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Scholarships 101: How to fund an education after high school
Getting an education is vital to financial stability and future success but the cost of education beyond high school continues to rise. Luckily Federal Student Aid offers financial aid programs that help millions of students attend college, universities and trade schools each year.
The billions of dollars of help from Federal Student Aid is administered by the U.S. Department of Education and comes in the forms of grants such as the Pell and National SMART Grant and work-study and low interest loans such as the Federal Perkins Loan and the Stafford Loan. Some grants require a cumulative GPA of 3.0 while loans have interest rates around 5%.
Each year, millions of students benefit from federal financial aid programs. For information on programs you might qualify for visit FederalStudentAid.ed.gov or call 800-4Fed-Aid. Applying for federal aid is free and the application is called FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). Free help is available throughout the application process. The College Scholarship Fraud Protection Act protects people from financial aid fraud.
Charter schools need a shout-out in Madison action plans
Yet try to find any mention of charter schools in the Madison School District’s new strategic plan and you’ll feel like you’re reading a “Where’s Waldo?” book. You almost need a magnifying lens to find the one fleeting reference in the entire 85-page document. And the words “charter school” are completely absent from the strategic plan’s lengthy and important calls for action.
It’s more evidence that much of liberal Madison clings to an outdated phobia of charter schools. And that attitude needs to change.
Nearly 10 percent of Wisconsin’s public schools are charters. That ranks Wisconsin among the top five states. Yet Madison is below the national average of 5 percent.
Charter schools are public schools free from many regulations to try new things. Parents also tend to have more say.
Yet charters are held accountable for achievement and can easily be shut down by sponsoring districts if they don’t produce results within a handful of years.
One well-known Madison charter school is Nuestro Mundo, meaning “Our World” in Spanish. It immerses kindergartners, no matter their native language, in Spanish. English is slowly added until, by fifth grade, all students are bilingual. My daughter attends Nuestro Mundo.
It was a battle to get this charter school approved. But Nuestro Mundo’s popularity and success have led the district to replicate its dual-language curriculum at a second school without a charter.
The School Board has shot down at least two charter school proposals in recent years, including one for a “Studio School” emphasizing arts and technology.
Madison School Board President Arlene Silveira told me Friday she supports adding charter schools to the district’s action plans in at least two places: under a call for more “innovative school structures,” and as part of a similar goal seeking heightened attention to “diverse learning styles.”
I agree. I believe that diffused governance, in other words a substantive move away from the current top down, largely “one size fits all” governance model within the Madison public schools is essential.
Who Will Congress Put First? Children or Teachers Unions?; Testing Tactics Helped Fuel D.C. School Gains; Why Cory Booker Likes Being Mayor of Newark; No Ordinary Success; Gates Says He Is Outraged by Arrest at Cambridge Home
1 & 2 here
3) A wise comment in response to one of my recent emails:
Petrilli is right on the money – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard certain reformers denigrate “higher order thinking” and “problem solving” as just more union code words for an anti-accountability agenda. The problem is, when they insist that all that matters is basic skills and proficiency tests, they sound ridiculous to parents and teachers, and that limits their effectiveness. Basic skills, just because they’re easily tested, are NOT all that matter, and our pursuit of more and more accountability needs to not be accompanied by a dumbing down of the accountability systems so we can have an easier time measuring and can make an argument against those who inappropriately assert that everything is unmeasurable.
4) A great blog post following the recent death of Frank McCourt, the author of Angela’s Ashes, who taught in NYC public schools for decades before becoming an author:
Frank McCourt was my English teacher in my senior year at Stuyvesant (class of ’74). He introduced us to African literature such as Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which sounded even more dramatic in his thick brogue.
When one student asked why we should read this book, what possible use would it be to us in our lives, he answered, “You will read it for the same reason your parents waste their money on your piano lessons. So you won’t be a boring little shyte the rest of your life.”
It was the most honest answer to such a question I ever heard from any teacher. Whenever the question came to my head about any subject thereafter I fondly remembered Mr. McCourt and resolved not to be a boring little shyte.
10 Google Search Tricks
Searching on Google can be a magical experience once you find out how to make your search queries efficient. By making efficient I mean using some tricks or the cheat sheet provided by Google itself to quickly find what you actually require. Having being hooked onto Google for a long time now, I have come across some amazing search tricks which can change the way you look at Google today.
In this article I will list down the search tricks which I use quite frequently. Be it finding time, meanings or watching the cricket score, searching PDF’s, with Google as the search engine life cannot be more simpler. Here are the 10 most amazing Google Search tricks:
Admissions 101: Are Low Grades in AP/IB Classes Better than High Grades in Regular Classes?
A few weeks ago, Jay Mathews asked readers a tough question in his Admissions 101 forum – which is better: an A or B in a regular course or a C in a more challenging course like an AP or IB class? Jay sided with AP, saying that all students interested in tier 1 or tier 2 schools should take at least 2 AP or IB courses. Even if that means a C on a high school transcript, Jay argued, colleges will appreciate a student who is willing to take on a challenge. Reader reactions have been pouring in ever since:
eloquensa: “My strategy suggestion is a little different from yours – I don’t know about the college front in the C-in-AP/IB-or-A-in-regular argument, but if the student is a little more strategic in course and teacher selection it’s a lot easier to avoid that dreaded C.
Detroit Public Schools will not renew contracts of 33 principals
The contracts of 33 principals will not be renewed, Detroit Public Schools officials announced this afternoon.The district also is reassigning more than two dozen school principals.
Robert Bobb, the district’s emergency financial manager, said additionally, the district will conduct a full scale national search for 10 principal positions, district officials said.
Bobb told The Detroit News Thursday that he plans to change the operation of the district’s school by giving its principals more autonomy and authority over finances and school budgets.
10 Things to Find Out Before Committing to a College
Often we find that students, and their parents, tend to focus on bells and whistles when making their college selections. They fixate on things like the looks of the campus, the size of the library, the honors and study-abroad programs, even the quality of the football team. Hey, these are all fine and good. But we urge you to also think about some things that, while often overlooked, constitute the bread and butter of your college experience. Before you decide, here are 10 things you might not have thought to consider:
1. The number of requirements . These vary widely from school to school. And while it might look very impressive to see a long list of required courses, it’s not so great to find yourself mired in courses that don’t interest you, while you’re unable to take electives in areas that do. It’s even less great when you realize that some of these most unpleasant requirements were instituted by some legislator who insisted that everyone in the state needs to take State History 101. Or by some pushy department in 1950, which couldn’t get students to take its courses in any other way.
2. How flexible those requirements are . Schools that require specific courses, with no substitutions allowed, can really put you in a bind if you’d rather take more advanced courses–or need to take more remedial courses–to fulfill that requirement. So check to see that the school allows a choice of levels to satisfy the various requirements. Also, keep in mind that anytime a school needs to route hundreds or thousands of students through Course X, Course X is going to become a sort of factory that neither the students taking the course nor the teachers teaching the course are going to like much.
A $100 Billion Question: How Best to Fix the Schools?
If you had $100 billion to fix our schools, what would you do? A surprisingly smart list of suggestions for the education portion of the federal stimulus money is circulating in the education policy world. A group of experts claims authorship. I don’t believe committees are capable of good ideas, so I doubt the alleged origins of the list. But let’s put that aside for a moment and see what they’ve got.
Better yet, why not come up with our own ideas? My column seeking cheap ways to improve education yielded interesting results. By contrast, think of what we could do if we had enough money to buy the contract of every great quarterback: guarantee the Redskins a Super Bowl victory. Many expensive school-fixing schemes proved just as insane and just as useless. But Barack Obama is president, and we are supposed to be hopeful.
2009-2010 MMSD Budget
We passed the 2009-2010 Madison public school district budget last night. This was the second year in a row that we were able to reallocate to avoid ugly ugly cuts.
This was the first year that we moved to undo damage by reallocating money to put back beginning of the year “Ready Set Goal” parent-teacher conferences AND stop doubling up our art, music, gym, and computer classes through “class and a half.” Both items were cuts from past years that were absolute disasters for elementary students.
We expect to receive the strategic planning report in June, and it will inform planning for the 2010-11 budget as we move forward this coming year. In the meantime, we are waiting to hear how the state budget will impact school finance. And we are continuing work to modernize and refine the ways that we work with resources to find additional ways to strengthen our schools.
MPS juniors get school day to take free ACT college entrance exam
Earth Day is one thing, but for Milwaukee Public Schools high school students, Wednesday was also ACT day.
For the first time, every junior in MPS was given the opportunity to take the ACT college entrance exam for free and on a normal school day. MPS officials said indications were that a very large percentage of them did that.
Terry Falk, the School Board member who initiated the plan, said his goal was to get more students, teachers and administrators to take college-readiness more seriously.
“In the long run, it’s about holding kids to higher standards,” he said.
Falk said he also hoped the step would lead state and local school officials to pay more attention to the performance of students beyond the point early in 10th grade when they take the last round of state standardized tests.
Falk and other MPS officials said the testing Wednesday went smoothly.
How Members of the 111th Congress Practice Private School Choice
Policies that give parents the ability to exercise private-school choice continue to proliferate across the country. In 2009, 14 states and Washington, D.C., are offering school voucher or education tax-credit programs that help parents send their children to private schools. During the 2007 and 2008 legislative sessions, 44 states introduced school-choice legislation.[1] In 2008, private-school-choice policies were enacted or expanded in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Utah[2]–made possible by increasing bipartisan support for school choice.[3]
On Capitol Hill, however, progress in expanding parental choice in education remains slow. Recent Congresses have not implemented policies to expand private-school choice. In 2009, the 111th Congress has already approved legislative action that threatens to phase out the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), a federal initiative that currently helps 1,700 disadvantaged children attend private schools in the nation’s capital.
Congress’s Own School Choices
At the same time, many Members of Congress who oppose private-school-choice policies for their fellow citizens exercise school choice in their own lives. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), the chief architect of the language that threatens to end the OSP, for instance, sends his children to private school[4] and attended private school himself.[5]
Washington Post editorial: “Only for the Privileged Few?“:
NEW SURVEY shows that 38 percent of members of Congress have sent their children to private school. About 20 percent themselves attended private school, nearly twice the rate of the general public. Nothing wrong with those numbers; no one should be faulted for personal decisions made in the best interests of loved ones. Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if Congress extended similar consideration to low-income D.C. parents desperate to keep their sons and daughters in good schools?
The latest Heritage Foundation study of lawmakers’ educational choices comes amid escalating efforts to kill the federally funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program that helps 1,700 disadvantaged children attend private schools. Congress cut funding beyond the 2009-10 school year unless the program, which provides vouchers of up to $7,500, gets new federal and local approvals. Education Secretary Arne Duncan cited that uncertainty as the reason for his recent decision to rescind scholarship offers to 200 new students. Senate hearings on the program’s future are set for this spring, and opponents — chiefly school union officials — are pulling out all the stops as they lobby their Democratic allies.
School district wants 10 percent pay cut for teachers and staff to save jobs
The Lodi Unified School District is proposing its 3,100 employees take a pay cut of up to 10 percent, district officials have confirmed.
District negotiators and union leaders met last week to discuss a potential pay cut or furlough plan for all employees, including high-ranking officials, that could trim millions from the district’s estimated $25 million budget shortfall and curb a proposed elimination of 500 jobs, Trustee President Richard Jones said.
“I won’t get into specifics, but negotiations have begun,” Jones said
Salaries account for 90 percent of Lodi Unified’s $273 million budget, and officials have determined that the majority of budget cuts must be made through payroll.
Trustees have approved a layoff plan of 217 teachers and are expected to approve the layoff of 109 full-time positions at a future meeting as well.
Trustees say jobs could be spared, however, if employees are willing to accept a furlough or pay cut. Trustees have already approved a 10 percent reduction of their $750 monthly stipend and have entered negotiations regarding Superintendent Cathy Nichols-Washer’s contract, Jones said.
Lodi Unified personnel director and lead negotiator Mike McKilligan would not comment on negotiations. Based on the $245 million district payroll, however, a 10-percent across-the-board cut would add up to $24.5 million, district officials confirmed.
On Education Spending Facts, not faith Obama pours money into discredited programs
President Obama’s massive education initiative detailed in his proposed budget aims at the right challenge – lifting our schools and narrowing achievement gaps. But huge chunks of his eye-popping $131 billion package, now before Congress, would go for stale federal programs that have long failed to elevate students’ learning curves.
Mr. Obama promised a sharp break from President Bush, who often bent scientific findings to advance his favored dogma. Instead, “it’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology,” Obama promised at his inauguration.
Few question the president’s plea to improve the quality of our schools and colleges, racheting-up our economy’s competitiveness. This requires not just retooling auto factories or investing in solar power, but enriching the nation’s human capital as well.
To boost school quality Obama declared that he would only fund programs that lift pupil performance. “In this budget,” he declared before the Congress, “we will end education programs that don’t work.” Music to the ears of the empirically minded.
But hard-headed scholars are scratching those craniums over Obama’s desire to spend billions more on disparate federal programs that have delivered little for children or teachers over the past decade.
Take Washington’s biggest schools effort: the $14 billion compensatory education program, known as Title I, supporting classroom aides and reading tutors for children falling behind. A 1999 federal evaluation showed tepid results at best, largely because local programs fail to alter core classroom practices or sprout innovative ways of engaging weaker students.
Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at the UC Berkeley, is author of “Standardized Childhood.”
Johns Hopkins University announces cost-cutting actions
The Johns Hopkins University, the state’s largest private employer, said yesterday that it will freeze hiring and salaries, eliminate overtime and lay off some workers in response to a revenue shortfall estimated at $100 million by the summer of 2011.
Top Hopkins administrators will also take a 5 percent salary cut, with the savings going into financial aid as the university tries to protect its students from the recession that is taking a steep toll in higher education. The carnage in the financial markets has reduced Hopkins’ endowment by 20 percent. It now stands at $2.4 billion.
The cost-cutting measures will have a ripple effect on the region’s economy, affecting not just Hopkins employees but vendors and others who rely on the university to make a living. In total, the Johns Hopkins Institutions employ 38,200. The cuts affect only the university, which employs about 20,000.
“This is unambiguously bad news,” said Richard Clinch, an economist at the University of Baltimore who studies local economies. “It will impact everybody from low-wage workers in support jobs to high-wage workers who spend their money in the city going out to dinner.”
10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
Everyday I receive an email from somebody about how their account was hacked, how a friend tagged them in the photo and they want a way to avoid it, as well as a number of other complications related to their privacy on Facebook. Over the weekend one individual contacted me to let me know that he would be removing me as a friend from Facebook because he was “going to make a shift with my Facebook use – going to just mostly family stuff.”
Perhaps he was tired of receiving my status updates or perhaps he didn’t want me to view photos from his personal life. Whatever the reason for ending our Facebook friendship, I figured that many people would benefit from a thorough overview on how to protect your privacy on Facebook. Below is a step by step process for protecting your privacy.
Milwaukee Schools Chief plans to leave in June 2010
Milwaukee School Superintendent William Andrekopoulos and the School Board agreed Tuesday night to extend his contract to June 30, 2010 – at which point he expects to end his lengthy run in the job.
After a closed session that took less than 90 minutes, the board voted 8-0 to give Andrekopoulos the additional 15 months he asked for. His current contract expires March 23.
Andrekopoulos will be 62 at the end of the 2009-’10 school year and will be finishing eight years as superintendent, one of the longest runs currently among urban school chiefs in the country. He succeeded Spence Korté as superintendent in August 2002.
The board and Andrekopoulos agreed that the contract extension will include provisions that would pave the way for him to help with the transition to a new superintendent. That could include having him stay on in some capacity for a limited time beyond July 1, 2010.
New Data on AP’s Impact
On one wall of my cubicle is a large chart extracted from Tom Luce and Lee Thompson’s 2005 book “Do What Works: How Proven Practices Can Improve America’s Public Schools.” It shows that a study of 78,000 Texas students found college graduation rates much higher for those who, while in high school, took Advanced Placement exams — but failed them — than those who took no AP exams at all.
At this point, you may be saying, “Huh?” We AP wonks are an odd breed. We often cite statistics that make no sense to normal people. But I will try to explain this one, and why it was greeted with such excitement by AP teachers four years ago.
AP courses are given in nearly 40 subjects. They allow high school students to earn college credit, or at least skip college introductory courses, if they do well on the final exams. Many AP teachers argue that students’ grades on the three-hour exams, given in most U.S. high schools every May, are not as important as taking the college-level course and exam and getting a taste of college trauma. Many of their students who flunk the AP exam still report, when they come back to visit after their freshman year of college, that the AP experience made it easier for them to adjust to fat college reading lists and long, analytical college exams. They may have failed the AP exam, but by taking it, and the course, they were better prepared for the load of stuff dumped on them in college. When they took the college introductory course in the subject that had been so difficult for them in high school AP, they did much better.
The Texas study showing that failed AP students were more likely to graduate from college than non-AP students was thus greeted as proof that the AP teachers’ view on this issue was correct. But the researchers who had done the work cautioned against putting too much weight on it. There were too many variables to reach hard conclusions.
Linda Hargrove, Donn Godin & Barbara Dodd 660K PDF Report.
More from Matthews:
On pages 35 and 36 of their report, the Texas researchers revealed what was for me the most interesting of their many new disclosures. They show that even students who only get a 2 on their AP exams after taking the AP course have significantly better college outcomes than non-AP students. Students who get 1s on the exam do not do better than non-AP students, but as I have often heard AP teachers say, they have no chance to build those students up to a 2 or a 3 unless they are allowed in their courses.
These are complicated issues. This study is not the last word. Critics of AP may say that these researchers’ work is tainted by the fact that the College Board, which owns the AP program, paid them for their study. But there is no question they are reputable, independent scholars, and their data is there for all to see.
Related: Dane County High School AP Course Offerings: 2008/2009.
10 Lessons of an MIT Education
Lesson One: You can and will work at a desk for seven hours straight, routinely. For several years, I have been teaching 18.30, differential equation, the largest mathematics course at MIT, with more than 300 students. The lectures have been good training in dealing with mass behavior. Every sentence must be perfectly enunciated, preferably twice. Examples on the board must be relevant, if not downright fascinating. Every 15 minutes or so, the lecturer is expected to come up with an interesting aside, joke, historical anecdote, or unusual application of the concept at hand. When a lecturer fails to conform to these inexorable requirements, the students will signify their displeasure by picking by their books and leaving the classroom.
Despite the lecturer’s best efforts, however, it becomes more difficult to hold the attention of the students as the term wears on, and they start falling asleep in class under those circumstances should be a source of satisfaction for a teacher, since it confirms that they have been doing their jobs. There students have been up half the night-maybe all night-finishing problem sets and preparing for their midterm exams.
Four courses in science and engineering each term is a heavy workload for anyone; very few students fail to learn, first and foremost, the discipline of intensive and constant work.
Lesson Two: You learn what you don’t know you are learning. The second lesson is demonstrated, among other places, in 18.313, a course I teach in advanced probability theory. It is a difficult course, one that compresses the material typically taught in a year into one term, and it includes weekly problem sets that are hard, even by the standards of professional mathematicians. (How hard is that? Well, every few years a student taking the course discovers a new solution to a probability problem that merits publication as a research paper in a refereed journal.)
Students join forces on the problem sets, and some students benefit more than others from these weekly collective efforts. The most brilliant students will invariably work out all the problems and let other students copy, and I pretend to be annoyed when I learn that this has happened. But I know that by making the effort to understand the solution of a truly difficult problem discovered by one of their peers, students learn more than they would by working out some less demanding exercise.
Obama’s $10,000,000,000 Early Childhood Education Pledge
Advocates for early childhood education are understandably excited about their prospects under President-elect Barack Obama’s administration. During the campaign, Mr. Obama pledged to increase federal early education spending by $10 billion annually.
Currently, the two largest federal early childhood programs, Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, spend about $12 billion annually combined. A $10 billion increase would almost double that investment.
Just as remarkably, Mr. Obama deliberately singled out early education as an important investment he would prioritize even in tight economic times. Add in a potentially $1 trillion economic stimulus package that’s raising the prospects for even previously inconceivable public investments, and advocates are downright giddy.
It seems terribly Grinch-like to throw cold water on these hopes. But in fact this is a dangerous moment for both Mr. Obama and the early education movement.
School Choice Group Recruits 10,000 New Supporters in Just Five Weeks
More than 10,000 people signed up to join a coalition supporting school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs over the past five weeks, the Alliance for School Choice announced today. The Alliance, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., had anticipated reaching its goal of recruiting 10,000 new supporters by the end of January.
The new supporters are members of the School Choice Works campaign, which officially launched in mid-November. Membership in School Choice Works is free. School Choice Works is the first national interactive and social media campaign launched by the coordinated school choice movement. More information is available at www.LetParentsChoose.org.
The Alliance, which is the nation’s largest organization promoting school choice, provides members with free bumper stickers, e-mail action updates, free news magazines, and information on how they can help promote education reform in their states.
“The quick and overwhelming success of this campaign is testament to the strength of support for school choice across the country,” said Andrew Campanella, national campaign director for the School Choice Works project. “We look forward to continuing to recruit individuals who want to make a difference in education reform in their states.”
ACT or SAT? More Students Answering ‘All Of the Above’
For students in the Washington region, picking a college entrance test has become a multiple-choice question.
The SAT has long dominated the bustling college-prep market in the District and its suburbs. But the rival ACT is making inroads, buoyed by a shift in conventional wisdom, which now holds that the tests are of about equal value and that a student would be wise to take both. Colleges are driving the trend because admission officers are spreading the word that it doesn’t matter which test students take.
The ascendance of the ACT has brought Hertz-Avis style competition to the test-obsessed D.C. region. It’s a boon to students, who find they have more ways than ever to impress colleges. The SAT tests how students think. The ACT measures what they have learned. Each is a better fit for some students than others.
Fixing the Freshman Factor
The ninth-grader slouched in the chair one fall day, avoiding the principal’s glare. He had the body of a boy, but he was deciding right there what kind of man he would be.
At the start of the school year, this child’s education was flying off the rails. Mark E. Fossett, principal of Suitland High School in Prince George’s County, called up the boy’s attendance record on a computer and rattled off a lengthy list of days missed and classes cut. Unless something changed, he would fail ninth grade.
As schools push to raise graduation rates, many educators are homing in on ninth grade as a moment of high academic risk. Call it the freshman factor.
Last week, Maryland reported that one of every six seniors statewide is at risk of not receiving a diploma in spring because they have not reached minimum scores on four basic tests in algebra, biology, government and English. At Suitland High and countywide in Prince George’s, more than a third of seniors are in jeopardy. But for many of those students, troubles began in their freshmen year. That’s often when the state algebra test is taken.
Online Learning Policy & Practice; A Survey of the States
The Center for Digital Education, 1.5MB PDF Report:
In 2008, the Center for Digital Education conducted a review of state policy and programs to determine the status of online learning policy and practice across the United States. This report is underwritten by Blackboard and Pearson Education and produced with the advice and consultation of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL).
The Center for Digital Education (CDE) interviewed state education officials across the nation to evaluate the overall landscape of online learning. The rankings reflect the vision, policies, programs and strategies that states have deployed around online learning in an effort to transform their academic environment to meet the needs of students. Certain characteristics deemed to have a greater impact on statewide leadership and education (such as states with state-led online programs and/or significant policy directives) played a more significant role in the rankings than others.
The national rankings are as follows: (Florida is #1, Minnesota 9, Illinois 13, Iowa 20, Wiscnsin 37)
Just What Exactly is a Charter School?
One of the more consistent, ongoing suggestions for improving America’s educational system centers upon the creation of greater competition amongst public schools. The reason for the steady drumbeat centers upon a belief that a change to the free market system would be one of the best methods for creating better educational opportunities for children.
In direct response to the push for greater competition, forty states across America have now initiated legislation to allow the construction of new public schools called charter schools. Minnesota was the first state to pass laws regarding charter schools, doing so in 1991.
The concept is definitely catching on. Today, according to USCharterSchools.org, there are nearly 4,000 charter schools across our country educating more than 1.1 million children. The state of California, the second to enact such legislation, has more than 600 such schools educating about one-fifth of all charter school students.
While the number of schools continues to grow, large numbers of Americans, many even within the field of education, simply do not know what a charter school really consists of or how this new school concept differs from traditional public schools. Today at OpenEducation.net, we provide our readers the fundamentals of the charter school concept.
Cash for Test Scores: The impact of the Texas Advanced Placement Incentive Program
Cash incentives for high school students to perform better in school are growing in popularity, but we understand very little about them. Does paying students for better Advanced Placement (AP) test scores encourage enrollment in AP classes? Does it lead to more students taking the tests and achieving passing scores? Do cash incentives lead to more students going to college?
I set out to determine the impact of a cash incentive program operating in a number of Texas high schools. The Advanced Placement Incentive Program (APIP) is a novel initiative that includes cash incentives for both teachers and students for each passing score earned on an Advanced Placement exam. The program is targeted to schools serving predominantly minority and low-income students with the aim of improving college readiness. The APIP was first implemented in 10 Dallas schools in 1996 and has been expanded to include more than 40 schools in Texas. The National Math and Science Initiative awarded grants to Arkansas, Alabama, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington to replicate the APIP and plans to expand these programs to 150 districts across 20 states.
Using data from the Texas Education Agency, I evaluated how the APIP affected education outcomes in participating schools in the years following implementation. I studied whether the program increased AP course enrollment and the share of students sitting for AP (or International Baccalaureate [IB]) examinations. Since improved AP outcomes may not necessarily reflect increased learning and could come at the expense of other academic outcomes, I also looked beyond these immediate effects to the broader set of outcomes, such as high school graduation rates, SAT and ACT performance, and the percentage of students attending college.
Curriculum Compacting: One way to help advanced students move ahead and learn at their own level.
Professional development. What thoughts and feelings do those words conjure up for you? Excitement? Boredom? A chance to improve your skills and learn new, interesting teaching strategies? Or a painful time of listening to someone talk about a topic you already know?
We’ve all been there–sitting in a required in-service class listening to someone go over Bloom’s Taxonomy or some other concept or strategy that we’ve been using effortlessly for years. We grumble our way through the session, irritated that we have to sit on our butts “re-learning” a topic we could have taught just as well ourselves, if not better. Partly we’re irritated because we have so much else to do! Many teachers would categorize a situation like this as wasted time.
Of course, not all professional development is like that. But I use the example because it is a great way to help teachers relate to what a gifted kid experiences when the material being taught in class is not at the right readiness-level for him or her. We don’t like it when someone else puts us into that kind of a situation, yet we routinely do the same to the gifted students.
Wisconsin “School Lawsuit Facts” Site Posted by PR Firm
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:
- “What do you think happened to the baby-sitting money deposited into the bank yesterday?”
- “What will you do one day if the money is not there?”
- “Where does the money come from?”
Evaluating Charter School Impact on Educational Attainment in Chicago and Florida
Kevin Booker, Tim R. Sass, Brian Gill, Ron Zimmer:
Unlike past charter school studies, which focus on student achievement, the authors analyze the relationship between charter high school attendance and educational attainment. They find that charter high schools in Florida and in Chicago have substantial positive effects on both high school completion and college attendance. Controlling for observed student characteristics and test scores, univariate probit estimates indicate that among students who attended a charter middle school, those who went on to attend a charter high school were 7 to 15 percentage points more likely to earn a standard diploma than students who transitioned to a traditional public high school. Similarly, those attending a charter high school were 8 to 10 percentage points more likely to attend college. Using the proximity of charters and other types of high schools as exogenous instruments for charter high school attendance, they find even stronger effects in bivariate probit models of charter attendance and educational attainment. While large, their estimates are in line with previous studies of the impact of Catholic high schools on educational attainment.
New York City Class Action Strips Teacher Parking Permits
More than 50,000 teachers returning to school next month will get a tough lesson about parking in congested urban areas when the Bloomberg administration yanks their long-cherished parking permits, officials announced yesterday.
Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, assigned by the mayor to whittle down the school system’s permits by at least 20 percent as part of a citywide crackdown, discovered there were 63,390 school permits in circulation but only 10,007 reserved spaces around the schools.
As a result, Skyler reduced the number of parking permits by an astonishing 82 percent, to 11,150, which includes those for teachers and other school personnel.
Some 10,000 of them are good only in spots specifically reserved for school personnel; the others are universal, meaning they can be used wherever a vehicle on “official business” can park. That includes at expired meters and in no-parking zones.
“We found the amount of parking placards outweighed the number of parking spots for the agency as a whole by about 6, or so, to 1,” Skyler said.
Alexandria’s New Superintendent Urges Educators to Stop, Reflect, Act
“Part of what we’re going to be doing is writing the next chapter of the story of this school district,” Sherman, the school system’s new superintendent, said he told them.
Educators often spend their days running from decision to decision. Sherman said he thinks it is important for them to sometimes stop, find a quiet moment and reflect on what they are trying to achieve for the students.
Sherman, 58, is the Washington region’s newest superintendent, on contract for $250,000 a year through June 2012. A former superintendent in Tenafly, N.J., he replaces Rebecca L. Perry in heading the 10,600-student system.
Sherman said his first task involves being a “good anthropologist.”
Factory for Unhappy People
MORMONS, military and McKinsey are the three Ms said to characterise the student body at Harvard Business School (HBS). Philip Delves Broughton, a British journalist, was none of the above, yet he was prepared to spend $175,000 for a chance to attend this “factory for unhappy people”. He never completely fitted in, perhaps because he largely shunned the prodigious alcohol-driven networking for which MBAs are famous, or perhaps because he did not really want to devote his life to getting rich. Yet his engaging memoir suggests he found it a positive experience.
Mr Delves Broughton did not set out to write a book about the course. Nor is this probably the book that HBS would choose to mark its 100th birthday, which it is celebrating extensively this year. Yet anyone considering enrolling will find this an insightful portrait of HBS life, with detailed accounts of case studies and slightly forced classroom fun, such as the students on the back row–the “skydecks”–who rate the performance of their peers. (“HBS had two modes, deadly serious and frat boy.”)
What They Teach You At Harvard Business School
Milwaukee Public Schools spent $102 million on a building spree meant to reduce busing by convincing parents to enroll students in bigger, better neighborhood schools. Today, many of those new classrooms go unused.
A massive building expansion by Milwaukee Public Schools has saddled the district with tens of millions of dollars worth of vacant or severely underused school additions, a Journal Sentinel investigation found.
he $102 million Neighborhood Schools Initiative was supposed to get students off buses and into revamped schools near their homes. Instead, darkened classrooms and half-empty buildings serve as monuments to the program’s failures.
The district spent $30 million on major additions to schools where enrollment has actually declined. An additional $19.5 million went toward construction at schools where enrollment gains have fallen far short of expectations. Construction began in 2001, and almost all additions were completed by 2005.
In the most expensive misfire, MPS spent $7 million upfront to lease new classroom space from an affiliate of Holy Redeemer, a prominent Milwaukee church.
That MPS addition is one of the nicest facilities in a district that still uses century-old buildings. And it’s vacant.
A rare piece of school finance related investigative journalism.
2008 ACT State Profile Reports
The ACT High School Profile Report for each state provides information about the performance of 2008 graduating seniors who took the ACT as sophomores, juniors, or seniors. The reports focus on performance, access, course selection, course rigor, college readiness, awareness, and articulation.
Wisconsin’s report can be found here.
Related: Minnesota ranks #1. Jeff Shelman has more:
Minnesota high school students have top scores, but only a third reach the benchmark for college preparedness, and minority students’ scores lag.
Is being the best good enough? When it comes to how Minnesota’s high school graduates fared on the ACT college entrance exam, that’s a question educators are facing.
For the fourth consecutive year, Minnesota’s seniors recorded higher scores than seniors in other states where at least half of the students took the test. But there are significant concerns as well.
Fewer than a third of the 2008 Minnesota high school graduates who took the ACT reached the benchmark for college readiness in all four of the subject areas of English, math, reading and science. Minority students continue to score much lower than white students in the state.
Iowa students have ranked second in the nation in the ACT college entrance exam, according to a new report from state education officials.
The average ACT score for Iowa students rose by 0.1 percentage point to an average composite of 22.4 out of a possible total of 36. That ranks Iowa second highest among states testing a majority of graduating high school seniors, the report said.
Minnesota is again first in the nation, with an average score of 22.6. The national average for the college entrance examination is 21.1.
100 Black Men Back to School Picnic on Saturday August 23rd at Demetral Park at 10:30 a.m.
2008 Back to School Picnic
100 Black Men of Madison 12th Annual Back to School Picnic will be held on Saturday August 23rd, rain or shine at Demetral Park located on Commercial and Packers Avenue at 10:30 am.
Over 1,500 free backpacks filled with school supplies will be distributed to students in kindergarten thru eighth grade.
In addition, free hamburgers, hot dogs and beverages will be served. This event is first come, first served. Students must be in attendance to receive a backpack.
The purpose of this event is to assist students at the beginning the school year with the supplies needed for academic success and to reduce the achievement gap.
For more information please contact, Wayne Canty at 285-6753 or wcanty@kraft.com.
http://www.100blackmenmadison.org/
A Goal of 100%
Next time it rewrites its statewide standardized math test, the state Department of Education might consider this challenging question:
With a statewide high school graduation rate of 58.1 percent in 2005 and an improvement rate of 2.6 percentage points over the previous five years, when can Georgia expect to achieve a 100 percent graduation rate?
Answer: 2110.
One hundred and two years is a long, long time —- too long, in fact. But with the sluggish response of state leaders to holistic and meaningful education reform, accelerating that time frame will be very difficult.
While Gov. Sonny Perdue has introduced graduation coaches to identify and deflect potential dropouts in high school, there’s far more to be done to reclaim children in the early grades, where most kids wander off track. And rather than whittling away at instructional funding, as Georgia has done in recent years, the state ought to be investing in programs to prepare low-income 3-year-olds for school and to help struggling third-graders learn to read.
To truly transform its low-performing schools, Georgia has to take an honest look at its financial commitment to education. That starts with the governor, who continues to maintain that his administration has not shortchanged education and is, in fact, spending more than ever on a per-pupil basis.
Colorado’s Innovation Schools Act of 2008
Colorado State Senate President Peter Groff (D-Denver) submitted a bill that:
- Allows hiring decisions outside Union Labor Contracts
- Gives schools control over:budgets, hiring decisions, and length of school days
- Allows schools to dictate teacher qualifications and how much time to spend in class
- Allows public schools to sidestep restrictions for the purpose of creating wide-ranging innovation in Colorado schools.
More from Jeremy Meyer and Democrats for Education Reform. Download Colorado SB08-130 here. Governor Bill Ritter signed the “Innovation Zones” bill into law on May 28, 2008.
Todd Engdahl summarizes the changes during the bill’s “sausage making” process:
First big change
The original bill required only “a statement of the level of support” for the plan by school employees, students and parents, and the community. The amended bill requires a four-part test of support among various constituencies: “a majority of administrators,” “a majority of teachers” and a “majority of the school advisory council,” plus “a statement of the level of support” among other school employees, students and parents, and the surrounding community.
The amendments add a requirement to the application process – a description of the elements of any collective bargaining agreement that would need to be waived for an innovation plan to work.
Second (really) big change
The original bill gave innovation schools blanket exemption from laws and rules on: performance evaluations, authority of principals, employment of teachers, transfer of teachers, dismissal of teachers, salary schedules, teacher licensing and teacher salary payment.
All of that was struck by the amendments and replaced with language allowing a school board to waive any requirements deemed necessary to an innovation plan, except provisions of the school finance law, the exceptional children’s educational act, data requirements necessary for School Accountability Reports, laws requiring criminal background checks of employees and the children’s Internet protection act. (The original language barred any waivers of CSAP and No Child Left Behind requirements, and those remain in the bill.)
Third (really) big change
The original bill allowed innovation schools to be removed from a district’s entire collective bargaining agreement by a vote of a majority of the personnel at the affected school or schools.
The amendments require “waiver of one or more of the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement” (italics added) to be approved by vote of “at least sixty percent of the members of the collective bargain unit who are employed at the innovation school.”
Sun Prairie’s Classroom 2010 “Technology Standard”
Classroom 2010 is our technology standard model for classrooms at the new Sun Prairie High School, and for our remodeled upper middle school, which will both open in the year 2010.
To inspire 21st Century learning in these schools, we are providing the following equipment:
Interactive White Board
Teacher Computer
Video Projector
Integrated amplification system
Wireless Infrared Microphone
Computer with DVD Player
5-12 student computers
VOIP telephone
ceiling mounted electrical outlets
Upgraded networking
Wireless network access
Some of these items will be obsolete the moment they are purchased. This article generated some discussion on the topic of technology & schools. Much more on schools & technology here. Related: Online education cast as “distruptive innovation”.
DC Teacher Contract Would End Seniority
The Washington Teachers’ Union is discussing a proposed three-year contract from the school system that would eliminate seniority, giving Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee more control in filling vacancies, a union member familiar with the talks said yesterday.
Without seniority, Rhee could place teachers based on qualifications or performance rather than years of service, said the union member, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential. The union member said Rhee sought the provision as a recruiting tool so she could offer talented candidates the position of their choice. She would be able to fill positions with less experienced teachers.
Under the proposed contract, teachers would give up seniority in exchange for annual raises of about 6 percent, more personal-leave days and more money for supplies, the union member said. In the last contract, which expired in the fall, teachers received a 10 percent raise over two years.
Rhee “does want to infuse some new blood [into the schools]. She wants to make it attractive for young people coming in to advance,” said the union member, adding that the union’s negotiating team will meet with her tomorrow or Friday. “We’ve come to realize we’re going to have to give in to her.”
Oakland Police Probe First Grader’s Skull Fracture
Oakland police have opened an investigation into the case of a first-grade boy whose skull was fractured Monday when, he said, an older student slammed him against a tree as he waited for a ride from his daycare provider.
Police investigators will visit Piedmont Avenue Elementary School today to question school officials and any students who might have seen what happened.
Seven-year-old Zachary Cataldo spent two nights in the intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital before returning home on Wednesday.
“After our investigation, the district attorney could very well decide to prosecute and file charges,” said Officer Roland Holmgren, spokesman for the Oakland police.
Vince Matthews, state administrator for the Oakland Unified School District, and other district officials did not return calls from The Chronicle on Thursday. Nor did Principal Angela Haick of Piedmont Avenue Elementary, where the incident took place.
But expressions of concern for Zachary – and outrage at what his father said was the school’s lax response to repeated bullying incidents – poured in from across the country after the story appeared in The Chronicle on Thursday.
Fairfax County Schools to Review Grading Practices
Fairfax County school officials have agreed to review their grading policies in response to parents’ concerns that relatively stringent standards mean their children are losing out on scholarships and college admissions.
More than 2,800 parents and students signed an online petition urging the school system to adopt a 10-point grading scale and give extra weight for honors, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes. The current system requires a score of 94 or higher for an A, and gives no extra credit to honors courses. AP courses are given half a point.
Many competing school systems, including Montgomery County, give A’s for lower scores and graduate students with similar backgrounds but higher GPA’s, the parents contend. Their concerns come as competition for admission to big-name colleges is at a high and tuition more expensive than ever.
Louise Epstein, president of the Fairfax County Association for the Gifted, said the current policies are unfair. “They cost families money and reduce good opportunities for students just because they go to Fairfax schools,” she said.
“Acting Black” — A Factor in Achievement Gap?
From The Madison Times
by Nisa Islam Muhammad – Special to the NNPA from The Final Call
(NNPA) — For too many Black students going to high school means fitting a stereotype of what it means to be “Black” developed by images in music, movies and media. It means “acting Black” to fit in a peer group or in response to social pressures.
According to researchers, “acting Black” is contributing to the education and achievement gap between Black and White students. They also believe it is one reason why Black students are underrepresented in gifted programs.
“If you are a Black student and are doing well in school you are accused of “acting White.” Black students performance then begins to suffer,” study author Donna Ford, professor of special education and Betts chair of education and human development at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, told The Final Call.
“Part of the achievement gap, particularly for gifted Black students, is due to the poor images these students have of themselves as learners. Our research shows that prevention and intervention programs that focus on improving students’ achievement ethic and self-image are essential to closing the achievement gap.”
The research, one of the first to examine the concept of “acting Black,” was published in the March 2008 issue of Urban Education.
Columbus, Stoughton Granted Startup Funds for 4-Year-Old Kindergarten; Background on Madison’s inaction
School districts in Stoughton, Columbus, Deerfield, Sauk Prairie and Janesville were among 32 statewide named Monday to receive Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction grants to start kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds.
But it may not be enough for at least one area district.
Getting 4-year-olds enrolled in kindergarten is a key step to raising student achievement levels and graduation rates, particularly among children from low-income families, national research has shown, DPI spokesman Patrick Gasper said.
School districts’ efforts to launch 4K programs have been hampered because it takes three years to get full funding for the program under the state’s school-finance system, according to DPI.
That’s what these grants are supposed to address with $3 million announced for 4K programs to start this fall.
Columbus, one of the school districts that qualified for the grant, would get an estimated $62,814 to enroll 87 children this fall.
Related: Marc Eisen on Missed Opportunity for 4K and High School Redesign.
The good news is that the feds refused to fund the school district’s proposal to revamp the high schools. The plan was wrongheaded in many respects, including its seeming intent to eliminate advanced classes that are overwhelmingly white and mix kids of distressingly varied achievement levels in the same classrooms.
This is a recipe for encouraging more middle-class flight to the suburbs. And, more to the point, addressing the achievement gap in high school is way too late. Turning around a hormone-surging teenager after eight years of educational frustration and failure is painfully hard.
We need to save these kids when they’re still kids. We need to pull them up to grade level well before they hit the wasteland of middle school. That’s why kindergarten for 4-year-olds is a community imperative.
As it happens, state school Supt. Elizabeth Burmaster issued a report last week announcing that 283 of Wisconsin’s 426 school districts now offer 4K. Enrollment has doubled since 2001, to almost 28,000 4-year-olds statewide.
Burmaster nailed it when she cited research showing that quality early-childhood programs prepare children “to successfully transition into school by bridging the effects of poverty, allowing children from economically disadvantaged families to gain an equal footing with their peers.”
Madison Teachers Inc.’s John Matthews on 4 Year Old Kindergarten:
For many years, recognizing the value to both children and the community, Madison Teachers Inc. has endorsed 4-year-old kindergarten being universally accessible to all.
This forward-thinking educational opportunity will provide all children with an opportunity to develop the skills they need to be better prepared to proceed with their education, with the benefit of 4- year-old kindergarten. They will be more successful, not only in school, but in life.
Four-year-old kindergarten is just one more way in which Madison schools will be on the cutting edge, offering the best educational opportunities to children. In a city that values education as we do, there is no question that people understand the value it provides.
Because of the increasing financial pressures placed upon the Madison School District, resulting from state- imposed revenue limits, many educational services and programs have been cut to the bone.
During the 2001-02 budget cycle, the axe unfortunately fell on the district’s 4-year-old kindergarten program. The School Board was forced to eliminate the remaining $380,000 funding then available to those families opting to enroll their children in the program.
Jason Shephard on John Matthews:
This includes its opposition to collaborative 4-year-old kindergarten, virtual classes and charter schools, all of which might improve the chances of low achievers and help retain a crucial cadre of students from higher-income families. Virtual classes would allow the district to expand its offerings beyond its traditional curriculum, helping everyone from teen parents to those seeking high-level math and science courses. But the union has fought the district’s attempts to offer classes that are not led by MTI teachers.
As for charter schools, MTI has long opposed them and lobbied behind the scenes last year to kill the Studio School, an arts and technology charter that the school board rejected by a 4-3 vote. (Many have also speculated that Winston’s last minute flip-flop was partly to appease the union.)
“There have become these huge blind spots in a system where the superintendent doesn’t raise certain issues because it will upset the union,” Robarts says. “Everyone ends up being subject to the one big political player in the system, and that’s the teachers union.”
MTI’s opposition was a major factor in Rainwater’s decision to kill a 4-year-old kindergarten proposal in 2003, a city official told Isthmus last year (See “How can we help poor students achieve more?” 3/22/07).
Matthews’ major problem with a collaborative proposal is that district money would support daycare workers who are not MTI members. “The basic union concept gets shot,” he says. “And if you shoot it there, where else are you going to shoot it?”
At times, Matthews can appear downright callous. He says he has no problem with the district opening up its own 4K program, which would cost more and require significant physical space that the district doesn’t have. It would also devastate the city’s accredited non-profit daycare providers by siphoning off older kids whose enrollment offsets costs associated with infants and toddlers.
“Not my problem,” Matthews retorts.
It will be interesting to see where incoming Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad takes this issue.
Kindergarten.
Top 10 Amazing Chemistry Videos
Fiery explosions, beautiful reactions, and hilarious music videos are great reasons to be excited about chemistry. Here are some of our favorites.
“Rainwater’s reign: Retiring school superintendent has made big impact”
Susan Troller on retiring Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater:
Later this month, a new contract between Dr. Daniel Nerad and the Madison Metropolitan School District will signal the end of an era. For over a decade, Art Rainwater has been at the helm of Madison’s public schools, guiding the district during a period of rapid demographic change and increasingly painful budget cutting. Both admirers and critics believe Rainwater has had a profound impact on the district.
Retiring Madison schools superintendent Art Rainwater may have the name of a poet, but his first ambition was to be a high school football coach.
“I grew up loving football — still do — especially the intellectual challenge of the game. I was obsessed with it,” Rainwater explained in a recent interview.
In fact, during his early years as an educator, Rainwater was so consumed by his football duties for a Catholic high school in Texas he eventually switched from coaching to school administration for the sake of his family.
In some ways, Rainwater has been an unusual person to lead Madison’s school district — an assertive personality in a town notorious for talking issues to death. His management style grows out of his coaching background — he’s been willing to make unpopular decisions, takes personal responsibility for success or failure, puts a premium on loyalty and hard work and is not swayed by armchair quarterbacks.
A few related links:
- A discussion on school models: Art Rainwater and Rafael Gomez
- West and Memorial Lead State in National Merit Scholars (2007) 2006 and 2005
- A look at ACT scores
- My life and times in the Madison School District by Marc Eisen
- “Who Runs the Madison School District” by Ruth Robarts
- Where does the MMSD get its data from? by Jeff Henriques
- A look at the MMSD’s 2006 WKCE scores by Chan Stroman
- US Department of Education response to Madison’s Small Learning Community Grant Application
- Madison and Wisconsin Math data, 8th grade by Richard Askey
- Notes and links on Madison’s new Superintendent: Daniel Nerad
Much more on Art here. Like or loath him, Art certainly poured a huge amount of his life into what is a very difficult job. I was always amazed at the early morning emails, then, later, seeing him at an evening event. Best wishes to Art as he moves on.
“Blue Collar Teacher Contracts Work Against the Students”
“I’m probably the only person in the room who was actually at the negotiating table in the mid-1960s when the first collective bargaining laws were being passed.” So said Ray Spear, former superintendent in Coventry and now a member of the Coventry School Committee, addressing the Board of Regents.
Recently, the Regents held a series of public meetings to hear creative ideas about how to prevent teacher strikes in strike-prone Rhode Island. The hearing I attended was packed to the gills with school administrators, school committee members and union officials.
Spear went on to wholeheartedly endorse “the granting of the initial bargaining rights for teachers.” Later, in an interview, he elaborated. “I was sympathetic with teachers because at the time they were not being paid at a scale comparable to other workers. I personally researched what other B.A.-level workers were being paid. Teachers weren’t even close. And they weren’t getting any benefits, no personal leave, maternity leave….”
But now, this elder statesman of the Rhode Island education community told the Regents, “It is my sincere belief that the teacher negotiation process has worn out its welcome and gone far beyond the purpose and intent which it was to serve.”
Currently, Rhode Island’s teachers’ unions are monolithically powerful forces that “fail to regard the needs of students,” according to Spear. These unions protect bad teachers, make a principal’s job nearly impossible, slow or stop educational reforms, and critically, in this fiscal climate, drive the cost of doing business through the roof.
The current problem is the result of flawed thinking back in the 1960s.
Spear was “just a young kid of a superintendent” in Michigan when that state’s collective-bargaining law passed in 1965. “When I sat down at the bargaining table for the first time, their contract proposal looked more like a General Motors contract than an education contract. They’d gone to the automotive industry for advice. Those are the roots of the situation we’re in now.”
Waukesha Schools go to Mediation over teacher contracts: Trading Jobs for Compensation?
The word “mediation” usually isnt all that menacing. But these days, and in this district, “mediation” packs plenty of punch.
A few weeks ago the Waukesha School Board announced it had taken its teachers to mediation. That means a neutral party will try to negotiate a settlement between the teachers union (the Education Association of Waukesha) and the board.
Whats most significant about the boards action is the mediator can declare an impasse and send the proposals to an arbitrator. And that, my friend, is a big deal.
Why? First, because arbitration is the labor-relations version of high-stakes poker. Its a winner-take-all proposition. Both sides present their proposal to a (supposedly) neutral third party, who picks the plan he or she believes fairest. There is no in-between – you win or you lose.
Arbitration also is a big deal because its hardly ever done, at least when state public schools are involved.
“Yes, its significant,” said David Schmidt, superintendent of the School District of Waukesha for the past 10 years. “Its the first time weve done it since Ive been here.”
Schmidt says he is fine with the teachers union, that the real trouble is in Madison. (The EAW is very much in agreement.) But right now, the problem has to be fixed closer to home. “What we can control locally are our expenditures,” Schmidt says.
Links and notes on Madison’s recent teacher’s contract.
Wright Middle School Celebrates 10 years with Give Us 10! Campaign
Students and staff at James C. Wright Middle School will commemorate the tenth anniversary of the charter school through a Give Us 10! campaign. Wright students will read 10 books outside of the classroom curriculum and then create a mural showcasing their hand prints and the book titles they’ve read. This colorful symbol of student achievement will be showcased in the LMC at Wright.
Community members are welcome to join in the celebration by honoring students who reach the ten book goal. They can show their support by contributing $10 to the Wright Middle School Endowment at the Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools, so they too can Give Us 10!
Report: Parents Taking a More Active Role in Raising Children
Teachers and politicians have been clamoring for years for parents to get more involved with their children. The message appears to be getting through – at least to some.
Parents are setting greater restrictions on TV watching and are reading more to youngsters than they did a decade ago, the government reported Wednesday.
They are also encouraging more participation in extracurricular activities that focus on education, according to the report.
The findings suggest adults are reacting to a more dangerous world, while parents and students are dealing with increased competition to get into good colleges, experts said.
“Whether it’s a realistic panic or not, things like school shootings or child abductions or pedophile predators, that has a certain group of American parents pretty worried,” said Angela Hattery, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University.
Mom101: Mom, why’d a teacher get kicked in the head?
Above is a direct quote from the most recent edition of my daughter’s school newsletter, the Lapham Elementary Lookout. Parts of Madison’s Affiliated Alternatives program were moved into her K-2 school this year as a budget Band-Aid that kept Marquette and Lapham from consolidating into one large kid factory. At the time, the decision was steeped in controversy, politics, and emotion. I defaulted to the “for Affiliated Alternatives moving in” side as I vehemently opposed the consolidation option.
I like to think I’m an open-minded person, not the type of mom who’d get all freaked out about some alternative teens under the same roof as my young ‘un. I recall actually being intrigued by the idea that high school students would be attending school just one floor above my six-year-old. I know there was a moment in which I wondered why, exactly, these students needed an alternative to traditional high school, so I looked it up online. It seemed like a great program with educational options for every type of student, those who’d fallen behind in coursework, were pregnant, those who needed vocational skill training in addition to regular schoolwork, the inevitable et ceteras of adolescence. When I read the Lookout, I thought, smoking on school grounds! Tsk, tsk. Ah, well, nothing a kid couldn’t run into walking down the street. Could be worse.
Lesson of shootings: Schools act too late
As school officials in Cleveland revise their security plans after a shooting rampage by a 14-year-old gunman, professionals who study youth violence said the solution is simple: Pay attention to threatening behavior and talk.
A week before Asa Coon wounded four people and fatally shot himself at SuccessTech Academy in downtown Cleveland on Wednesday, he had threatened to blow up the school and stab students, said Doneisha LeVert, 14.
Fortifying schools with metal detectors, security guards and surveillance cameras doesn’t guarantee that a gunman will be kept out, criminologists and educators said. There were no metal detectors at SuccessTech on Wednesday.
The experts said educators should learn a key lesson from the more than two dozen school shootings since Columbine in 1999: Troubled teens who plan attacks often warn of their intentions. Schools should teach staff and students to recognize and report threats, and require they be investigated, they said.
No Child Left Behind Act faces overhaul, political donnybrook
Zachary Coile
In 2002, two of Congress’ liberal Democratic lions – Rep. George Miller of Martinez and Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy – stood behind President Bush as he signed the No Child Left Behind Act, a law they promised would shine a bright light on the failures in America’s public schools and kick-start reforms.
Five years later, Miller, now chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, is still a believer. But after traveling the country – listening to complaints from parents, teachers, school administrators and governors about the law’s testing regime and stiff sanctions – he now admits it needs fixing.
“We’ve learned a lot, and we shouldn’t ignore that evidence,” said Miller, who is leading the overhaul of the law in the House, which starts this week. “What we’re trying to do in this reauthorization bill is to look for those changes to make this a smarter, fairer, better law.”
Reform is coming to No Child Left Behind, but the question is what kind. Teachers unions, which bitterly oppose the law, are pushing to relax its rigid testing rules and penalties. Business groups, eager for better-educated workers, want to see the tough accountability measures preserved or expanded. Many states and local school districts are clamoring for more flexibility in implementing the law, which expires this year.
Miller is seeking a middle ground: He wants to keep the law’s requirement of annual tests in reading and math for third- to eighth-graders and 10th-graders, but add other measurements – such as percentage of kids in college-prep classes – to help schools show they are meeting the law’s demands to make yearly progress in student achievement.
Teachers in Trouble, Parents Ignored: Readers React
Twenty-one years later, Suzanne Stradling still remembers her third-grade teacher. The woman passed out math worksheets that each student had to complete and bring to her for a personal assessment. Stradling spent the entire time writing her answers, erasing them and writing them again because she said she was so terrified by the teacher’s yelling at students who did not seem to be working and deriding students when they presented answers. Stradling’s most vivid memory is of a dyslexic classmate named Sean, who stood in the front of the class as the teacher “launched into a tirade about his laziness, stupidity, and probable future failure.”
I received many Web site comments and e-mails like Stradling’s in response to my series of columns on parents left out of decisions about teachers. Many readers shared unhappy memories of abusive teachers and told why they often did not mention what they saw and heard to their parents. “This teacher had a reputation as mean, and I knew that complaining that the teacher was mean would be a non-starter with my parents,” Stradling said. “Of course, ‘mean’ is often school patois for strict teachers.”
Is Wisconsin’s ACT Rank Inflated?
Last week, we got the annual good news that Wisconsin “scores near top on ACT once again,” as a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel headline declared. Aping her predecessors, state Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster hailed the results as proof of how dandy we’re doing in Badgerland. The “composite score speaks well of our students’ academic achievement and the support they receive from their parents and teachers,” she declared.
But are we really doing that well? A close look at the ACT test data offers some reason for caution. Yes, Wisconsin’s average score of 22.3 was high compared to the national average of 21.2 (with scores ranging from 18.9 for Mississippi to 23.5 for Massachusetts), but the percentage of students taking the test here is lower than in 15 states. While 70 percent of Wisconsin students take the test, the percentage is 100 in Illinois and Colorado, 96 in Tennessee and Mississippi, and ranges from 71 to 82 percent for another 11 states.
Why does this matter? As the percentage of students taking the test increases, you are likely to include more low-attendance and low-performance students in the mix, pushing the average score lower.
Burmaster brags that Wisconsin has maintained its high ACT score even as the percentage of students taking the test rose. But the increase was minimal, rising from 68 percent in 2002 to 70 percent last year. That includes a steady rise in the number of African-American and Hispanic students taking the test, but they still remain underrepresented.
“We allow people in this state to pound their chest while ignoring the fact that Milwaukee has significantly fewer kids taking (the ACT),” Milwaukee School Board member Terry Falk declared in the JS story. (Falk, a former contributor to Milwaukee Magazine, sure knows how to give good quotes.)
As a reality check, I looked at state scores combined with the percentage of students taking the test to estimate which states we might actually trail. A state like Mississippi, for instance, can be quickly rejected: Yes, 96 percent of students took the test, but the average score of 18.9 was abysmally low, worst among all 50 states. Even if Wisconsin tested 96 percent of students, its average score would never drop that low.
West HS English 10: Request for Data
Here is an email I sent to the BOE, asking them to request important outcome data for West HS’s English 10 initiative. Embedded in the email is my own request for such data. As both a content and a process issue, I should think this would be of interest to all SIS readers. By all means, feel free to write to these people with your own request. –LAF
August 22, 2007
Dear BOE (especially Performance and Achievement Committee members Kobza, Winston and Cole):
Please see my email below to various people involved with the West HS English 10 initiative. Thank you for taking the appropriate and expected responsibility to obtain these data and make them public. We need to know if the things we are doing to our high school students are actually having the desired impact, in part, to guard against our doing things for our own misguided adult reasons (things like politics and stubborn pride).
I should think that the gap-closing effectiveness (or lack thereof) of a core course in 10th grade English at one of our four high schools would be of significant interest to community members throughout the District, including parents, teachers and students at the other three high schools … and especially members of our School Board.
Many thanks,
Laurie
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:42:39 -0500
To: hlott@madison.k12.wi.us,mbking1@wisc.edu,eholmes@madison.k12.wi.us,pnash@madison.k12.wi.us,arainwater.k12.wi.us
From: “Laurie A. Frost”
Subject: English 10 early results request
Dear All:
One of the primary reasons for the implementation of English 10 at West High School was concern about the failure of some groups of West students to take rigorous English electives in their upper class years.
Can you please send me the data regarding the English electives chosen by this year’s 11th graders when they registered for classes six months ago? (Needless to say, I would also like to see the English elective data for the past few years, so that a meaningful comparison can be made between the choices of English 10-era versus pre-English 10-era students.)
This is the first group of West students to take English 10, so a look at the early results of the curricular initiative seems appropriate, as does sharing that information with the West community. I assume that the data are appropriately disaggregated by race and SES, given your concerns and your hypotheses about the impact of the new core course.
Many thanks.
Laurie Frost
West HS parent
Dane County High School Rankings and ACT results
While the rankings of high schools in Madison Magazine (MM) have been out for awhile, they’ve continued to stick in my craw. That may have something to do with my involvement with the school that’s ranked 21st of 21. Top-ranked Edgewood, I’m sure, has a different take on the rankings, which it highlights on its website.
The magazine says it used average ACT scores as one of the two signifiers of academic achievement, which comprise 60% of its ranking formula. This week DPI released 2007 ACT scores for all the state’s public high schools. How do this year’s performances on the ACT by Dane County high schools compare with the MM rankings?
To Teach or Not to Teach?
Teaching Experience and Preparation Among 1992-93 Bachelor’s Degree Recipients 10 Years After College
Martha Naomi Alt, Robin Henke and Kristin Perry [1MB PDF]:
Nearly all graduates (93 percent) who were teaching in 2003 expressed overall satisfaction with that job (figure C). Teachers were more likely to be satisfied with the learning environment at their 2003 school (77 percent) than with such aspects as pay, parent support, and students’ motivation to learn (48 percent of
teachers were satisfied with each of these aspects).
On other measures reflecting job satisfaction, 90 percent of 2003 teachers reported that they would choose teaching again, and 2 in 3 (67 percent) said they would remain a teacher for the rest of their working life (text table 4). Male and female teachers did not differ measurably in how long they planned to remain in the profession. However, more male than female teachers (94 vs. 88 percent) said they would choose teaching if they had a chance to make the decision again (figure 9). White teachers were more likely than Black teachers to plan to teach until retirement (70 vs. 37 percent; figure D).
About 11 percent of the 1992−93 cohort were teaching in 2003, and 9 percent had taught but were not currently teaching (text table 2). Roughly as many graduates had thus left teaching as had stayed in the field by 2003, whether leaving was on a temporary or permanent basis.
via Mike Antonucci.
Board of Education Activity in 2006-07
A few weeks ago, the Madison BOE received a summary of what the board and its committees had done in its meetings during the past year. I am posting the entire document as an extended entry as community information. It provides a lot more detail, a good overview, and a glimpse at the pieces that didn’t make it into the print and broadcast media.
Appleton’s Charter Schools have Developed A “Wow Factor”
Appleton’s Board of Education hopes to maintain momentum — or what one member calls the “wow factor” — the school district has built in attracting outsiders, especially in an increasingly competitive landscape.
In tight budget times, the district’s financial health and survival depends on it.
John Mielke said the school cannot rest on its laurels.
“I think the charter schools have developed a ‘wow factor,'” Mielke said at the annual school board retreat recently. “We are a leader in the charter school movement and I think people look at what we’ve done with charters and think: ‘Other things must be interesting in that district.’ Our challenge is what’s the next ‘wow factor.’ You can’t exist on just the wow factor of charter schools. What’s the next step up?”
During the June 25-26 retreat, he and other board members learned that while many larger Wisconsin districts are losing students, Appleton, the sixth largest in the state, is an “aberration,” owed in large part to the draw of its charter schools to outsiders.
Last school year 879 students, or 6 percent of the district’s total enrollment of 15,228, open enrolled to Appleton from outside the district. A total of 617, or 70 percent who came into the district attended charter schools.
Charter schools are public schools that are allowed to waive state regulations to deliver their programs. Appleton offered 13 charter schools last school year, offering families choices for students interested in everything from the environment and fine arts to engineering and such approaches as Montessori, Core Knowledge and online virtual education.
By contrast, 160 students open enrolled out of the district.
Madison Schools MTI Teacher Contract Roundup
Conversation regarding the recent MMSD / MTI collective bargaining agreement continues:
- Andy Hall wrote a useful summary, along with some budget numbers (this agreementi s56% of the MMSD’s $339.6M budget):
District negotiators headed by Superintendent Art Rainwater had sought to free up money for starting teachers’ salaries by persuading the union to drop Wisconsin Physicians Service, a health-care provider that offers open access to medical treatment with no need for referrals.
The district wanted MTI members to choose from among three health-maintenance organizations that limit coverage to specific providers in return for lower costs.
But the union kept the current mix — WPS plus one HMO, Group Health Cooperative — after members in a survey indicated support for maintaining those options.
Matthews is a paid member of the Wisconsin Physicians Service board of directors — an arrangement he defends as a means of advocating for members and the district. Critics contend it represents a conflict of interest.
“Our plan is cheaper than almost any in town,” said Matthews, referring to a union comparison of Wisconsin Physicians Service coverage, used by half of the members, to coverage offered to employees of state and local governments.
“The teachers were willing to pay more, they were willing to move money from wages to health insurance, in order to preserve those kinds of rights.”
Among the new costs facing teachers: A $75 co-pay for emergency room visits and a $10 co-pay for office visits.
Premiums for WPS, which is favored by many members with a serious illness in the family, will cost 10.4 percent more beginning July 1. But the premiums will decrease slightly beginning Jan. 1 as the co-pays take effect. For example, the WPS family premium will cost the district $1,711 per month while the employee’s share will be $190, falling to $187 on Jan. 1.
The GHC premium will increase by 5.7 percent — to $974 monthly for family coverage, paid entirely by the district — beginning July 1. That amount will decrease to $955 on Jan. 1. - Don Severson & Brian Schimming discuss the agreement and the school board: 5MB mp3 audio file.
- 2005 / 2007 Agreement 528K PDF.
- The Madison School Board will vote on the Agreement Monday evening, June 18, 2007.
- Additional links and notes.
- Don Severson: 3 Simple Things.
- MMSD / MTI contract negotations beginCarol Carstensen: An alt view on Concessions Before Negotiations.
- Going to the Mat for WPS
- What’s the MTI Political Endorsement About?
- Some MMSD unions have addressed health care costs.
MMSD and MTI reach tentative contract agreement
Madison Metropolitan School District:
The Madison Metropolitan School District and Madison Teachers Incorporated reached a tentative agreement yesterday on the terms and conditions of a new two-year collective bargaining agreement for MTI’s 2,400 member teacher bargaining unit.
The contract, for the period from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2009, needs ratification from both the Board of Education and MTI. MTI will hold a ratification meeting on Thursday, June 14 at 7:00 p.m. at the Alliant Energy Center, Dane County Forum. The Board of Education will take up the proposal in a special meeting on Monday, June 18 at 5:00 p.m. The MTI meeting is closed to the public, while the Board’s meeting is open.
Terms of the contract include:
2007-08
Base Salary Raise: 1.00%
Total Raise incl. Benefits: 4.00%
2008-09
Base Salary Raise: 1.00%
Total Raise incl. Benefits: 4.00%
Related Links:
- Concessions before negotiations.
- TJ Mertz comments on the agreement.
- Channel3000
- WKOWTV:
Taxpayers will continue to pay 100% of the health care premiums for half of the teachers who choose Group Health, and 90% of the premiums for the other half of teachers who join WPS. WPS teachers pay $190 a month for a family and $72 a month for an individual.
The union says those costs are too high.
The district said it tried to introduce two new HMO plans to lower costs, but the union rejected them.
Public Ed 101
Here’s a good question for you: Why have public schools at all?
O.K., cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah and yada yada yada. We could say blah is common culture and yada is the government’s interest in promoting the general welfare. Or that children are the future. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Because we can’t leave any child behind.
The problem with all these bromides is that they leave out the simple fact that one of the surest ways to leave a kid “behind” is to hand him over to the government. Americans want universal education, just as they want universally safe food. But nobody believes that the government should run 90 percent of the restaurants, farms, and supermarkets. Why should it run 90 percent of the schools — particularly when it gets terrible results?
West HS English 10: Time to Show Us the Data
According to the November, 2005, report by SLC Evaluator Bruce King, the overriding motivation for the implementation of West’s English 10 core curriculum (indeed, the overriding motivation for the implementation of the entire 9th and 10th grade core curriculum) was to reduce the achievement gap. As described in the report, some groups of West students were performing more poorly in English than were other groups of West students. Poor performance was defined as:
- not electing to take the more rigorous English electives offered at West during 11th and 12th grade and
- failing one or more English classes.
The current West 10th graders — the first class to take English 10 — has almost finished two semesters of the new course. As well, they registered for their 11th grade courses several weeks ago. Seems to me it’s about time to take a look at the early data.
I would like to know what English courses the current 500 or so West sophomores signed up for for next year and if the distribution of their course selections — broken down by student groups — looks significantly different from that of previous 10th grade classes? When final grades come out later this month, I would also like to know what the impact of the first two semesters of English 10 has been on the achievement gap as defined by the “grade earned” criterion.
Thinking about the need to evaluate the impact of English 10 brings to mind the absence of data on English 9 that became so glaringly apparent last year. [English 9 — like English 10, a core curriculum delivered in completely heterogeneous classes — has been in place at West for several years. And yet, according to Mr. King’s report, it is not clear if English 9 has done anything to reduce the achievement gap in English among West students. (More precisely, according to email with Mr. King and others after the SLC report was made public, it is not clear that the impact of English 9 on the achievement gap at West has even been empirically evaluated. Readers may recall that some of us tried valiantly to get the English 10 initiative put off, so that the effect of English 9 could be thoroughly evaluated. Unfortunately, we failed.)] I would like to know what has been done this year to evaluate the impact of English 9 on the gap in achievement between different groups of West HS students.
Bruce (King), Heather (Lott), Ed (Holmes) and Art (Rainwater), I do hope you will soon “show us the data,” as they say, for West’s English 9 and English 10. And BOE, I do hope you will insist on seeing these data asap.
While we’re at it, what do the before-and-after data look like for Memorial’s 9th grade core curriculum? (In contrast to West, Memorial implemented only a 9th grade core curriculum. TAG and Honors classes still begin in 10th grade, as does access to Memorial’s 17 AP classes.)
With the District in the process of applying for a federal grant that may well result in the spread of the West model to the other three comprehensive high schools, we should all be interested in these data.
So should officials in the Department of Education.
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 Foundation providing educational opportunities to children in the developing world.
World Fair Trade Day, held each year on the second Saturday of May, is organized by the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) to promote fair trade practices around the world. This year’s theme “Kids Need Fair Trade” highlights the positive impact fair trade has on children in developing countries which frequently suffer from low pay, poor working conditions and limited educational opportunities that trap them in a cycle of poverty. Fair trade practices break that cycle and rather than tearing people down help to lift them up.
10 Reasons to Combine Lapham & Marquette
Here are 10 good reasons to put the paired elementary schools, Lapham and Marquette, into one building.
- The school would be a K-5 school, like most elementary schools in the District.
- Siblings in elementary school would go to school in the same building. They would not be split after 2nd grade.
- Students would have the benefit of having teachers from kindergarten through 5th grade in the same building, which should strengthen relationships between students and teachers.
- The teaching teams at Lapham and Marquette would be combined for the K-5 school, so strong teaching teams would not be split up.
- The combined K-5 school would have approximately 450 students, which is the size of six other MMSD elementary schools, and significantly smaller than two other MMSD elementary schools.
- The K-5 school would have full-time, or close to full-time, art, music and physical education teachers.
- All students would attend school close to their homes. Lapham and Marquette are only 1.06 miles away from each other.
- District schools would continue to exist and be operated in both the Lapham and Marquette neighborhoods.
- If the District’s growth projections for the area are too low, there is still plenty of space at neighboring Lowell and Emerson schools for students.
- Last but not least, combining the paired schools would save money, and would free up space to house programs currently located in rented space.
In my view, of almost all the budget items the School Board is looking at, this item has the fewest negative impacts on students. It will be a shame if the Board’s concerns about political pressure trump its concerns about what is best for students.
MMSD / MTI Contract Negotiations Begin: Health Care Changes Proposed
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 well as the economic offer,” John Matthews, executive director of MTI, said in an interview Thursday.
But Bob Butler, a staff attorney with the Wisconsin Association of School Boards who is part of the district’s bargaining team, said he believed the district’s proposal was fair and flexible.
He said the administration’s proposal on health care provides two new HMO plans that could bring savings to the district and new options to employees, while still providing an option for the more expensive Wisconsin Physicians Service plan for employees who want it.
The district is proposing that teachers accept language that would allow two new HMO insurance plans, provided by Dean Care and Physicians Plus, to be added to the two plans currently offered.
Slightly more than 53 percent of the employees represented by the teachers’ bargaining unit use the less expensive Group Health Cooperative plan, which is a health maintenance organization, or HMO. The district’s costs for the GHC plan for next year are $364.82 per month for singles and $974.08 for families. Employees who opt for the GHC do not pay a percentage of the premium themselves but are responsible for co-pays for drugs that range from $6 to $30.
If about the same number of district employees — 1,224 — use the GHC plan next year, it would cost the district about $11.6 million.
The other option currently available to teachers is provided by Wisconsin Physicians Service. A preferred provider organization plan, it provides health insurance to just under 47 percent of the district’s teacher unit.
A more flexible plan that allows participants to go to different doctors for different medical specialties, the WPS plan next year will cost the district $747.78 per month for singles and $1,961.13 for families. Under the current contract, employees pay 10 percent of the cost of the WPS plan, which this year is $65.65 per month for singles, and $172.18 per month for families.
The cost estimate for the school district’s share of the WPS plan under the current contract would be about $19 million. Employees, who pick up 10 percent of the cost as their share of the premium, would pay another $2 million under the current structure.
It’s important to remember that a majority of the Madison School Board voted several months ago to not arbitrate with MTI over health care costs. Andy Hall has more:
But with the Madison School Board facing a $10.5 million budget shortfall, is the board giving away too much with its promises to retain teachers’ increasingly pricey health insurance and to discard its legal mechanism for limiting teachers’ total compensation increase to 3.8 percent?
Yes, School Board Vice President Lawrie Kobza said Saturday, “I feel very strongly that this was a mistake,” said Kobza, who acknowledged that most board members endorse the agreement with Madison Teachers Inc., the teachers union.
State law allows districts to avoid arbitration by making a so-called qualified economic offer, or QEO, by boosting salaries and benefits a combined 3.8 percenter a year.
“To agree before a negotiation starts that we’re not going to impose the QEO and negotiate health care weakens the district’s position,” Kobza said. She contended the district’s rising health-care costs are harming its ability to raise starting teachers’ salaries enough to remain competitive.
The “voluntary impasse resolution” agreements, which are public records, are used in only a handful of Wisconsin’s 425 school districts, according to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.
Carol Carstensen posted an alt view on Concessions before negotiations. Related: What a sham(e), Sun Prairie Cuts Health Care Costs & Raises Teacher Salaries – using the same Dean Healthcare Plan and “Going to the Mat for WPS“. TJ Mertz says Susan neglected to mention the QEO (note that the a majority of the MMSD school board agreed not to arbitrate over the QEO or health care casts in “Concessions before negotiations”.
MMSD Budget Proposal Documents: Active Citizens for Education
Kindness crosses county line: Plight of cash-strapped team sparks Messmer to action
Messmer High School is a central-city Catholic school with about 85% of its student body qualifying for federally subsidized meals. Waukesha West High School is a suburban public school where only about 6% of the students live in low-income households.
But when students in Messmer’s National Honor Society heard about the nearly $10,000 fund-raising challenge facing West’s Academic Decathlon team, they saw only fellow students in need.
“Ten thousand dollars to these kids – National Honor Society kids from Messmer, inner-city kids – it just blew them away,” said Bob Monday, a volunteer business teacher at the Milwaukee school.
Budget Impacts at Franklin-Randall–Don’t Get Mad, Get Active!!
(This letter is being distributed to parents of Franklin-Randall students, but should concern everyone in the MMSD and Regent Neighborhood)
SCHOOL FUNDING CRISIS:
Don’t get mad, get active!!
March 16, 2007
The School Board recently announced sweeping budget cuts for the coming school year that will have a severe impact on Franklin-Randall, as well as other schools in the district. Following Tuesday’s PTO meeting, parents in attendance agreed that we must act QUICKLY to address this crisis. Below, we have summarized the funding crisis, and how cuts to our and other schools will affect our children’s education and safety. Most importantly, we conclude with specific ideas that we can all implement, to positively address this crisis.
Brief overview of the FUNDING CRISIS: Wisconsin has placed an indefinite “Budget Cap” on all additional funding towards schools. Every year there are increased costs to our schools to cover teacher salaries, increased student numbers, and increased maintenance costs. Without intervention and change, Madison’s reputation for excellence in education is going to change significantly, and with that, so will the diversity, appeal, and attraction of our city.
How will current district recommendations directly affect the education and safety of your children in the Franklin-Randall community?
*As a result of the “SAGE” program being cut from our schools, Franklin-Randall class sizes will rise from 15 to 22 for Kindergarten and First grade, and from 15 to 24 for Second and Third grades this Fall.
*Franklin will lose 5.1 teacher allocations; this most likely means that 3 classroom teachers will be laid-off, and there will be reductions throughout Art, Music, PE, and Reach.
*Randall will lose 1.6 teacher allocations.
*Randall will lose the 5th grade strings program (last year 4th grade strings was cut).
How will cuts at OTHER schools affect the education and safety of your children?
All of our city’s elementary school children come together in middle and high schools; sub-standard education in any one of these schools will therefore affect all students eventually: a loss for one school will become a loss for all.
What can I do NOW?
1. Talk to people at your bus stop, in your neighborhood, and in the hallways at school when you’re there– work together to come up with at least one idea to present at the Rescue Our Schools brainstorm session. This meeting will follow the monthly PTO meeting (Tuesday, April 10th at 6:30) in the Randall Library.
2. Talk to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and neighbors who DON’T have children about how these changes to our schools will affect them. One key point to address is that our city is only as appealing as its future, and our children are the future. Everyone, with or without kids, will be affected. Wisconsin has a history of valuing education and performance; if this changes, we are giving up a source of identity and pride!
3. Attend the Information and Advocacy Session at the Doyle Administration Building, Thursday, March 29th at 6:30pm
4. Form shared child-care groups with friends and neighbors to allow for more parental presence in the schools. Make it a goal to do this in some capacity weekly. These cooperatives will allow you to watch or volunteer at more school functions, participate in school trips, or attend school board meetings. Education research definitively shows, that the more YOU are involved, the more success your child will have in school!
5. As you are able, contribute with time or money to the PTO! $100 can buy a violin that will last 10 years! Commit to a half-hour stint helping on the playground weekly — this equates to invaluable community-building, camaraderie, injury prevention, as well as much-needed breaks for our teachers.
6. Attend the MMSD School Board Meetings, held on Mondays at the Doyle Administration Bldg at 545 W. Dayton St, next door to the Kohl Center. Beginning at 7:15, any person or group can make a “Public Appearance” (up to three minutes each) to deliver opinions / make arguments about any school-related topic. To find out more, go to www.madison.k12.wi.us : under “District Information” click on “Board of Education”, then under “Meetings”, click on “Board of Education Calendar”.
7. Become active in the you school PTO!!! Sign up to be on the Franklin-Randall List-Serve — This is a fast, easy and inexpensive way for people to notify each other about F-R events and news. Simply send an email to: F-R_pto-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, with “subscribe” in the subject line. To find out about all the up-coming meetings and events, go to the F-R PTO website. Site address is www.franklinrandallpto.org
8. Don’t forget to VOTE on Tues, April 3rd, during Spring break–And if you’re not in town, vote ABSENTEE! To vote absentee, go anytime within one week before the election, to the City-County Building at 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Rm. 103. 8-4:30pm. Alternatively, by calling 266-4601, you may ask the city to mail you a ballot (English, Spanish or Hmong), or simply go online: www.cityofmadison.com/clerk/voterabsentee.cfm (also downloadable in English, Spanish or Hmong)
What can I do long-term?
Ultimately, we have to address long-term changes to school funding at the State and National level. Through grassroots organizing directed at raising awareness of the issues, we can make a change. We must reach out to like-minded groups (other PTO’s, PTA etc.), and legislators around the state. To this end, following April’s PTO meeting, we will meet to collect ideas, and organize our strategies —
*PLEASE come to the PTO Meeting, April 10th at 6:30pm (Randall Library)!! *
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and for taking action in whatever way you can!
Concerned Franklin-Randall Parents
For further information, please contact any of us:
Sari Judge 233-1754, Megan Brown 250-0552, Kate Zirbel 661-9090,
Mollie Kane 232-1809, Erika Kluetmeier, 238-6209
MTI spending will likely top $10,000 for Moss & Passman
The Madison Teachers Union political action committee spent a little more than $7,500 in “independent expenditures” in support of for Juan Lopez and Arlene Silveira in last year’s school board races. The money paid for production and air time for radio and newspaper ads, but the figure does not include the newspapers’ charges for running the ad.
This year, MTI Voters (the official name for the union’s PAC) contributed the legal maximum – $1,560 – to each campaign committee of Marj Passman and Beth Moss.
We can surely expect MTI Voters to make independent expenditures for Passman and Moss equal to what the PAC spent last year.
Recent Madison School Board Discussions, Including Teaching & Learning Effectiveness, Superintendent Search Consultant and Extracurricular Activities
Education Sector Study: Cutting Provisions In Union Contracts Could Free Funds
U.S. public schools could have as much as $77 billion more a year to improve teaching if they reduced spending on seniority pay increases, teacher’s aides, class size limits and other measures often found in teacher union contracts, a new study contends.
he provisions include salary increases based on years of experience or educational credentials; professional development days; sick and personal days; class size limits; use of teacher’s aides; and generous health and retirement benefits.
Teachers union officials sharply disputed the report’s findings. School administrators and school board representatives said that although they would like more flexibility in the use of funds, there was little evidence that cutting such provisions would raise achievement.
250K PDF Report.
Education Sector Press Release by Marguerite Roza:
State and federal accountability systems are putting immense pressure on public schools to improve the performance of low-achieving students. To respond, schools must be able to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, strengthen curricula, and take other steps to provide struggling students with the help they need.
But such efforts are expensive and, as the nation faces the cost of caring for an aging population and other challenges in the years ahead, it is unlikely that education will receive a great deal of new funding. Education leaders, as a result, will increasingly have to scrutinize their existing budgets to find ways to fund their reform initiatives. One potentially valuable source of funds for reform are common provisions in teacher contracts that obligate schools to spend large amounts of money on programs that lack a clear link to student achievement.
New ES report by school finance guru Marguerite Roza makes the uncomfortable but important point that there is a lot of money in education now that could be repurposed to greater effect within education. WaPo here. Similar to the point made by the recent Skills Commission report. To some this could appear as picking on teachers, and it will be framed that way, but the simple fact is that education is, by it’s nature, pretty labor intensive, and most of the $500 billion spent annually is tied up in labor costs. Consequently, pace our good friend Willie Sutton, that’s one place policymakers are going to have to look for funds. In other words, we need to get serious about financing education, but also about refinancing it as well. And, we have to take on what is a four letter word in many education circles, productivity.
Education Sector has released an exceptional report by Marguerite Roza that quantifies the costs of various standard provisions in collective bargaining agreements that have little or no connection to improved student achievement or even efficient distribution of resources. Items like automatic raises for experience, university credits, and paid professional development end up totaling almost 19 percent of all education spending, without any indication that they are giving us what we’re after: better schools.
Roza suggests more flexibility is needed:
Spellings Says No Child Left Behind Act on Track
“We’ve made more progress in the last five years than the previous 28 years,” Spellings said. “Can the law be improved? Should we build on what we’ve done and all of that sort of thing? You bet. But I don’t hear people saying: ‘You know what? We really don’t need to have education for all students.’ ”
Her remarks come as various groups begin to weigh in on the law and what they believe works and what does not. The No Child Left Behind law is scheduled to be reauthorized by Congress, but it is uncertain when lawmakers will act.
The Forum on Educational Accountability — a coalition that includes education, religious, civil rights and disability rights groups — said yesterday that the law overemphasizes standardized tests and arbitrary academic targets. The coalition also criticized penalties the law imposes on schools that fail to meet standards.
“We don’t have to throw out the whole law and make a big political battle,” said Reginald M Felton, a senior lobbyist for the National School Boards Association, a member of the coalition. “But we need to change from the punitive, ‘gotcha!’ kind of approach to actual support for progress.”
Rotherham has more on NCLB.
Searchable Database of Big City School Board Policies and Teacher Contracts
It was a big job, but the National Council on Teacher Quality has put together a database that will allow you to “easily search the contents of collective bargaining agreements and board policies from the nation’s 50 largest public school districts.”
NCTQ will unveil it in DC on January 4. I’m guessing that somewhere in the halls of Harlem Success Charter School, Eva Moskowitz is smiling.
More Than English 10: Let’s REALLY Talk About Our High Schools
First, I want to say BRAVO, RUTH, for putting it all together and bringing it on home to us. Thanks, too, to the BOE members who overrode BOE President Johnny Winston Jr’s decision to table this important discussion. Finally, deepest thanks to all of the East parents, students and teachers who are speaking out … and to the many West parents, students and teachers who have also spoken out over the past few years.
As we begin what will hopefully be a thoughtful and thoroughgoing community-wide conversation about what’s going on in our high schools, I’d like to clear up some muddiness about what’s happened at West in the past few years. I think it’s important to have our facts straight and complete. In doing so — and in comparing what’s happened at West to what’s now going on at East — I’d like to draw on the image of an animal experiment (that apparently never happened). In one condition, a frog is put into a bath of cool water, the temperature is gradually raised to boiling, and the frog dies without a struggle. In another condition, a frog is put into a bath of boiling water, immediately jumps out, and lives to tell the tale. As I see it, West was put in the first condition. The administration implemented small changes over the course of several years, with the ultimate goal of turning 9th and 10th grades into two more years of middle school. Students and parents were lulled into thinking that everything was O.K. because, hey, what’s one small change? East, in contrast, has been put in the second condition. There, the administration seems to have the same goal of turning 9th and 10th grade into two more years of middle school, but has introduced all of the changes at once. Like the frog placed in the boiling water, East has been shocked into strong reaction.
East High School to Follow West’s One Size Fit’s All 9/10 Curriculum?
From a reader involved in these issues:
The plan for East HS is to have only regular classes (that is, no Advanced (formerly AcaMo) and no TAG classes) and AP classes (which, presumably, only juniors and seniors will be able to take). East currently offers 9 AP classes. This means there will be a core curriculum delivered in completely heterogeneous classes (except for the special ed and ESL classes) across the boards in 9th and 10th grades. Our source did not specify if this means the end of Paul DuVair’s renowned TAG Biology class. There also is no word on embedded honors options, like West now offers (though we have heard many reports about how profoundly uneven implementation is — aside from the fact that embedded honors options rarely give students the critical opportunity to learn together at a high level).
The only exception to this plan will be math, largely because the kids enter East already ability grouped (i.e., some into Algebra, some into Geometry, etc.).
Additional info —
— the official word is that this plan is coming from Alan Harris himself (yeah, right)
— the other official word is that one of the reasons for this drastic change is that the TAG students were “coasting” (huh?)
So please spread the word — especially to East attendance area parents that you know, including parents of younger kids — and please attend, if you can. And if anyone can videotape …
Related Links:
- A Timeline of West High School’s march toward one size fits all English 10.
- Bruce King’s report on West High School’s English 9 program
I wonder how Shabazz fits into this? It seems like an outler, given the current high school curriculum direction.
Education Action at the Federal Level
But that’s down the road…in terms of this new Congress, George Miller taking over the education committee in the House will probably surface a misunderstood dynamic around national education politics. Namely, while a lot of people think that the No Child Left Behind debate is Republican v. Democrat, in fact it’s really intra-party. Miller is a stronger accountability hawk than President Bush’s Administration is. He’s for teaching to standards in that debate…Senator Kennedy (who seems likely to again chair the education committee in the Senate) has moved to a pro-accountability position over the past decade (and his key staffer on education is a former civil rights attorney so she gets these issues from that lens which is the Ed Trust, CCCR, etc…lens).
LA adds More Charters (now 103) With Some Interesting Commentary
LAUSD has 103 of the independent public schools, the most of any district in the nation. It has opened 40 charters since 2005.
Young projects that the LAUSD will continue to add 20 to 30 charters a year. Statewide, more than 300 charter schools are in development.
District officials, as well as the president of the teachers union, bristle at assertions by the Charter Schools Association that middle and high school charters are significantly outperforming their district counterparts.
A fairer comparison would be with the district’s magnet schools, which outperform charters, school board member Jon Lauritzen said.
“I think it’s basically unfair to compare an entity that is able to take their entire budget and focus it entirely on their own schools,” he said. “They have some real advantages over our schools in the flexibility of actually providing the type of education that a particular community wants, whereas we are trying to provide a curriculum that works for everyone all across the school district.”
Earlier this year, Lauritzen was unsuccessful in his bid to place a moratorium on approving additional charters.
Facts & Questions about the 2006 Madison School District Referendum
Questions:
What is the anticipated cost of equipping the Leopold addition and the elementary school at Linden Park? Are those projected costs included in the referendum authorization or not?
What is the anticipated cost of operating the Leopold addition and the elementary school at Linden Park? How will those costs be appropriated/budgeted (and in what years?) given that the Board expects to have to cut $6-8 million per year?
What are the “shared revenue” total costs for each of three parts of the referendum question? Are these costs included in the $29.20 estimated cost for a median assessed home-owner? Please provide the ‘working papers’ or calculations arriving at these costs. How can a home-owner figure the annual cost of this referendum for the assessed value of their home?
What information about the Ridgewood complex and projected enrollment was used to calculate the need for the Leopold addition?
Construction has already begun for the Leopold addition without voter/taxpayer approval. What is the current impact on the operations budget? What would be the future impact on the operations budget if the referendum fails?
6 city students get perfect ACT score
They began by seeking balance, and wound up finding perfection.
An unprecedented six Madison School District students attained a perfect score on recent ACT college entrance exams, district officials said Friday.
Just 11 Wisconsin students received a score of 36, the top possible mark, out of 45,500 tested in April and June.
During that period, 178 of 837,000 students nationwide received a perfect composite score in the assessment of English, mathematics, reading and science skills.
“I want to start by saying, ‘Wow!’ ” Pam Nash, the assistant superintendent overseeing Madison’s middle and high schools, told the students, their parents and educators Friday at a celebration at West High School.
More on the ACT scores here and here.
The Badger Herald has more:
Though Nash argued the quality of Madison’s public high schools contributed to the scores, she added natural talent, intelligence and hard work from the six students was also crucial to their success.
“Reading is important, and Madison emphasizes that,” Nash said. “But the kids themselves … chose the academic route.”
But Poppe, a Madison West senior surprised with the outcome of the test, attributes his perfect score to a healthy breakfast and a little practice.
“I did one of the practice tests and made sure to get a good breakfast,” he said. “I think a lot of the classes I took earlier in high school helped, but I think some people are more comfortable in a testing environment.”
100 Black Men Back to School Backpack Filling and Give-Awa
via a Johnny Winston, Jr. email:
100 Black Men of Madison Back to School Backpack Filling and
The 10th Annual Back to School Picnic & Backpack Give-Away
For more information please contact Wayne Canty at 332-3554.
100 Black Men of Madison will distribute 2,400 backpacks to needy elementary and middle school students on Saturday August 26th at Tenney Park. But before we distribute the backpacks, the members of the 100 Black Men of Madison and numerous other volunteers will fill these backpacks with school supplies on Wednesday August 23rd and Thursday August 24th from 6 pm to 9 pm both nights at The National Guard Armory, 2402 Bowman Street. This is a great human-interest story for your readers, viewers or listeners. This is the 10th anniversary of the Back to School Picnic. The number of backpacks given to students has been growing each year from 300 the first year too 2,400 backpacks this year. This is an 800% increase in 10 years. St. Vincent de Paul, Delta Sigma Theta sorority and other members of the community will assist the 100 Black Men of Madison in their efforts for this years Back to School Picnic. Sponsors of this event include Target Inc, Kraft Foods, Famous Footwear, Anchor Bank, Glass Nickel, Coca Cola, and former University of Wisconsin Badger football star and Minnesota Vikings player Erasmus James.
Back Pack Stuffing will take place on Wednesday August 23rd and Thursday August 24th from 6 pm to 9 pm at the National Guard Armory at 2402 Bowman Street. Go down Wright Street past MATC Truax all the way to Mitchell Street and turn right into the Armory parking lot.
The 10th Annual Back to School Picnic will be held on Saturday August 26th at 11 am at Tenney Park Shelter located on 1338 E. Johnson St. This is a new location this year. The picnic includes free hotdogs, hamburgers and backpacks filled with school supplies for elementary and middle school students. 2,400 backpacks will be given out this year a 33% increase over last year. It is first come, first serve. This event will happen rain or shine. Students must be present to receive a backpack. For more information please contact Wayne Canty at 332-3554 or wcanty@kraft.com.
Black students boost ACT scores
Madison students continue to top state average
By TCT staff, news services
Madison high school students bested the state ACT test score average once again for the 12th straight year, with scores of African-American students rising at a greater pace than all other students.
ACT test score comparisons were released today.
According to the Madison Metropolitan School District, the composite score for Madison students was 24.2, or two points higher than the statewide average of 22.2 and more than three points higher than the national average of 21.1. A perfect score is 36.
African-American students in Madison scored an average composite of 18.8, a 6 percent increase from the 17.7 average in 2005, while Asian students had a 23.0 composite this year (22.1 in 2005) and Hispanic students a 21.8 composite (21.5 in 2005).
The big increase in black students’ scores closed the gap on white students’ scores locally, with the white students composite of 24.8, 24 percent higher than the black students composite, down from a 30 percent gap last year.
ACT scores are best in 20 years, with a catch, MMSD Curriculum & Upcoming Elections
The issue of curriculum quality and rigor continues to generate attention. P-I:
The good news is that the high school class of 2006 posted the biggest nationwide average score increase on the ACT college entrance exam in 20 years and recorded the highest scores of any class since 1991.
The bad news is that only 21 percent of the students got a passing grade in all four subject areas, including algebra and social science.
“The ACT findings clearly point to the need for high schools to require a rigorous, four-year core curriculum and to offer Advanced Placement classes so that our graduates are prepared to compete and succeed in both college and the work force,” Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in Washington, D.C.
Alan Borsuk has more:
Wisconsin high school graduates are better prepared to succeed in college than students nationwide – but that means only that more than 70% of state students are at risk of having trouble in one or more freshman-level subjects while the national figure is almost 80%, according to ACT, the college testing company.
The message still isn’t getting across,” Ferguson said in a telephone news conference. If students want to go to college and do well, they have to take high school seriously and take challenging courses, he said.
ACT results showed that students who took at least four years of English and three years each of math, science and social studies in high school did substantially better on the tests (22.9 in Wisconsin, 22.0 nationwide) than those who took lighter loads in those core areas (21.0 and 19.7, respectively).
Elizabeth Burmaster, Wisconsin’s superintendent of public instruction, said she believes that if schools in Wisconsin stay focused on efforts such as early childhood education and small class sizes in the early grades, combined with strong academic programs in middle school and high school, achievement will go up and racial and ethnic gaps will close.
Individual state data is available here.
Burmaster’s statement, along with the ACT information will increase the attention paid to curriculum issues, such as the ongoing questions over the Madison School District’s math program (See UW Math professor Dick Askey’s statement on the MMSD’s interpration and reporting of math scores). Will we stick with the “same service” approach? This very important issue will be on voters minds in November (referendum) and again in April, 2007 when 3 board seats are up for election. See also the West High School Math Faculty letter and a recent open letter to the Madison School District Board and Administration from 35 of the 37 UW Math Department faculty members. Vaishali Honawar has more.
The Madison School District issued a press release on the recent ACT scores (68% of Wisconsin high school graduates took the ACT – I don’t know what the MMSD’s percentage is):
Madison students who took the 2006 ACT college entrance exam continued to outperform their state and national peers by a wide margin, and the scores of Madison’s African-American test takers increased significantly. Madison students’ composite score of 24.2 (scale of 1 to 36) was higher for the 12th straight year than the composite scores of Wisconsin students and those across the nation (see table below). District students outscored their state peers by 9% (24.2 vs. 22.2,) and their national peers by 15% (24.2 vs. 21.1).
Compared to the previous year, the average ACT composite score among the district’s African-American students increased 6% — 18.8 vs. 17.7 last year. The gap between district African-American and white student ACT scores decreased this year. The relative difference this year was 24% (18.8 vs. 24.8) compared to 30% last year.
Scores also increased this year for the district’s Asian students (22.1 to 23.0) and Hispanic students (21.5 to 21.8).
The Madison School District recently published this summary of student performance vs other similar sized and nearby districts (AP, ACT and WKCE) here. Madison’s individual high schools scored as follows: East 22.9, LaFollette 22.1, Memorial 25.1 and West 25.5. I don’t have the % of students who took the ACT.
I checked with Edgewood High School and they have the following information: “almost all students take the ACT” and their composite score is “24.4”. Lakeside in Lake Mills averaged 24.6. Middleton High School’s was 25 in 2005. Verona High School’s numbers:
222 students took the ACT in 2005-2006.
Our composite score was 23.6 compared to the state at 22.2
87% of test takers proved college ready in English Composition (vs. 77%)
66% of test takers proved college ready in College Algebra (vs. 52%)
77% of test takers proved college ready in Social Science (vs. 61%)
45% of test takers proved college ready in Biology (vs. 35%)
37% of test takers proved college ready in all four areas (vs. 28%)
(#) as compared to the state %
Waunakee High School:
Score HS Mean (Core/Non-Core)
Composite 23.3 (24.3/21.5)
English 22.5 (23.9/19.5)
Mathematics 23.2 (24.2/21.8)
Reading 23.3 (24.1/21.5)
Science 23.7 (24.4/22.7)
McFarland High School’s 2006 Composite average was 23.7. 110 students were tested.
UPDATE: A few emails regarding these results:
- On the Waunakee information:
In the Waunakee information I sent to Jim Z, our mean for the Class of 2006 comes first, followed by the core/non-core in parentheses. So, our mean composite score for our 157 seniors who sat for the ACT was 23.3, the mean composite for those completing the ACT suggested core was 24.3, the mean composite for those who did not complete the core was 21.5.
With ACT profile reports, the student information is self-reported. It’s reasonably accurate, but some students don’t fill in information about course patterns and demographics if it is not required.
Please let me know if there are any other questions.
- McFarland data:
It appears that Jim Z’s chart comparing scores uses Waunakee’s “Core score” as opposed to the average composite that the other schools (at
least McFaland) gave to Jim Z.. If Jim Z. wishes to report average “Core” for McFarland it is 24.5. Our non-core is 22.2 with our average composite 23.7. - More on the meaning of “Core”:
Probably everyone is familiar with the ACT definition of core, but it’s 4 years of English, and three years each of math, science, and social studies. ACT is refining their position on what course patterns best position a student for undergraduate success, however.
Additional comments, data and links here
Acting White
Donna Ford, Ph.D., and Gilman Whiting, Ph.D., both of Vanderbilt University, are two leading African American education scholars who have dedicated their professional lives to the issue of minority achievement. Professor Ford is a nationally recognized expert in gifted education, multicultural education, and the recruitment and retention of diverse students in gifted education. Professor Whiting is a nationally recognized expert in African American male achievement and under-achievement. Professors Ford and Whiting made a two-part visit to the MMSD earlier this year, the result of an invitation from Diane Crear, recently retired MMSD Special Assistant to the Superintendent for Parent-Community Relations. As part of their program for minority parents, Professors Ford and Whiting talked about the research that attests so clearly to the importance of books in the home, reading to our children, talking with our children in intellectually stimulating ways, and taking an active interest in our children’s educational experience. They also showed the following segment from a June, 1999, episode of ABC’s “20/20.” The segment is entitled “Acting White” and was filmed at our own Madison East High School. It is thought-provoking, to say the least, and generated a lot of discussion amongst those in the audience last March when it was shown. We offer it to SIS readers for their thoughtful consideration.
For more on the work of Drs. Ford and Whiting, here are two recent papers:
Ford, D. Y. & Whiting, G. W. (2006). Under-Representation of Diverse Students in Gifted Education: Recommendations for Nondiscriminatory Assessment (Part 1). Gifted Education Press Quarterly, 20(2), 2-6.
Moore, J. L., Ford, D. Y., & Milner, R. (2005). Recruitment Is Not Enough: Retaining African American Students in Gifted Education. Gifted Child Quarterly, 49, 51-67.
100 Black Men of Madison Presents its Annual African American History Challenge Bowl
Via a Johnny Winston, Jr. email:
On Saturday May 6th, 2006 the 100 Black Men of Madison presents its Annual African American History Challenge Bowl at 8:30 a.m. This event will be located at 545 W. Dayton St. in Madison at the MMSD Doyle Administration Building, McDaniels Auditorium.
The African American History Challenge Bowl is a competition where teams of middle and high school students from the Madison School District and Edgewood answer questions based on African American history. Winners of the local contest are awarded savings bonds and an all expense paid trip to the national competition where they will compete against other chapters of the 100 Black Men of America in Atlanta, Georgia.
This event is free to the public. We are encouraging our community to attend. This event will televised live on MMSD Cable Channel 10.
West HS English 9 and 10 Again — No Child Moves Ahead
Several of us received the following email today from Ted Widerski, MMSD TAG (“Talented and Gifted”) Resource Teacher for Middle and High Schools. Ted has been working with other District and West HS staff to find a way to allow West 9th and 10th graders who are advanced in English to grade accelerate in English, whether through the INSTEP process or some other method.
Here is what he wrote:
Parents –
On Wednesday, April 12th, Welda Simousek and I met with Pamela Nash, Mary Ramberg, Mary Watson-Peterson, Ed Holmes, and Keesia Hyzer to discuss In-STEP procedures for students in English 9 and/or 10. Through this discussion, it became clear that there was no reasonable method available at this time to assess which students might not need to take English 9 or 10 because part of what is learned in English classes comes through the processes of analysis, discussion, and critical critiquing that are shared by the entire class. An alternative assessment approach was discussed: having students present a portfolio to be juried. This approach would require a great deal of groundwork, however, and would not be available yet this spring. It will be looked at as a possibility for the future.
Please keep in mind that it is the intention of West High School to offer meaningful and challenging English courses for all levels of students. It is also the usual TAG Classroom Action Summary and In-STEP approach to have students be present in a classroom for a period of time before it is possible to assess whether they are extremely beyond their classroom peers and need a different option. Welda will follow up with teachers and students in the fall to ascertain progress for students during the first semester. The use of the Classroom Action Summary and In-STEP approach (with a brainstorming of possible options) will be reviewed again at the end of semester one.
Please feel free to contact me with further questions.
Ted Widerski
Talented and Gifted Resource Teacher
Madison Metropolitan School District
I replied to Ted (copying many others, including parents, Teaching and Learning staff, Art Rainwater, Pam Nash, the BOE, and West HS staff), saying that this is a case of unequal access to appropriate educational opportunities because of how poorly West HS provides for its 9th and 10th graders who are academically advanced in English, as compared to the other three high schools.
Here is my reply:
Young Madison Activists Reflect On Resistance
Three years ago, a group of fifth-graders at Madison’s Crestwood Elementary School took on “The Man,” as they like to put it.
The students, dubbed the “Recess Rebels,” tried to restore an outdoor recess that administrators had removed in a restructuring of the school day.
They didn’t win, but they claimed a few victories along the way, such as forcing a districtwide vote by all elementary teachers on the issue.
The students, now eighth-graders at Jefferson Middle School, have given up the fight but not the passion.
Six of them will present a 90-minute workshop Thursday at the National Service Learning Conference in Philadelphia titled “Taking a Stand: Empowering Youth in the Community.” The students wrote a proposal for the workshop and were accepted to present.
About 2,000 educators and 1,000 students are expected to attend the conference, which promotes an educational method in which students identify and address community needs. Former President Clinton is the keynote speaker.
By Doug Erickson, Wisconsin State Journal, March 21, 2006
derickson@madison.com 608-252-6149
Good goals, flawed reasoning: Administration Goes Full Speed Ahead on English 10 at West High
At January and February school board meetings, Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater reported on the administration’s plan to go ahead with one English course for all tenth graders at West High School starting in 2006-07. The goal of the plan is to increase academic opportunity for students of color. The mechanism is to teach all students the same curriculum, leaving it up to teachers to “differentiate” their approach and give equal challenge to every student. The school board has taken no action on this plan and does not plan to adopt, modify or otherwise vote on the plan before it is implemented.
I support the goal. I am not convinced, however, that the mechanism is based, as claimed, on the best research. The presentations to the Performance and Achievement Committee have raised my level of doubt.
At the January 30 meeting, the board heard from a University of Wisconsin expert. His published research on the subject of differentiated teaching concluded that more research is needed on this subject. Where the expert found successful differentiated teaching in high schools,the circumstances of the schools were far different from the circumstances at West High School. For example, successful “differentiated” classes occurred in schools where administration could match the skills and motivation of the teachers to the classes and where students vied for spots in the classrooms. We have a staff based on seniority and teacher options within the seniority system and must accept all students at tenth grade level into the program.
We were asked to consider the Biology I/ Advanced Biology I program at West High as a basis for making the change in the English program. In that program, approximately 20 students qualify for the advanced course and all others take Biology I. We were told that taking Biology I (rather than the advanced course) had not prevented a high percentage of West students from becoming National Merit Semi-Finalists. Never mind that the tests used for selecting the semi-finalists do not test science skills. At best, this correlation shows that taking Biology I did not harm the high-scoring students skills and aptitudes in non-science areas.
Two of our teachers made more persuasive arguments for caution in moving to “differentiated” courses. One cited research showing that the teacher training for these courses is a five to ten-year process. The other teacher gave us the factual background necessary to analyze the administration’s proposal. That teacher’s testimony follows.
Administrator Contracts – School Board Adds to Agenda
An agenda item has been added to tomorrow night’s School Board meeting – Administrator Contracts. The board meeting begins following a 5 p.m. executive session. Meeting location is in Lincoln Elementary School, 909 Sequoia Trail.
I hope the State of WI legal requirements regarding this class of employee contract is presented. Does MMSD meet / exceed these legal requirements? If so, how?
Questions that are not clear to me include: a) is a two-year rolling contract required for all administrators, b) what is the difference between non-renewal and extension of a contract – is the end of January date really an extension?, c)is there a Board policy – if not, does one need to be developed, d) are there options open to the School Board to hold on one-year contract extensions due to upcoming cuts to the budget, e) how can changes be made by moving/retraining staff if needed, and f) can grant money being used to pay for administrators be used in other ways (not including grant oversight/accounting? We’re in the same spot as the past two years – not talking about administrator contracts until one week or so before a deadline.
I feel this information needs to be clear and to be transparent to all employees, the board and the community. I believe a multi-year staffing strategy as part of a multi-year strategic plan is important to have, especially given the critical nature of the district’s resources. This idea is not proposed as a solution to the public school’s financial situation – not at all, that’s not the point.
The $100 budget process is helping the community learn about the fiscal constraints and is an important first step, but this community exercise does not provide for reallocation of resources or different ways of doing things. A next step could help answer the question – now what? A multi-year strategic plan would provide the opportunity for the community to talk about those next steps, convey their values, etc. What does the community want Madison’s public education to look like in five year (ten years), what do we need to do, and what do we need to do differently.
Administrator and Teacher Contracts – Timing and Position do Seem to Matter
Teachers sign their contracts for the next year usually in March – however, this is not a guarantee of a job for next year. Teachers can still be surplused or laid off from their jobs. The process for this is governed by their MTI contract.
Surplusing teachers effects the school budget the next school year, so there is an “immediate” effect upon the number of teachers, upon the district’s educational resources available for children’s learning and upon the budget’s bottom line. This is different for MMSD personnel on administrative contracts. Administrative contracts are in most cases two-year rolling contracts, except as stated in the Human Resources (HR) policy , so the financial effect of reducing administrative positions that are filled can take up to 18 months to be reflected in the budget. Wouldn’t this reduce the Board’s decisionmaking authority during the budget process and potentially put an additional burden of budget cuts on teachers, psychologists, social workers, custodians, etc.?
Does this mean that administrative employees on a two-year rolling contract have 18 months to retrain/to apply for an open position in MMSD or to find a new job while still keeping their current job and getting paid if their contract is not extended. WI law governs some of the policy in place, but I don’t know how much of MMSD’s policy is required by state law, and I don’t know if state law requires contracts for all administrative personnel.
West HS students speek/speak out on English 10
Here are two stories from the December 23, 2005, issue of the West HS student newspaper, The Regent Review. I reprint them here just as they appear in print (that is, with all misspellings, grammatical errors, etc.). (Note: the faculty advisor for The Regent Review is West HS English teacher Mark Nepper. Mr. Nepper has been involved in the development of English 10. Some of you may recall that Mr. Nepper joined English Department chair Keesia Hyzer in presenting the plans for English 10 at the November 7 West PTSO meeting.)
From the front page: “A new English 10 expected for next year,” by CI, a senior at West HS and co-editor of the student newspaper:
In an attempt to bridge the minority gap and continue with the smaller learning communities, Madison West High will tentativly be changing to a core English for all sophomores.
Ed Holmes, current West High principal, says he is doing his best to continue our tradition as a “School of Excellence.” To achieve this ideal excellence, Holmes recognizes that he not only has to raise the standards of the struggling students but also continue to push accelerated students to be better each day.
The goal is to have this new English ciriculum continue to push West’s excellence. The cirriculum will incorporate the current classes of FWW, IWW, With Justice for All, Writers in their Time, and Modern Literture. Now students will read and learn writing habits at the same time so that they can incorporate the new techniques that they are learning into the papers that they write.
West Moves Ahead With English 10 Restructuring
West High School has decided to move ahead with their curriculum reduction plan. The school has posted a document explaining the changes on their website. The one concession that the school has made to parents is their decision not to require students to give up time at lunch in order to earn an honors designation. Instead, there will be an embedded honors component where students will be expected to complete more complex assignments and take more challenging exams. Support for struggling students will now occur in the classroom as well.
From the document:
The staff training necessary for full implementation of the tenth grade English program will include:
• The basics of how to differentiate in the classroom. What is really meant by differentiated instruction? How is it successfully implemented at the high school level?
• Best practice strategies for supporting struggling learners in the heterogeneous classroom.
And the (West HS English 10) beat goes on …”
Here is the email I wrote earlier today to Ed Holmes, Art Rainwater, Pam Nash, Mary Gulbrandsen, and the seven members of the BOE, followed by the reply I just received from Ed Holmes:
I wrote:
Hello, everyone. I wonder if one of you would please send us a status report on the plans for 10th grade English at West for next year? Many of us have written to you multiple times about this matter, but without any reply. We are trying to be patient, polite, collaborative and upbeat (despite the fact that we are feeling frustrated, ignored and stonewalled).
Specifically, would one of you please tell us:
The impossibility of English 10
Forget the philosophies about heterogeneous versus homogenous classrooms. Forget English 9. Forget Shakespeare.
English 10 just ain’t gonna’ work for struggling and advanced student, who we’re told can meet with teachers twice a week during the lunch hour.
A few quick calculations show the glaring impossibility of success for these students.
* Twenty-percent of West’s 10th graders cannot read at grade level.
* Let’s assume a perfect bell shaped curve, which would mean twenty percent can handle work beyond the regular coursework.
* Soooooo, 40% of the 10th graders should be meeting with teachers during lunch.
* West has 535 9th graders this year, meaning that next year 214 10th graders will need to meet with a teacher during the lunch hour. (535 x 40% = 214)
* If they meet with a teacher twice a week, that produces 428 contacts of some sort in the week. (214 students x twice a week = 428)
* Those 428 contacts spread over five days in the week mean that 85 10th graders need to see a teacher during the lunch hour each day.
* Let’s assume that 10 English teachers will be available, meaning that each teacher will be able to meet with 8 students during a lunch hour.
* Going further, let’s assume that in between eating and getting to the class after lunch, the schedule allows 40 minutes for students to meet with teachers.
* If each teacher meets individually with each of the 8 students during those 40 minutes, each student will have 5 minutes with a teacher.
What’s a struggling student or an honors student going to learn in 5 minutes?
Or, maybe West could create 3 or 4 more sections of English 10 to meet during those 40 minutes for those 85 students each day, leading us right back to asking whether those classes should be grouped heterogeneously or not.
In short, the planning for West’s English Curriculum Reduction Plan needs to deal with the reality of only a few minutes a day during lunch to meet the academic needs of 214 students. It needs to deal with the reality of providing academic challenge and producing academic excellence for each and every student at West. The students deserve it.
ps. See what else goes on at lunch at West by visiting the school’s page on more than 100 Lunch and Learn Activities, which run AODA Use Support Group to English Help groups five days a week.
12/9/05 Reply to West Principal Ed Holmes re: English 10
Hi, Ed. Thanks for writing. I look forward to seeing the material you’re putting up on the website.
A couple of other questions —
I’m curious to know what Shwaw Vang has asked you for? In particular, did his request include outcome data for English 9? As you know, many of us think a thorough evaluation of English 9 is the wisest (and most responsible) first step to take in developing English 10. Wouldn’t it be a shame not to avail ourselves of the several years’ worth of data there for the picking?
Also, given that one of the concerns driving the English 10 initiative is concern that some students don’t take the higher level electives and some get through West without any bona fide literature and writing courses, did anyone think about requiring a certain number of upper level electives, literature courses, and writing courses for graduation? That seems to me the most straightforward approach to the stated problem.
I am glad to know that you are starting to see us as your partners in this process — not your adversaries — and that you are grappling with the Very Challenging Truth that West’s diverse student body does not have exactly the same learning needs throughout, thus the needs cannot be met effectively with standardized, cookie-cutter solutions.
Speaking of partnership and the diversity of solutions needed, later today I will be dropping off the 20-minute DVD on the Odyssey Project that Emily Auerbach sent me. I would appreciate getting it back by winter break. Feel free to share it with Keesia, Pam, Art and any others. It’s really powerful. When I think of some of the students who appear in the film being available to dialogue with students and teachers at West, well, I get really hopeful.
Finally, please know that no one is questioning the excellence or commitment of anyone involved in this conversation and struggle. Never have been. I truly believe that we all have the kids as our highest priority.
Have a good weekend.
Sincerely,
Laurie
www.odyssey.wisc.edu
“Schools of Hope” is 10 Years Old: 3rd Grade Reading Scores
During its 10 years, the project has been making a difference to local children, WISC-TV reported.
Since then, the achievement gap has narrowed between students of color and white students who complete algebra by the 10th grade.
At Friday’s Schools of Hope Annual Meeting, the group declared their first goal of closing the gap in third grade reading scores closed. This is something that hasn’t been achieved anywhere else in the country.
Ruth Robarts posts a different perspective and notes that while there has been real progress, the gap has not in fact been closed: “For example, African American third graders scoring proficient or advance has risen from 41% in 1998 to 69% in 2004. Nonetheless, there are significant differences between the percentages of students in subgroups who score proficient or advanced and those who score basic or minimal.” Joanne Jacobs links to two Education Trust reports that describe a “culture of excellence” for high school curriculum.
UPDATE: Sandy Cullen has more on Schools of Hope
West HS English 9 and 10: Show us the data!
Here is a synopsis of the English 10 situation at West HS.
Currently — having failed to receive any reply from BOE Performance and Achievement Committee Chair Shwaw Vang to our request that he investigate this matter and provide an opportunity for public discussion — we are trying to get BOE President Carol Carstensen to put a discussion of the English 10 proposal (and the apparent lack of data supporting its implementation) on the agenda for a BOE meeting. Aside from the fact that there is serious doubt that the course, as proposed, will meet the educational needs of the high and low end students, it is clear we are witnessing yet another example of school officials making radical curricular changes without empirical evidence that they will work and without open, honest and respectful dialogue with the community.
As the bumper sticker says, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention!”
Union Contracts Stymie School Hiring Decisions
Elaine Korry, All Things Considered:
A new study details obstacles in union contracts that schools in big cities face in terms of being able to hire and fire teachers. In as many as 40 percent of teacher openings in five large districts, the study says, school administrators had no say in the selection process.
audio Much more, here.
Questions About West’s Proposed One 10th Grade English Class
Below is the list of questions about 10th grade English that were sent to West Principal Ed Holmes, West English Chair Keesia Hyzer, and Assistant Superintendent Pam Nash (who will be attending the meeting). We explained — again — that our goals in sending them questions before the meeting are to give them time to prepare answers, minimize “surprises” at the meeting, and insure that all of our questions are answered. They are aware that we are posting the questions to this list serve and that many parents in attendance next Monday night will know that these questions have been asked of them. We have asked Mr. Holmes to consider publishing our questions and the school’s answers to them in the next issue of the Regent Reporter (much as Mr. Rathert did with my questions about the SLC initiative a year-and-a-half ago), in order that parents who are not able to attend the meeting next week can nevertheless be fully informed. We also included a few questions about the research on ability grouping and the SLC initiative, more generally, but made it clear that we did not necessarily expect them to be addressed next week.
We hope to see a lot of you at the meeting (7:00 p.m. in the West LMC). Feel free to bring along any additional questions you feel we have overlooked.
Referenda: Elmbrook’s Poll on $100M High Schools
But he said that Elmbrook’s results likely wouldn’t stop other districts from moving forward with referendum plans because the cost of Elmbrook’s plans was more than double what others typically seek.
“The size of the amounts are just so out of line with what everybody else has done that I’d be leery to generalize (Elmbrook’s results) to someone who’s going to ask for $25 million to build a school,” Knapp said.
Spread across the district’s tax base, the five building improvement plans presented in Elmbrook’s survey would have a tax impact on an average $300,000 home of $288 to $363 per year for 20 years.
Eyewitness Report: School Board Decisions on Bus Contracts
A recent editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal claims that the Madison school board rejected Superintendent Art Rainwater’s “painstaking” analysis of known problems with local bus companies when it granted long-term contracts to transport our students to locally owned companies. According to the editorial, the administration informed the Board about safety and reliability problems with some of the companies, but—safety and reliability be damned— the Board rushed ahead. The administration, having taken its stand, then meekly agreed to commit the districts to contracts likely to fail our students and their families.
Time for a fact check. I was there for the administration’s presentation, for the votes on the contracts and for recent Board discussions about the problems that have developed with one of the local companies, Mr. Mom’s.
This is my eyewitness report.
