert , Heidi Ledford , Anjali Nayar & Mohammed Yahia:
Scientists who attain a PhD are rightly proud — they have gained entry to an academic elite. But it is not as elite as it once was. The number of science doctorates earned each year grew by nearly 40% between 1998 and 2008, to some 34,000, in countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The growth shows no sign of slowing: most countries are building up their higher-education systems because they see educated workers as a key to economic growth (see ‘The rise of doctorates’). But in much of the world, science PhD graduates may never get a chance to take full advantage of their qualifications.
In some countries, including the United States and Japan, people who have trained at great length and expense to be researchers confront a dwindling number of academic jobs, and an industrial sector unable to take up the slack. Supply has outstripped demand and, although few PhD holders end up unemployed, it is not clear that spending years securing this high-level qualification is worth it for a job as, for example, a high-school teacher. In other countries, such as China and India, the economies are developing fast enough to use all the PhDs they can crank out, and more — but the quality of the graduates is not consistent. Only a few nations, including Germany, are successfully tackling the problem by redefining the PhD as training for high-level positions in careers outside academia. Here, Nature examines graduate-education systems in various states of health.
California Teacher Union Activism
Earlier today, I posted about the California Teachers Association’s plan to occupy the State Capitol on May 9-13 as part of the union’s protests to increase tax revenue for the state’s schools and teachers. I now have further information, including the news that CTA has budgeted $1 million for the protests.
The union has set up a web site of material for activists at CAstateofemergency.com. The documents include the handout I posted earlier, plus a 10-page list of “potential activities” the CTA State Council dreamed up. The State Council consists of more than 700 elected union representatives from all across the state. I’ve also posted this document on the EIA web site.
The “potential activities” include:
The Education School Master’s Degree Factory
One of the most straightforward ways school districts can obtain cost savings without harming students is to eliminate extra pay for teachers who earn a master’s degree. Simply by giving up the extra payment for the master’s degree, school districts in Florida could save better than 3 percent of their teaching personnel costs without losing any of their classroom effectiveness. In a paper just published in the Economics of Education Review, Matthew Chingos and I look at the characteristics of effective 4th through 8th grade teachers in Florida over the period 2002 to 2010.
We found that teachers with an M. A. degree were no more effective, on average, than teachers who lacked such a degree. Further, we found out that it did not make any difference from which public university in Florida a teacher had earned the degree. None of them had an educational program that correlated with a teacher’s classroom effectiveness.
Yet a teacher who has taught for 10 years will earn 6.5 percent more (or about $2500), if he or she has collected that extra diploma. Since about half the teachers have pursued that advanced degree–given the extra dollars, why not?–the state could save better than 3 percent of its teaching personnel costs by eliminating this useless feature of the teacher compensation scheme.
Admissions Figures on Elon, Harvey Mudd, Brandeis and Nearly 100 Other Colleges
In the few days since my colleague Eric Platt and I began publishing our running tally on how many students applied to — and were accepted by — various colleges and universities this year, the ledger has more than doubled, to 100.
Those of you who’ve been following this exercise know that our table is to be read with several caveats in mind. One is that it is far too early in the endgame of this year’s decision process to draw meaningful conclusions from these figures, especially considering that they represent a fraction of the nation’s four-year colleges and universities. Moreover, as a number of commenters have noted, colleges and universities sometimes spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mass-mailing campaigns to drive up the number of applications they receive — and, in effect, drive down their admission rates — so that what might appear to be instant popularity could well be manufactured.
School administrative costs, public information practices draw backlash from Baltimore County lawmakers
County hired deputy superintendent at salary of $214,000 even as it cuts teaching positions
Members of the Baltimore County delegation are demanding an explanation for the school system’s spending on top-level administration and its policy of requiring written requests for salary information.
In a letter dated Friday, Sen. Kathy Klausmeier and Del. John Olszewski Jr. criticized the school system’s recent hiring of a deputy superintendent at an annual salary of $214,000 even as the proposed budget calls for cutting 196 teaching positions at middle and high schools.
“Leaving 200 teaching positions vacant will no doubt mean larger class sizes and it may also mean that many important and valuable educational programs will either be understaffed or non-existent,” they said in the letter to school Superintendent Joe A. Hairston.
They also called the salary of Renee Foose, who will begin her job as the county’s deputy superintendent next month, “appalling to many Baltimore County residents.”
Report: Teacher quality crucial: Meeting targets best practices for nation’s educators
Countries that outpace the U.S. in education employ many different strategies to help their students excel. They do, however, share one: They set high requirements to become a teacher, hold those who become one in high esteem and offer the instructors plenty of support.
On Wednesday and today, education leaders, including U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the nation’s largest teacher unions, and officials from the highest scoring countries, are meeting in New York to identify the best teaching practices.
The meeting comes after the recently released results of the Programme for International Student Assessment exam of 15-year-olds alarmed U.S. educators. Out of 34 countries, it ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math.
“On the one hand, the United States has a very expensive education system in international standards,” said Andreas Schleicher, who directs the exam. “On the other hand, it’s one of the systems where teachers get the lowest salaries.
“Then you ask yourself, how do you square those things?”
Some 16 countries’ teachers union leaders and education ministers say the U.S. must “raise the status of the teaching profession”– meaning spend more money. We’ve wasted enough. Let’s reduce unions’ power.
Defenders of government control of education will believe any and every explanation for failure — except government control.
Andreas Schleicher, the head of the division of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that conducts evaluations of the scholastic performance of different countries’ 15-year-old pupils every three years, complains in a new report about the image of educators in America.
“The teaching profession in the U.S. does not have the same high status as it once did,” he says, “nor does it compare with the status teachers enjoy in the world’s best-performing economies.”
On Quickly Extending Madison Teacher Contracts; Board to Meet Tomorrow @ 2:00p.m.
Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:
Thursday, March 10 was an eventful day. With the approval by the state Assembly of legislation stripping public employees of nearly all collective bargaining rights, it appears that our school district has about a day to negotiate with our teachers and other bargaining units represented by MTI about an extension of our current collective bargaining agreement, which expires at the end of June. (We have already agreed to extensions for our two bargaining units represented by AFSCME and for our trades workers.)
Board members have received hundreds of emails from our teachers and others requesting that we extend their contracts and that we do it quickly. Here is the response I sent to as many of the emails as I could on Thursday night. I apologize to those to whose messages I simply didn’t have time to respond.Thanks for contacting me to urge the School Board to extend the contract for our teachers and other represented employees.
This is a difficult situation for all of us and one that all of us would have preferred to have avoided. However, it is here now and we have to deal with it.
Like all our Board members, I respect, value and like our teachers. I want to do whatever I can to ease the stress and uncertainty that we’re all feeling, but I’m also required to act in the best interest of the school district and all of our students.
The situation before us is that if we do not extend the contract with our teachers, then, once the legislation approved today goes into effect, collective bargaining will effectively come to an end.
The School Board met tonight to discuss the terms of a contract that we could responsibly enter into for the next two years, given the uncertainty we face. We agreed on a proposal, which we submitted to MTI this evening. Like our previous settlements with other bargaining units, the proposed contract gives us the flexibility we need to adapt to the requirements imposed on us by the new state law, as well as the reduced spending limits and reduction in state aid that are parts of the proposed budget bill.
The proposed contract is written so that it gives the District discretion over changes in salary and in contributions to retirement accounts and to the cost of health insurance. I recognize that you can feel uncomfortable about the extent of the discretion that our proposal reserves for the school district. We have to write the contract this way, because any change in the contract – like re-opening the contract to adjust its terms – triggers application of the new state law that abolishes nearly all collective bargaining. So we have to draft the contract in a way that any adjustment in its economic terms does not amount to an amendment or change to the contract, and providing the school district with discretion to make such changes seems like the only way to do this.
The Madison School Board apparently is going to meet tomorrow @ 2:00p.m. to discuss extending the teacher contracts, though I don’t see notice on their website.
Matthew DeFour:
The Madison School Board scheduled a meeting for 2 p.m. Saturday to approve a deal with its unions before a Republican law to strip collective bargaining takes effect.
The vote is scheduled less than 48 hours after the School District and Madison Teachers Inc. exchanged initial proposals Thursday night at a hastily called School Board meeting.
The two proposals, released by the district Friday afternoon, called for extending contracts until June 30, 2013, and freezing wages, but differed on benefit concessions and other details.
MTI asked that teachers be granted amnesty and given full pay for four days missed last month. Hundreds of teachers called in sick on Feb. 16, 17, 18 and 21 to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to limit collective bargaining. Walker signed the bill Friday after the Legislature approve it Wednesday and Thursday.
MTI also asked for the missed days to be made up by adding 8 to 15 minutes to the end of every school day through the rest of the year. That would fulfill a state requirement for instructional time.
The MTI proposal did not include any employee contributions to pension and health insurance premiums over the next two years, something other unions around the state seeking contract extensions proposed to their school boards.
The district’s proposal called for allowing it to set pension contributions, change its health insurance carrier and employees’ share of premiums, set class sizes, and increase or decrease wages at its discretion, among other things. The district faces a $16 million reduction in funding under Walker’s 2011-13 budget proposal.
Don Severson: Considerations Proposed for the Madison School District 2011-2012 Budget 300K PDF, via email:
The legislative passage of the bill to limit collective bargaining for public employees provides significant opportunities for Wisconsin school districts to make major improvements in how they deliver instructional, business and other services. Instead of playing the “ain’t it awful’ game the districts can make ‘systemic’ changes to address such challenges as evaluating programs, services and personnel; setting priorities for the allocation and re-allocation of available resources; closing “the achievement gap”; and reading and mathematics proficiency, to name a ‘short list’. The Madison Metropolitan School District can and should conduct their responsibilities in different ways to attain more effective and efficient results–and, they can do this without cutting teacher positions and without raising taxes. Following are some actions the District must take to accomplish desirable, attainable, sustainable, cost effective and accountable results.
City Eyes New Tactic for Failing Schools: The Turnaround
The Bloomberg administration’s signature strategy for low-performing schools has been to shut them down, a drastic move that often incites anger and protests from teachers, parents and neighborhood officials. Since the beginning of the mayor’s first term, more than 110 schools have been shuttered or are in the process of closing.
The administration is now thinking of testing another approach at two schools in the Bronx: replacing the principals and at least half of the teachers, but keeping the schools and all of their programs running — a strategy known as a turnaround.
The plan would bring together unlikely partners: the New York City Department of Education, the teachers’ union and the founder of a charter school network who is best known for turning around one of the toughest high schools in Los Angeles.
Monona Grove Teacher Contract Agreement
The MGEA has ratified the contract agreed to earlier today by the board. This contract is for the 2009-2011 school year and will expire June 30th.
The contract mostly maintains the status quo to allow us to complete the year in an orderly fashion even if the current budget repair bill passes. Hopefully it will give us enough time to deal with the implications of the yet to be released state budget and make layoff and staffing decisions with enough knowledge to minimize disruption. The same is true of senior teachers with the option to retire. It also minimizes risk: in the absence of a contract we would be governed only by the complex state statutes if the “budget repair bill” becomes law, and there is a risk that any disputes would end up in litigation without this settlement.
The agreed upon contract provides for 0% salary increase in the first year (2009-10) and 1% in the current year. This is significantly less than inflation and saves the district money relative to what had been budgeted. Given that the MGEA would retain the right to negotiate salaries up to the rate of inflation under the “budget repair bill’ this is probably a deal for the district. A teacher who started in the district this year with a bachelors will receive $31,695 in salary (including the new teacher stipend), a teacher with a master’s and 16 years experience will receive $51,717.
2010-2011 Madison School District Citizen’s Budget
Superintendent Dan Nerad, 74K PDF:
Attached to this memorandum you will find the Fall Revised Budget version of the 2010-11 Citizen’s Budget. The Citizen’s Budget is intended to present financial information to the community in a format that is more easily understood. The first report includes 2009-10 Revised Budget, 2010-11 Revised Budget and groups expenditures into categories outlined as follows:
- In-School Operations
- Curriculum & Teacher Development & Support
- Facilities, Other Than Debt Service
- Transportation
- Food Service
- Business Services
- Human Resources
- General Administration
- Debt Service
- District-Wide
- MSCR
The second report associates revenue sources with the specific expenditure area they are meant to support. In those areas where revenues are dedicated for a specific purpose (ie. Food Services) the actual amount is represented. In many areas of the budget, revenues had to be prorated to expenditures based on percentage that each specific expenditure bears of the total expenditure budget. It is also important to explain that property tax funds made up the difference between expenditures and all other sources of revenues. The revenues were broken out into categories as follows:
- Local Non-Tax Revenue
- Equalized & Categorical State Aid
- Direct Federal Aid
- Direct State Aid
- Property Taxes
Both reports combined represent the 2010-11 Fall Revised Citizens Budget. This report can also be found on the District’s web site.
Average Milwaukee Public Schools Teacher Salary Plus Benefits Tops $100,000; Ramifications
For the first time in history, the average annual compensation for a teacher in the Milwaukee Public School system will exceed $100,000.
That staggering figure was revealed last night at a meeting of the MPS School Board.
The average salary for an MPS teacher is $56,500. When fringe benefits are factored in, the annual compensation will be $100,005 in 2011.
MacIver’s Bill Osmulski has more in this video report.
Related Links:
- Michelle Malkin posted an extensive roundup of Wisconsin teacher and administrator compensation information, including a list of the highest paid, with Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad topping the list (The Wisconsin Taxpayer reported his total compensation is $256,715).
- Appleton Post-Crescent DataMine: Search Wisconsin teacher salaries and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel version
- Wisconsin demographics, including income data via the Census Bureau and a City Data Summary
- indeed.com Wisconsin teacher salary information.
- www.weac.org salary & benefits search summary, salary only search, benefits only.
- Madison Teachers Salary & step level information
- Somewhat related: The proposed IB Madison Preparatory Academy plans to operate outside of the Madison School District’s Teachers Union. (Collective Bargaining Agreement)
Finally, the economic and political issue in a nutshell: Wisconsin’s taxbase is not keeping up with other states:
- New Geography’s 2010 “Best Cities for Job Growth” is worth reading. Oshkosh-Neenah tops the list at 145 while Madison lands at 152. College Station, TX (compared to Madison with local editorial comments) is #3 while Austin is #9. Jacksonville, NC ranks #1. Methodology.
- Dave Baskerville: Wisconsin Needs Two Big Goals – Minnesota’s per capita income is currently $4500 more than the Badger State’s.
- The unrest in Wisconsin this week over Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to cut the bargaining rights and benefits of public workers is spreading to other states.
- No, real change starts with all stakeholders
Clips from Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad’s News Conference on Closed Schools & Teacher Job Action
Matthew DeFour: (watch the 15 minute conference here)
Madison School District Superintendent Dan Nerad discusses on Wednesday Gov. Scott Walker’s bill, teacher absences, and Madison Teachers Inc.
Related:
- Sparks fly over Wisconsin budget’s labor-related provisions (July, 2009)
- Isthmus event coverage roundup.
- WisPolitics Budget Blog
- Madison Teachers Website MTI PDF: At Issue Walker Attacks Public Employees MTI PDF: Events Week of 2/14/2011
- WEAC website
- NEA website
- Randi Weingarten
- AFT website
- Wisconsin, Tennessee seek sharpest curbs on collective bargaining by Susan Troller
- Wisconsin School boards association changes tune, fears harm from Walker bill
- Dane County’s efforts to ‘protect’ employees likely to backfire by Jonathan Barry
- MATC OKs contract that preserves no-cost pensions
- Walker to gut Milwaukee Public Schools, break up UW, education leaders say
- Madison Mayor wants to rush on city employee contracts extension
- The Racine post
- With Wisconsin’s QEO Gone, schools bargain harder on teachers’ contracts, much more on the QEO, here
- Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman: “the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee.”
- Active Citizens for Education Statement
- Madison School District recent communications.
- Was Wednesday’s ‘sick out’ by Madison teachers an illegal strike?
- Unions want to overturn election result.
- FDR: Public-sector unions must not be allowed to strike
- Democrat National Committee Playing a Role in Organizing the Protests
- Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding
Dave Baskerville is right on the money: Wisconsin needs two big goals:
For Wisconsin, we only need two:
Raise our state’s per capita income to 10 percent above Minnesota’s by 2030.
In job and business creation over the next decade, Wisconsin is often predicted to be among the lowest 10 states. When I was a kid growing up in Madison, income in Wisconsin was some 10 percent higher than in Minnesota. Minnesota caught up to us in 1967, and now the average Minnesotan makes $4,500 more than the average Wisconsinite.
Lift the math, science and reading scores of all K-12, non-special education students in Wisconsin above world-class standards by 2030. (emphasis added)
Wisconsinites often believe we lose jobs because of lower wages elsewhere. In fact, it is often the abundance of skills (and subsidies and effort) that bring huge Intel research and development labs to Bangalore, Microsoft research centers to Beijing, and Advanced Micro Devices chip factories to Dresden.
Grow the economy (tax base) and significantly improve our schools….
Texas Governor Perry’s call for $10,000 bachelor’s degrees stumps educators
When Gov. Rick Perry challenged the state’s public institutions of higher learning this week to develop bachelor’s degree programs costing no more than $10,000, including textbooks, Mike McKinney was stumped.
“My answer is I have no idea how,” McKinney, chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, told the Senate Finance Committee. “I’m not going to say that it can’t be done.”
Tuition, fees and books for four years average $31,696 at public universities in Texas, according to the Higher Education Coordinating Board. Sul Ross State University Rio Grande College is the cheapest, at $17,532.
The governor’s call for low-cost degrees comes as legislative budget writers and the governor himself have proposed deep cuts in higher education funding — cuts that would put pressure on governing boards to raise tuition, not lower it.
But officials of some university systems — whose governing boards are fully populated by Perry appointees — nevertheless struck an upbeat tone, or at least a neutral one. As McKinney, a former Perry chief of staff, put it: “If it can be figured out, we’ve got the faculty that can figure it out.”
A spokesman for the University of Texas System said, “We look forward to reviewing details of the governor’s proposal.”
This is exactly the kind of thinking we need: fresh approaches toward all aspects of education.
New Jersey Voucher Bill Fact-Check
NJ’s voucher bill, the Opportunity Scholarship Act, is the big education news story today. Assembly Bill 2810 will be the subject of a hearing today before the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee and proponents and opponents are going to the mattresses. Excellent Education for Everyone (E3) is running print ads that begin, “My school is failing me! I go to one of the worst schools in New Jersey. There are 80,000 kids just like me. The New Jersey Education Association wants to me to stay here. Will you help me get out?” New Jersey Teachers Association is running its own ad campaign, and has put out this set of talking points for parent leaders to use to lobby against the bill, which passed through the Senate Education Committee last month. (Here’s coverage from The Wall Street Journal and NJ Spotlight.)
2010 State Teacher Policy Yearbook Blueprint for Change
National Council on Teacher Quality, via email:
Most states’ evaluation, tenure and dismissal policies remain disconnected from classroom effectiveness.
- Teacher evaluation is a critical attention area in 42 states because the vast majority of states do not ensure that evaluations, whether state or locally developed, preclude teachers from receiving satisfactory ratings if those teachers are found to be ineffective in the classroom. In addition, the majority of states still does not require annual evaluations of all veteran teachers, and most still fail to include any objective measures of student learning in the teacher evaluations they do require.
- In 46 states, teachers are granted tenure with little or no attention paid to how effective they are with students in their classrooms. While there are a few states that have vague requirements for some consideration of evidence, and a few others that promise that teacher evaluations will “inform” tenure decisions, only Colorado, Delaware, Oklahoma and Rhode Island demand that evidence of student learning be the preponderant or decisive criterion in such decisions.
- Dismissal is a critical attention area in 46 states. There are at least two state leaders taking this issue head on. In Oklahoma, recent legislation requires that tenured teachers be terminated if they are rated “ineffective” for two consecutive years, or rated as “needs improvement” for three years running, or if they do not average at least an “effective” rating over a five-year teaching period. In Rhode Island, teachers who receive two years of ineffective evaluations will be dismissed. Any teacher with five years of ineffective ratings would not be eligible to have his or her certification renewed by the state.
How to Spend $100 Million to Really Save Education
Anya Kamenetz, via a James Dias email:
The elite has become obsessed with fixing public schools. Whether it’s Ivy League graduates flocking to Teach for America or new-money foundations such as Gates, Broad, and Walton bestowing billions on the cause, “for the under-40 set, education reform is what feeding kids in Africa was in 1980,” Newark, New Jersey, education reformer Derrell Bradford told the Associated Press last fall.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is the latest entrepreneur to join this rush. He announced in late September that he planned to donate $100 million to the city of Newark to overhaul its school system. Zuckerberg, a billionaire by age 23, has little experience in philanthropy and no connection to Newark; he met the city’s mayor, Cory Booker, at a conference and was impressed with Booker’s ideas for school reform. Plans are still sketchy, but Zuckerberg has endorsed merit pay for teachers, closing failing schools, and opening more charters.
So will this princely sum produce a happy ending? Unlikely. The Zuckerberg gift, like all social action, is based on a particular “theory of change” — a set of beliefs about the best strategy to produce a desired outcome. The United Way has one theory of change about the best way to feed the hungry (direct aid funded by international private donations). Che Guevara had a very different one (self-help through armed revolution). Unfortunately, the theory of change behind the recent infusion of private money into public schools is based on some questionable assumptions: First, public schools will improve if they harness more resources. Second, charter schools and strong, MBA-style leaders are the preferred means of improvement. And third, a school’s success can be measured through standardized testing.
Chance to improve education a primary factor in a Proposed Charter School
A smattering of cynicism can be necessary, even beneficial, when dealing with things that are new.
It’s when a lack of understanding causes something with potential benefit to be viewed through jaundiced eyes that the cynicism can become a roadblock.
Take as an example ongoing discussion about a proposal to create a charter school for Jacksonville.
The sticking point in the months since the proposal for 8 Points Charter School was unveiled has not been the need or the curriculum, but rather the dollars and cents.
This should not become a bottom-line decision. While money has to be a concern given the sealed-wallet finances across the state, the greater question should be “is it something Jacksonville needs right now?”
The answer seems to be “yes.”
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?
A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
- attend a sleepover
- have a playdate
- be in a school play
- complain about not being in a school play
- watch TV or play computer games
- choose their own extracurricular activities
- get any grade less than an A
- not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
- play any instrument other than the piano or violin
- not play the piano or violin.
GAO revises its report critical of practices at for-profit schools
The Government Accountability Office has revised portions of a report it released last summer on recruiting practices in for-profit higher education, softening several examples from an undercover investigation but standing by its central finding that colleges had encouraged fraud and misled potential applicants.
The revisions have come as the Obama administration and senior Democratic lawmakers are pushing for tougher regulation of the industry. A Republican senator said the revisions called into question some of the conclusions in the report.
The original report, issued Aug. 4 in testimony to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, examined recruiting practices at 15 for-profit colleges, including campuses operated by the Apollo Group, Corinthian Colleges and The Washington Post Co.’s Kaplan unit.
Madison School District Talented & Gifted Plan: December, 2010
Madison School District Administration
The last Talented and Gifted (TAG) Education Plan was adopted by the MMSD Board of Education in 1991. With state statute and policy reform, alignment with current District strategic planning, and a desire to utilize research in exemplary practice, approval of a comprehensive Talented and Gifted Plan has become a District priority.
This document is meant to be a guide as the Division aims to achieve its mission in alignment with the MMSD Strategic Plan, the State of Wisconsin statutes and administrative rules for gifted and talented education, and the National Association for Gifted Children standards.
There will be a review of the Plan, with status reports issued to the Board of Education, in January and June 2010. Adjustments to the Plan will be documented at that time.
Wisconsin State Statute 121.02(1) (t), and Administrative Rule PI 8.01(2)(t).2 require school districts to identify those students who give evidence of high performance capability as talented and gifted and provide those students with access to appropriate systematic and continuous instruction. The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) standards complements the Wisconsin framework and provides a guide for quality educational programming.
The Plan below identifies the following categories as areas in need of improvement in MMSD Talented and Gifted Programming. The primary focus in developing this Plan has been in the areas of identification, programming, and professional development.
U.S. Schools Make Progress, But ‘Dropout Factories’ Persist
In the decade since educators launched a nationwide campaign to improve schools and stop students from dropping out, progress has been made, according to a new report, but more than 1 million public high school students failed to graduate with their class this year and 2 million attend so-called “dropout factory” schools where their chance of graduating is only 50-50.
Being able to read in third grade is an early indicator of whether a student will stay in school.
In the first half of the decade, at least one out of every four public high school students and almost 40 percent of minority students (defined as African-Americans, Hispanics and American Indians) did not successfully graduate with their class. In 2008, the high school graduation rate was about 75 percent, a three-point increase from 2001.
Students can lose interest in school early, according to education experts. Studies show that you can tell who is most at risk for dropping out from third grade reading scores. Half of all low-income fourth-graders who could not read on grade level were put on a “drop out” track, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Is it harder for affluent schools to have good character?
Samuel Casey Carter is, in a way, the Tom Paine of the movement to raise school achievement in low-income neighborhoods. He coined the term “no excuses schools” for those run by people who think that no matter how bad their students’ family lives, with great teaching they should be able to learn just as much as kids from affluent suburban homes.
His new book, “On Purpose: How Great School Cultures Form Strong Character,” puts this in an even wider context. He profiles a dozen schools that, he says, have set high expectations for personal attitudes and behavior and created both good people and good students.
This time, only four of the 12 schools Carter profiles are in low-income communities. Nearly all schools in all communities need some fixing, he says. They need to nourish student character if they want young intellects to grow.
UW-Madison School of Education & Madison School District Contract for Professional Development School Supervisors/Coordinators
MMSD has had a longstanding relationship with the University of Wisconsin- Madison in providing schools as sites for practicum and student teachers to learn throughout their two years in the School of Education. Each of these schools had an Instructional Resource Teacher who provided support to UW students as well as professional development for all school staff. The UW, school, and central office all shared costs of these positions.
Project Description: This agreement provides for the interchange of three teachers in an effort to further the goals of the Madison Professional Development School Partnership (PDS). The teachers will assume the duties and responsibilities of PDS Supervisors/ Coordinators for Memorial High School, West High School, and Midvale/Lincoln Elementary Schools. The teachers will provide assistance in curriculum development and evaluation to teachers at the identified schools; coordinate placement of practicum and student teachers assigned by UW-Madison; give workshops; hold regular seminars for practicum students, student teachers, and building teachers; and assist UW staff in research and curriculum development efforts involving the PDS program
Annual Enrollment Report- School Enrollments and Capacities 2010
The first attachment is a one-page overview summary of the past five years of enrollment history, the current year enrollment, and five years of projected enrollment by grade level. Overall, enrollment is generally flat for the district as a whole. However, enrollment has increased slightly for the past two (2) years. We project that this increase will continue for the next two years through 2012-13. After 2012-13 District overall enrollment K-12 will begin to decline slightly. Overall District enrollment has been remarkably stable since 1992 (minimum= 23,556 in 1992, maximum= 24,962 in 1998, average of 24,426 over the past 20 years.
By level, we project that only middle schools will continue to see increases in enrollment during the next five years whereas high and elementary schools will decline in enrollment. Elementary enrollments five years out are based largely on births 5 years prior. Births were at historical highs from 2004 to 2007 (over 3100 births in the City of Madison in each of those years, the highest since the mid 1960’s). Births declined in 2008 (-8%) and 2009 (-13%) respectively from the 2007 high.
The second attachment shows the detailed K-12 enrollment history and projections for each school. Actual enrollment is displayed for 2006 to 2011. Projections are through 2015-16. Projection years are boldfaced. The precision of projections at a school level and for specific grade levels within a school are less accurate when compared to the district as a whole. Furthermore, projections are much less reliable for later years in the projection timeline. Also, the worksheet reflects various program and boundary changes that were implemented and this accounts for some large shifts within schools and programs from one year to the next.
Related: 11/2005: Where Have all The Students Gone, and Dane County Population Trends: 1990 –.
Rhee still a factor in teacher elections
Michelle A. Rhee is no longer chancellor of D.C. schools, but her presence still looms large over a Washington Teachers’ Union election that is entering its final contentious days.
President George Parker faces a stiff reelection challenge from Nathan Saunders, the union’s general vice president, who contends that Parker was too pliant in his dealings with Rhee. He cites the collective bargaining agreement Parker negotiated with Rhee, one that weakens traditional seniority and other job protections for teachers. Union members approved the contract in June.
Saunders also pledges to pursue legal, legislative and lobbying efforts to undo Rhee’s signature initiative, the new IMPACT evaluation system that links some teacher appraisals to student test scores and can trigger dismissals for educators who don’t meet certain classroom performance criteria.
Cedarburg School District will contact families who opted out of sex ed
Over the next few weeks, the Cedarburg School District will contact 111 families that did not return opt-in forms to have their children participate in sensitive issues of the human growth and development curriculum.
Last year, only a handful of parents opted their children out of the sex education curriculum.
In a move that caused controversy among community members, the Cedarburg School Board voted to reverse the process – mandating that parents had to specifically opt their children into the programming by signing a permission slip by Nov. 1. If no form was returned, it was assumed they opted out.
That change in policy drew the attention of the state Department of Public Instruction, which notified the district in a letter that it could face a legal challenge if the board didn’t return to an opt-out policy. Since then the board has discussed the policy at its last two regular meetings.
Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction
On the eve of a pivotal academic year in Vishal Singh’s life, he faces a stark choice on his bedroom desk: book or computer?
By all rights, Vishal, a bright 17-year-old, should already have finished the book, Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle,” his summer reading assignment. But he has managed 43 pages in two months.
He typically favors Facebook, YouTube and making digital videos. That is the case this August afternoon. Bypassing Vonnegut, he clicks over to YouTube, meaning that tomorrow he will enter his senior year of high school hoping to see an improvement in his grades, but without having completed his only summer homework.
Madison Preparatory Academy School Board Presentation 12/6/2010
Kaleem Caire, via email:
The initial proposal for Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men will be presented to the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education’s Planning and Development Committee on MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2010 at 6:00pm in the McDaniels Auditorium of the Doyle Administration Building (545 West Dayton St., Madison 53703). The committee is chaired by Ms. Arlene Silveira (asilveira@madison.k12.wi.us). The Madison Prep proposal is the first agenda item for that evening’s committee meeting so please be there at 6pm sharp. If you plan to provide public comment, please show up 15 minutes early (5:45pm) to sign-up!
Please show your support for Madison Prep by attending this meeting. Your presence in the audience is vital to demonstrating to the Board of Education the broad community support for Madison Prep. We look forward to you joining us for the very important milestone in Madison history!
The Mission
Madison Prep will provide a world class secondary education for young men that prepares them to think critically, communicate effectively, identify their purpose, and succeed in college, 21st century careers, leadership and life. For more information, see the attachments or contact Ms. Laura DeRoche at lderoche@ulgm.org.
Get Involved with Madison Prep
- Curriculum & Instruction Team. This design team will develop a thorough understanding of the IB curriculum and define the curriculum of the school, including the core and non-core curriculum. They will also develop a thorough understanding of the Harkness teaching method, outline instructional best practices, and address teacher expectations and evaluation. Both teams will address special education and English Language Learners (ELL).
- Governance, Leadership & Operation Team. This design team will help develop the school’s operations plan, define the governing structure, and address the characteristics and expectations of the schools Head of School.
- Facility Team. This team will be responsible for identify, planning, and securing a suitable facility for Madison Prep.
- Budget, Finance & Fundraising Team. This team will be involved with developing Madison Prep’s budget and fundraising plans, and will explore financing options for start-up, implementation, and the first four years of the school’s operation.”
- Community Engagement & Support Team. This team will develop strategies and work to establish broad community support for Madison Prep, develop criteria for partnering with others, and establish partnerships that support teaching, learning, leadership, and community engagement.
Related: an interview with Kaleem Caire.
Madison Preparatory Academy Overview 600K PDF and executive summary.
Higher Standards + More Practice for Teacher Training
A panel of education experts has called for an overhaul of U.S. teacher-preparation programs, including a greater emphasis on classroom training as well as tougher admission and graduation standards for those hoping to teach in elementary and secondary classrooms.
The panel’s sweeping recommendations, released Tuesday, urge teacher-training programs to operate more like medical schools, which rely heavily on clinical experience.
Teacher candidates should spend more time in classrooms learning to teach–and proving that they can boost student achievement–before they earn a license to teach kindergarten through twelfth grade, the panel said.
“We need large, bold, systemic changes,” said James Cibulka, president of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, the group that convened the expert panel. “As a nation, we are expecting all of our students to perform at high levels, so it follows that we need to expect more of our teachers as they enter the classroom.”
Summary of the possible Forgery in Seattle Schools $800,000 New Tech contract approval
ssential background:
On 1-29-2010 the Superintendent received two memos from Eric M. Anderson, a Gates Data Fellow, in the Seattle Schools’ Research, Evaluation, and Assessment division. Dr. Anderson is a real statistician and knows statistics well.
One of his two memos was more complete than the other. It analyzed 8 schools that someone else had given him to analyze. This memo was forwarded to the School Board on 2-02-2010. I shall refer to it as the Authentic Memo.
The other memo was not sent to the School Board. I refer to it as the Draft Memo, as it was less complete and was not sent to the school board.
The Superintendent claimed to have written the Action Report of 3-12-2010 using the Authentic Memo but this was untrue. She used the Draft Memo and thus deceived the Public and perhaps the Board as well.
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle says 10 percent of public school teachers would have lost their jobs without federal stimulus aid
Lame-duck governor Jim Doyle’s low popularity rating among Wisconsin voters guaranteed he would keep a low profile while Tom Barrett fought — unsuccessfully — to keep a Democrat in charge in Madison.
But that doesn’t mean Doyle was silent.
In mid-October, Doyle was showcased on a BBC NewsHour radio feature that asked whether the United States needed a second shot of stimulus money from Washington.
Not surprisingly, Doyle defended President Barack Obama and blamed Republicans for creating an enormous fiscal mess that demanded an unpopular but necessary response — the giant stimulus bill OK’d in early in 2009.
Doyle said stimulus grants helped keep schools functioning well, boosted road projects and showered funds on University of Wisconsin medical researchers. And he talked of how he has tried to sell the public on the measure’s positive impact:
N.J. activists, parents warn against promoting charter schools as fix for education system
From Washington to Trenton to Newark, political leaders from both parties – including President Barack Obama and Gov. Chris Christie — are promoting charter schools as an answer to perceived public school failure. And the privately run but publicly funded schools receive support from some of the wealthiest and most famous people on the planet.
But a few activists based in Princeton — some charter school parents — and a Rutgers researcher want their voices heard above the cheerleading. They warn charters are not panaceas.
Madison Edgewood High School’s AP & ACT Results
From 1997 to 2010, Edgewood’s average ACT scores rose by 2.3 points to 25.4 with an average of 95% of EHS students taking the test over that period. During the same time period, state and national averages remained essentially unchanged. The total number of students taking AP courses nearly quadrupled and the average number of tests taken per EHS AP student per year rose from 1.34 to 1.77. In addition, the percentage of passing scores (3,4 or 5) rose from 54% in 1997 to 75% in 2010.
2009-2010 ACT and AP notes:
- ACT average went up by .1 from 2008 to 2009 with 100% of EHS students taking the test.
- 43% of juniors and seniors – more than 1/2 of seniors and 1/3 of juniors took at least one AP course and exam in 2009-10. The national figure was 26.5%
- 37.5% of the EHS graduating class passed (scored 3,4 or 5) at least one AP exam, 2.4 times the national average (15.9%) and 2.2 times the Wisconsin average (17.3%)
- EHS offers one AP course for every 13-14 seniors
30 Students Earn Advanced Placement Scholar Awards
We received word in September that 30 students at Edgewood High School have earned AP Scholar Awards in recognition of their exceptional achievement on AP Exams. About 18% of the nearly 1.8 million students worldwide who took AP exams performed at a sufficiently high level.
via Edgewood’s October, 2010 newsletter.
Juniors approach ACT with help at their schools
When their high-school child starts talking about the ACT, parents often equate it as the time for “Almost College Tuition.”
The letters originally were an abbreviation for American College Testing. Colleges use the standardized test, which assesses high school achievement, to evaluate readiness of applicants applying for admission.
High schools vary their approach to prepare students wading into this important ritual. They try to make it a natural progression for parents, too.
“Pressuring the student is never a good idea. My suggestion is to get involved freshman year, from a grades standpoint. Grades can drive this process and overshadow a lower test score,” said Jeff Buckman, college and career specialist in the counseling office at Eureka High School.
The Real Effect of Teachers’ Union Contracts
It’s going to be difficult for some to resist the temptation to argue about what effect, if any, teacher contracts have on student test scores from state to state, but it entirely misses the salient point that the purpose of teacher contracts is not, and never has been, to increase student test scores. In states with collective bargaining, contracts define the salaries, benefits and working conditions of public education employees. Since compensation accounts for upwards of 80% of all public school expenditures, we might learn something about the “real effect of teachers’ union contracts” if we compare per-pupil spending in states with binding teacher contracts to states without. Here, I use U.S. Census Bureau figures for 2007-08:
Average per-pupil spending in AL, AR, AZ, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TX, and VA – $8,904
Average per-pupil spending in the other 40 states and DC – $10,745Stating there is no significant difference between bargaining and non-bargaining states when it comes to student achievement is not a winning argument for unions. We pay a 20.7% premium to have unions. Isn’t the onus on them to demonstrate their worth to students, parents and taxpayers?
Madison School District 2010-2011 Budget Update; Administration Proposes Spending $378,948,997, an increase of $4,702,967
The Madison School District 2.2MB PDF. The document proposes an 8.8% increase in this winter’s property taxes.
Another document references the Administration’s proposed use of increased State of Wisconsin tax dollars, despite growth in the Badger State’s deficit.
Finally, the document includes a statement on “fund equity”, or the District’s reserves (39,163,174.09 on June 30, 2010):
Statement on Fund Equity
In 1993 when the revenue cap law was enacted, the District budgeted funding to continue to increase the District’s equity (fund balance) at the same proportion as the budget increase. The actual budget was constructed based on worst case assumptions for many of the non-controllable expenses. Using worst case budget assumptions allowed some room for unexpected increased expenditures above those projected without causing the expenditures to exceed revenues. Before the enactment of revenue caps this approach did not affect the District’s ability to cpntinue to provide programming at the same levels as before. This was very sound budget practice and placed the District in an outstanding fiscal position.
After the revenue cap was enacted and until 1998 the District continued the same budgeting strategy. During these early years, continuing the increase in equity and using worse case budget assumptions was possible. It did not jeopardize the District’s instructional programs because sufficient budget reductions were possible through increased operating efficiencies.
In 1998 it became clear that to continue to budget using the same assumptions would necessitate even larger budget cuts to programs than would be necessary if a more narrow approach to budgeting was used. The effect of using a realistic but best case set of budget assumptions for non-controllable expenses was to delay making reductions of critical District educational support programs for several years. However, it also placed the District in a position to have expenditures exceed revenues if the assumptions proved to be inaccurate and the projections were exceeded.
The District’s SUbstantial equity made this approach possible without endangering the District’s excellent fiscal position. The viability of the strategy has been borne out by our Aa1 bond rating from Moody’s Rating Service and the continued excellence of our educational program.
As indicated in the annual audited financial report provided each year to the Board of Education, the District’s expenditures exceeded revenue during the fiscal years 2002 through 2006. Our desire is always to balance the revenues and expenditures on a yearly basis. However, the excess expenses over revenues in those five years resulted solely from specific budgeted expenditures and revenues not meeting assumptions and projections used at the time of budget preparation. We did not add expenditures or staff. The district maintained its fiscal health. The equity was used as it was intended – to maintain the District’s quality through difficult financial times.
We reached the point where the district’s equity position could no longer support the aggressive approach. We rnanaged the 2008-09 and 2009-10 budget more aggressively, which resulted in an increase in equity. We also prepared the 2010-11 budget more conservatively, which will result in a positive affect to the District’s equity at the end of this year.
Donna Williams Director of Budget, Planning & Accounting Services
Much more on the 2010-2011 budget here.
Baltimore Contract Grants “Achievement Units” for Union Work
Here’s a provision of the proposed Baltimore Teachers Union contract that escaped my notice but caught the eye of the editors of the Washington Post. The tentative agreement – voted down by the BTU rank-and-file – proposes a system by which teachers would be paid not strictly according to years and college credits, but by “achievement units” accumulated.
A teacher would receive 12 AUs for the highest grade on an evaluation and 1 AU for each college credit. But work your way to page 9 of the tentative agreement and you find a teacher is to be awarded 3 AUs annually for being a union building representative.
Teaching teachers: As educators struggle with the issue of teacher improvement, a program in Tennessee shows that struggling teachers can gain a lot from watching great teachers in action.
Teachers are at the center of the great debate over how to fix American education. We’re told the bad ones need to be fired; the good ones, rewarded. But what about the rest? Most teachers are in the middle — not terrible, but they could be better. If every student is going to have a good teacher, then the question of how to help teachers in the middle must be part of the debate.
One reason “teacher improvement” doesn’t get more attention is because researchers don’t know that much about how teachers get better. Typical professional development programs, in which teachers go to a workshop for a day or two, aren’t effective. Even programs that provide longer-term training don’t seem to work very well. Two experimental studies by the U.S. Department of Education showed that yearlong institutes to improve teacher knowledge and practice did not result in significantly better student test scores.
Students caught in middle of Monona Grove contract dispute
Monona Grove teachers receive the best post-retirement benefit package in Dane County, according to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards. Qualifying teachers may retire at 55 and receive district-covered health and dental insurance until age 70. They also receive a payout over three years based on their Social Security allowance.
Depending on projected health care costs, a 2009 retiree earning the maximum benefit would receive $281,000 to $421,000 in benefits, school boards association attorney Bob Butler said.
To retain those benefits over the years, the union has conceded short-term compensation increases, putting their salaries in the middle-to-bottom range compared with neighboring districts, Wollerman said. Gerlach said the healthy benefit package was put in place years ago to encourage retirements and attract new teachers.
The School District’s contentious proposal breaks teachers into three groups: those 10 years away from retirement, new hires and everyone in between. The first group wouldn’t be affected by the major changes. New teachers would receive $1,300 a year while employed toward a Health Reimbursement Account and no post-retirement payout. Teachers in the district that are more than 10 years from retirement would have their district health and dental benefits capped at retirement levels, lose coverage once eligible for Medicare and have their stipend capped at $50,000 total.
Maine Governors 2010: On education
When Gov. John Baldacci last year cut $38 million in local education aid to help with a $400 million state budget shortfall, local school districts took it on the chin.
The move forced school districts to consider staff layoffs and program reductions. Later, with less state aid expected and the threat of another cut looming in fiscal year 2011, school districts were forced to consider more layoffs, reduced programing or both.
Education funding was spared in Baldacci’s latest budget adjustment, but the governor warned that the budget he will recommend to the next governor will be well short of the education funding required by state law.
Currently, the state funds just over 42 percent. State law mandates 55 percent, although it hasn’t met the requirement since the law was enacted in 2004. About half of the state’s biennial $5.5 billion budget goes to education.
66th NACAC Conference, St. Louis, Missouri, October 1, 2010
Panelists: Christopher Burkmar, Associate Dean of Admissions at Princeton;
Will Fitzhugh, Founder, The Concord Review; Jonathan Reider, Director of College Counseling, San Francisco University High School
Will Fitzhugh, The Concord Review
I propose a thought experiment for what it may be worth.
What if we change the name of our organization from the National Association of College Admissions Counselors to:
The National Association of College Completion Counselors?
Note that the new name is more comprehensive, as Completion presupposes Admission, but, as is all too obvious these days, Admission cannot assume Completion.
You are all at least as aware as I am of the numbers about the need for academic remediation in Higher Education and the numbers of dropouts from college, but I will review a couple of them. Tony Wagner of Harvard reports that in general, including community colleges, half of college freshman do not return for a second year, and a huge percentage of our HS graduates take six years or more to complete a Bachelor’s degree, and four years or more to complete an Associate’s degree.
Students who need remediation in basic academic skills are more likely to drop out, and the more remedial courses they have to take, the more likely they are to drop out.
The California State College System reported at a conference last Fall that 47% of their Freshman students are in remedial reading courses.
We may assume that these students have had 12 years of reading in school already, but they still can’t read well enough to do college work, at least by California standards.
Reading is not calculus or chemistry, it is just a basic academic skill in which we expect that the schools have offered practice for 12 years.
Now, a youngster can start to play Pop Warner football at age 6. By graduation from HS, he could have had 12 years of practice at the basic skills of football. Imagine athletes reporting for a college football team, only to be told that they need a year of remedial blocking and tackling practice before they can be allowed to play. It seems unlikely that they would not have learned basic blocking and tackling skills in their previous 12 years of playing football.
I am not just talking about improvement here. Of course, students in college can learn to read more difficult material in new academic subjects. And of course college athletes can get better at all the skills needed for success in their sports.
But we are talking about basic, entry-level academic skills. 47% of freshmen in the California State College System don’t have them in reading, after 12 years of practice in school.
When I went into the Army in 1960, I had never fired a rifle before, but in a week or two on the range in Basic Training, I was able to meet the standard for “Sharpshooter.” I missed “Expert” by one target.
I am convinced that if I had had 12 years of practice with my M-1 Garand, I really could have scored “Expert”–perhaps even by the higher standards of the U.S. Marine Corps.
I have to confess I am stunned that so many of our high school students, having been awarded one of our high school diplomas, and having been accepted at one of our colleges, are found to be unable to read well enough to do college work.
The Diploma to Nowhere report of the Strong American Schools project said that more than one million of our high school graduates are now in remedial courses when they get to college.
It also notes that these students, having satisfied our requirements for the high school diploma, and graduated–having applied to college and been accepted–are told when they get there, that they can’t make the grade without perhaps an additional year of work on their academic fundamentals. Naturally this experience is surprising to them, given that they satisfied our requirements for graduation and admission to college, and embarrassing, humiliating and depressing, as well.
As you may know, my particular interest since 1987 has been in student history research papers at the high school level. I have published 912 essays by secondary students from 44 states and 38 other countries over the last 23 years.
Some of the students who wrote the required Extended Essays for the IB Diploma and were published in The Concord Review, and some of our other authors as well, have told me that in their freshman dorms they are often mobbed by their peers who are facing a serious term paper for the first time and have no idea how to do one.
It is absurd to contemplate, but imagine a well-prepared college basketball player being mobbed for help by his peers who had never been taught to dribble, pass, or shoot in high school.
If even colleges like Harvard and Stanford require all their Freshmen to take a year of expository writing, that may not exactly be remedial writing, but I would argue that a student who has completed an Extended Essay for the International Baccalaureate Diploma, and a student who has published a 12,000-word paper on Irish Nationalism or a 15,000-word paper on the Soviet-Afghan War for The Concord Review, should perhaps be allowed to skip that year of remedial writing. The author of the Soviet-Afghan War paper, from Georgia, is now at Christ Church College, Oxford, where I believe he did not have to spend a year in an expository writing course, and the author of the Irish Nationalism paper is at Princeton, where she may very well have been asked to spend a year in such a course.
If so many of our students need to learn how to do academic writing (not to mention how to read), what are they spending time on in high school?
I believe that writing is the most dumbed-down activity we now have in our schools. The AP program includes no research paper, only responses to document-based questions, and most high school Social Studies departments leave academic writing tasks to the English Department.
Now, in general, English Departments favor personal and creative writing and the five-paragraph essay, but college admission requirements have given them an additional task on which they are working with students. Teaching writing takes time, not only in preparing and monitoring students, but more especially in reading what students have written and offering corrections and advice. Time for one kind of writing necessarily means less time for another kind.
Personal and creative writing and the five-paragraph essay have already taken a lot of the time of English teachers and their students, but as college admissions officers ask for the 500-word personal essay, time has to be given to teaching for that.
While high school English departments work with their students on the 500-word personal essay, they do not have the time to give to serious term papers, so they don’t do them, and I believe that is why so many students arrive in our colleges in need of a one-year course on the expository writing they didn’t get a chance to do in school.
Lots of the public high school students whose work I publish simply do their papers as independent studies, as there is no place for serious academic writing like that in the curriculum.
I would suggest that if college admissions officers would ask instead for an academic research paper from applicants in place of the short little personal essay, while it would be more work for them, it would make it more likely that students they accept would arrive ready for college work, perhaps even ready enough to allow them to skip that year of expository writing they now have to sit through, and they could take an actual academic course in its place.
Making sure that our high school students arrive in college able to manage college-level nonfiction reading and academic expository writing might really help us earn our new credential as professionals who work not just to help students get accepted at college, but to help them complete college as well.
==============
“Teach by Example”
Will Fitzhugh [founder]
The Concord Review [1987]
Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes [1995]
National Writing Board [1998]
TCR Institute [2002]
730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24
Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776-3371 USA
978-443-0022; 800-331-5007
www.tcr.org; fitzhugh@tcr.org
Varsity Academics®
www.tcr.org/blog
No MBA Left Behind: Kravis Pledges $100M To Columbia Business School
Henry Kravis has become the latest private equity titan to show support for his alma mater in the form of a hefty check with a $100 million donation to the Columbia Business School.
The donation, the largest in the business school’s history, will go to support the construction of new facilities as part of Columbia’s new Manhattanville campus, according to a press release issued by the school. Kravis graduated from Columbia Business School in 1969.
Although no strangers to philanthropy, private equity professionals have become increasingly visible with their charitable activities in recent years, both as their wealth increased and as the industry’s public image suffered.
Kravis is one of a string of private equity professionals that have written hefty checks to their alma maters in recent years. In the past 12 months, David Rubenstein, co-founder of Carlyle Group, has announced a $10 million pledge to the University of Chicago Law School and a $5.75 million donation to Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. Meanwhile, Mark Yukso, founder of Morgan Creek Capital Management, and his wife, Stacey Miller Yusko, pledged $35 million to their alma mater, the University of Notre Dame.
Ed school professors resist teaching practical skills
Amid the chatter about the Obama administration’s Race to the Top funds, NBC’s Education Nation programs and the release of the film “Waiting For ‘Superman'” (warning: I am in it), I am not hearing much about how education schools fit into this new ‘saving our schools’ ferment. A new survey of education school professors reveals traditional teacher training institutes are trying, sort of, to adjust, but still resist giving top priority to the hottest topic among young teachers, learning how to manage the kids.
When researchers Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett asked 716 randomly selected teacher educators at four-year colleges and universities about major challenges for new teachers these days, they did not seem that excited about them.
Only 24 percent said it was “absolutely essential” to produce “teachers who understand how to work with the state’s standards, tests and accountability systems.”
Only 37 percent gave the highest priority to developing “teachers who maintain discipline and order in the classroom.” Only 39 percent said the same about creating “teachers who are trained to address the challenges of high-needs students in urban districts.”
Milwaukee’s New Teacher Union Contract
A pay freeze, which retroactively applies to the 2009-’10 school year when teachers were working under the old contract, saves the district from roughly $13.5 million in raises it likely would have paid if the previous contract were renewed. Teachers will be in line for a 3% raise for this school year and 2.5% for 2011-’12. Another 3% raise is set for the 2012-’13 school year. The freeze does not apply to those teachers who were eligible for a step increase, which gives teachers with a certain amount of experience an automatic jump to a higher salary level, union officials said. The average salary of an MPS teacher is $56,000 per year, slightly lower than in districts in outlying areas.
“We didn’t get where we wanted to get, but it’s a step in the right direction,” Superintendent Greg Thornton said, adding that the agreement is still “monumental.”
The contract is the first four-year contract negotiated between the district and MTEA. The previous contract expired July 1, 2009, and teachers had been working under the terms of the expired contract since that time.
The Wisconsin Association of School Boards has recommended that its members not enter into contracts that last for more than two years because of the fiscal uncertainty with the state budget. But Thornton said the longer contract will allow both parties more time to work on reforms in the district.
Contract negotiations stalled repeatedly under the previous administration of Superintendent William Andrekopoulos, with the major sticking point being revisions to the teachers’ health care benefits.
Under the old contract, MPS offered two health care plans – an HMO plan that costs $16,440 a year for a family, offered by United Health Care, and a PPO plan through Aetna that allows a broader range of choices in doctors and costs $23,820 a year for a family.
In May, the district said that unless various unions agreed to take a lower cost health care plan, it would move forward with layoffs. The district laid off more than 400 teachers in June, though about half of them have since been recalled.
The new agreement maintains the choice of PPO and HMO plans, but both will be provided by United Health Care and will have lower premiums than the Aetna plan did. Under both options, teachers will for the first time contribute a portion of their salary – 1% for single coverage, 2% for family coverage – to their health care package starting in August 2011. The specific costs of the two options are unknown.
4,100 Students Prove ‘Small Is Better’ Rule Wrong
A decade ago, Brockton High School was a case study in failure. Teachers and administrators often voiced the unofficial school motto in hallway chitchat: students have a right to fail if they want. And many of them did — only a quarter of the students passed statewide exams. One in three dropped out.
Then Susan Szachowicz and a handful of fellow teachers decided to take action. They persuaded administrators to let them organize a schoolwide campaign that involved reading and writing lessons into every class in all subjects, including gym.
Their efforts paid off quickly. In 2001 testing, more students passed the state tests after failing the year before than at any other school in Massachusetts. The gains continued. This year and last, Brockton outperformed 90 percent of Massachusetts high schools. And its turnaround is getting new attention in a report, “How High Schools Become Exemplary,” published last month by Ronald F. Ferguson, an economist at Harvard who researches the minority achievement gap.
Related: Small Learning Communities and English 10.
Putting Newark Mayor Booker in charge of city schools will incite legal action, experts say
If Cory Booker even thinks of making a decision affecting Newark schools, he and Gov. Chris Christie will find themselves in a lawsuit faster than you can say Facebook, the head of the Education Law Center said yesterday.
David Sciarra, a veteran of numerous court battles involving public education, said it would be “improper and illegal” for Christie to formally offer Booker any authority to make decisions about the Newark Public Schools. Sciarra was lead counsel on the historic — and successful — Abbott suit filed in 1997 against the state to provide more funding for its neediest schools.
“I have no doubt appropriate legal action would be taken on behalf of the residents of Newark to challenge such a move in court,” Sciarra said.
Milwaukee Public Schools get $10 million to try bonuses
The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday awarded Milwaukee Public Schools a $10 million grant to experiment with allowing teachers and principals in 16 city schools to earn bonus pay based on their performance, a progressive but controversial practice that’s gained traction in other districts around the country.
The award gives a nod to Wisconsin in the aftermath of several failed local and state applications for other federal education grant competitions, such as Race to the Top and the Promise Neighborhood initiative.
Performance-based pay, which creates financial incentives in a salary schedule traditionally determined by years of experience and level of education, aims to reward and retain high-performing staff.
But the practice receives a cool reception from many teachers’ unions because it’s difficult to isolate and accurately assess teachers and administrators’ performance, especially when it comes to how much of that performance influenced student achievement.
Affirmative Action for the Rich
The use of race-based affirmative action in higher education has given rise to hundreds of books and law review articles, numerous court decisions, and several state initiatives to ban the practice. However, surprisingly little has been said or written or done to challenge a larger, longstanding “affirmative action” program that tends to benefit wealthy whites: legacy preferences for the children of alumni.
Affirmative Action for the Rich sketches the origins of legacy preferences, examines the philosophical issues they raise, outlines the extent of their use today, studies their impact on university fundraising, and reviews their implications for civil rights. In addition, the book outlines two new theories challenging the legality of legacy preferences, examines how a judge might review those claims, and assesses public policy options for curtailing alumni preferences.
Comments on Zuckerberg’s $100M for Newark Schools
Everyone’s abuzz over Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s donation of $100 million to Newark Public Schools on the condition that the State turn over control to Mayor Cory Booker. Here’s some choice quotes:
From detractors of the donation:
Joseph Del Grosso, president of the Newark Teachers Union, (fresh from his guest appearance on Jersey Shore [JK!]): “Vouchers is not going to happen.”
David Sciarra, Executive Director of Education Law Center: “It would be improper under the law for the governor to try to delegate authority to the mayor.”
Related: Number of Kids on Waiting Lists for Newark Charter Schools and
Attracting and retaining top talent in US teaching: Only 23 percent of entering teachers come from the top third of their graduating class. What would it take to do better?
Helping teachers to lift student achievement more effectively has become a major theme in US education. Most efforts that are now in their early stages or being planned focus either on building the skills of teachers already in the classroom or on retaining the best and dismissing the least effective performers. The question of who should actually teach and how the nation’s schools might attract more young people from the top tier of college graduates, as part of a systematic effort to improve teaching in the United States, has received comparatively little attention.
McKinsey’s experience with school systems in more than 50 countries suggests that this is an important gap in the US debate. In a new report, Closing the talent gap: Attracting and retaining top-third graduates to careers in teaching, we review the experiences of the world’s top-performing systems, in Finland, Singapore, and South Korea. These countries recruit 100 percent of their teacher corps from the top third of the academic cohort. Along with strong training and good working conditions, this extraordinary selectivity is part of an integrated system that promotes the prestige of teaching–and has achieved extraordinary results. In the United States, by contrast, only 23 percent of new teachers come from the top third, and just 14 percent of new teachers who come from the top third work in high-poverty schools, where attracting and retaining talented people is particularly difficult. The report asks what it would take to emulate nations that systematically recruit top students to teaching if the United States decided that it was worthwhile to do so.
10 Things I Wish a Teacher Had Told Me
Happy back to school! In honor of my officially becoming a tenured teacher (take that, new value-added teacher data reports to determine tenure), I present to you 10 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Started Teaching.
1. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
You put your students’ names on everything in your room only to find out that some of them are spelled wrong on your class list. Or some of them moved away and you’re getting three more instead. And now you don’t have enough little birthday cakes to complete your class chart! Something like this will inevitably happen in the first week of school. But the truth is, the only person who will notice is you — and if you resent the fact that you’re going to stay at school until 6 pm redoing it, you’re just going to make yourself miserable.
2. If you can put off until tomorrow what you planned on doing today…you might want to think about it.
I realize this sounds an awful lot like procrastination, which to most teachers is a dirty, dirty word. But as a new teacher, you’re going to be staying in your classroom until nightfall anyway. Your classroom is going to become a time-sucking vacuum of dry erase markers and despair. (That was poetic, no?) So if you really, really wanted to plan out your entire week’s worth of math lessons, but it’s after 5 pm and you’ve got at least an inkling of what you’re going to do tomorrow — go home. You’ll take care of tomorrow tomorrow; tonight, you have to take care of you.
Monona Grove School District’s Teacher Contract Negotiations (Since 2009)
What are the sticking points in the current negotiations?
Post-employment benefits and the salary-benefit package are two big items on which there is no agreement. Current post-employment benefits for teachers include a payment of a stipend (Teacher Emeritus Program (TEP)) which is equal to a teacher’s highest annual salary and is paid out over a period of three years in equal installments. In addition to this and to the regular monthly pension benefit received by the teacher from WRS, full health insurance and the major share of the cost of dental insurance are paid by the District until the retired teacher reaches the age of 70. In the event of the death of the retiree prior to reaching the age of 70, the surviving spouse continues to be eligible for the District’s group health insurance coverage until the date the retiree would have reached age 70 at the retiree’s spouse expense.
The School Board’s current proposal for post-employment benefits is proposal #6 in the Initial Board of Education Proposals to the Monona Grove Education Association (linked here). There is no corresponding initial or counter-proposal from the MGEA; its position is to maintain the existing benefits described in the previous paragraph.
The School Board’s current salary and benefit package proposal is an increase of 3.9% for 2009-10 and 3.7% for 2010-11. The MGEA’s current total package proposal is an increase of 5.4% for 2009-10 and 5.3% for 2010-11 and includes an average teacher salary increase of 4.2% for 2009-10 and 4.1% for 2010-11. These percentages reflect what’s known as “cast forward” costing and do not include the cost of horizontal lane movement on the salary schedule or the post-employment benefit costs of retirees.
