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School choice expanding as record fine languishes

Associated Press:

A school choice group that pumped millions of dollars into helping get its candidates elected in Ohio, Wisconsin and other states has yet to pay a record $5.2 million fine imposed three years ago by Ohio election officials, according to the state attorney general.
The fine imposed on All Children Matter languishes even as Ohio Gov. John Kasich pushes a $55.5 billion budget proposal that would continue to expand school choice, doubling the number of school vouchers in the state and lifting a cap on community schools.
The Ohio Elections Commission unanimously ruled in 2008 that All Children Matter, headed by former Michigan Republican Chairwoman Betsy DeVos and run out of that state, illegally funneled $870,000 in contributions from its Virginia political action committee to its Ohio affiliate. That violated a $10,000 cap on what Ohio-based political-action committees could accept from any single entity.

Anne Arundel Board of Education approves superintendent’s budget

Joe Burris:

The Anne Arundel County Board of Education on Wednesday approved Superintendent Kevin Maxwell’s $968.6 million operating budget recommendations for next year by an 8-1 margin, after one board member unsuccessfully moved to have the budget amended and another complained that it requests too much additional spending as the county aims to be more fiscally responsible.
The board simultaneously approved the $156.9 million capital budget that gives $46.7 million to continuing construction projects at four schools, Northeast High School and Belle Grove, Folger McKinsey and Point Pleasant elementary schools. It also allocates $3.6 million for designs to replace Severna Park High School, $11 million for full-day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten additions, and $14 million for textbooks.
The operating budget for fiscal year 2012 is $37.3 million more than the previous year’s budget. It funds negotiated agreements with unions, the system’s health care obligations and 20 mentor teachers required to fulfill obligations associated with the Race to the Top federal money.

Anne Arundel spends $12,334.69 per student ($931,269,700 2011 budget for 75,500 students).
Locally, the Madison School District’s 2010-2011 budget, according to the “State of the Madison School District Report” is $379,058,945. Enrollment is 24,471 which yields per student spending of $15,490.12.

New Milford superintendent proposes 2.31 percent increase to next year’s education budget

Nancy Hutson:

Schools Superintendent JeanAnn Paddyfote is proposing a budget for the next school year that carries a 2.31 percent increase.
She believes it is “fiscally responsible” and offers “exciting” educational enhancements.
She is scheduled to present her $58.262 million budget — $873,773 for capital — proposal to the Board of Education Tuesday night at Sarah Noble Intermediate School. Snow dates are Wednesday and Thursday.
The most dramatic piece of the proposed budget, supplemented by some $700,000 in federal education money, is a proposal to use the federal funding to hire nine teachers for an all-day kindergarten program.
Two years ago the district did a pilot, full-day class at John Pettibone Elementary School that showed good results, but funding was not available to continue it into the following year.

The New Milford, CT school district’s 2010-2011 budget is $58,734,610 for 4,864 students; $12,075.32 per student (New Milford 2010-2011 Adopted Budget 15MB PDF). Madison spent $15,241 per student in 2009-2010, according to the most recent Citizen’s Budget. Much more on New Milford, here.

A School Board Thinks Differently About Delivering Education, and spends less

The school board in a wealthy suburban county south of Denver is considering letting parents use public funds to send their children to private schools–or take classes with private teachers–in a bid to rethink public education.
The proposals on the table in Douglas County constitute a bold step toward outsourcing a segment of public education, and also raise questions about whether the district can afford to lose any public funds to private educators.
Already hit hard by state cutbacks, the local board has cut $90 million from the budget over three years, leaving some principals pleading for family donations to buy math workbooks and copy paper.
“This is novel and interesting–and bound to be controversial,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative, educational think tank in Washington, D.C.
…
Douglas County School District board members are also considering letting students enrolled in public schools opt out of some classes in favor of district-approved alternatives offered at for-profit schools or by private-sector instructors. Students might skip high-school Spanish, for example, to take an advanced seminar in Chinese, or bypass physics to study with a rocket scientist, in person or online.
Another proposal under review calls for expanding publicly-funded services for families that home-school their children.
Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen said she is not sure which proposals she might support. But in a recent letter to parents of the district’s 56,000 students, she said her leadership team “did not find the ideas alarming” and pledged the district would “set the stage for new thinking in education.”
“These days, you can build a custom computer. You can get a custom latte at Starbucks,” said board member Meghann Silverthorn. “Parents expect the same out of their educational system.”

Related: The ongoing struggle for credit for non Madison School District courses.

Virtual makeover: Open enrollment, online schools alter education landscape

Susan Troller

Eighth-grader James Roll enjoys learning math, science, English and social studies through an online school that lets him learn at his own pace using a computer at home. But he says he likes the art and music classes at what he calls “real school” — Kromrey Middle School in Middleton — even more.
James is a pioneer of sorts, and so is the Middleton-Cross Plains School District, when it comes to computer-based, or virtual, learning.
This year, Middleton launched its 21st Century eSchool. It’s one of just a dozen virtual schools in Wisconsin, and the second in Dane County; last year the McFarland School District became the sponsoring district for the Wisconsin Virtual Academy (WIVA), which opened for the 2009-2010 school year with about 400 students and this year counts twice that many.
The two schools share several key elements: They offer a broad range of online courses, beginning at the kindergarten level and continuing all the way through high school, employ licensed Wisconsin teachers to oversee online learning, and require that students participate in mandatory testing each year.
……
Hughes’ obvious irritation was fueled by recent open enrollment figures showing that Madison has lost more than 150 students to McFarland, both to the Wisconsin Virtual Academy and to McFarland bricks-and-mortar schools.
Hughes expanded on his frustration in a recent piece he wrote for his Ed Hughes School Blog: “Since we have to send about $6,800 per student to districts that receive our open enrollers, this means that we’ll be cutting a (perhaps figurative) check in excess of $1,000,000 to the McFarland School District.”
But McFarland Superintendent Scott Brown says his district is only getting $300 to $350 per student per year from the online school and says the Wisconsin Virtual Academy is not necessarily poaching students from the traditional classroom. “Schools like WIVA have brought a lot of students who may not have been under the tent of public education into school districts like ours.

More options for our children is great for them, parents, business, our communities and taxpayers.
With respect to Ed’s post, providing alternative models at what appears to be substantially lower cost than Madison’s annual $15K per student expenditures is good for all of us, particularly the students.
The financial aspects of the open enrollment and alternative education models gets to the heart of whether traditional districts exist to promote adult employment or student education.
The Khan Academy is worth a visit.. Standing in front of new education models and more choices for our children is a losing proposition. Just yesterday, Apple, Inc. announced the end of hard drives for volume computers with the introduction of a flash memory based notebook. Certainly, hard drive manufacturers will be fighting over a smaller market, but, new opportunities are emerging. Some will take advantage of them, others won’t. Education is no different.

Breaking down the Eau Claire Area School District budget

While property values have decreased in Eau Claire, school district employees say property tax rates are going up about 4 percent this year.
While Eau Claire’s superintendent Dr. Ron Heilmann notes that the economic times are still tough for many, he says the increase this year will likely be about half of last year’s increase which was right around 7 percent.
The paintbrushes fly in Kriss Webert’s seventh grade art room. And these kids can thank $2.5 million in federal stimulus money for keeping their art classes.
But Superintendent Heilmann paints a much grimmer picture if that money had not been around this year.
“Larger class sizes, we would have seen larger class sizes at the elementary level, and we actually added back some staffing at the middle and high school level. Those dollars have helped mitigate the direct cost to taxpayers in the addition of staff,” he says.
But, the $2.5 million federal jobs dollars are just a piece of the very complex puzzle that makes up the Eau Claire Area School District budget.

Eau Claire’s proposed 2010-2011 budget is $147,973,616 for 10,700 students ($13,829 per student). Madison spent $15,241 per student during the 2009/2010 budget year.

Wisconsin School Finance Reform Climate: 16% Health Care Spending Growth & Local Lobbying

Jason Stein & Patrick Marley:

The state health department is requesting $675 million more from state taxpayers in the next two-year budget to maintain services such as Wisconsin’s health care programs for the poor, elderly and disabled, according to budget estimates released Thursday.
That figure, included in a budget request by the state Department of Health Services, shows how difficult it will be for the next governor to balance a budget that already faces a $2.7 billion projected shortfall over two years.
One of the chief reasons the state faces the steep increase in costs is because federal economic stimulus money for health care programs will dry up before the 2011-’13 budget starts July 1.
That scheduled decrease in funding would come even as high unemployment lingers, driving many families into poverty and keeping enrollment in the programs relatively high. State Health Services Secretary Karen Timberlake said the state needs to find a way to keep health care for those who need it.
“People need this program in a way many of them never expected to,” she said.
But maintaining health programs at existing levels could cost even more than the $675 million increase over two years – a 16% jump – now projected in the budget request, which will be handled by the next governor and Legislature.

Dane County Board Urges State Action on School Reform 194K PDF via a TJ Mertz email:

This evening the Dane County Board of Supervisors enthusiastically approved a resolution urging the Wisconsin Legislature to make comprehensive changes in the way schools are funded. The Board encouraged the Legislature to consider revenue sources other than the local property tax to support the diverse needs of students and school districts.

“I hear over and over again from Dane County residents that investing in education is a priority, said County Board Supervisor Melissa Sargent, District 18, the primary sponsor of the resolution. “However, people tell me they do not like the overreliance on property taxes to fund education – pitting homeowners against children,” she added.

For the last 17 years, the state funding formula has produced annual shortfalls resulting in program cuts to schools. In 2009-2010, cuts in state aid resulted in a net loss of over $14 million in state support for students in Dane County, shifting the cost of education increasingly to property taxpayers. More and more districts are forced to rely on either program cuts or sometimes divisive referenda. In fact, voters rejected school referendums in five districts Tuesday, while just two were approved.

“The future of our children and our community is dependent on the development of an equitable system for funding public education; a system the recognizes the diverse needs of our children and does not put the funding burden on the backs of our taxpayers, said Madison Metropolitan School
Board member Arlene Silvera. “I appreciate the leadership of the County Board in raising awareness of this critical need and in lobbying our state legislators to make this happen,” she said.

Jeffery Ziegler a Member of the Marshall Public School District Board of Education and Jim Cavanaugh, President of the South Central Federation of Labor, both emphasized the need to get the attention of state officials in statements supporting the resolution. Ziegler described how state inaction has forced Board Members to make decisions that harm education.

State legislators can apparently decide to just not make the tough decisions that need to be made. School boards have a responsibility to keep our schools functioning and delivering the best education they can under the circumstances, knowing full well that those decisions will have a negative effect on the education of the children in their community.

Cavanaugh observed that the consensus that reform is needed has not led to action and pointed to the important role local governmental bodies can play in changing this by following the lead of the Dane County Board

“Legislators of all political stripes acknowledge that Wisconsin’s system for funding public schools is broken. Yet, there doesn’t appear to be the political will to address this very complicated issue. Perhaps they need a nudge from the various local units of government.”

In passing this resolution, Dane County is taking the lead on a critical statewide issue. Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES) board member Thomas J. Mertz said that WAES thanked the Dane County Board and said that WAES will seek similar resolutions from communities around the state in the coming months.

“All around Wisconsin districts are hurting and we’ve been working hard to bring the need for reform to the attention of state officials,” said WAES board member Thomas J. Mertz. “Hearing from local officials might do the trick,” he concluded.

Gubernertorial candidates Tom Barrett (Clusty) and Scott Walker (Clusty) on education.
The current economic climate certainly requires that choices be made.
Perhaps this is part of the problem.
Finally, The Economist on taxes.

Ignorance By Degrees Colleges serve the people who work there more than the students who desperately need to learn something.

Mark Bauerlein:

Higher education may be heading for a reckoning. For a long time, despite the occasional charge of liberal dogma on campus or of a watered-down curriculum, people tended to think the best of the college and university they attended. Perhaps they attributed their career success or that of their friends to a diploma. Or they felt moved by a particular professor or class. Or they received treatment at a university hospital or otherwise profited from university-based scientific research. Or they just loved March Madness.
Recently, though, a new public skepticism has surfaced, with galling facts to back it up. Over the past 30 years, the average cost of college tuition and fees has risen 250% for private schools and nearly 300% for public schools (in constant dollars). The salaries of professors have also risen much faster than those of other occupations. At Stanford, to take but one example, the salaries of full professors have leapt 58% in constant dollars since the mid-1980s. College presidents do even better. From 1992 to 2008, NYU’s presidential salary climbed to $1.27 million from $443,000. By 2008, a dozen presidents had passed the million-dollar mark.
Meanwhile, tenured and tenure-track professors spend ever less time with students. In 1975, 43% of college teachers were classified as “contingent”–that is, they were temporary instructors and graduate students; today that rate is 70%. Colleges boast of high faculty-to-student ratios, but in practice most courses have a part-timer at the podium.

Related: Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman:

“Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk – the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee. Adult practices and attitudes have become embedded in organizational culture governed by strict regulations and union contracts that dictate most of what occurs inside schools today. Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It’s as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands.” Zimman went on to discuss the Wisconsin DPI’s vigorous enforcement of teacher licensing practices and provided some unfortunate math & science teacher examples (including the “impossibility” of meeting the demand for such teachers (about 14 minutes)). He further cited exploding teacher salary, benefit and retiree costs eating instructional dollars (“Similar to GM”; “worry” about the children given this situation).
Zimman noted that the most recent State of Wisconsin Budget removed the requirement that arbitrators take into consideration revenue limits (a district’s financial condition @17:30) when considering a District’s ability to afford union negotiated compensation packages. The budget also added the amount of teacher preparation time to the list of items that must be negotiated….. “we need to breakthrough the concept that public schools are an expense, not an investment” and at the same time, we must stop looking at schools as a place for adults to work and start treating schools as a place for children to learn.”

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Wisconsin deficit for next two-year budget swells to $2.5 billion

Jason Stein:

The state’s yawning budget hole has swelled to $2.5 billion, underscoring the massive challenge that awaits the next governor and Legislature, a new report shows.
The projections by the Legislature’s non-partisan budget office show the expected shortfall for the 2011-2013 budget has grown by $462 million from the just over $2 billion that was expected a year ago.

The Madison School District released a memorandum on expected redistributed state tax dollars last week 119K PDF. Superintendent Dan Nerad:

As you can see over the past five years, equalization aid for MMSD has been slightly erratic, increasing for two years and then decreasing drastically over the past 2 years as the State of Wisconsin removed $147 million of funding from the equalization aid formula.
The 2009-10 school year was the first time over the last 10 years that MMSD saw a maximum decrease in funding from the State of Wisconsin, which statutorily is set at 15%, For MMSD this was a decrease in the State’s connnitment to public education in Madison of over $9.2 million when compared with funds received in 2008-09.
When planning for the 20I0-11 school year budget, Administration openly planned for another reduction in equalization aid funding of 15% or approximately $7.8 million. The early aid estimate that was released on July I, 2010 shows MMSD in a better situation than was first projected through the budget process for one reason. The breakdown ofequalization aid for MMSD in 2010-11 as projected by the DPI is as follows:

John Schmid: Study says state is a ‘C’ student

Obama Dealt a Blow Over Education Initiatives

Stephanie Banchero:

President Barack Obama’s education-overhaul agenda was dealt its first major setback after the U.S. House of Representatives diverted money from charter schools, teacher merit pay and the Race to the Top competition to help fund a jobs bill that would stave off teacher layoffs.
Even a last-minute veto threat by Mr. Obama late Thursday couldn’t prevent the diversion of $800 million, including a $500 million cut from Race to the Top, the president’s showcase initiative that rewards states for adopting innovative education redesigns.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Education vowed Friday to keep the president’s education agenda intact and find other places to make budget trims.
“We’re grateful they passed a jobs bills but not at the expense of the reform efforts we need for our long-term economic interests,” said Peter Cunningham, spokesman for the Education Department.

TJ Mertz offers a number of comments, notes and links on congressional efforts to reduce “Race to the Top” funding and increase federal redistributed tax dollar assistance for teacher salaries.
It is difficult to see the governance and spending approaches of the past addressing the curricular, teacher and student challenges of today, much less tomorrow.

A Letter from Polly Williams to Tony Evers on the Milwaukee Public Schools

Wisconsin Representative Annette Polly Williams:

February 5, 2010
State Superintendent Tony Evers
Department of Public Instruction
125 S. Webster Street
PO Box 7841
Madison, WI 53707-7841
Dear Superintendent Evers:
I am contacting you regarding your Notice of Decision dated February 4, 2010 issued to the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) which would potentially eliminate the $175 million in federal funds received for services to low-income children through the Title I program. In your press statement, you indicated that you had a legal responsibility to the children of Milwaukee and that you were using the only tool allowed under state law to ensure these federal funds are used effectively to improve MPS. Not only I am deeply perplexed by the timing of this notice, but I’m equally concemed over the use of your authority to withhold federal dollars to “speed up change” in MPS. I find your efforts to be disingenuous.

Clusty Search: Polly Williams, Tony Evers. Via the Milwaukee Drum.

Milwaukee’s Michael Bond’s Letter to Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle on Race to the Top & Governance

Michael Bonds, President, Milwaukee Board of School Directors [1.3MB PDF]:

January 18, 2010
Governor Jim Doyle
Office of the Governor
115 East State Capitol
Madison, WI 53702
Dear Governor Doyle:
As President of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors, I am writing to express my disappointment with your cynical statement regarding Wisconsin’s Race to the Top (RTT) application. In your release, you predict that the application will fail because it does not include mayoral control of the Milwaukee Public Schools District (MPS). You also argue that the Legislature’s refusal to adopt your mayoral control proposal in Milwaukee will cost other school districts millions of dollars.
Since mayoral control is not a requirement for Race To the Top dollars, your statement can only be interpreted as a political attempt to tum the rest of the state against MPS and to intimidate legislators who oppose mayoral control into supporting your proposal.
The facts are as follows:

via The Milwaukee Drum.

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Dane County Expects Higher Property Tax Growth

Matthew DeFour:

For only the second time in 13 years, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk said she won’t be able to hold property tax growth to her self-imposed index.
Coupled with the value of existing Dane County residential property this year dropping $700 million, or 2 percent, that means homeowners may see a higher county property tax increase than usual.
County property tax increases have been relatively low in recent years because of the county’s tremendous growth and Falk’s practice of increasing the property tax levy by the rate of population growth plus inflation. But the index for next year would be based on inflation of 0.75 percent and population growth of 0.44 percent, or 1.19 percent — “the lowest in recent memory,” Falk wrote to the County Board.
If she stuck to the limit, the total tax levy would increase $1.4 million. But next year, Human Services faces $2 million in state cuts and the Sheriff’s Office costs $1 million more just to maintain services.

Sparks fly over Wisconsin budget’s labor-related provisions

Steven Walters & Stacy Forster:

As the dust settles around the new state budget, partisan disagreement continues over the boost that unions – particularly education unions – got by making it easier for them to sign up thousands of new members and by repealing the 3.8% annual limit on teachers’ pay raises.
The provisions passed because Democrats, who got control of the Legislature for the first time in 14 years, partnered with Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle to advance changes the governor and unions had been pushing for years.
Unions traditionally help elect Democratic politicians. The largest teachers union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, spent about $2.1 million before last November’s elections, with much of that backing Democrats.
Most of the labor-related provisions in the budget were added to provide people with “good, family-supporting jobs,” said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison), co-chairman of the Legislature’s Finance Committee.
“The idea that we’re shifting back to the worker, rather than just big business and management, that’s part of what Democrats are about,” Pocan said.
It also helped that the two top Democratic legislators, Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan of Janesville and Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker of Weston, are veteran labor leaders.
Sheridan is the former president of a Janesville union for General Motors; Decker was a union bricklayer when he was elected president of the Central Wisconsin Building Trades.
In a statement, Sheridan said Assembly Democrats focused on giving workers struggling through the recession “an opportunity to negotiate for better working circumstances or wages.” They also made sure the budget included tax breaks to help businesses create and protect jobs, he said.
Republican leaders say taxpayers will be the ultimate losers, when they must pay public employees higher wages and better benefits.
Republicans also say Doyle and Democratic legislative leaders approved the changes to thank unions for their campaign cash and endorsements before last November’s elections. The Democrats also are laying groundwork to win support heading into the 2010 elections, GOP lawmakers say.

One striking example of lobbying effectiveness during challenging economic times: the budget includes a change to arbitration rules between school districts and teacher unions:

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

This is obviously the kind of thing frequently seen in Washington…. It would be interesting to see the players (and money) behind this legislation. In related local news, the Madison School District and the local teacher union have yet to agree to a new contract. Perhaps this arbitration change plays a role in the process?

Mark Miller “explains” how State budget isn’t all that bad

In a remarkable act of denial, Senator Mark Miller has issued the following release absolving himself and his colleagues of all responsibility for the legislative actions that have exacted significant hits on public schools. Passing the buck for the accuracy of the data that was used to calculate aid cuts, and omitting the critical information […]

An Economist, an Academic Puzzle and a Lot of Promise

Steven Pearlstein, via a kind reader’s email:

Early in his career, Paul Romer helped solve one of the great puzzles of economics: What makes some economies grow faster than others? His “new growth theory” might one day earn him a Nobel prize.



Then a decade ago, Romer, by then a professor at Stanford University, decided to tackle what may be an even tougher puzzle: Why were so many of his students coming to class unprepared and disengaged?



Romer’s quest began with the proposition that the more time students put into their studies, the more they learn. As Malcolm Gladwell demonstrates in his new book, “Outliers,” that’s certainly true in many other areas of human endeavor — the more you practice scales or swing a club, the better you are at playing piano or hitting a decent golf shot. Why should learning economics be any different?



It took some noodling around, but two years later, Romer raised $10 million in venture capital to start a software company he called Aplia. The idea was to develop interactive exercises that students could do in conjunction with the most widely used college economics textbooks. Students would answer questions, then get immediate feedback on what they got right and wrong, along with some explanations that might help them get it right on a second and third try. Aplia’s team of young Ph.D. economists and software programmers also devised laboratory experiments in which the entire class could participate in simulated markets that give students a practical understanding of concepts like money supply and demand curves.

Locally, the Madison School Board is discussing a proposed technology plan this evening. Ideally, before any more is spent, the Infinite Campus system should be fully implemented, and used by teachers, staff and students. Once that is done, there are many possibilities, including this example.

Grade Inflation at American Colleges and Universities



gradeinflation.com, via a kind reader:

This web site is an outgrowth of an op-ed piece that I wrote on grade inflation for the Washington Post, “Where All Grades Are Above Average” In the process of writing that article, I collected data on trends in grading from about 30 colleges and universities. I found that grade inflation, while waning beginning in the mid-1970s, resurfaced in the mid-1980s. The rise continued unabated at virtually every school for which data were available. By March 2003, I had collected data on grades from over 80 schools. Then I stopped collecting data until December 2008, when I thought it was a good time for a new assessment.
I now have data on average grades from over 180 schools (with a combined enrollment of over two million undergraduate students). I want to thank those that have helped me by either sending information or telling me where I can find it. I especially want to thank Chris Healy and Lee Coursey who, combined, uncovered over 50 web sites with detailed data. Chris Healy has written a research paper with me on the topic of grading at American colleges and universities that we finished March 2, 2009; preprints are available upon request. I also want to thank those that have sent me emails on how to improve my graphics. Additional suggestions are always welcome.

View University of Wisconsin-Madison grades by College and Department from 1998 onward here.

Wisconsin Governor Doyle Proposes 7.4% Spending Increase & $426M More for K-12

Jason Stein:

Boosted by federal stimulus dollars, Doyle’s budget calls for a 7.4 percent increase in total state and federal spending. But the proposed spending from the state’s main account actually drops by 1.7 percent to $27.9 billion over 2010 and 2011. It would leave the state with $270 million in reserves.
The budget includes a host of major proposed changes:
• Cutting $900 million from existing agency budgets, including a 1 percent across-the-board cut, and rejecting $1.8 billion from the amount those agencies sought in new spending. The cuts include closing three dozen Division of Motor Vehicle offices, two state trooper stations and 25 Department of Natural Resources offices and cutting state staff at welcome centers for tourists.
State employees would avoid large layoffs and furloughs but the amount of state jobs would shrink by 209 to 69,038 by June 2011.
• Levying $1.4 billion in new taxes and fees, including a tax on oil companies of $544 million. That includes increasing the income tax rate on spring 2010 returns by 1 percentage point to 7.75 percent for single filers earning more than $225,000 a year and married filers earning more than $300,000. The proposal would also lower the state’s exemption for capital gains taxes from 60 percent to 40 percent, raising up to $95 million.
• Providing $426 million more in mostly federal money for K-12 schools over two years, a move Doyle said was essential to holding down property taxes. The budget would hold funding for the University of Wisconsin System essentially flat, leaving universities to manage rising costs through tuition increases, new efficiencies or service cuts.

Steven Walters, Patrick Marley & Stacy Forster:

For what may be the first time in state government history, general-fund spending will actually drop for the fiscal year that begins July 1, by about 5%. Total state spending – including tuition, fees, licenses and federal aid – will rise, however.
But, Doyle said, he had no choice but to ask the Legislature to approve $1.4 billion in tax increases – the largest reworking of the tax codes in decades.
The tax increases include: $540 million paid from oil company profits; $318 million by creating a new 7.75% tax rate for the richest 1% of taxpayers; $290 million in higher taxes on cigarette smokers; $215 million in higher corporate income taxes; and $85 million paid on capital gains investments.

Wisconsin School Finance Climate: $3,000,000,000 Budget Hole

Steven Walters & Patrick Marley:

The 2009-’10 budget that Doyle must recommend early next year will be his hardest, for several reasons. It’s the last budget before he is expected to seek a third term in 2010. The current budget had $750 million in tax and fee increases, which raised taxes on cigarettes and license plate renewals. Accounting tricks used by both parties over the past eight years are no longer available. Long-term debt has risen dramatically, raising questions about how much more debt the state can handle.
“This is going to be a very difficult time,” Doyle said.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) said Democrats would quickly pass bills to increase job training, boost spending on green energy, require businesses to more publicly disclose their tax liabilities and bar the state from contracting with companies that ship jobs overseas.
“Our number one thing we want to do is get in there and work on the economy and jobs and the cost of living,” Pocan said. “And when working on the (state) budget, we’re going to do it with working families and the middle class first and foremost in mind, and not the special interests.”
Republican Sen. Ted Kanavas of Brookfield said Thursday that Republicans know they won’t be able to pass anything in the next legislative session, but they can be advocates for taxpayers.
“We can’t lead, but we can point out” problems in the choices Democrats make, Kanavas said.

Much more on Wisconsin state finances & school spending here.

School taxes lower than expected

The Madison Metropolitan School District has announced that the school portion of the local property tax will be lower than anticipated in 2008-09. The drop in the rate translates to an anticipated savings of $67.50 in 2008-09 for a home assessed at $250,000. “What this means is that property tax rates will be lower because […]

Wisconsin SAGE program’s 15-student limit is often exceeded, report says

Amy Hetzner:

About half of the classrooms participating in the state’s school class-size reduction program in 2006-’07 exceeded its 15-student limit at least part of the school day, according to a recent report.
Dwindling resources and enrollment fluctuations were the main reasons given for the variation, according to the report by the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Although the report raises concerns about such practices, including that some school administrators seemed unaware of the program’s 15-student maximum, it concludes, “There are multiple ways to implement reduced class size well.”
The report is part of the state Department of Public Instruction’s regular monitoring of the $111 million SAGE program – Student Achievement Guarantee in Education – that aims to reduce class sizes for kindergarten through third grade in more than 470 Wisconsin schools. The center has another study in the works looking at long-term quantitative results from the program.

Final Budget With Lower Taxes

From the Wisconsin State Journal (similar article in Cap Times). Counter-intuitive but true. Madison School Board OKs tax rate cut Wisconsin State Journal The Madison School Board approved lowering taxes on the average Madison home by $67.50, or 2.70 percent, at its meeting Monday night. The tax rate will be $9.81 per $1,000 of assessed […]

Referendum Climate: Fiscal Policy Report on the Nation’s Governors

Chris Edwards:

evenue poured into state governments as the U.S. economy expanded between 2003 and 2007, prompting the nation’s governors to expand state budgets and offer the occasional tax cut. But now that the economy has slowed and revenue growth is down, governors are taking various actions to close rising budget deficits.
This ninth biennial fiscal report card examines the tax and spending decisions made by the governors since 2003. It uses statistical data to grade the governors on their taxing and spending records – governors who have cut taxes and spending the most receive the highest grades, while those who have increased taxes and spending the most receive the lowest grades.
Three governors were awarded an “A” in this report card – Charlie Crist of Florida, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Eight governors were awarded an “F” – Martin O’Malley of Maryland, Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, Chet Culver of Iowa, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Bob Riley of Alabama, Jodi Rell of Connecticut, and C. L. “Butch” Otter of Idaho.

Wisconsin’s Governor Doyle received a “D”:

When running for governor, James Doyle pledged not to raise taxes. He mostly kept that promise his first few years, and even provided a smattering of tax cuts. His fiscal policies then took a turn for the worse. In 2007 he proposed an array of large tax increases totaling about $900 million, including higher cigarette taxes, hospital taxes, oil company taxes, and increased real estate transfer taxes. Doyle has also refused to go along with the legislature in providing property tax relief, and he is fond of using increased debt to finance spending. But Doyle’s spending record is better than his tax record, and this year he is insisting on budget restraint to eliminate a deficit.

Much more on Madison’s November, 2008 referendum here.

Alabama’s State Budget & Education Spending Forecast looks “Grim”

The Birmingham News:

Hubbert said he expects Education Trust Fund revenues to fall short at least 5 percent, or at least $318 million, of what the Legislature budgeted for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. As bad as that sounds, it could get worse. Hubbert said if the economy continues to slide, the shortfall could top $400 million.
Trust fund revenues already are more than $200 million below what lawmakers expected. That’s mainly because tax collections for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 grew $146 million less than forecast, and Riley last year drained a $440 million reserve to avoid education spending cuts. Lawmakers had expected to have from $64 million to $109 million left in the reserve fund to spend this year. Instead, that money is gone.
The Legislature didn’t help matters by passing a $6.36 billion education budget for 2009. That amount exceeds by $102 million the average revenue forecasts of the state finance director and the Legislative Fiscal Office. Essentially, lawmakers decided that cutting almost $370 million from the $6.7 billion education budget from 2008 was hard enough, and they didn’t want to carve another $100 million-plus for 2009.

Tax base growth is certainly not a given at the moment. Related: November 2008 Madison School District referendum notes and links.

Wisconsin “School Lawsuit Facts” Site Posted by PR Firm

“School Lawsuit Facts”:

MILWAUKEE, WI, September 30, 2008 . . . Five Wisconsin school districts (the “Districts”) filed suit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court yesterday seeking to rescind their $200 million investment with Stifel Nicolaus & Company, Inc. (“Stifel”) and the Royal Bank of Canada (“RBC”). They allege $150 million in losses to date.
The Districts contend Stifel and RBC either knowingly or negligently misrepresented and omitted crucial details in transactions made by the Districts to secure funding for their Other Post-Employment Benefit (OPEB) liabilities by failing to disclose or concealing their true risks. The Districts contend such investments were unsuitable for a public trust fund. They further allege Stifel and RBC collected large fees and realized massive cost savings while effectively positioning the Districts as guarantors of an ultra-risky portfolio of assets.
The school districts include: Kenosha Unified School District; Kimberly Area School District; School District of Waukesha; West Allis – West Milwaukee School District and Whitefish Bay School District. In addition to Stifel Nicolaus and RBC, the school districts have also included James M. Zemlyak of Elm Grove in the complaint. During the time of the transaction Zemlyak was the Chief Financial Officer and Co-Chief Operations Officer for Stifel.

Madison Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Erik Kass was most recently with the Waukesha School District. Amy Hetzner and Paul Soglin have more.
Roger Frank Bass on Two Crises: Wall Street & Education:

One, $700 billion is peanuts. Low-end estimates of educational outlays are more than $400 billion per year — that’s $5.2 trillion during a child’s K-12 education, more than seven times what the government will spend to prop up “free” enterprise. (The Global Movement for Children, using United Nations data, states that the 80 million children not receiving education could be schooled for about $15 billion per year.) And, like our financial institutions, U.S. education performs less well than in virtually all developed countries despite per-student outlays that are some of the highest anywhere. In military terms, this is a clear and present danger.
Along with bankrolling failures, the parallels include lax oversight. Just as Wall Street was craftily packaging collateralized debt obligations and hedge funds, state- and local-education agencies were bundling worthless test scores into triple-A public relations.
Just as the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory agencies failed to monitor their charges, Departments of Public Instruction and those responsible for our children’s education never demanded the transparency needed to evaluate the substandard data behind ever riskier instructional methods. When a stock market falls apart, at least we can pick ourselves up and keep going. When education falls apart, we won’t have the intellectual capital to move forward. Economic growth begins with knowledge, not money. Ask India.

These events provide timely and useful dinner conversation fodder with our children:

Dane County, WI Schools Consider MAP Assessement Tests After Frustration with State WKCE Exams
Waunakee Urges that the State Dump the WKCE

Andy Hall takes a look at a useful topic:

From Wisconsin Heights on the west to Marshall on the east, 10 Dane County school districts and the private Eagle School in Fitchburg are among more than 170 Wisconsin public and private school systems purchasing tests from Northwest Evaluation Association, a nonprofit group based in the state of Oregon.
The aim of those tests, known as Measures of Academic Progress, and others purchased from other vendors, is to give educators, students and parents more information about students ‘ strengths and weaknesses. Officials at these districts say the cost, about $12 per student per year for MAP tests, is a good investment.
The tests ‘ popularity also reflects widespread frustration over the state ‘s $10 million testing program, the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination.
Critics say that WKCE, which is used to hold schools accountable under the federal No Child Left Behind law, fails to provide adequate data to help improve the teaching methods and curriculum used in the classrooms.
They complain that because the tests are administered just once a year, and it takes nearly six months to receive the results, the information arrives in May — too late to be of use to teachers during the school year.
The testing controversy is “a healthy debate, ” said Tony Evers, deputy state superintendent of public instruction, whose agency contends that there ‘s room for both WKCE and MAP.
….
“It ‘s a test that we feel is much more relevant to assisting students and helping them with their skills development, ” said Mike Hensgen, director of curriculum and instruction for the Waunakee School District, who acknowledges he ‘s a radical in his dislike of WKCE.
“To me, the WKCE is not rigorous enough. When a kid sees he ‘s proficient, ‘ he thinks he ‘s fine. ”
Hensgen contends that the WKCE, which is based on the state ‘s academic content for each grade level, does a poor job of depicting what elite students, and students performing at the bottom level, really know.
The Waunakee School Board, in a letter being distributed this month, is urging state legislators and education officials to find ways to dump WKCE in favor of MAP and tests from ACT and other vendors.

The Madison School District and the Wisconsin Center for Education Research are using the WKCE as a benchmark for “Value Added Assessment”.
Related:

Media Education Coverage: An Oxymoron?

Lucy Mathiak’s recent comments regarding the lack of substantive local media education coverage inspired a Mitch Henck discussion (actually rant) [15MB mp3 audio file]. Henck notes that the fault lies with us, the (mostly non) voting public. Apathy certainly reigns. A useful example is Monday’s School Board’s 56 minute $367,806,712 2008/2009 budget discussion. The brief chat included these topics:

Rick Berg notes that some homes are selling below assessed value, which will affect the local tax base (property taxes for schools) and potential referendums:

But the marketplace will ultimately expose any gaps between assessment and true market value. And that could force local governments to choose between reducing spending (not likely) and hiking the mill rate (more likely) to make up for the decreasing value of real estate.
Pity the poor homeowners who see the value of their home fall 10%, 20% or even 30% with no corresponding savings in their property tax bill, or, worse yet, their tax bill goes up! Therein lie the seeds of a genuine taxpayer revolt. Brace yourselves. It’s gonna be a rough ride.

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue noted recently that Wisconsin state tax collections are up 2.3% year to date [136K PDF]. Redistributed state tax dollars represented 17.2% of the District’s revenues in 2005 (via the Citizen’s Budget).
Daniel de Vise dives into Montgomery County, Maryland’s school budget:

The budget for Montgomery County’s public schools has doubled in 10 years, a massive investment in smaller classes, better-paid teachers and specialized programs to serve growing ranks of low-income and immigrant children.
That era might be coming to an end. The County Council will adopt an education budget this month that provides the smallest year-to-year increase in a decade for public schools. County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) has recommended trimming $51 million from the $2.11 billion spending plan submitted by the Board of Education.
County leaders say the budget can no longer keep up with the spending pace of Superintendent Jerry D. Weast, who has overseen a billion-dollar expansion since his arrival in 1999. Weast has reduced elementary class sizes, expanded preschool and kindergarten programs and invested heavily in the high-poverty area of the county known around his office as the Red Zone.
“Laudable goals, objectives, nobody’s going to argue with that,” Leggett said in a recent interview at his Rockville office. “But is it affordable?”
It’s a question being asked of every department in a county whose overall budget has swelled from $2.1 billion in fiscal 1998 to $4.3 billion this year, a growth rate Leggett terms “unacceptable.”

Montgomery County enrolls 137,745 students and spent $2,100,000,000 this year ($15,245/student). Madison’s spending has grown about 50% from 1998 ($245,131,022) to 2008 ($367,806,712) while enrollment has declined slightly from 25,132 to 24,268 ($13,997/student).
I’ve not seen any local media coverage of the District’s budget this week.
Thanks to a reader for sending this in.
Oxymoron

Dual Enrollment Grows: Pennsylvania High School Students Take College Classes via State Program

Any Sostek:

Sitting in the back row of her South Fayette High School economics class, Emily Cord waved off her teacher as he passed out voter-registration cards.
“I’m not 18 till June,” she said.
An hour later, however, she was sitting in ECO102, Principles of Macroeconomics, at Community College of Allegheny County, with classmates beyond not just the voting age but the drinking age.
Emily is one of thousands of Pennsylvania students enrolled in both high school and college classes through the state’s dual enrollment program, which pays part of the college tuition.
A state report released last month notes “extraordinary demand and interest on the part of students” in the program. Since the dual enrollment program started in the 2005-06 school year, state funding has doubled, to $10 million for the current school year.
In the 2006-07 school year, the number of participants increased 69 percent from the previous year, from 7,270 students to 12,267 students statewide.

Related:

Where Have all the Students Gone? An Update

An update to Barb Schrank’s November, 2005 post:

Comments from a reader:

At $6,000 per child that’s about $16 million per year. At $9,000 per child, that’s about $23 million per year. If we kept 332, that would be $2-3 million more per year.
Also, MMSD not only lost students, which has a negative effect on what the district gets under revenue caps, we’ve increased our low-income population, which means that for every dollar the district gets, more of those dollars need to be spent on non-instructional services.
If the district does not consider the economic development implications of its decisions, we’re likely to

  • see more go to school outside MMSD, or
  • for the non-low income students who go to school here increased family dollars will be spent on private aspects of education- lessons, tutoring, etc.

Madison’s population in 2000 was 208,054 and is estimated to be 223,389, according to the census bureau. Madison’s poverty rate is estimated to be 13%, according to the Small Area Estimates Branch [Website].

District Enrollment
2000-2001		 Enrollment
2006-2007		 Per Student Spending (06/07 Budget) Administrators Total Staff ACT % Tested (05-06) ACT Comp Score
Madison 25,087 24,755 $12,422 91.5 3544.6 61.1 24.2
Verona 4222 4540 $12,113 22 603.4 69.6 23.6
Middleton-Cross Plains 5125 5640 $12,822 21 756.3 73 24.5
Waunakee 2836 3357 $11,987 14 427.6 70.7 23.3
Sun Priarie 4776 5946 $11,238 20 741.3 62.6 23
McFarland 1951 2017 $11,853 9.5 251.2 64 23.7
Monona Grove 2702 2885 $12,289 13 388 71.4 22.6
Oregon 3430 3588 $11,572 15 465.1 59.2 23.2

Data sources:

Thanks to a number of readers for the updated information.

Wisconsin K-12 Tax & Spending Outlook

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Editorial:

Another year and deeper in debt.
No, that’s not some sad-eyed, old country ballad. It’s the state of Wisconsin’s long-term finances.
To pay for highways, buildings and environmental programs over the past decade, the state has increased long-term debt by 87%, a trend that if left unchecked will surely mean increasingly difficult budget decisions down the road.
The Journal Sentinel’s Steven Walters noted in a recent report that the Legislative Fiscal Bureau says the state had $8.28 billion in such debt in 2006, up from $4.41 billion in 1996 (www.jsonline.com/689757). The period studied covered the leadership of Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, and Republicans Scott McCallum and Tommy G. Thompson.
In effect, the governors, with legislative acquiescence, have made politically advantageous decisions to have their favorite programs and pay for them later. It’s basically credit card budgeting.
But the bill always comes due.
As Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, told Walters, the growing debt is a risk. Principal and interest payments on general-obligation bonds will exceed $700 million for the first time this year. Payments on transportation bonds will cost $174 million.
While state officials say the debt load is manageable, a major bond agency, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, last week changed its rating outlook from “positive” to “stable.”
Other long-term trends make such budget moves all the more troublesome. Per-capita income in Wisconsin is about $4,000 a year less than in Minnesota, for example, a gap that has widened. And the number of elderly is expected to jump 90% from 702,000 in 2000 to near 1.34 million by 2030 while the percentage of working age people is expected to decline from 61% to 57%, meaning fewer taxpayers supporting more people in need of services. Add to that the need to replace aging roads, bridges and sewers.

Clearly, we are unlikely to see significant increases in redistributed state tax dollars to “rich” school districts like Madison [2007-2008 Citizen’s Budget].
Related: K-12 Tax & Spending Climate:

According to the Wisconsin DPI, per student spending in Wisconsin has increased by 5.1% annually, since 1987. The Madison School District increased at a 5.25% rate during that time. Clearly, our public schools are attempting to address more issues than ever, from academics to breakfast, special education and health care.

Running Start gives high-schoolers jump-start on college credit

Amy Rolph:

If those college-prep classes feel a little emptier in high school these days, it’s because they are. About 10 percent of the students aren’t there.
Those 17,000 juniors and seniors aren’t truant. They’re enrolled at the local community college, getting a jump-start on earning college credit before high school graduation even rolls around.
That’s about how many high school students the State Board of Community and Technical Colleges estimates are enrolled in Running Start, the early entrance program that lets qualifying juniors and seniors earn college and high school credit at the same time and without paying anything. Enrollment has grown steadily since the program’s launch in 1990 — so much so that community college officials say it’s costing them almost $35 million a year to educate those extra high school students.
Success has its price, and the community colleges will ask the Legislature for $35 million more over five years — specifically $7 million each year.
“Over time, the Running Start program has grown successfully and the reimbursement the colleges get has stayed the same, while inflation has steadily grown,” said Suzy Ames, spokeswoman for the state community college board.
Community colleges are entitled to 70 percent of the money earmarked for each Running Start student, Ames said. But with more students wanting to start college early, the colleges have to add classes, faculty and staff to accommodate them.

Related: Madison’s Dual Enrollment Climate.
Running Start.
Celeste Flint:

I don’t think Seattle’s coffee addiction is making our students smarter. High schools have lowered the bar too far, and everybody knows it.
At age 10, American students score well above the international average, but by age 15, when American students are tested against those in 40 other countries, they drop to 25th place, according to an ABC report.
Youth literally get dumber the longer they stay in American schools.
With high school teachers so sensitive to self-esteem issues that they make it impossible to fail, it’s only natural that motivated young people want to get out.
Running Start is the fire escape out of the collapsing American education system. But as a result, the 17,000 Washington Running Start students, many who aren’t quite ready for higher education, are taking a toll on college courses.
Many high school students just don’t have the maturity to handle a real workload, and as a result the dumbing-down continues into college.
Being a transfer student from a community college, I witnessed countless high school students regularly skip classes, not do the homework and then complain until the teacher slowed down the course. Inevitably half the material was re-taught.

A bit of Tangential, International News

Both articles below are at best, thinly related to this site’s purpose. However, I think they each merit a link and a read: Thailand to keep on repatriating Hmong to Laos by Pracha Hariraksapitak: Thailand has no plans to halt its repatriation of ethnic Hmong to communist Laos despite appeals by U.S. Congressmen and the […]

Community invited to give input on grant opportunity

(It seems that the public information session on the work of the High School Redesign Committee — including how it relates to the SLC grant described below — has been turned into something else quite entirely.) On Thursday, June 7, 2007, Superintendent Art Rainwater will be leading a discussion to solicit the Board of Education’s […]

Vang Pao Elementary School Groundbreaking

Andy Hall: A windswept field on Madison’s Far West Side became a place of reverence Wednesday for 60 Hmong residents who attended the groundbreaking ceremony of Vang Pao Elementary, a $12.9 million school whose funding was embraced by taxpayers but whose name remains controversial. “I just want to take this as a memory,” explained Bee […]

Fair Indigo To Donate 100% Of Store Sales On World Fair Trade Day

(Fair Indigo, Middleton, WI) – To honor World Fair Trade Day on Saturday May 12th and support its theme “Kids Need Fair Trade”, fair trade clothing pioneer Fair Indigo will donate all sales that day in its Madison, Wisconsin flagship store [map]to education: half to local Madison-area Parent-Teacher organizations and half to the Fair Indigo […]

MMSD / MTI Contract Negotiations Begin: Health Care Changes Proposed

Susan Troller: The district and Madison Teachers Inc. exchanged initial proposals Wednesday to begin negotiations on a new two-year contract that will run through June 30, 2009. The current one expires June 30. “Frankly, I was shocked and appalled by the school district’s initial proposal because it was replete with take-backs in teachers’ rights as […]

How can we help poor students achieve more?

Jason Shephard: As a teacher-centered lesson ended the other morning at Midvale Elementary School, about 15 first-graders jumped up from their places on the carpeted rug and dashed to their personal bins of books. Most students quickly settled into two assigned groups. One read a story about a fox in a henhouse with the classroom […]

$65M for 42 Houston Charter Schools

Jay Matthews: The charter school movement, begun 16 years ago as an alternative to struggling public schools, will today make its strongest claim on mainstream American education when a national group announces the most successful fundraising campaign in the movement’s history — $65 million to create 42 schools in Houston. The money, which comes from […]

Reality Check: Taxpayers Pay For Lobbying

Colin Benedict on Channel3000: Wisconsin taxpayers are paying millions to lobby state lawmakers, in many cases, for more money. Dane County does it too — it spent nearly $175,000 last session, WISC-TV reported. Part of it was for more money from the state to pay for county nursing home patients, and Dane County argued against […]

Reading Recovery: More chipping and shredding in Fargo!

What makes this article from Fargo interesting is how it almost exactly mirrors the findings in my home district, Hortonville, and the recent analysis of Reading Recovery done in Madison. That being, a 50% success rate for RR students. From the article: “However, West Fargo student data over time, as presented by Director of Knowledge […]

Wisconsin’s K-12 Spending Climate

Avrum Lank: Per capita income will continue to grow in Wisconsin through 2009, but at a slower rate than in the nation as a whole, according to an economic outlook released Friday by the state Department of Revenue. Employment also will grow, but manufacturing jobs will decline, the report said. Even so, corporate income tax […]

Wisconsin’s School Finance Climate

Andy Hall on local referendums: Layoffs and pay cuts are looming in a western Dane County school district, and officials in the Adams-Friendship area are contemplating closing two elementary schools after voters rejected two school referendums last week. Voters also approved referendums Tuesday for a $14.68 million elementary school in Sun Prairie and $2.48 million […]

School Finance: K-12 Tax & Spending Climate

School spending has always been a puzzle, both from a state and federal government perspective as well as local property taxpayers. In an effort to shed some light on the vagaries of K-12 finance, I’ve summarized below a number of local, state and federal articles and links. The 2007 Statistical Abstract offers a great deal […]

Daily Newspapers Support Wisconsin School Finance Reform

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Editorial: The need for a new state school funding system is starkly illustrated by the fix in which the Waukesha School District finds itself. Caught between rising costs, state mandates and state caps, the district faces a $3.4 million budget shortfall in the next school year. To meet the shortfall, district administrators have […]

Study Takes a Sharp Look at NYC’s Dropout Rate

Elissa Gootman: The first comprehensive look at New York City’s failing students has found that nearly 140,000 people from ages 16 to 21 have either dropped out of high school or are already so far behind that they are unlikely to graduate. The study, which the New York City Department of Education is to present […]

Press release: MMSD Information sessions about Nov. 7 referendum

The Madison School District will hold four referendum information sessions in advance of the November 7 referendum. The public is invited to attend any of these sessions. Thurs. October 12 6:30 PM Sennett School 502 Pflaum Rd. 53716 Lecture lab Tues. October 17 6:30 PM Cherokee School 4301 Cherokee Dr. 53711 LMC Wed. October 18 […]

Wisconsin CHARTER SCHOOL NEWS: Week of August 21

DPI Awards $4 Million in Charter School Grants WCSA’s New Office — The WCSA is now located in a new office in downtown Madison. The WCSA’s new address, phone, fax and email is — Wisconsin Charter Schools Association, P.O. Box 1704, Madison, WI 53703 & Tel: 608-661-6946 & Fax: 608-258-3413 & Email: info@wicharterschools.org WCSA website: […]

University Student Reading Buddies

Reader Reed Schneider emails this: A plan to have 40 Spring Arbor University students serve next year as “reading buddies” for struggling first-graders in Jackson Public Schools could be a win-win situation. The Jackson school board recently cut three Reading Recovery teacher positions to help trim its $1.86 million deficit. JPS will obtain the services […]

School-funding update from Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES)

The Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES) is a statewide network of educators, school board members, parents, community leaders, and researchers. Its Wisconsin Adequacy Plan — a proposal for school-finance reform — is the result of research into the cost of educating children to meet state proficiency standards. Washburn joins list of districts in budget […]

Tim Olsen on Generating Cash from the Doyle Administration Land/Building

Tim Olsen’s email to Madison Board of Education Member Ruth Robarts: And below are the specifics you requested re calculating an estimated value for the Doyle site. You are welcome to share this email with anyone interested. And thanks for the opportunity to speak to the Board, for your comments, and for including Lucy Mathiak’s […]

School-Funding Update from WAES (WI Alliance for Excellent Schools)

Referendum soundly defeated in Phillips School District Greendale voters support $14 million tax levy North Carolina will use lottery proceeds for schools Slot machine revenue not best bet for public schools What’s new in the anti-TABOR toolbox? School-funding reform calendar The Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES) is a statewide network of educators, school board […]

June 17 MMSD Asks PTOs and Presumably Parents to Contact Legislators

For Legislative Fiscal Bureau policy papers and membership lists of relevant committees, go to: https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/mmsd/leg/ FROM JOE QUICK, MMSD LEGISLATIVE LIAISON If you have already received this Update, our apologies. We are trying to inform parents about this important budget issue before the Legislature votes next week. Dear PTO/A Leaders: The attached information outlines changes […]

States Report Reading First Yielding Gains, Some Schools Getting Ousted for Quitting

Little solid evidence is available to gauge whether the federal government’s multibillion-dollar Reading First initiative is having an effect on student achievement, but many states are reporting anecdotally that they are seeing benefits for their schools. Among those benefits are extensive professional development in practices deemed to be research-based, extra instructional resources, and ongoing support […]

Teacher Health Insurance Costs: Why They Matter

Madison Teachers, Inc., the Madison teachers’ union, has recently ratified its collective bargaining agreement with the Madison school district for 2005-06 and 2006-07. Later this month, the Board of Education will have its chance to ratify the agreement, although the board gave preliminary assent on June 6. On June 10, Isthmus writer Jason Shepard provided […]

Board Debates 1.8M in a $319M Budget

Lee Sensenbrenner picks up much detail (great work!): Later in the night, when the board was going back and forth over whether it might keep kindergarten art, music and computer class sizes from doubling next year – a move that would have saved around $270,000 – Robarts said she was struggling to understand how that […]

Sports, Music, Academics – Last Minute Proposals Stressful: Need Big Picture with all the Pieces

(The Capital Times, Strings to play on in city’s schools by Lee Sensenbrenner) reported that I “…admitted to calling Winston “a jock,” but said she meant the board was favoring athletics while it dealt with budget cuts..” Not exactly with the name-calling, but I have been critical of the District Administration’s handling of cuts to […]

Senator Kanavas Requests Audit of Waukesha School District

The community service money has paid for everything from clerical and custodial salaries related to community use of school facilities to playgrounds and anti-drug programming. And, while the Department of Public Instruction offers some guidance, districts have been largely on their own in determining what might qualify for community service funds.

Superintendent Art Rainwater Proposes to Decimate Fine Arts: Turns Back on Curriculum and Academic Achievement Benefits of Fine Arts Education – Fails to Work with the Community, Year After Year

Superintendent Art Rainwater proposes (2005-2006 Budget Discussion Items)to cut another $1 million in elementary music and art education once again this year without any prior curriculum review and assessment of impact on children’s learning and achievement – that would have involved teachers and the community. MADISON SCHOOL BOARD CONTINUES TO IGNORE CHILDREN’S, PARENTS’, TEACHERS’ AND […]

The Leopold Expansion

The 3/2/05 CapTimes includes an excellent op ed piece by Ruth Robarts detailing her concerns about creating a large K-5 elementary school. http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/opinion//index.php?ntid=30501

Bill Gates: US High Schools Obsolete

Bill Gates: he most blunt assessment came from Microsoft chief Bill Gates, who has put more than $700 million into reducing the size of high school classes through the foundation formed by him and his wife, Melinda. He said high schools must be redesigned to prepare every student for college, with classes that are rigorous […]

My Views of the Proposed Leopold Expansion

On March 28, the Madison School Board will cast the final vote on the proposed referendum for $14.5M to build a second school on the Leopold Elementary School site. The proposed “paired” school will open its doors to students in September of 2007 and will house up to 550 Kindergarten through second grade students and […]

Are MMSD Programs Effective? Who Knows?

This is my first post to this blog, so I�ll start by introducing myself. My name is Bill Herman. I have two kids at Crestwood ES, and a third will start in the fall. Also, I work in K-12 education; I�m the technology director for Monona Grove Schools. I read �Paper #1,� criticizing MMSD for […]

WSJ Opinion: Reading between the lines of rigidity

The WSJ Editorial page published a very useful editorial this morning on the Madison School District’s rejection of $2M in federal Reading First funds for reading improvement programs: Taxpayers have the right to ask why the Madison School District would turn its back on a $2 million grant. Read a number of other articles on […]

Property-Tax Rise Triggers

Ray Smith’s article on the growing property tax backlash is one of many excellent examples of why Ruth Robart’s ongoing efforts to create a more strategic & transparent Madison Schools budget process is vital. The district’s plans for 2005 referendums simply increases the urgency for a well thought out process – rather than throwing hot […]

Board Watch

Don Severson sent this email over the weekend regarding Monday’s BOE meeting (5.17.2004) : Please join me (Don Severson) in a MMSD Board of Education watch Monday evening, May 17 at about 6:00 p.m. The agenda is copied below. The Board will start discussing amendments to the 04-05 budget proposed by Supt. Rainwater sometime by […]




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