Denver's New Superintendent

Rocky Mountain News:

Moreover, he will lead the campaign for a mill levy to fund ProComp, the pay-for-performance model that has been approved by teachers and that also has Hickenlooper's support. Indeed, Bennet is so committed to that model that he hopes to negotiate such a provision as part of his own employment contract, a sure sign of confidence that the job is doable and the challenges are not intractable.

On Monday, Bennet said naming a chief academic officer would be among his highest priorities, and that he expects to start a national search for that person soon. That decision, perhaps more than any other he makes early in his new post, could determine whether he achieves the ambitious goal he has set for Denver: to be the best urban school district in the country.

Joanne Jacobs has some useful links behind this story, one of which is Siegfried Englemann's piece on students "who are victims of the unshifted paradigm".

Concerts on the Square: 16 Year Old Violinist

Joan mentioned last night's Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra's Concerts on the Square. The concert included the performance of a Dvorak piece by a 16-year old violinist from Janesville Parker, Saya Chang-O'Hara. Conductor Andrew Sewell introduced Saya as follows (paraphrased): "I don't mean to be political here, but she learned to play the violin in elementary strings".

Keep School Spending in Check

A reader forwarded this Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:

You have to wonder if the members of the Madison School Board couldn't benefit from a remedial math course.

Last week, with the School District facing the prospect of having to cut $3.1 million from its budget, the School Board voted to add $651,400 in spending.

No wonder frustrated School Board member Bill Keys felt compelled to warn: "We have a serious financial problem on our hands. I do think the community and the board is in a kind of denial."

Keys' words deserve the attention of taxpayers not only in Madison but also throughout a majority of school districts in Wisconsin. Any district that denies the looming threats to its budget risks paying a stiff price.

School boards face uncertain budget circumstances. Schools will benefit from an increase in state spending on education in the next state budget. But how big the increase will be remains undecided.

Wisconsin Property Tax Hikes Outpacing Wages

Wistax:

Aids to local governments increased dramatically since 1955, according to the study. Local school aids rose 10.8% per year, while shared revenues to local governments increased 4.9% annually. However, WISTAX researchers point out that there are questions about the long-term effectiveness of local aids for reducing property taxes. Economic research in Wisconsin and elsewhere finds that state and federal aids to local governments only partially offset local property taxes, as a portion of that aid funds new spending.

The study finds that some limits on local governments have been effective at relieving property taxes and some have not. During the 1970’s, the state imposed cost controls on schools and levy limits on counties and municipalities. Due to an increasing number of "loopholes," they were deemed ineffective and eliminated in 1983. Recent revenue limits on schools have been more effective, because they do not have similar loopholes. Counties and technical colleges have limits on the tax rates they can impose. However, large increases in property values have limited their effectiveness.

Simply amazing

This season's Concerts on the Square kicked off with an interesting medley of polka/waltz/cancans, but the best reason to have attended was the performance of a Dvorak piece by a 16-year old violinist from Janesville Parker, Saya Chang-O'Hara. Put simply, she was brilliant. Juilliard should be knocking on her door any day now. It was an honor to hear her play.

But what might be of interest to folks on this site is this: she only started playing when she was eleven, AS PART OF HER SCHOOL'S STRINGS PROGRAM.

FutureTense

Corante launched an interesting new blog on the "Future of Work". Food for thought.

Sherman's Curriculum Riles Parents

Sandy Cullen's article in the June 28, 2005 WI State Journal Sherman's curriculum riles parents notes:

On Friday, the state Department of Public Instruction ruled that under Wisconsin law, instrumental music instruction must be available to all students in grades seven through 12 during the regular school day.

"It is unusual to pull students from one class to meet instructional time in another class," said Michael George, director of the Content & Learning Team for the state Department of Public Instruction, who issued Friday's ruling. "Clearly, they're not getting the same experience as other students."

Besides music instruction, Sherman parents are concerned that few students have the opportunity to take 8th grade algebra and that no child will have the opportunity to take a full year of foreign language prior to high school.

Yehle said middle school is a time when students should be sampling many subject areas to gauge their interests and skills, and should be introduced to what it's like to study a foreign language, rather than develop proficiencies.

Sherman principal Ann Yehle's comments seem at odd with a) Wisconsin's Model Academic Standards in foreign language which call for "... a strong foreign language program beginning in the elementary grades" and b) Wisconsin's Administrative Code - Public Instruction, Chapter PI 8 Appendix 8 Instructional Guidelines which recommend 100 minutes of foreign language instruction per week beginning in Grade 5.

It's hard to see where Sherman Middle School's curriculum is not being dummed down for its students compared to other Madison middle schools and to school districts surrounding Madison WI.

Middle School Curriculum

Much afoot at Sherman Middle school. MMSD will look at developing a district-wide middle school curriculum. While that might improve the mess at Sherman, it might also mean watering down the curriculum, eg. math, throughout the district.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=45223

"School Board President Carol Carstensen, who made it one of her priorities to examine how the district's 11 middle schools are structured and to consider proposals for changes, said that questions and concerns about middle- school curriculum existed before the situation at Sherman boiled over.

"It came to a head around Sherman," Carstensen said.

Among the concerns is whether the kind of preparation students receive for high school varies depending on which middle school they attend, she said.

In one of her first jobs as the new superintendent of secondary schools, Pam Nash will focus on designing a middle school system that is consistent across the district, Rainwater said.

"Each of our middle schools has developed in a very different way," Rainwater said, adding, "It provides a tremendous amount of flexibility."

Carstensen said that while a more centralized model would sacrifice some autonomy and creativity in a school's ability to meet the needs of its specific student population, she believes that all students should have the same opportunities in certain areas, including instrumental music and advanced math classes."

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=45223
Sherman's curriculum riles parents

Sandy Cullen Wisconsin State Journal
June 28, 2005

With continuing controversy over curriculum at Sherman Middle School prompting some parents to transfer students to other schools, School Board members and administrators will review the district's model for all of Madison's middle schools.
Sherman Principal Ann Yehle said she knows of three students who are leaving the school because of the controversy ignited last month when she announced that band and orchestra classes would be moved to an optional eighth hour after the regular school day. On Friday, the state Department of Public Instruction ruled that under Wisconsin law, instrumental music instruction must be available to all students in grades seven through 12 during the regular school day.

Prior to DPI's ruling, Yehle had agreed to offer band and orchestra during the regular school day as well as during the optional eighth hour next year. But some parents are still upset after learning that students might have to miss other classes, such as foreign language or art, on the days they have band and orchestra.

"It is unusual to pull students from one class to meet instructional time in another class," said Michael George, director of the Content & Learning Team for the state Department of Public Instruction, who issued Friday's ruling. "Clearly, they're not getting the same experience as other students."

Superintendent Art Rainwater, who said he will send a letter to Sherman parents today, said that students taking band and orchestra would miss another exploratory class one day a week, where in the past they missed the opportunity to take another entire class. Exploratory classes include music, art, foreign language, gym, healthy living and technology.

Rainwater also said Sherman will begin allowing students to take algebra at their parents' request, addressing another issue of contention at the school.

Many parents are upset that the number of Sherman students eligible to take algebra has dropped dramatically in recent years. They say that Sherman has required students to attain higher scores on an assessment test than other middle schools, preventing many students from taking an advanced math class before high school.

Yehle said she expected eight students to take the advanced math class in the coming year, down from a high of about 25 in years past.

School Board President Carol Carstensen, who made it one of her priorities to examine how the district's 11 middle schools are structured and to consider proposals for changes, said that questions and concerns about middle- school curriculum existed before the situation at Sherman boiled over.

"It came to a head around Sherman," Carstensen said.

Among the concerns is whether the kind of preparation students receive for high school varies depending on which middle school they attend, she said.

In one of her first jobs as the new superintendent of secondary schools, Pam Nash will focus on designing a middle school system that is consistent across the district, Rainwater said.

"Each of our middle schools has developed in a very different way," Rainwater said, adding, "It provides a tremendous amount of flexibility."

Carstensen said that while a more centralized model would sacrifice some autonomy and creativity in a school's ability to meet the needs of its specific student population, she believes that all students should have the same opportunities in certain areas, including instrumental music and advanced math classes.

Many parents have expressed concerns about differences between Sherman and other middle schools in the district, including the way Sherman schedules foreign language classes. Some parents also are dissatisfied with the opportunities Sherman provides for talented and gifted students.

Parent Alan Sanderfoot said those factors prompted him to transfer his daughter Olivia from Sherman to O'Keeffe Middle School, and that other parents are considering doing the same.

As a seventh-grader at O'Keeffe, Sanderfoot said, Olivia will have foreign language classes throughout the year. At Sherman, French and Spanish classes for seventh- and eighth-graders are concentrated into half of the school year, causing concerns among some parents about a gap in learning.

George said foreign language and music are two areas in which "continuous progress is very important."

"Many foreign language programs in Wisconsin begin in the elementary school and have opportunities for continuous progress," he said.

Rainwater said he does not believe the Sherman students experience a disadvantage in foreign language instruction.

Sanderfoot, who has another daughter headed for Sherman, said parents' concern is not just about opportunities for their own child.

"This is people worried about the whole middle school model and what it's going to mean in high school."

School Board member Lawrie Kobza, who was president of Sherman's parent group prior to her April election to the board, agrees that there is a bigger issue behind the Sherman controversy.

She said it appears that only Sherman and Sennett middle schools do not allow students to take a full year of foreign language in eighth grade.

"There's a lot of advantages to it," Kobza said, adding that foreign language looks good on college applications and can save money if students test out of college classes.

Yehle said middle school is a time when students should be sampling many subject areas to gauge their interests and skills, and should be introduced to what it's like to study a foreign language, rather than develop proficiencies.

But Sanderfoot and other parents are concerned Sherman's curriculum is being "dumbed down," which Yehle denies.

There is concern about parents' criticism of Yehle, Carstensen said, adding, "Everything that I've heard prior to any of this is very enthusiastic."

When she became principal 4 years ago, Sherman was considered a school in crisis, and Yehle has been credited with reversing the school's downward spiral.

"Ann has done a lot of good things at Sherman," said Kobza, who worked with other parents and Yehle to turn the school around.

"It's just heartbreaking to me to see this," Kobza said of the current controversy. "It's really just bringing the whole school down."

This fall, Sherman will be entering the third and final year of a comprehensive school reform grant, which has involved examining everything the school does and making changes, which are starting to be implemented.

Carstensen said she also is concerned that parents feel that they are not being listened to, adding that parents need to be involved in the process of change.

Bringing Better Nutrition to School Cafeterias

Talk of the Nation:

The school cafeteria line is hardly the place to develop healthy eating habits. Forget fruits and veggies -- the typical lunch usually contains fast food staples like pizza and french fries. What can -- or can't -- school districts do to make lunches healthier?

audio. Chez Panisse's Alice Water's participated in this program (Waters has been active in Berkeley nutrition programs).

Great Decision Making

The current issue of Fortune (2nd of a 2 part 75th anniversary edition) includes some fascinating examples of leadership and decision making. Jerry Useem summarizes the article.

If surmounting your anxieties is step one, step two is letting go of your inner perfectionist because there is no such thing as a perfect decision-maker. Even if you had all the information in the world and a hangar full of supercomputers, you�d still get some wrong.

But there�s a big difference between a wrong decision and a bad decision. A wrong decision is picking Door No. 1 when the prize is actually behind Door No. 2. It�s a lousy result, but the fault lies with the method. A bad decision is launching the space shuttle Challenger when Morton Thiokol�s engineers predict a nearly 100% chance of catastrophe. The method, in this case, is no method at all.

The distinction is important, because it separates outcomes, which you can�t control, from process, which you can. Wrong decisions are an inevitable part of life. But bad decisions are unforced errors. They�re eminently avoidable—and there are proven techniques to avoid the most predictable pitfalls (see Great Escapes).

20 Decisions that made history is also quite worthwhile.

Leopold Referendum Not in Near Term

Cristina Daglas:

The Madison School Board flirted Monday night with the idea of holding another referendum to seek funding for a second school on the Leopold Elementary grounds, but then backed away from it for now.

The board's Long Range Planning Committee met with parents from Leopold at the school and heard their pleas for another referendum. Two of the three committee members - Juan Jose Lopez and Bill Keys - favored holding another referendum but ultimately moved to table the idea when it was clear that a majority of board members were not ready to go back to the voters so soon after the defeat of a similar referendum on May 24.

Virginia Drops Non-Math Teacher Math Tests

Joanne Jacobs:

Virginia will drop a basic skills test for would-be teachers which measures high-school-level reading, writing and math performance. Instead, the state will develop its own test of college-level reading and writing skills. Only math teachers will be tested on math knowledge.

Here are "advanced math" test prep questions for Praxis I, which is being abandoned. Thirty-five years out of high school, I can do these problems in my head. It's hard to believe there are people smart enough to teach who can't pass a basic math test. How are they going to average students' grades?

Grigsby on WI Sex Education

Rep Tamara Grigsby, via Wispolitics:

• Wisconsin has the highest incidence of African-American teen births in the nation.
• Milwaukee has the highest high school drop-out rates for African-Americans in the country, which is directly connected to the high teen birth rate in our state.
• In 2001, Milwaukee had the second highest teen birth rate of the nation’s 50 biggest cities.
• Wisconsin has the 14th highest chlamydia rate (17,942 cases reported) and the 21st highest rate of syphilis in the nation (5,663 cases reported).
• Almost ½ of all new sexually transmitted infections are contracted by 15-24 year olds, despite the fact that this population only makes up 25% of the sexually active population.

Madison Girls Hockey Not On Thin Ice Anymore

Message from Mitch Wolfe, parent organizer for the program:

The WIAA Board of Controls approved a 7 school co-op which includes all four Madison city schools, Middleton, Waunakee, and Monona Grove for the upcoming 2005-6 season.

Retiring Memorial Athletic Director, Gary Kolpin attended the meeting in Green Lake and presented important background information to the WIAA. Stipulations included that the co-op arrangement would be evaluated after the first year and that no additional girls could be added to the roster after the first game played, which will be 6:30 pm Friday, November 18, 2005 @MIA vs. Superior High School. We are disappointed that the Board of Controls did not allow inclusion of all 10 interested schools for this season. We understand their concern about creating a "powerhouse." The WAHA census data suggests that all current hockey players (not playing for the Capitols) at the 10 schools would all be able to participate and still have less than 20 skaters total.

The time is ripe for the other three schools (Verona, Edgewood, and Oregon) to be part of co-ops for the following 2006-7 season. We have already begun discussions to facilitate the development of Dane County team #2. We are very optimistic that girls from these three schools and the additional five Dane County high schools that currently offer boy's hockey (McFarland, Stoughton, Deforest-Poynette, and Sun Prairie) will have a WIAA opportunity within the next 1-2 years. It will require parental interest and effort at every single high school. Please contact your athletic director and volunteer to organize your parents at your individual school. It can happen.

Once again, a huge thanks to Gary Kolpin, Art Rainwater, Johnny Winston Jr. and the entire Madison BOE, and many others who have supported and encouraged this historic process. There is still much to be done and everyone will need to pitch in.

Please pass the word to all other interested girls and report interest to either Marty Cleveland, Deb Lloyd, Kent Klagos or myself.

Reminder: July 11-14, from 3:30-5:00 Capitol with Troy Ward will be a camp for high school girls at the entire 10 schools. The WIAA permits 5 days of team practice prior to August 1. This should be an excellent opportunity to gain skills, have fun, and meet your teammates.

There will be more to come in the next several days. We are compiling a list of all girls from the 7 high schools and will make that available soon.

Mitch

*Just a friendly reminder that this program is supported by a benefactor and not taxpayer funds. - Johnny Winston, Jr.

Ethnomathematics

Diane Ravitch:

In a comparison of a 1973 algebra textbook and a 1998 "contemporary mathematics" textbook, Williamson Evers and Paul Clopton found a dramatic change in topics. In the 1973 book, for example, the index for the letter "F" included factors, factoring, fallacies, finite decimal, finite set, formulas, fractions and functions. In the 1998 book, the index listed families (in poverty data), fast food nutrition data, fat in fast food, feasibility study, feeding tours, ferris wheel, fish, fishing, flags, flight, floor plan, flower beds, food, football, Ford Mustang, franchises and fund-raising carnival.

......

It seems terribly old-fashioned to point out that the countries that regularly beat our students in international tests of mathematics do not use the subject to steer students into political action. They teach them instead that mathematics is a universal language that is as relevant and meaningful in Tokyo as it is in Paris, Nairobi and Chicago. The students who learn this universal language well will be the builders and shapers of technology in the 21st century. The students in American classes who fall prey to the political designs of their teachers and professors will not.

Teen Screen

Reader David Lehane emailed this article by Evelyn J. Pringle:

he scheme concocted by the pharmaceutical industry and pushed forward by the Bush administration to screen the entire nation's public school population for mental illness and treat them with controversial drugs was already setting off alarms among parents all across the country. But in the state of Indiana, the alarm just got louder.

Tax payers had better get out their check books because school taxes are about to go up as the law suits against school boards start mounting over the TeenScreen depression survey being administered to children in the school.

The first notice of intent to sue was filed this month in Indiana by Michael and Teresa Rhoades who were outraged when they learned their daughter had been given a psychological test at school without their consent.

In December 2004, their daughter came home from school and said she had been diagnosed with an obsessive compulsive and social anxiety disorder after taking the TeenScreen survey.

Does Wisconsin's method inflate graduation rate?

Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/jun05/336091.asp
NOTE: THIS LINK LEADS TO A PAGE THAT INCLUDES A CHART THAT IS NOT REPRODUCED HERE

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Does state's method inflate graduation rate?
Wisconsin says 92% finish high school; report estimates 78% do
By SARAH CARR
scarr@journalsentinel.com
Posted: June 23, 2005

A new report lambastes states across the country for using flawed, and even "irrational," methods of calculating graduation rates that ultimately dupe the public.

The report does not criticize Wisconsin as harshly as a few other states, such as North Carolina, but it does offer an alternative method of estimating graduation rates that would put Wisconsin's rate at 78% for the 2000-'01 school year, 14 percentage points lower than the 92% rate reported for the 2002-'03 school year.

"Every year (states) report these literally preposterous numbers," said Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advocates for disadvantaged students and released the report.

The report suggests that Wisconsin and many other states measure graduation rates in a manner that gives an overly rosy, distorted picture of the number of students who are actually finishing high school in the United States.

"The states that are reporting inaccurate graduation-rate data are doing themselves a huge disservice," wrote Daria Hall, the author of the report. "They're depriving educators, policy-makers and advocates of crucial information necessary to create a sense of urgency for high school improvement. And they're leaving educators vulnerable to accusations of dishonesty."

The authors of the report acknowledge that comparing rates from two different school years is not ideal. But they add: "While a better match of years would of course be preferable, state-level graduation rates do not change so much from year to year that it would preclude this comparison."

For the 2002-'03 school year, Wisconsin determined the graduation rate by taking the number of students who graduated and dividing it by the number of graduates added to the number of dropouts over four years. So if a school had 100 graduates and 25 dropouts, the graduation rate would be 80%.

"It's an estimate, just like ours is an estimate," said Tony Evers, deputy state superintendent for schools, referring to the 78% figure. He added that the state hopes to have a more reliable system - which would track individual students by assigning identification numbers - in place by fall.

"When authors use inflammatory language when none is really needed, I always question their motives," Evers said, in response to the Education Trust report. "But there are things we can learn from this article. We absolutely do need to have an integrated, statewide data system and . . . once we have it in place, we will be in a better position to have much more complete data."
Methods, numbers vary

The Education Trust used a method created by Christopher Swanson at the Urban Institute to reach the 78% estimate for Wisconsin. Swanson compares the number of 10th-graders in one year with the number of ninth-graders in the previous year to estimate the percentage of ninth-graders who were promoted.

He then makes the same estimate for the other high school grades, and multiplies the different ratios to arrive at an estimated graduation rate.

Much of the discrepancy between state results and Swanson's results stems from which students are counted as graduates and dropouts. Wisconsin, for instance, in the past has counted many students who obtain GEDs as graduates, not dropouts. But Joe Donovan, a spokesman for the state's Department of Public Instruction, said Wisconsin is moving toward a more stringent definition in which more students would be counted as dropouts.

Walter Secada, a professor of teaching and learning at the University of Miami who wrote a study on Hispanic graduation rates, said he "would probably trust the Urban Institute's way (of estimating graduation rates) because, essentially, they have no ax to grind. They are a third party that is looking at it in a way that lets the chips fall where they may."

"I don't think states do things maliciously," he added. "But it's important to keep pressure on states to say, 'You really need to improve the methods you are using.' "

Evers said the new tracking system in Wisconsin will allow the state to distinguish between students who transfer to different schools or states as opposed to those who drop out of school. "This is a critical issue, and what causes such variability in numbers," he said.

The Education Trust report also criticizes states that have set low targets for improvement in graduation rates under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The report points out that Wisconsin, as well as 33 other states, actually set goals that are lower than their own reported graduation rates for 2002-'03.

Further, the report notes that a majority of states, including Wisconsin, do not report graduation rates specifically for low-income students or those with disabilities.

Evers said attacking states for setting low progress goals for federal reporting misses the point.

At the local level, he said, people are well aware of the need to improve the graduation rate for Milwaukee Public Schools.

"To say they are not being held accountable is bogus," Evers said.

What schools get SAGE next year?

What criteria does the district use to select SAGE schools?

The board has before it on Monday, June 27, a motion to drop SAGE at Lapham/Marquette (37/24% low-income) and Crestwood (23% low-income). Huegel (41%) and Sandburg (42%) will replace them. The agenda also lists all of the schools scheduled to be designated SAGE schools.

The following schools will be SAGE schools though they have a lower percentage of low income students than Lapham’s 37%: Chavez (29%), Muir (29%), Shorewood (28%), Stephens (32%).

The following schools with particularly high percentages of low-income students do not appear on the list: Glendale (67%), Lincoln (70%), Mendota (73%), Midvale (65%), and Nuestro Mundo (45%).

The MMSD Web site has a list of low-income students in all schools.

Here are the schools with the percentage of low-income students in 2004:

63% Allis
29% Chavez
23% Crestwood
62% Emerson
50% Falk
23/25% Franklin/Randall
63% Hawthorne
64% Lake View
37/24% Lapham/Marquette
53% Leopold
60% Lindbergh
54% Lowell
29% Muir
49% Schenk
28% Shorewood
32% Stephens
45% Thoreau

41% Huegel
42% Sandburg

Education Gets the Schank

Roger Schank spoke at iLaw today:

i had to retire before i could talk about this stuff!

Charles Eliot was the president of harvard 1869-1909 is the most evil man in the history of harvard -- he set up the high school curriculum that is still in place TODAY.

If you ever wondered why you took algebra in high school, is because the guy in princeton was selling a textbook on algebra, so he put algebra on high school curriculum!

i'm a math major and a computer science prof, and algebra has never come up in my life, maybe it has in yours.

Roger C. Schank Backbround

Talking To Strangers

Bruce Schneier:

"Many children are taught never to talk to strangers, an extreme precaution with minimal security benefit."
In talks, I'm even more direct. I think "don't talk to strangers" is just about the worst possible advice you can give a child. Most people are friendly and helpful, and if a child is in distress, asking the help of a stranger is probably the best possible thing he can do.
This advice would have helped Brennan Hawkins, the 11-year-old boy who was lost in the Utah wilderness for four days.
The parents said Brennan had seen people searching for him on horse and ATV, but avoided them because of what he had been taught.
"He stayed on the trail, he avoided strangers," Jody Hawkins said. "His biggest fear, he told me, was that someone would steal him."
They said they hadn't talked to Brennan and his four siblings about what they should do about strangers if they were lost. "This may have come to a faster conclusion had we discussed that," Toby Hawkins said.
In a world where good guys are common and bad guys are rare, assuming a random person is a good guy is a smart security strategy. We need to help children develop their natural intuition about risk, and not give them overbroad rules.

Cap Times Editorial Supports Kobza on Use of $240K

The Capital Times:

Newly elected Madison School Board member Lawrie Kobza was wise to move to use $240,000 in money made available by insurance savings to revive Lincoln Elementary School's Open Classroom Program and to restore "specials" - music, art and gym classes at the elementary schools - to their regular sizes. And the board majority was right to back her move to maintain broadly accepted standards of quality in the city's public schools.

Capital Times Editorial: Board backs school quality

Newly elected Madison School Board member Lawrie Kobza was wise to move to use $240,000 in money made available by insurance savings to revive Lincoln Elementary School's Open Classroom Program and to restore "specials" - music, art and gym classes at the elementary schools - to their regular sizes. And the board majority was right to back her move to maintain broadly accepted standards of quality in the city's public schools.

Kobza's proposal was challenged by Superintendent Art Rainwater, who argued that the money should remain unspent. He said he was uncertain about the precise amount of the insurance savings that will result from recent contract negotiations with employee unions, and warned that the district could lose another $3.1 million in state funding if the anti-education budget proposed by legislative Republicans is adopted.

Rainwater was expressing legitimate concerns. But the School Board cannot base decisions about the programs and the opportunities that are made available to the community's children on fears about what particular legislators will do.

These are hard times for the schools. The defeat of last month's referendums, the threats from the Legislature and the general uncertainty about funding have put a great deal of pressure on the board.

But the board majority has signaled its determination to continue to err on the side of what is best for the kids.

June 23, 2005

Taught at Home, but Seeking to Join Activities at Public Schools by James Dao, New York Times

The New York Times
June 22, 2005

STRASBURG, Pa., June 16 - Mary Mellinger began home-schooling her eldest sons, Andrew and Abram, on the family's 80-acre dairy farm five years ago, wanting them to spend more time with their father and receive an education infused with Christian principles. Home schooling could not, however, provide one thing the boys desperately wanted - athletic competition.

But the school district here, about 60 miles west of Philadelphia, does not allow home-schooled children to play on its teams. So Mrs. Mellinger reluctantly gave in and allowed the boys to enroll in public high school, where Andrew, 17, runs track and Abram, 15, plays football and both perform with the marching and concert bands.

"We grieved about losing the time we had with the boys," Mrs. Mellinger, 41, said outside the 150-year-old red brick house where Mellingers have lived for seven generations. "It seems so unfair. We're taxpayers, too."

Mrs. Mellinger's plaint has become the rallying cry for an increasing number of parents across the country who are pushing more public schools to open their sports teams, clubs, music groups and other extracurricular organizations to the nation's more than 1 million home-educated students.

This year, bills were introduced in at least 14 state legislatures, including Pennsylvania's, to require school districts to open extracurricular activities, and sometimes classes, to home-schooled children, say groups that track the issue. Fourteen states already require such access, while most others leave the decision to local school boards.

But many districts strongly resist the idea, citing inadequate resources, liability issues, questions about whether students would be displaced from teams and clubs, and concerns about whether home-schooled children could be held to the same academic and attendance standards. In some states, districts also lose state aid when children leave to be home schooled, although that is not the case in Pennsylvania.

The push for access is in many ways a new chapter for the home-schooling movement, which for years viewed public education as a hostile, overly regulated system that should be avoided at all costs.

But as the movement has gained more acceptance and grown in size and diversity, more parents want their children to be involved in school activities like chess, basketball or Advanced Placement courses, say home-schooling advocates and educators. Even people who do not want the services argue that other families should not be denied them, seeing access as a civil rights issue for people who pay school taxes.

"We found enough activities within the home-school community to satisfy our needs," said Maryalice Newborn, who runs a support network for home-school families outside Pittsburgh. "But if somebody else wants to participate, shouldn't they have that right?"

Christopher Klicka, senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association, a nonprofit group based in Virginia, said polls showed that a majority of home-school parents remained wary of letting their children participate in public school activities. But as earlier battles over the right to home schooling fade from memory, that attitude is likely to change, he said.

"The further we get from those early days, when there was real persecution, the more people will forget," Mr. Klicka said. "And they will want equal access more."

In Oregon, Colorado and other states that distribute aid based on enrollment, some districts have begun encouraging home-schooled students to take courses, typically in advanced subjects like calculus or foreign languages, said Mike Griffith, a policy analyst with the Education Commission of the States, a nonprofit group.

But most states do not provide per-pupil aid for extracurricular activities, so there is less incentive to allow home-schooled students to participate, Mr. Griffith said.

In Pennsylvania, where the number of home-schooled students has risen steadily in recent years to more than 24,400 children, more districts each year are allowing those students to participate in extracurricular activities, and sometimes classes.

But nearly half of the state's 501 school districts prohibit such access, including many here in rural Lancaster County, a conservative area with one of the largest populations of home-schooled students in the state. Stephany Baughman of Strasburg led the fight to change that policy in one of the districts last year.

Mrs. Baughman has always home-schooled her four children, calling it a way "to speak into their lives." But two years ago, her eldest child, Derek, wanted to join the high school soccer team. The Lampeter-Strasburg district said no. So she petitioned the school board last year to change its policy, turning the drive into a civics lesson for her children.

The board refused to change its policy. So she sent Derek, 15, to a private Christian academy, where he has played on the varsity soccer and basketball teams. Mrs. Baughman hopes the state legislation requiring access will pass so that her 12-year-old son, Brandon, can join the high school lacrosse team while continuing to be educated at home.

"Some families don't want to mix in," said Mrs. Baughman, who gave up a career as a commercial photographer to teach her children. "We're not like that."

Brian Barnhart, assistant superintendent of the 3,250-student Lampeter-Strasburg School District, said the school board remained unconvinced that home-schooled children could be held to the same standards as public school students.

Mr. Barnhart said many parents also worried that home-schooled students would take coveted positions from public school students. "We see extracurricular activities as a reward for students who are complying and who are working through school," he said.

Tim Allwein, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, said many boards believed that allowing home-schooled students into sports and clubs would be an administrative nightmare that raised questions about costs, transportation and liability. For that reason, the association opposes the state bill, saying the decision should be left to the individual districts.

"The single main ingredient to making this work is to have a school board that is open to the idea," Mr. Allwein said. "Not all of them have been."

Such arguments infuriate home-schooling advocates, who say hundreds of districts in many states have resolved those issues.

"It's institutional prejudice," said Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican whose wife is home-schooling the couple's four school-age children. "It's offensive."

The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state teachers' union, has joined the school board association in opposing the legislation, which was sponsored by State Senator Bob Regola, a Republican from near Pittsburgh, and would require districts to allow home-schooled students to participate in extracurricular activities.

Nevertheless, the bill was approved by the Senate Education Committee, and opponents and supporters give it a strong chance of clearing both houses of the Republican-controlled legislature this fall. It is not clear, however, whether Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a Democrat, would sign it.

"He will review the bill when it reaches his desk, but he believes that this is a local decision," said Kate Philips, the governor's spokeswoman.

Both Abram and Andrew Mellinger said that if the bill became law, they would probably return home for their education but continue playing sports and music at the high school.

"I'd love to have them back," said Mrs. Mellinger, who is also home-schooling three of her four other children. "But I can't provide all the opportunities they need. We can practice music. But we can't put together an orchestra."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Newsweek Updates Top 1000 US High Schools List

Jay Matthew has updated his list of the top 1000 US High Schools. The list, known as The Challenge Index, uses a ratio: the number of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at public high schools in 2004, divided by the number of graduating seniors at the schools in 2004. Newsweek says that although the list "doesn't tell the whole story about a school, it's one of the best measures available to compare a wide range of students' readiness for higher-level work, which is more crucial than ever in the postindustrial age."

Here's a list of Wisconsin High Schools included on the Challenge Index. Verona (710) and Madison Memorial (598) were the only Dane County schools included. Milwaukee Rufus King was the top ranked Wisconsin school on the list at 215.

Tom Kertscher takes a look at a recent addition to the list, Grafton High School.

Let them Control Their Culture

From this week's iLaw conference: "Teach the kids to code. Teach the artists to code. Let them control their own culture." Are we fostering consumers or creative types? Follow the discussion here.

Dept of Admin June 21 Memo on per-student revenue

http://www.thewheelerreport.com/releases/June05/June22/0622doaschools.PDF

Date: June 21, 2005

To: Marc Marotta
Secretary
From: David Schmiedicke
State Budget Director

Subject: School District Revenue Limits -- REVISED

We have received a number of inquiries regarding the impact of the reduction to the allowable per pupil revenue limit increase made by the Joint Committee on Finance (JCF') in its version of the 2005-07 biennial budget bill (AB 100). As you know, Governor Doyle's budget recommendations retained the current law allowable increase, which is last year's allowable increase plus increase in the consumer price
index.

Under current law, the increases are estimated to be $248.48 per pupil in FY2005-06 and $252 in FY2006-07. The JCF version of the budget reduces those increases to $120 per pupil in FY06 and $100 in FY2006-07. For the biennium, this represents a reduction of an estimated $352 million in school district revenues compared to current
law.

On a percentage basis, current law and the Governor's proposal would provide the average district with per pupil revenue increases of approximately 2.9% in each year (over the state average base revenue per pupil of $8,415 for FY05). Under the JCF version of the budget, the allowable increase would be reduced to 1.4% in FY06 and 1.2% in FY07.

The net increase in school district revenue limits after the JCF reductions to current law can also be compared with the increase in the all-funds state budget adopted by JCF. Compared with the fiscal year 2004-05 base of $24.9 billion, the JCF budget increases all funds spending over the prior year by 5.0% in fiscal year 2005-06 and 2.4% in fiscal year 2006-07. The increase to general fund spending in the JCF budget over the fiscal year 2004-05 base of $12.0 billion is 7.7% in fiscal year 2005-06 and 2.6% in fiscal year 2006-07 over the prior year.

We are Our History - Don't Forget It

David Gelernter:

I thought she was merely endorsing the anti-war position. But my son set me straight. This student actually believed that if she had lived at the time, she might have been drafted. She didn't understand that conscription in the United States has always applied to males only. How could she have known? Our schools teach history ideologically. They teach the message, not the truth. They teach history as if males and females have always played equal roles. They are propaganda machines.

Ignorance of history destroys our judgment. Consider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), who just compared the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Stalin's gulag and to the death camps of Hitler and Pol Pot — an astonishing, obscene piece of ignorance. Between 15 million and 30 million people died from 1918 through 1956 in the prisons and labor camps of the Soviet gulag. Historian Robert Conquest gives some facts. A prisoner at the Kholodnaya Gora prison had to stuff his ears with bread before sleeping on account of the shrieks of women being interrogated. At the Kolyma in Siberia, inmates labored through 12-hour days in cheap canvas shoes, on almost no food, in temperatures that could go to minus-58. At one camp, 1,300 of 3,000 inmate

More on David Gelernter.

Unprepared: Back to the Basics in College

Melissa Milios:

n high school, I was a 3.8 (grade-point average) student. It was simple for me to get by with the bare minimum. I just got lazy," says Andrea Edwards, 19, a graduate of Inglewood High. "Now that I'm here, it's embarrassing -- there's so much I just don't know."

"You kind of feel left behind -- like, why is my report card lying?" adds 19-year-old Kiwanna Hines, who was in the top 10 percent of her class at Junipero Serra High in Gardena. "I have my grandma, my auntie, my mom, my cousins -- all of them are depending on me to graduate college. It's a lot of pressure."

The story notes that 8 out of 10 first-time freshman enrolled at Dominguez Hills last fall needed remediation in English and 7 in 10 needed remediation in math. Throughout the 23-campus CSU system, only 43% of the entering freshmen were proficient in both classes. Dominguez Hills president James Lyons summed it up: “There’s a disconnect between what they’re doing in high school to earn that GPA, and what is required and expected at the university level.” Via Eduwonk and Joanne Jacobs

Put "no" voters on task force

The long range planning committee approved motions to address the East and West side "demographics and long range facility needs, including the development of a task force, a charge to the task force, task force membership, task force timeline, and task force process."

The West side task force will presumably tackle the problem of Leopold overcrowding. The body should definitely include representatives of those of us who voted against the referendum on building a second school at Leopold. Hopefully, an inclusive group will produce a proposal that can win wide-spread support. A task force only of supporters will likely fail to gain needed public confidence.

WI State Budget Update

The Wisconsin Assembly approved a new two year state budget early this morning by a 56-40 vote. Spending increases 6.4%, while the percentage of funds generated by sales taxes goes up 9.9%. Governor Doyle proposed a 16% (!) increase in road projects to 4.4billion. Republicans added $93M to that, creating a 18% increase in road spending. State support for local school spending grows 8.6% (458M) to 5.3billion (Doyle proposed a $938M increase, "paid" for by additional state borrowing and transfers from other programs).

• Phil Brinkman does a great job summarizing the budget. I appreciate the fact that he included total spending dollars along with the increases.
• Stacy Forster and Patrick Marley also summarize the Assembly's budget.
• WisPolitics' Budget Blog tracks the Assembly's activities.

Referenda News: Germantown & Racine

Two interesting looks at Referenda activity:

• Tom Kertscher finds that Germantown residents are attempting to raise funds for a High School expansion privately first:

  But supporters of the music programs realize that in Germantown - and throughout the Milwaukee area - most borrowing referendums for school building projects have failed in the past year and a half. So they are trying a new approach: Before asking for public money, they plan to raise private money to help fund additions to the high school.

  Germantown parent John Dawson, who is leading plans for a music referendum, said the message to taxpayers will be "we need your help, but we're not looking for a handout."

• Alice Chang reports that Racine voters approved a $6.45M one year operating referendum (a $17.8M two year question failed this past April):

  The reprieve from financial pressure will be relatively short-lived. The district still faces a $13.4 million shortfall next year and likely will be asking voters again for a boost in funding.

  Rather than resting on the success of the spending referendum, School Board members already were looking ahead to future challenges.

  "We have an obligation to make sure we keep an eye on being fiscally responsible," said board member Randy Bangs, who added that the passage of the referendum proposal was just one battle. "The bigger prize is a better district, which needs the support of the entire community."

  Bangs said the board will continue to search for ways to make the district more efficient so that next year, if finances necessitate it, the district will attempt to pass a spending referendum for a minimal amount.

• Brent Killackey has more on the Racine Referendum

Insights into Promoting Critical Thinking in Online Classes

Daithí Ó Murchú and Brent Muirhead:

At the beginning of the 21st. Century, all educators and all educational institutions, at all levels of education provision, are faced with the greatest time of possibility for change and evolution or stagnation and regression. Barker, 1978 in New York, stated that “action with vision can change the world” and the authors, based on their many years of experience working in both traditional and managed or virtual, E-Learning, lifelong-learning environments contend that the promotion of critical thinking is a key element in meaningful, responsible and soulful learning. Our ‘raison d’être’ as educators is to prepare our students for the society which does not yet exist and in doing so, provide them with opportunities to critically assess and transform their experiences into authentic learning experiences (Ó Murchú, 2005). This article explores the thought processes, realities and perceptions of the authors’ on-going experiences in on-line classes and gives their insights into promoting critical thinking in these Managed Learning Environments (MLEs).

Elementary Specials: Funding Restored for All Elementary Special Classes Except Strings? Can That Be Correct?

At the Monday June 20, 2005 MMSD School Board meeting, funding was restored for music, art and gym elementary specials for a total of about $550,000. Can it be possible that all elementary specials, except elementary strings, would be restored? I can't believe this. Isn't the elementary string course an elementary music special (part of the School Board approved music education curriculum). If this restoration of funds exclude the elementary string teachers, isn't this even more demoralizing to a small group of teachers who have already seen 60% of their colleagues laid off. And, what about the nearly 2,000 children who will only learn half what they previously learned in two years - that's okay? How can these children's education NOT be affected if they are only learning half the curriculum?

The Administration in March and the School Board last night have made all these decisions without asking one single question about the impact of their decisions on what children will be able to learn. They did not ask one single question about what planning has taken place in music education curriculum in the past year. There hasn't been any.

Money is not the only issue. I believe a lack of strategic planning in fine arts is an issue. I'm coming to think this about foreign language and more advanced math in middle school - challenging curriculum in general. Progressive curriculum planning in the face of draconian budget constraints is desperately needed in music education and has not taken place over the past five years that courses have been on the chopping block. Administrative staff admits they have not assessed music curriculum. Without further exploration, staff continues to think only general music is needed. Administrators do not want to pay attention to music education in my opinion, so parents, teachers and the community need to let our School Board know action is needed (comments@madison.k12.wi.us).

Elementary strings has been proposed for elimination for four straight years in one form or another. However, at no time during the past 4 years, has there been any analysis of the music curriculum and standards in light of the financial environment. There has been some discussions about delivery models but no planning to undertake progressive curriculum planning in music - none. That seems a tad irresponsible to me.

Year after year, the community advocates for this program. Yet, in between springs, nothing happens and the downward cycle repeats itself. I've told administrators that the layoffs this spring were not needed. We've had revenue caps for 10 years, we know expenses are rising faster than revenues, we know that fine arts education is at risk early on - yet, no planning has taken place, none.

I simply do not understand where the continued disconnect is, but I do believe one issue might be the assumption by board members that instrumental music does not include children of poverty or minority children - even though the data show otherwise, because more than 600 elementary school children who studied strings this year are low income. I am left with this impression when based upon Board member and administrator comments made to me.

I continue to hear board members speak about the study of music being elite and also 8th grade algebra and middle school foreign language being elite? Elite white? Elite academic? Rather than using the word "elite" I would like to see board members ask questions about "what do our children need to learn" to be successful in high school and to be successful in post high school college or other education? Offering algebra in 8th grade, and helping more children to be successful in algebra in 8th grade is a necessity. So too is a foreign language in 7th and 8th grade, if not earlier. Where do our kids need to be and how do we get them there? If we don't ask those questions and provide the necessary courses, parents will vote with their feet - get out of town.

So, with the restoration of the budget in elementary specials, class sizes for all elementary specials will be the same as last year, but does this mean that 60% of elementary string teachers are still laid off and the remaining instrumental elementary string teachers may be faced next year with teaching at 6-7 schools each week.

Further, in the middle of the board discussion last night, the Superintendent announced, not officially but they have gotten a preliminary nod from the federal government, that the district would be receiving about a $1.6 million PEP grant - physical education. He gave no explanation, nor was he asked by any Board member, what is in the grant and how will the resources be allocated? The administrative staff present at the Board meeting, however, were excited at the prospect of adding an athletic coordinator downtown using the federal grant money, because this person would be covered by grant funds. Do the grant funds have to go for an administrative coordinator position so senior or can the downtown staff already doing athletic work be paid through the grant? I hope someone on the Board asks these questions.

While the School Board does not design curriuclum, they are responsible for curriculum policy - what children learn. By state law, a local School Board is responsible for approving sequentially developmental curriculum in a number of areas including the music and art.

In my opinion, direction from the School Board to the administrative staff is needed in music education before our children lose out all together. Work mostly likely needs to take place simultaneously with curriculum and partnership committees. I personally believe a fine arts strategic plan with an action plan is needed ASAP.

6.20.2005 School Board Meeting Summary

Sandy Cullen summarized last evening's Madison School Board meeting where:

• Board members approved an administrative staff hiring freeze (5-2 with Bill Keys and Juan Jose Lopez voting against it)
• Voted to use 200K in excess district insurance funds for elementary art, music and gym class sizes at 15 students in SAGE schools. (4-3 with Bill Keys, Juan Jose Lopez and Johnny Winston, Jr. voting against it)
• Adopted the 2005-2006 budget 5-2 with Ruth Robarts and Shwaw Vang opposed

Legislative Fiscal Bureau Memo on Proposed Changes to Revenue Limits for School Districts

This June 20, 2005 document is on-line in PDF format at: http://www.thewheelerreport.com/releases/June05/June20/0620lfbschoollimits.pdf

In response to a number of legislative inquiries, this memorandum provides information on
the potential changes to revenue limits for school districts, compared to the 2004-05 base year,
under AB 100 as proposed by the Governor and the Joint Finance version of the budget.

Under the Joint Finance provisions, the per pupil adjustment would be set at $120 in 2005-06
and $100 in 2006-07 and thereafter, compared to an estimated $248 and $252, respectively, under
current law and AB 100. Under the Joint Finance provisions, the low-revenue ceiling would be
increased from the current law $7,800 in 2004-05 to $8,100 in 2005-06 and $8,400 in 2006-07,
identical to AB 100.

The attachments present information to illustrate the possible revenue limit changes under
AB 100 and the Joint Finance provisions compared to the 2004-05 base year.

The Art of Science

Princeton's First Annual Art of Science Exhibition is now online. Via Virginia Postrel.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on WI Budget Debate over Funding Public K-12 Schools

How far can schools stretch their dollars?
Education funding is central to budget debate in Madison
By ALAN J. BORSUK and AMY HETZNER, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
aborsuk@journalsentinel.com
Posted: June 18, 2005

Let's say your parents base your budget for gasoline for the year on $1.75 a gallon.

The next year, Mom and Dad say, we're increasing your allowance to cover $2 a gallon.

But gas now costs $2.30.
54987School Funding
Quotable

There has to be more of a middle ground here that I would challenge both parties to deal with. They’re not serving the state very well with this kind of polarization.

Have your folks given you an increase? Of course. A big one, if you look at the percentage.

Have they given you a decrease? Of course. There's no way you're going to be able to drive as far you did last year with less gasoline.

Welcome to the intense, real and genuinely important debate over state funding of education for the next two years.

Here's a two-sentence summary of an issue likely to dominate the Capitol for the next few weeks as the state budget comes to a head:

Republican leaders are saying the increase in education funding for the next two years, approved by the Joint Finance Committee and heading toward approval by the Legislature itself, calls for $458 million more for kindergarten through 12th-grade education for the next two years, a large increase that taxpayers can afford.

Democrats and a huge chorus of superintendents, teachers and school board members around the state are protesting, saying that the increase will mean large cuts in the number of teachers and the levels of service for children because it doesn't contain enough fuel to drive the educational system the same distance as before.

At the root of the issue is an education funding system approved by the Legislature a decade ago, when Republican Tommy G. Thompson was the governor. It created a cap on how much school districts could spend each year for general operations. In general, two-thirds of that amount was to come from the state with the rest from local property taxes.

The revenue cap plan included a formula for figuring out how much the cap would increase each year. The state has stuck to the formula since then, even as battles over high taxes and school aid have escalated. The revenue cap was to increase $248 per student next year and $252 per student the following year. School districts, which are generally well along in their budget work for next year, have been using those numbers to make plans.

The budget proposed by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle called for two-thirds state funding of schools, a level the state backed away from two years ago. Doyle wanted a $938 million increase in state education funding over the coming two years.

The finance committee, made up of Assembly and Senate members and with a strong Republican majority, voted, among other cuts, to reduce the revenue cap increases to $120 per student for 2005-'06 and $100 per student for 2006-'07.

The resulting $458 million increase amounts to a 2.8% increase in total school aid and school levy credits in 2005-'06 and a 3% increase in 2006-'07. But the committee's plan would allow actual school revenue to grow by only about half of those amounts. The rest is earmarked essentially for reducing property taxes.

The Joint Finance Committee proposal would allow the average district to increase the amount it receives under revenue limits by 1.43% for next year, according to data from the state Department of Public Instruction. In 2006-'07, that increase drops to 1.17%.
Districts decry plan

The Wisconsin Association of School Boards issued a statement saying the Joint Finance plan would mean that, statewide, there would be "an estimated 4,739 fewer teachers over the next two years."

Data from the DPI show that as of 2002-'03, there were about 74,000 teachers statewide. The school board association said the effects of the budget would be widespread and serious.

In the Mequon-Thiensville School District, which expects a drop of 20 students in the coming school year, Superintendent Robert Slotterback said the Joint Finance plan would allow his district's revenue to grow only 0.36% in 2005-'06 and 0.26% in 2006-'07.

The district has cut 20 positions, including 14 teachers, and shut an elementary school to help balance its budget next school year, he said.

"Either they don't understand school finance or they're not being totally honest with the public," Slotterback said in response to Republicans' contention that allocating more money to schools over the next two years is not a cut.

"It's true that it's $400 million over what was spent on schools this year. That would be the equivalent of you at your home having a 10 percent increase in gas and electricity, 4 percent in cost and maintenance stuff you can't really control, and your boss saying 'What are you complaining about? You're getting a 5-cent-an-hour raise.' "

Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent William Andrekopoulos used words such as "catastrophic," "historic" and "devastating" to describe what the cuts would mean. MPS has reduced its teaching staff by more than 10% over the last two years, and Andrekopoulos said the proposed budget, which would provide $40 million less over two years than what MPS was expecting, would mean such things as substantial increases in class sizes.

"We've been making cuts in this district for the last 10 years," he said. "There just isn't $40 million to absorb without it having a direct impact on teaching and learning."

With health insurance costs still rising, Waukesha School District Superintendent David Schmidt said teachers in his school system might receive only 1.4% salary increases next school year, even as the district faces the possibility of $1.6 million in additional program reductions under the Joint Finance budget.

One cut expected in Waukesha: The district estimates it will save $150,000 next school year by reducing health room aide time. Schmidt said such a cut can affect learning.

"When we send a child home who has an asthma issue on a Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock rather than being treated or at least monitored by a health room clerical person, they're home for the rest of the day. They lose learning time," Schmidt said.

State Assembly Speaker John Gard, a key figure in crafting the budget, was unmoved by the school leaders' statements.

"We believe a $458 million increase is an enormous commitment to schools, and at the same time, we're going to keep our word and freeze property taxes," he said.

Asked what he thought the budget would mean to schools, he said: "It means more money. Every school is going to have more money, and I don't know if we'll ever live to see the day when it's enough in (the school officials') mind.

"At the end of the day we are trying to give the taxpayers a budget that they can afford. I know schools are going to say the sky is falling."

But, Gard added, they always say that.
Battle continues

The Joint Finance proposal is not the final act in the budget battle. Doyle is clearly considering how to use the cards in his hand - especially his veto power - to change things. He told teachers lobbying Thursday in the state Capitol that he would keep fighting for education.

Even some Republicans are uncomfortable with the proposed level of education spending.

Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon), chair of the Senate Education Committee, voted for the proposal as a member of the Joint Finance Committee. But he said in an interview that he did not question statements from people such as Andrekopoulos or groups such as the school board association on what the Republican budget would mean.

"Honestly, there will be negative consequences," Olsen said. But he said there also are big problems in increasing state spending the way Doyle has proposed.

"Right now, it's the second act in a four- or five-act play," Olsen said. Much could change before the curtain goes down on the budget process. Olsen said he thought that, in the end, schools will get more money than is now on the table, although Gard dismissed that prediction.

Olsen and other Republicans also have said that if school boards choose, they can go to voters in their districts with referendums to increase property taxes.

Some school administrators criticized both parties for political gamesmanship. They complained Doyle has been ineffective in working with Republicans, and that GOP legislators seem more concerned with backing the governor into a corner than solving problems.

"There has to be more of a middle ground here that I would challenge both parties to deal with," said Keith Marty, superintendent of the Menomonee Falls School District. "They're not serving the state very well with this kind of polarization."

WI State Budget Republican K-12 Proposed Funding - Bad for Children and WI's Economic Future

Please write/call legislatures ASAP - the legislature plans to take up the proposed budget this coming week, and the proposed budget for education is a disaster for our children's future and our state's economic health.

Schultz (WI State Senator, Republican Leader in the Senate):

http://www.legis.state.wi.us/senate/sen17/sen17.html

Gard (WI State Representative, Wi State Assembly Speaker):

http://www.legis.state.wi.us/assembly/asm89/asm89.html

Doyle:

http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/section.asp?linkid=59&locid=19

The Republican legislature is planning to move forward with a proposed state budget that is attempting to back off once again 2/3 state funding of schools with some fancy language. Just like that - saying we are already giving the largest increase in history to education.

Thanks for making the effort to contact GOP leaders and to ask the Gov. to hold firm (which ALL his public statements have indicated that he will, but it's unclear what his veto opportunties will be until the statutory languagefor the budget document is available). This information was provided by:

Joe Quick
Legislative Liaison/Communication Specialist
Madison Schools
663-1902

Republicans in the legislature are trying to get over by saying, "We're providing a record increase in school aids." You have too much money already. Not quite the truth for K-12 public education. The governor's recommendation, also a record increase, allowed for an INFLATION INCREASE to the revenue limits * AS PROVIDED UNDER CURRENT LAW * In Madison, where only 25% of our budget comes from the state funding, and the rest from the local property tax levy, funding 2/3 helps Madison property taxpayers.

This "shifting the discussion" is a key element in the Republican's strategy without talking about what is important - what does it cost to education our children per the State of WI constitution and how will we fulfill our obligation? Both parties need to get serious about discussions about strategies for funding public education in WI. In the meantime, the legislature needs to adequately fund public education through the budget, or through a sales tax whose proceeds only go for education. Education is a major economic engine; our's is sputtering, but not quite shut down. We need to act in the short-term by contacting our legislators and we need to act in the long-term by working seriously toward making education strong inthe 21st century. Please, please contact your legislator now!

Legislatures think you can build a budget by talking about any increase in funding having meaning. Rubbish. Budgets are about priorities and the allocation of budget resources are about our state's priorities. To me, our highest priority needs to be keeping WI's economy strong - the budget discussions this legislature are having are not moving us in that direction. Pettiness, jaded debates dominate our lawmakers' discussions. That couldn't be more apparent than in the discussions on funding education. No discussions about how education is an investment in the future well being of our state for citizens of every age, no discussions about how excellent K-12 and higher education attract talented people to our state and are major drivers of our economy.

Education in Wisconsin: K through UW

Ostensibly about how short-sighted the legislative cuts are to the UW system, this guest MJS business op-ed addresses a few big issues affecting how we finance public education in general.
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/jun05/334962.asp
Of particular interest was this: "Working with a team of business leaders to explore strategies that would free resources to enhance educational outcomes. Do we need 16 school districts in Dane County? Could distance education better leverage UW's teaching stars?

Finding a lower cost health care benefits solution that mirrors private sector changes to build more consumerism into health care decisions.

Working with Doyle to find a better K-12 school financing system that also recognizes the need for some degree of spending limits in our schools.

We do not want to wake up and wonder what happened to the educational system that once made Wisconsin and its businesses so great. Businesses, not to mention our children, will pay the price."

UW deserves our financial attention

By KAY PLANTES
Guest opinion

Posted: June 19, 2005

I wish Wisconsin's legislative and executive leadership followed the example of great leaders who, in the midst of mandatory cost-cutting to avoid losses, understand their advantages and sacrifice everything else during tight budgets to ensure future success.

These same leaders charge premium prices when customers highly value their offering.

It's time Wisconsin business leaders explain these lessons to Wisconsin's legislative and executive leaders, who are allowing the next gubernatorial election's debating points to shape state budgetary priorities. Our state's education system, especially the University of Wisconsin, is bearing the brunt of their shortsightedness. Our economy will pay the price.

Our forefathers sacrificed much to build our exemplary higher education system. As a result, UW-Madison's education and research excellence survives in spite of the state's relatively modest income level. In fact, faculty research talents make the UW System one of Wisconsin's largest industries for bringing money into the state.

Higher education's importance will only increase in years ahead because of three macro forces:

Industry consolidation. With Wisconsin corporate headquarters closing, we need more start-up companies.

Increasingly competent global manufacturing competition. We need cutting-edge technology and workers to stay ahead of China and India before they move into Wisconsin-based capital goods manufacturing industries. Remember "Made in Japan"?

Knowledge economy. We need more, not fewer, adults with advanced degrees.

We will not make these shifts if we lose the competitive advantage that the UW System provides our business community. Yet, over the last 10 years, Wisconsin's support of the UW grew only 12.7% in total, compared to 87.9% in California, 52.5% in North Carolina and 47% nationally. We ranked last among Midwestern states, as well.

Put another way, we invested $13 in the UW per $1,000 of Wisconsin' personal income in 1995. Today, it's $5.

Despite this economically dangerous relative decline, the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee could not find $40 million out of the $12 billion plus in taxes and fees the state will collect to fully fund Gov. Jim Doyle's $50 million request for additional spending for the UW. The university had initially asked Doyle for $81.7 million, an amount to cover increased costs.

How can everything else in the budget be more important?

A UW economist I know told me colleges and universities are all over the UW System right now with offers to star faculty. Faculty stars are like the patents that create a business' revenue stream or the most valued employees that protect it.

Would you let your assets leave without a fight? Our elected officials are asking the UW to do just that. And don't invest in new faculty, either.

If our elected officials cannot find the money in the budget, I advise they raise the sales tax 1percentage point and expand its base, targeting the proceeds to education. An extra penny for our schools is a sound investment in our future, an investment Wisconsin residents would make if they knew the money went directly to education.

In exchange for more funding, Wisconsin's educational systems and teachers union should commit to:

Working with a team of business leaders to explore strategies that would free resources to enhance educational outcomes. Do we need 16 school districts in Dane County? Could distance education better leverage UW's teaching stars?

Finding a lower cost health care benefits solution that mirrors private sector changes to build more consumerism into health care decisions.

Working with Doyle to find a better K-12 school financing system that also recognizes the need for some degree of spending limits in our schools.

We do not want to wake up and wonder what happened to the educational system that once made Wisconsin and its businesses so great. Businesses, not to mention our children, will pay the price.

Kay Plantes is an MIT-trained economist and corporate strategist in Madison. She was the Department of Commerce's chief economist and director of policy development in the Dreyfus administration.

Trends in Grade Inflation, Nationwide

Economist Mark Thoma offers some thoughts on grade inflation:

There are two episodes that account for most grade inflation. The first is from the 1960s through the early 1970s. This is usually explained by the draft rules for the Vietnam War. The second episode begins around 1990 and is harder to explain....

My study finds an interesting correlation in the data. During the time grades were increasing, budgets were also tightening inducing a substitution towards younger and less permanent faculty. I broke down grade inflation by instructor rank and found it is much higher among assistant professors, adjuncts, TAs, instructors, etc. than for associate or full professors. These are instructors who are usually hired year-to-year or need to demonstrate teaching effectiveness for the job market, so they have an incentive to inflate evaluations as much as possible, and high grades are one means of manipulating student course evaluations.

Alex Tabarrock offers some additional thoughts & background links.

TABOR in the News

Paul Caron points to two articles on TABOR:

• America's Next Tax Revolt - Wall Street Journal:

  A Taxpayer Bill of Rights is a long overdue addition to the architecture of state constitutions. Proposition 13 halted the aggressive encroachment of state government more than 25 years ago, but only temporarily: Even after adjusting for inflation, most state tax collections are two to three times fatter than they were then. The painful experience since is that only hard and fast constitutional limits can rein in the powerful spending interests that live off the government.

• Tax Foundation, TABOR, The Cure for Ratchet Up:

  Another important tool in alleviating tax and spend "ratchet-up" is the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). This budget tool requires that excess revenue growth (in excess of population plus inflation) be rebated to the taxpayers. TABOR also requires voter approval for tax increases.

WI State K-12 Budget Summary

Alan J. Borsuk and Amy Hetzner:

Republican leaders are saying the increase in education funding for the next two years, approved by the Joint Finance Committee and heading toward approval by the Legislature itself, calls for $458 million more for kindergarten through 12th-grade education for the next two years, a large increase that taxpayers can afford.

Democrats and a huge chorus of superintendents, teachers and school board members around the state are protesting, saying that the increase will mean large cuts in the number of teachers and the levels of service for children because it doesn't contain enough fuel to drive the educational system the same distance as before.

At the root of the issue is an education funding system approved by the Legislature a decade ago, when Republican Tommy G. Thompson was the governor. It created a cap on how much school districts could spend each year for general operations. In general, two-thirds of that amount was to come from the state with the rest from local property taxes.

The revenue cap plan included a formula for figuring out how much the cap would increase each year. The state has stuck to the formula since then, even as battles over high taxes and school aid have escalated. The revenue cap was to increase $248 per student next year and $252 per student the following year. School districts, which are generally well along in their budget work for next year, have been using those numbers to make plans.

The budget proposed by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle called for two-thirds state funding of schools, a level the state backed away from two years ago. Doyle wanted a $938 million increase in state education funding over the coming two years.

The finance committee, made up of Assembly and Senate members and with a strong Republican majority, voted, among other cuts, to reduce the revenue cap increases to $120 per student for 2005-'06 and $100 per student for 2006-'07.

The resulting $458 million increase amounts to a 2.8% increase in total school aid and school levy credits in 2005-'06 and a 3% increase in 2006-'07. But the committee's plan would allow actual school revenue to grow by only about half of those amounts. The rest is earmarked essentially for reducing property taxes.

The Joint Finance Committee proposal would allow the average district to increase the amount it receives under revenue limits by 1.43% for next year, according to data from the state Department of Public Instruction. In 2006-'07, that increase drops to 1.17%.

.......

Some school administrators criticized both parties for political gamesmanship. They complained Doyle has been ineffective in working with Republicans, and that GOP legislators seem more concerned with backing the governor into a corner than solving problems.

"There has to be more of a middle ground here that I would challenge both parties to deal with," said Keith Marty, superintendent of the Menomonee Falls School District. "They're not serving the state very well with this kind of polarization."

Animosity Toward Band, Orchestra and Vocal Music Curriculum Unnecessary - Alienates Parents, Community

I think what I found most disturbing about the elimination of band, orchestra and vocal music from the school day in Sherman Middle School was the exclusion (almost isolation) of music staff by other Sherman staff from the front of the room at the parent meeting in early June to present the exploratory changes being mandated including questions/issues surrounding the music curriculum at Sherman. I found the a) open irritation by some Sherman Middle School staff toward the music staff shocking, b) the lack of music curriculum assessment and planning for the changes unsettling, and c) the exclusions of parents and students in the process alarming.

An experienced teacher who taught my daughter has done important developing ways and approaches to actively include minority families into the school environment said it best, "Teachers and administrators do not have the corner on all the answers and creative ideas - we need to interact openly and in meaninful ways with our parents and community members." I think this is advice the Sherman leadership would do well to heed. As the new high school principal at East indicated - my plan won't succeed but our plan will.

I think roles, responsibilities, oversight of curriculum quality could stand to be revisited.

Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out

Neal Stephenson:

Anakin wins that race by repairing his crippled racer in an ecstasy of switch-flipping that looks about as intuitive as starting up a nuclear submarine. Clearly the boy is destined to be adopted into the Jedi order, where he will develop his geek talents - not by studying calculus but by meditating a lot and learning to trust his feelings. I lap this stuff up along with millions, maybe billions, of others. Why? Because every single one of us is as dependent on science and technology - and, by extension, on the geeks who make it work - as a patient in intensive care. Yet we much prefer to think otherwise.

Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in hordes. The tedious particulars of keeping ourselves alive, comfortable and free are being taken offline to countries where people are happy to sweat the details, as long as we have some foreign exchange left to send their way. Nothing is more seductive than to think that we, like the Jedi, could be masters of the most advanced technologies while living simple lives: to have a geek standard of living and spend our copious leisure time vegging out.

If the "Star Wars" movies are remembered a century from now, it'll be because they are such exact parables for this state of affairs. Young people in other countries will watch them in classrooms as an answer to the question: Whatever became of that big rich country that used to buy the stuff we make? The answer: It went the way of the old Republic.

Music Education - Learn About the Benefits Before Cutting Curriculum

If there is no money, cut arts education is the decisions administrators make - often, though, without first looking at the impact on student's achievement (using readily available data) or without consideration of the impact on who will stay/leave a school. Couldn't decisions made in the absence of examining data and listening to parents cost far more in lost revenue and prestige than the cost of a class?

When I read about the cuts to music education at the elementary school level, the primary reasons given are that these cuts were due to budget constraints and pull-out programs are difficult to schedule. When I read about the cuts to Sherman Middle School's vocal and instrumental music program from the regular school day, the primary reasons given are lack of interest (decline in enrollment during the past several years coincidentally matches the current principal's tenure) and the principal's requirement for heterogenous classes and mandated exploratory options for Sherman's children.

Yet, when I read the national news, research and hundreds of other documents I learn that a) music improves children's peer relationships and academic performance in schools and b) schools with a signficant low income student body that increase their arts education see significant increases in these children's test scores.

I am concerned that Madison's budget cut decisions and the adoption of "new" models of education that make access to meaningful sequentially developed music classes difficult or impossible are being made without better information about the benefits to Madison school children's learning from fine arts education. We know parents will move (and some are moving and/or making plans to move their children out of Sherman Middle School following the principal's spring mandates) to those schools that offer rigorous academics, foreign language, music and art classes.

What do we know about the effect of cuts to music and art courses on our children's success in school, their interest in learning and improved test scores? What analysis is done, data reviewed, prior to making such major curricular decisions? What options are explored? How are teachers and professionals in the community involved in these decisions?

I'd like to see our Board ask some of these questions. I'd like to see more public discussions of these changes before they are made. Madison schools have a history of music and art classes as part of our children's public education. Before we cut these programs further, we owe it to our children to better understand the positive impacts on their learning from music and art classes. It costs much more money and effort to start all over.

My sense from talking with administrators is that if I have to make a choice between reading and art, I'll choose reading. Sounds sensible enough unless we learn that those art classes were in fact making a positive contribution to a child's ability to read. Current administrators, feeling stressed from budget cut decisions, are falling into the traditional role of keep the basics, cut everything else. The Board and the community needs to help them look beyond that and ask them to explore the data a bit more for our kids' sakes.

There may also be implications for the school district's ability to continue to attract a wide variety of students to its school system, a subject that will wait for another blog.

June 17 MMSD Asks PTOs and Presumably Parents to Contact Legislators

For Legislative Fiscal Bureau policy papers and membership lists of relevant committees, go to: http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/mmsd/leg/

FROM JOE QUICK, MMSD LEGISLATIVE LIAISON

If you have already received this Update, our apologies. We are trying to inform parents about this important budget issue before the Legislature votes next week.

Dear PTO/A Leaders:

The attached information outlines changes Republican leaders made to Gov. Doyle's budget. Please take a moment to call Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz and Assembly Speaker John Gard (contact information in news update) to express your opposition to cutting back on the allowable per pupil revenue limit increase. Gov. Doyle's budget allows a $248 per pupil increase for next school year, the GOP plan, $120 (would require an additional $3.1 million cut to the budget BEFORE it is finalized this October); for the 06-07 school year, the Gov. allows an increase of $252 per pupil, the GOP plan $100 per pupil (would require MMSD to cut $6.9 million in 06-07).

As you know, under current law the district had to cut $8.6 million this year; the GOP proposal adds another $3.1 million. For the 2006-07 school year, again, under current law, the district estimates that the "revenue cap gap" to offer a "same services" budget will be about $7 million; the GOP plan would double that estimate and require a $14 million cut for the 06-07 school year in order to comply with state-imposed revenue limits.

In your contact, talk about what cuts you've ALREADY seen at your child's school. If you have questions, or want more information, please contact me at 663-1902 or via e-mail jquick@madison.k12.wi.us.

Thanks for your interest, and help -- Joe Quick, Legislative Liaison, Madison Schools.

LEGISLATIVE NEWS UPDATE

Number 4, June 13, 2005

GOP guts Doyle’s education budget
JFC proposes revenue limit increase below inflation

Republican legislative leaders touted an “historic increase in school aids,” but they decimated Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget proposal to have the state pick up two-thirds of the total cost of K-12 education in Wisconsin, and they offered only a 1.4% increase on the per pupil revenue limit increase as the Joint Finance Committee (JFC), on an 11-5 vote, finished its work on the 2005-07 biennial budget. The bill now moves to the Assembly.

In a late-afternoon news conference Doyle said the Republican budget was one of the largest cuts to K-12 education in decades. "We are now seeing the results of making education the last priority on their agenda. By the time they got around to education, there was no money left to support our schools. Quite simply, their budget is a cruel hoax on schools and property taxpayers. I will use every power at my disposal to make sure that we get a budget that is fair to both property taxpayers and our schools."

The reduction in the allowable per pupil revenue limit increase could be devastating to the state’s schools. The Department of Public Instruction estimates that the reduction to $120 per pupil increase for 2005-06 (from $248 per current law) and to $100 per pupil increase (from an estimated $252 per student) in 2006-07 would be a loss of $350 million in resources for Wisconsin’s schools.

For Madison, the Governor’s budget office estimated that another $3.1 million would have to be cut by October for 05-06(on top of the $8.6 million already cut) and an additional $7 million for 2006-07. The district estimates that under current law, the “revenue cap gap” in 2006-07 would be about $7 million, so the GOP proposal would translate into a $14 million cut that school year.

The allowable increase in revenue limit authority proposed by the GOP would be a 1.4% increase. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Web site, for the period of April 2004 through April 2005, the Consumer Price Index is running at about 3.5% - with energy costs up 17.1% for the same perio