Commercialism & High School Sports

Robert Andrew Powell takes a rather amazing look at the EA Sports Elite 11, a "camp" for the top 12 (following the Big Ten's math example, there are 12 high school quarterbacks in this California camp):

Cody Hawkins arrived from Boise, Idaho, wearing Converse sneakers and a rainbow-colored polo shirt he bought for $3 at Goodwill. As soon as he set foot on campus here Monday, Hawkins, along with 11 other top high school quarterbacks, was handed new gear. In an oversized black Nike duffel bag, he found pairs of Nike Shox running shoes and cleats, and a Nike football, the only brand he would be allowed to use for the next four days.

Nike is an official sponsor of the EA Sports Elite 11, which its organizers call a "campetition" for quarterbacks. Orange-flavored Cytomax is the camp's official sports drink. Muscle Milk Carb Conscious Lean Muscle Formula is the official protein drink, available in vanilla creme, chocolate creme and banana creme flavors. For dinner, campers ate barbecued ribs, chicken breasts and dollops of garlic mashed potatoes provided by Outback Steakhouse, a camp sponsor.

$25 Per Quarter For Perfect Attendance

Sara Miller:

Under a new plan, a student who misses not a single day per quarter will receive $25 in an account - redeemable upon graduation. In doing so, the school joins a number of districts throughout the country turning to incentives to boost test scores, GPAs, and student turnout.

Via Joanne Jacobs.

Milwaukee: Middle Schoolers Perform Better in a K-8 Setting

Sarah Carr:

Suspensions are down. Test scores and attendance are up. And many people are happier.

So concludes a first-of-its-kind report in Milwaukee on how sixth- through eighth graders are faring in the school district's rapidly growing number of kindergarten through eighth-grade (or K-8) schools.

In a relatively short period of time, K-8s have expanded to dominate the school landscape in Milwaukee and other cities such as Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Philadelphia, so the report will be heavily scrutinized here and elsewhere.

In 2000, there were only about 10 K-8 schools in the Milwaukee Public Schools district; this fall there will be 61 K-8 schools, including those that are transitioning to become K-8s. Meanwhile enrollment in traditional middle schools is expected to plummet by 16% in one year alone, from about 13,200 students last fall to about 11,050 this fall.

Simpson Street Free Press

On Thursday July 21st, I was asked to speak to a group of students at the Simpson Street Free Press regarding the recent budget cuts and threats to music and fine arts programming in the MMSD. I have to say that I really enjoy the opportunity to speak with students. I feel it is very important to listen to their issues as well as giving them the opportunity to hear an adult perspective.

First, I was given a tour of their facility (which is located across from South Towne Mall). It is basically one large room with many tables, computers and a lot of dinosaur books. I wondered why so many dinosaur books? Apparently, some students sometimes have to submit an article as many as seven times to be proofread before being published. Hence the reason for so many dinosaur books – they never go out of date because they’re extinct! I was impressed with the professionalism in which the young writers did their work at a whisper noise level. At the time of my visit, there were about twenty-five students working on different aspects of the newspaper. It truly reminded me of the Wisconsin State Journal and Capital Times newsroom (which I was at earlier that same day talking with Christina Daglas).

Also, I was able to meet the students “to put faces with the names.” These students included Jazmine Jackson (who wrote an excellent composition on minority student achievement gap – published on SIS), Andrea Gilmore (who wrote an editorial on 4th and 5th grade strings program becoming part of the Elementary school curriculum – published in the State Journal and on SIS) and Si Si Chen (whose editorial was published in the Wisconsin State Journal) and Charles Peterson.

Next, I met with this small group of students along with several others including a couple of members of the board of directors (Jim Pliner, Athletic Director of LaFollette and Godwin Amegashie, state Director of Minority Business Programs) and program organizer Jim Kramer. The students asked many questions regarding the recent referenda, the budget and of course, “Why are programs being cut?” These students also talked about their own challenges of being one of few racial and ethnic minorities in band, orchestra, fine arts and advanced placement courses. I challenged them to continue their leadership by recruiting others to join them and to stay involved in their classes/programs no matter what the racial/ethnic composition of the class is.

In closing, I thoroughly enjoyed my time listening and speaking with students at the Simpson Street Free Press. These students are very smart, mature beyond their years and enthusiastic about education. There’s no doubt in my mind that these students are going to be successful! I look forward to shaking their hands in the future on graduation day. I encourage everyone to read the Simpson Street Free Press. It is a free publication available at many local businesses. Better yet, donate some money, time or even volunteer. I’m going to.

Donations can be sent to: Simpson Street Free Press P.O. Box 6307 Monona, WI 53716. Prospective volunteers should contact Jim Kramer at (608) 223-0489 or ssfp@itis.com. The website is www.simpsonstreetfreepress.org.

Teacher Merit Pay

Joanne Jacobs has an interesting set of links and comments on teacher merit pay:

Teacher Quality Bulletin's merit pay round-up includes a story on a privately funded plan at an elementary school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Each teacher got a bonus based on the percentage increase in her students' test scores.

For each pupil who made up to a 4 percent gain on the May test when compared with the pre-test last August, the teacher was entitled to $100. For each pupil who made a gain of between 5 percent and 9 percent, the bonus was $200. If the pupil’s gain was between 10 percent and 14 percent, the bonus was $300 and if the gain exceeded 15 percent, the bonus was $400.

Bonuses ranged from $1,800 to $8,600, and cost $65,000. The entire cost was $145,000 including testing costs and bonuses -- based on the overall 17 percent gain of students schoolwide -- to 25 other employees, including math and literacy coaches, the media specialist and maintenance and cafeteria workers.

In Florida, some districts give merit pay to many teachers; others have plans that make it impossible to qualify. The union wants it that way.

The Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association was bitterly opposed to performance pay and helped set the eligibility bar so high that union chief Jade Moore said it would "make it nearly impossible" for any teachers to earn them.

Hillsborough is more flexible and leaves much of the bonus-granting power in the hands of principals.

Meanwhile Florida is having trouble with teacher certification scams (pdf). One 24-year-old claimed to have earned a bachelor's, master's and doctorate within three months.

School district dishes up nutritious meals for hungry families

School's out for summer, but lunch is still served by the Madison Metropolitan School District.

Over the summer, the district serves lunch - and breakfast - five days a week at 31 schools, community centers and other local sites.

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/local//index.php?ntid=48680

State Debt Rises Along with School Funds

Karen Lincoln Michel:

Wisconsin schools got the budget increases they wanted, but the money comes at a cost of $195 million in debt interest over the next 20 years, according to figures by the governor’s budget office.

In the state budget signed Monday, Gov. Jim Doyle through his partial veto power transferred $159 million from the transportation budget to the general fund to help pay for the $861 million increase in K-12 funding.

To recapture some of the costs while maintaining all current road projects slated for the 2005-07 budget, Doyle created $213.1 million in bonding to fund the Marquette Interchange project in Milwaukee — resulting in $158 million in debt interest over the next 20 years. In addition, Doyle authorized $52 million in bonding for major road projects, resulting in $37 million in debt interest over the same period.

Teaching Children CyberSecurity and Ethics

Cyber Security Industry Alliance [PDF]:

Just as we teach our children “right from wrong” in the physical world, we must ensure that the same lessons are taught in the cyber world as well.

What is missing here is a focused and organized national effort to teach children cyber security, cyber ethics, and cyber safety with national security in mind. These elements of cyber awareness are vital because pervasive use of the Internet also poses risks that may harm the emotional and personal safety of children. The technology, unfortunately, enables devious and unethical behavior toward people, organizations or information technology underpinning critical infrastructure. The cyber education our children receive does not go far beyond how to turn on the computer and use a mouse. It is incomprehensible that we are not teaching cyber security, ethics, and safety at an early age. Poor awareness by children about cyber security may cause inadvertent damage to their own PC, other electronic devices or personal information, and could ultimately threaten the fabric of our nation’s critical cyber infrastructure.

State Budget Provides Over $26 Million to Dane County Districts

Governor Jim Doyle announced that the 2005-2007 State Budget he signed into law on Monday will prevent more than $26.5 million in funding cuts to Dane County schools that the Legislature's budget proposed.

Following are the cuts that Governor Doyle restored, by district:
• BELLEVILLE $368,424
• CAMBRIDGE $397,800
• DEERFIELD $305,592
• DEFOREST $1,273,368
• MADISON METRO $10,171,440
• MARSHALL $488,376
• MCFARLAND $796,416
• MIDDLETON-CP $2,226,864
• MONONA GROVE $1,139,544
• MOUNT HOREB $841,704
• OREGON $1,408,416
• STOUGHTON $1,476,144
• SUN PRAIRIE $2,155,464
• VERONA AREA $1,815,192
• WAUNAKEE $1,228,080
• WISCONSIN HGHTS $442,272

State boasts lowest school dropout rate

Wisconsin kids boast the 10th highest quality of life and the lowest high school dropout rate in the nation.

That's the good news in a 50-state survey of child and teen well-being released by a national youth advocacy group today.

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/local//index.php?ntid=48386&nt_adsect=edit

UW Madison Math Tutors

I periodically here of requests for math tutors. The University of Wisconsin Math Department maintains a helpful list of tutors here.

Schools get $400M as gov signs budget

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/local//index.php?ntid=48113

By David Callender
Capital Times, July 25, 2005

Gov. Jim Doyle was set to use his veto pen today to restore more than $400 million in new state funding for public schools that Republican lawmakers had cut from his proposed budget and to create a "responsible property tax freeze" for the next two years.

Under the Democratic governor's plan, taxes for the owner of an average Wisconsin home valued at $150,000 would stay the same this year as last year, and would decline by $5 next year.

Doyle was scheduled to sign the new $53 billion state budget into law at a ceremony at the governor's mansion this morning.

"The people of our state have asked us to do four things with this budget: cut spending, cut taxes, make education the priority and freeze property taxes. I'm pleased to say this budget does all four, and we kept the faith with Wisconsin families," Doyle said in prepared remarks for the bill signing.

Despite a $1.6 billion gap between agency requests and state tax collections at the start of this year, Doyle noted that the budget contains no increase in state sales or income taxes.

Instead, the budget cuts state income taxes on Social Security benefits for senior citizens and contains a penny-a-gallon cut in the state gas tax.

In his written message to lawmakers, Doyle said he was using his veto pen 139 times to restore funding lawmakers cut from his budget for public schools and the University of Wisconsin, eliminate "pork barrel" spending, and shift some of the costs of road construction from cash to long-term borrowing.

"While some may criticize me for being too bold, I undertook to reshape this budget to one that protects both property taxpayers and our children," Doyle wrote, adding that he had considered vetoing the entire budget because of the cuts to public schools.

The Wisconsin Constitution allows the governor to strike out numbers, reduce appropriations, and even rewrite entire sections of any spending bill sent to him. Lawmakers have not overridden any of the hundreds of budget vetoes Wisconsin governors have made in the last 20 years.

Doyle's vetoes mark the latest move in a running battle over Wisconsin's property taxes, which are among the highest in the nation.

Doyle and majority Republicans in the Legislature have spent the last two years feuding over proposed property tax limits, which each side calls a "freeze."

Doyle in his original budget sought to limit property tax increases by pumping more than $930 million in new state money into schools - which make up the bulk of most local property tax bills - and providing incentives for local governments such as counties, cities, villages and towns to limit their spending.

Republicans rejected that proposal. Instead, their version would have provided $460 million in new money for schools and would have halved the amount of per-pupil spending increases allowed under state-imposed limits. That would effectively allow school spending increases of 1 percent annually.

Doyle responded that the Republicans' approach would have forced schools to choose between laying off teachers and slashing spending or asking taxpayers for huge property tax hikes.

The Republican plan also would have allowed local governments to increase their spending only by the amount of new construction in their communities.

The budget Doyle will sign today increases new state spending on schools to a total of $861 million over the next two years. That new money includes $124 million in new money for the school levy tax credit on homeowners' property tax bills, which he called "direct property tax relief."

The governor's plan would allow 2.6 percent annual spending increases for schools.

Doyle said his "freeze" would also allow local governments to increase their spending by either 2 percent or the total value of new construction, whichever is higher.

The Republican "freeze" would have lasted for three years. Doyle's plan will be in place for two years - or the length of the two-year state budget - "because it only works if the state keeps its commitment to funding schools and shared revenues" for local governments, he said.

Doyle said he would pay for the increased state funding for schools by cutting almost $360 million in "excessive state spending, unnecessary financing strategies, ill-conceived tax giveaways and pork barrel projects."

Those cuts include:

• $15 million in tax breaks for families that home-school their children or send them to private schools.

• $7 million in "legislative earmarks and pork-barrel projects," which the governor did not detail.

• $60 million in cash used to finance the Marquette Interchange on I-94 outside Milwaukee. Doyle argued that the money should come from long-term borrowing, because doing otherwise is like putting down cash to buy a house "and then not having any money left over to buy groceries, put gas in the care or help the kids get a good education."

• $35 million from a proposed study of the Zoo Interchange on I-94 outside Milwaukee. Doyle noted that the project would not begin until 2010 at the earliest.

• An additional $75 million in unspecified cuts to the state's highway and transportation budget.

Doyle indicated that such changes would likely come from using transportation fund money to cover costs that traditionally have been paid for with general tax funds, such as school transportation costs.

• Eliminating $94 million in proposed rate increases for nursing homes, outpatient hospital care, pharmacy costs and other spending under the Medicaid program.

Doyle stressed that the cuts would not affect eligibility or access to services for anyone in the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled; the SeniorCare program for prescription drugs for seniors, or the BadgerCare program for low-cost health insurance.

Despite his veto of the Republican tax "freeze," Doyle credited Republicans for working with him.

"All too often in Madison, the 10 percent of issues where we disagree get far more attention than the 90 percent of issues where we agree," he said.

Doyle noted that the two sides agreed on health care programs for the poor, elderly, disabled and veterans, as well as funding for school transportation and special education programs.

"The progress we made on a bipartisan basis is significant and will have real benefits to the people of Wisconsin," Doyle wrote.

Governor Doyle's Budget Message

Governor Doyle signed the State of Wisconsin's next two year budget document today. He also posted an extensive pdf document that outlines the changes he made to the Legislature's version, via his line-item veto power. Included in these changes:

Taken together, the budget I am signing today will increase state funding for schools and property tax relief by over $400 million compared with the Legislature's budget. Schools will receive a modest 3 percent cost-of-living increase, just as they have received annually for many years under Democratic and Republican administrations alike. The additional funding I am providing through my vetoes will enable the state – rather than local taxpayers – to shoulder the burden of paying for the increased costs of education over the next two years so that property taxes can be frozen.

Follow the discussion via the Budget Blog Brief budget Message (pdf).

3.8MB Full veto message pdf

K-12 Schools & Technology

“The greatest asset of the American, so often ridiculed by Europeans, is his belief in progress,” Victor Vinde, in 1945

Mary Kay Battaglia recently wrote about the virtual non-existence of electronic communication with parents in the Madison School District. I agree with Mary Kay's comments.

Having said that, I believe that any District technology investment should be made in the context of these three priorities:

• Curriculum: we should strive to teach our children to be creators rather than consumers (writing and thinking rather than powerpoint).
• High Expectations: Our children must have the skills (arts, languages, math, science, history) to compete in tomorrow's world. Retiring Milwaukee High School Principal Will Jude refers to the Tyranny of Low Expectations:

  Graduation comes, "but it's at the expense of content." The student goes to college and finds other kids are way ahead. Jude's response: "You were doing the A section of the book while they were doing the B and C sections. You covered a lot of material but it was very shallow. They covered a lot of material but it was in depth." . Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron (1961) provides further useful reading.

• Inquisitiveness: Our students interest in and ability to ask questions, in other words, their willingness to question things that they read, observe and hear (Jay Rosen shows how important this is to our democracy).

Today's communication tools provide our students and community with an unprecedented ability to converse, debate and learn. Our K-12 students, like their parents and those who teach them should be comfortable conversing in written form, email, cellphones, voicemail, weblogs and html.

The Madison School District, as Troy Dasler pointed out, will soon start to implement a new internet based Student Information System.

This type of system can provide enormous benefits to staff, teachers, administrators, parents and students. However, and this is the critical part, people have to buy in and actually use it. In this respect, the Madison Schools are no different than any organization. Successful technology implementations require:

• Leadership
• Great People
• Technology that works - in this order!

Kurt Kiefer and others in the Madison Schools have evaluated systems for some time. They've involved staff and parents (including me, for what it's worth) in this effort.

Mary Kay notes a central issue to the success of a new system:

I propose MMSD purchase a software system, (I have been informed MMSD is in the process of doing this), and parents volunteer to spend a Saturday or two doing an inservice day to educate our educators about e-mail and the internet. I have had this conversation with many parents, and I could get a whole classroom full of parents ready to help increase communication with the teachers and schools. I realize people HATE change. The teachers that have never communicated with parents won't and those afraid of computers will continue to avoid them. I believe each school has to embrace this and the principals have to reward adoption of computer communication. It would have to be manditory and the union would have to agree or the new system the district is buying will be a waste of money. Just like the voicemail our elementary school acquired has been a waste of money.

This seems like a great idea. Perhaps each PTO can organize periodic, open to all (parents, educators, staff, administrators, community members, students) Saturday or evening email, voicemail, html, student systems or other tech training sessions.

Take a look at the demos and if you'd like to support the PTO training approach, contact Mary Kay Battaglia at marybattaglia at tds dot net. System questions can be directed to Kurt Kiefer: kkiefer at madison dot k12 dot wi dot us I've asked Kurt and/or someone from the District to write an article on this project for this site. I'll post or link to it upon receipt - or they can post it directly :)

Wisconsin K-12 State Budget Update

Governor Doyle continues to dribble out his line item state budget changes (a classic way to keep a politician's name in the news each day). Details here on the "property tax freeze" which is not really a freeze. Rather Doyle's line item vetoes cap the rate of increase in property taxes to 2% or the net change in new construction, whichever is greater (I'm not sure this is the best approach from a land use perspective):

• WisPolitics
• Governor's Fact Sheet [pdf]
• Steve Walters

Madison School Board Workshop: Superintendent Review

The Madison School Board discussed their planned Superintendent Review (which has not been done for several years) at their recent workshop (7/18/2005). Watch the video or listen to an mp3 audio file (superintendent review discussion starts about 20 minutes into the audio clip)

Thanks to Ed Blume and Larry Winkler for their time capturing the video clips.

Retiring Milwaukee Principal Pushes Parents and District to do Better

Alan Borsuk:

You can do a good paint job that makes a poorly performing car look good, but it's still a poorly performing car. That's true too often of MPS diplomas. For kids to get to graduation, they sometimes take courses that aren't as demanding as what should be expected. Graduation comes, "but it's at the expense of content." The student goes to college and finds other kids are way ahead. Jude's response: "You were doing the A section of the book while they were doing the B and C sections. You covered a lot of material but it was very shallow. They covered a lot of material but it was in depth."

Jessica Doyle to Discuss Education Investments in State Budget with Kids

After Governor Doyle signs the $54 billion State Budget for the next two years, First Lady Jessica Doyle will talk with kids about the education investments Governor Doyle made at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, July 25, 2005 at the Janesville Boys and Girls Club. Later in the day, at 3:00 p.m., the First Lady will visit the Merrill Community Center in Beloit and discuss the State Budget with kids there.

1:30 p.m. Janesville Boys and Girls Club, [map]
200 West Court Street, Janesville.

3:00 p.m. Merrill Community Center, [map]
1428 Wisconsin Avenue, Beloit.

Contact: Megan Perkins, Office of the First Lady, 608-266-7116

Milwaukee Public Schools Direct Instruction Study

Wisconsin Policy Research Institute Study shows that Direct Instruction is successful, particularly with hard to reach students. The study is on-line at http://www.wpri.org/Reports/Volume18/Vol18no4.pdf

Summary:

Education That Works in the Milwaukee Public Schools:
The Benefits from Phonics and Direct Instruction
by Sammis White, Ph.D.

A phonics-based teaching technique (Direct Instruction) is proving successful in some Milwaukee Public Schools. This study of 23,000 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students in the Milwaukee Public Schools showed that “among low-income students tracked between third and fourth grades 2002-03 to 2003-04, those with five years of Direct Instruction (DI) increased their math scores by 6.6% whereas non-low-income students increased their scores by 4.7%. This difference is statistically significant and is evidence of substantial progress.”

Direct Instruction in the Milwaukee Public Schools is creating real progress for hard-to-reach students.

* Students exposed to DI were even lower income, on average, than other MPS low-income students, but those individuals with long-term exposure to DI (defined as five years) did better, on average, than all low-income MPS students.

* In schools with DI in every grade and continuous professional development for the staff, students did even better, on average. Among low-income students, with a mix of regular and special education, students scored six points higher in reading and 25 points higher in math versus other low-income students. These differences suggest that with full implementation of DI at more schools, MPS would produce even greater academic gains.
_________________________________

The conclusions are less obvious from this article, but it is worth reading:

How best to teach reading?
Study of MPS students provides no clear answer

By ALAN J. BORSUK
aborsuk@journalsentinel.com
Posted: July 21, 2005

A controversial reading program called Direct Instruction is helping some Milwaukee Public Schools students, particularly those on the short end of the achievement gaps that are such an urgent issue here, a study of test scores of thousands of MPS students concludes.

But the comparison of students who have been in schools using the highly scripted program with those who haven't been taught by that method leaves room for argument that the increasingly popular approach is not having much impact, at least not the way it is being done in many schools.

For the entire article go to: http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jul05/342804.asp

WPRI: Milwaukee Public Schools Find Success with Phonics-Based Teaching Technique

Sammis White, Ph.D (full report here: 250K PDF):

study of 23,000 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students in the Milwaukee Public Schools showed that “among low-income students tracked between third and fourth grades 2002-03 to 2003-04, those with five years of Direct Instruction (DI) increased their math scores by 6.6% whereas non-low-income students increased their scores by 4.7%. This difference is statistically significant and is evidence of substantial progress.” These results are reported in Education That Works In The Milwaukee Public Schools: The Benefits from Phonics and Direct Instruction, by Sammis White, Ph.D. The report was released today by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

Now for the Good News

The Economist:

The National Assessment of Educational Progress as been periodically testing a representative sample of 9-, 13- and 17-year-olds since the early 1970s. This year's report contained two striking results. The first is that America's nine-year-olds posted their best scores in reading and maths since the tests were introduced (in 1971 in reading and 1973 in maths). The second is that the gap between white students and minorities is narrowing. The nine-year-olds who made the biggest gains of all were blacks, traditionally the most educationally deprived group in American society. .....
They need to have. The poor quality of America's schools is arguably the biggest threat to America's global competitiveness, a threat that will only grow as the best brains from India and China compete in an ever-wider array of jobs. And the growing gap between the educational performance of the rich and the poor, and between the majority and minorities, is arguably the biggest threat to America's traditional conception of itself as a meritocracy. The test results are thus doubly good news. They suggest that America may be able to improve its traditionally dismal educational performance. And they suggest that sharpening up schools can especially help minority children.

Excessively abled

An interesting column in the London Guardian suggesting that a society should be judged not only on how it treats its least fortunate, but also its most talented.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1532781,00.html

Mozart redeems my mediocrity
We should cherish those who possess great talent rather than envying them and begrudging their success

Dylan Evans
Thursday July 21, 2005
Guardian

In ancient Greece, people expected their heroes to be different. The first readers of the Iliad didn't imagine they could ever be as great as Achilles. They accepted that he was in a completely different category, a different order of being. And they didn't envy him his superior talent - they admired him for it.
Nowadays, if someone is vastly more talented than us, we don't congratulate them - we envy them and resent their success. It seems we don't want heroes we can admire, so much as heroes we can identify with.

We want to think we could be like them, and so we make sure to select heroes that are like us. We worship David Beckham because he's fallible. If Achilles were around today, the headlines would all be about his heel.

This is the real reason for the astonishing rise of reality TV. We allow halfwits to become celebrities precisely because there is no great gap separating them from us. That consoles us, because it makes us think that we could be famous if we had a bit more luck, or if we tried a bit harder. We can't bear the idea that some people might be better than us, so much better that we could never be like them, no matter how hard we tried. That upsets our democratic ethos, our belief that all people are born equal.

But raw talent is not distributed equally. By definition, most of us are not exceptional. We are neither particularly stupid, nor especially intelligent. Only a very few are extremely gifted. But it is to these exceptionally talented people that the rest of us owe most of the greatest achievements of humankind. The Mona Lisa, the Goldberg Variations and King Lear were not the work of ordinary people like you and me. They were the work of geniuses, people so much more talented than us that we could never paint or write anything comparable to their achievements, no matter how hard we tried or how long we lived.

To some, that thought seems so humiliating and threatening that it must not even be countenanced. But to me it is liberating and inspiring. It is precisely the realisation that I will never be the equal of Mozart or Goethe that allows me to sit back and enjoy what they have bequeathed to me. It is my recognition of their greatness, my admission of the immeasurable superiority of their talent, that redeems my mediocrity. It is good to be human, not because every human can be great, but because a few people have shown us the heights to which humanity can occasionally ascend. Without the shining achievements of these few, the human race would be a waste of space.

Consider also how unattractive it is when someone begrudges another's talent, when they cannot praise success without also seeking to undermine it or feel diminished when a colleague wins praise. It is a sign of a mean spirit.

Conversely, the person who shows unreserved admiration thereby becomes admirable. To applaud someone else's achievements or good fortune, without the slightest trace of envy or resentment, is a mark of true generosity.

It is not just individuals who can be judged by such criteria. Societies too differ in terms of their attitude to success. It is often remarked that a society should be judged on how it treats its least fortunate members. But it is equally revealing to observe how a society treats its most fortunate members. A society that tramples on its poorest and weakest citizens is clearly less humane than one with social services and unemployment benefit. But a society that does not reward raw talent and praise excellence is equally barbaric.

The just allocation of admiration is a virtue that requires judgment and integrity: judgment to distinguish genuine talent from mere showiness, and integrity in refusing to bestow praise on those who do not fully deserve it. Prizes are only valuable if they are restricted to the very few. Not winning a prize is not something to be seen as shameful - it should be the norm, something that happens to the overwhelming majority of people.

Conversely, we need social structures that allow for very fine-grained distinctions to be made at the top of the ability range in any given domain - whether learning, sport or industry. There is no point in having an exam system in which more than 5% of the candidates can attain the top grade, let alone one in which 30% do. Society needs ways of picking out and rewarding the rare talent that is truly exceptional.

The rest of us should cherish those who possess such talent, for they are one of our most valuable resources. They are the scientists who will come up with the life-saving medicines of the future, the artists who will inspire us with new works of beauty, the sportsmen and women who will amaze us with their strength and skill. If we want society to progress rather than stagnate, we must learn to be more generous, and rediscover the lost art of pure admiration.

· Dylan Evans is a senior lecturer in intelligent autonomous systems at the University of the West of England

www.dylan.org.uk

San Clemente School Boundary Changes & CA 209

Jonathan D. Glater:

"The use of race in California, whether or not it's for segregation purposes or integration purposes, is illegal," said Sharon Browne, a lawyer at the firm, the Pacific Legal Foundation. "Any type of discrimination is wrong, and the people of California, in adopting 209, said it was wrong."

Last month the firm filed suit on behalf of Mr. Winsten and other parents, some of whose children would have to travel 13 miles to the high school they might be reassigned to. Lawyers for the foundation have asked a state court judge to bar the school district from implementing the new boundaries until the suit is resolved; the judge denied that request.

The suit against the Capistrano Unified School District is not the first instance in which the foundation has sought to use Proposition 209 to block a voluntary integration plan. It successfully attacked a race-conscious student transfer plan in Huntington Beach, Calif., in 2002. A suit in 2003 to halt a voluntary desegregation plan in Berkeley, however, did not succeed.

Madison School Board Workshop: Public Participation on Board Committees

The Madison School Board discussed citizen participation on Board Committees Monday evening:

Watch This Discussion - Quicktime

There were a number of interesting discussions in this 30 minute video clip, including the recent Long Range Planning Committee and the recent referenda

Madison School Board Workshop: Evaluate Business Services?

The Madison School Board had several interesting discussions Monday night. The first was a proposed 3rd party evaluation of the District's Business Services Department. This discussion is somewhat in response to the complaint that, given budget choices, the Madison School District lays off teachers rather than accountants.

Watch This Discussion - Quicktime MP3 Audio

The 50 minute video provides a very interesting look at the different perspectives that the Madison School Board Members have on evaluating district operations and general decision making. I thought Carol did a nice job making the discussion happen. Carol Carstensen, Lawrie Kobza and Ruth Robarts provided written comments on the Business Services evaluation - click the link below (well worth reading). I also understand that the Board will start looking at next year's budget this fall, rather than waiting until the spring.

Carol Carstensen's comments on the proposed business services review (PDF Version):

I suggest the RFP for business services be centered around these questions: As we face the need to make further cuts to the school district budget please:

1. identify ways that we can carry out our current functions more efficiently (in terms of time andlor staff)


2. identify the areaslfunctions that we can reduce and/or eliminate without harming the district's legal responsibilities;


a) with a O0/0 increase for next year


b) with a 3% decrease from this year's level


c) with a 5% decrease from this year's level

Lawrie Kobza's comments on the proposed business services evaluation (PDF Version):

While I like the idea of an external review of the business services and human resources budgets, I don't believe the proposed RFP will get us the information the Board and the public wants.

The Project Description as set forth in subsec. 1.2.1 of the RFP states as follows:

"The Board of Education is seeking a qualified consultant to study existing organizational and operational aspects of all business (non-
instructional) operations of the District and to benchmark these services against comparable districts nationwide. This study is being undertaken to answer the question "Are we overstaffed in Business Services and Human Resources?" This question is being asked in light of on-going budget shortfalls."

This Project Description doesn't ask (and won't answer) the question, I want to know which is: "What would be the impact of additional cuts in the Business Services and Human Resources budgets?"

Knowing how the District's Business Services and Human Resources staffing compares to benchmarks from other comparable districts would be interesting, and if the study indicates the District is overstaffed, that would provide the District with information they could use to make staffing changes. But, if the study indicates that the District is not overstaffed, what then?

For the most part, our budget cuts are not based upon whether we are overstaffed in a particular area. I don't feel that we cut teachers, or social workers, or custodians because we felt that we were overstaffed in those areas. We didn't compare the District to benchmarks from other districts on custodial staffing levels to determine appropriate staffing levels for the District. We cut custodians because we had a budget that we had to meet.

I believe that Roger has told us that staffing in Business Services is as thin as it can be if Business Services continues to perform the same functions it is currently performing. I believe that he also indicated that further staff cuts would mean that functions would have to be dropped. I accept that statement. But, what I would like to see from Business Services and Human Resources is a written report on what functions or services they would pull back from if their budgets had to be reduced by lo%, 20%, or 30% (or whatever percentages we ask about), and what it would mean to the District if those functions or services were reduced or eliminated. I believe that we should ask staff to prepare that written report for us. They have the most expertise on this, and undoubtedly they have given the issue of budget cuts in their departments a lot of thought.

After the written report is prepared by District staff, it could then be provided to a third-party consultant for their review, comment and recommendation. The Board would need to hire this third-party consultant, and the consultant would report directly to the Board. This third-party review would give the Board an outside review of staffs report on the impact of further cuts to the Business Services and Human Resources budget. From my perspective, this third-party review of staffs budget cut or reduction in services plan would be much more useful than that proposed in the current RFP.

I think the work we are asking be done in the current RFP is too broad, would be too expensive, and it won't give us the information we really want. I strongly believe that the Board must think about the information it wants, why it wants it, and what it will do with that information once it gets it. Being able to say that we are not overstaffed in the Business Services area according to established benchmarks, does not answer the public's question of why we are laying off teachers rather than accountants. We need to show what laying off accountants means - and this can be done through the written plan developed by staff and reviewed by the outside consultant.

Ruth Robarts' comments on the proposed Business Services Evaluation (PDF Version)::

Thanks for the advance opportunity to review this proposal. I agree wholeheartedly with Lawrie's analysis and conclusions. 1 will not vote for spending any funds on this proposal, for the reasons that Lawrie expressed.

Her counter-proposal makes much more sense. In effect, we need to direct the administration to analyze the effect on functions of several levels of cuts. They should be able to use the Virchow-Kraus model as a guide, without our spending more money to purchase an analytical framework. I suggest 0%, cutting 3% and cutting 5%.

After we receive that report, we should follow Lawrie's suggestion of hiring an independent consultant who reports directly to the BOE and direct the consultant to advise us on the impact of the various levels of budget reduction. Then benchmarks from other districts and local governmental bodies become relevant.

We should accomplish this as soon as possible, so that we have the data in time to develop reduction-in-force policies and procedures consistent with the already existing H.R. policy that recognize the need for RIF procedures for budget reasons.

Finally, I recommend that we keep in mind that our obligations to employees on administrative contracts are created three ways:

• by authorizing positions using the operating budget,
• by using grant, state or federal funds to fund administrative positions
• and by authorizing funds for community service for administrative positions.

I believe that we must approach the administrative staff in a coherent and coordinated way. The BOE needs to know which positions are essential and which are not regardless of the funding source. It does not make sense and is bad public relations to continue using retirements and resignations to cut positions that we may need for business or other reasons and at the same time growing central office or MSCR positions.

... Schools Can't Do it Alone - East St. Louis

Claudio Sanchez, All Things Considered:

As Washington policymakers talk of leaving no child behind, the reality in places like East St. Louis, Ill., is that schools can't do it alone. When the school day is over and during the long summer vacation, children in these communities face poverty, crime, broken families and despair.

Audio

Getting More Girls to Study Math

Dan Fost:

"There's still a big disparity between the percentage of women in science, engineering and technology versus the percentage of men," Milgram said. "I think there has been a tendency to define certain things as masculine and feminine. Science and technology are defined as masculine."

Milgram will be joined on the panel by Ellen Spertus, a computer science professor at Mills College and part-time software engineer at Google; Margaret Torn, a geological scientist at Lawrence Berkeley Lab; Neveia Chappell, product marketing engineer for Agilent Technologies; and Violet Votin, a recent graduate of Stanford University in cell biology.

Energy Saving Daylight Savings Change?

Reader Erika Frederick emailed this article by John Fialka:

As a step to save energy, Congress appears poised to extend U.S. daylight-saving time for two months, starting it earlier, on the first Sunday in March, and ending it later, on the last Sunday of November.

The move was first approved in May as part of the energy bill by the House. The idea has now been agreed upon by House and Senate committee staffs, with the approval of both Republican chairmen and ranking Democrats. That means it is likely to be approved by the full House-Senate conference committee, which begins squaring the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill this week.

The change is not without controversy:

The Air Transport Association has asserted that its members, long-distance American airlines, could lose millions of dollars because of schedule disruptions that the proposal would cause by throwing U.S. arrivals at foreign airports out of synchronization with European schedules and Europe's system of awarding "slots," or landing rights at airports.

Some large church groups also oppose extending daylight-saving time into the early spring and late fall, because it would require children to wait for school buses in the dark. "Without the light of day, they are more susceptible to accidents with school buses, or other motorists, and the darkness also provides cover for individuals who prey on children," said the Rev. William F. Davis, deputy secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a letter written to the House sponsors of the measure

The proposed change is part of the Energy Bill.

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown on Education

Recently married Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown comments on the LA Board of Education's proposed requirement that all students take the courses necessary to enter California State Universities.

The Other 82%

From the FightingBob website comes this piece by a Milwaukee school teacher:
http://www.fightingbob.com/article.cfm?articleID=402

His thesis: "Education spending alone cannot eliminate the educational advantages that affluent children have over poor children, but that does not mean we should not try."

I sympathize with him and admire his dedication, but wonder still if there are reliable data to tease out the connection between dollars and performance. One thing I noticed in his arguing that we get good value for our teacher salaries and other per pupil spending was a reliance on the high ACT performance in this state, a statistic often touted. But I'd like to see an honest accounting of who these high scoring students are who actually take the test, out of the general student population, as well as where they attend school and what the per pupil spending is there and what the demographics are. In other words, I think that the use of the ACT statistic is a bit misleading.

I am certainly not advocating throwing in the towel on kids who come to school less prepared than those more fortunate, but I also think it's time for an honest discussion on just how much difference our public school system can make. In a world of infinite resources, we would spend unlimited funds to reach just a few, but that's not our reality. I would hope very much that we could have this conversation without labeling or name-calling.

Education spending alone cannot eliminate the educational advantages that affluent children have over poor children, but that does not mean we should not try.

The other 82 percent
By Jay Bullock

In a recent post about state Superintendent of Public Education Libby Burmaster, conservative blogger Lance Burri actually made a point with which I, a teacher and not a conservative, whole-heartedly agree. But he’s still wrong.

Lance used the hypothetical example of a child who grows up in a house full of books with two educated parents versus a child who grows up in a home with a single parent who did not finish high school, who works two jobs and does not emphasize the importance of schoolwork or higher education. If we spend $5,000 on the first child and $20,000 on the second, the first child will still likely grow up better educated.

“There’s a limit to what the schools can do,” Lance blogged. “The rest has to come from us, as students, as the parents of students, and as adults--just getting that diploma, even the one from college, isn’t enough to ensure success. Neither does school. School is an opportunity, not a solution. It’s us, ourselves, who make or break our chance at success.”

Lance is right. The fact is that students, believe it or not, only spend about 18 percent of their time with us teachers in their first 18 years. Goodness knows it often feels like more--I would imagine as much for them as it does for me--but that's it. Eighteen percent.

What happens in the other 82 percent is just as important, if not more so, than what happens within school walls. Small schools would not be any better at solving the problems of urban education overall because the problems of urban education often begin and end in the community. In Milwaukee we have staggeringly high unemployment, appalling rates of teen pregnancy, and the kind of segregation that most of the country only reads about in history textbooks.

If that is the 82 percent, I cannot fix it in the time a student is in my classroom.

Problem is I want to. I want to use every last resource available to me to do every last thing I can to provide the students I teach with every opportunity available to them. Call it quixotic, call it white liberal guilt, it doesn't matter. It is how and feel and what I do. If I wanted to only teach Lance's "first child," I would look for a job in the suburbs. With my resume, I could probably get one. But I don't.

Here's the thing: When you have to make up for the challenges that the other 82 percent of a child's life provides, it does, in fact, cost more than it does to teach students who do not have the kind of challenges most of my students do. There are facts that may make anti-tax and anti-public education people uncomfortable, especially if they are observing these facts from the comfort of their college-educated, book-reading households. When a child does not speak English, it takes more public education resources to teach that child. When a child has lead poisoning, it takes more public education resources to teach that child. When a child comes to school hungry, it takes more public education resources to teach that child.

And so on.

One of my big problems with deposed state Superintendent of Public Schools candidate Gregg Underheim's platform, such as it was, and Governor Jim Doyle's big "school funding reform" panel's recommendations, is that they all asked for a "study" to see what makes low-spending, high-achieving school districts so great. The answer, of course, is duh, accompanied by a big smack in the face: Low-spending, high-achieving districts are not, by and large, burdened by those students who require the additional public education resources to get their students up to standards.

In the same post, Lance takes the requisite rightwing jab at teachers. "We’re also near the top in total teacher compensation and spending per student," he writes. This is not said boastfully, mind you, but underhandedly in that he connects Wisconsin's apparently extravagant spending to your high property taxes--the rest of that paragraph is all about taxes. Let's look at facts:

Wisconsin currently rates, depending on whose estimate you choose, either 25th or 27th in the nation for teacher salaries. (We're 35th for starting teachers.) Our total compensation--including health benefits (won in part in exchange for these lower salaries)--puts us at 16th in the nation. If by "near the top," Lance meant "at the bottom of the top third," then he's right. Otherwise, he is mistaken.

As to per-pupil spending, according to the Census Bureau, we rank 12th of 51. So, yeah, top quarter and all. But remember three things: One, we consistently rank in the top five for educational quality--ACT scores and whatnot--so we get a good return on that investment. Two, we spend less than $1,000 more per student than the national average, or about 11 percent. Is it worth 11 percent for the higher outcomes we get? And three--if we are 12th in per-pupil spending but 16th in compensation--27th in salary--that extra money is not all going into our (or our doctors') pockets, now, is it?

But here is the other way Lance blows it, and kills any chance he and I had to agree on something for once: “We need to [. . .] agree that our task is to offer the opportunity--not to ensure that every student takes it. We will provide the buildings, classrooms, blackboards and computers. We’ll supply university-trained professional teachers, free transportation, and a curriculum that teaches, at a minimum, the basics of what it takes to succeed, so students will have more opportunities throughout their lives. We’ll provide tests to gauge achievement, and we’ll let those who fail at first keep trying.”

What it sounds like Lance is advocating here is stripped-down, bare-bones education. That probably would make the anti-tax and anti-public education crowd of his happy. But notice what else he is talking about here: He is advocating that we stop being proactive in our approach to public education in this state, that we let the chips fall where they may and if the (cough white cough) kids from college-educated, book-reading households get further ahead faster, then so be it. We save, in his example, $15,000 for each poor kid.

If Lance wants to abandon Wisconsin's 82 percent problem children in the name of saving money, then his conservative heart is colder than I could have imagined.

July 19, 2005

Jay Bullock is a teacher in Milwaukee and he maintains the "folkbum rambles and rants" and Sensenbrenner Watch Web logs.

A New Deal for Schools

The Economist:

So the challenge is different. But the solution once again is to be found in the education system—particularly America's rotten public schools. Republicans are, generally speaking, reluctant to spend more money—partly because they represent people in richer school districts and partly because so much cash has already been wasted (America spends much more than other countries). Meanwhile Democrats, enslaved to the teachers' unions, are generally unwilling to countenance reforms such as school vouchers and testing; and they are also keener on affirmative action, the system of race-based preferences which makes universities less competitive and keeps the poison of race in a debate which is best focused on income.

This is depressing. But a political solution of sorts is going begging. Republicans should be willing to spend more cash on schools in poor areas (including on teachers' salaries) in exchange for the Democrats accepting structural reform. The No Child Left Behind Act, which introduced some forms of testing and the daring possibility of shutting down some bad schools, was an important step forward. But more is needed. Otherwise two Americas really will start to jump out off the map.

100 Black Men of Madison Golf Outing

100 Black Men of Madison seeks individual golfers/foursomes for it’s 5th Annual Golf Outing on Monday July 25th at Cherokee Country Club.

The cost is $125 per person, which includes 18 holes, motorized cart & dinner. Registration begins at 10:30 am. Tee time is 12 noon. If you are interested in dinner only at 6 pm, the cost is $30 per person. For more information regarding the golf outing and dinner please contact Derrick Smith at 831-0525 or d_smith11@charter.net or Amos Anderson at 663-1530 or acanderson@madison.k12.wi.us. Proceeds to benefit the programs of the 100 Black Men of Madison.

These programs include the "Youth Mentoring Program", which is a partnership between the organization, Madison Metropolitan School District and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Dane County. In addition, the "Annual Back to School Picnic" (this year on Saturday August 27th at Demetral Park - eastside of Madison) the organization is giving 1,800 backpacks filled with school supplies to students throughout Dane County. Lastly, the "African American History Challenge Bowl" is a competition where teams in Middle and High School throughout the Madison school district and Edgewood answer questions based on Black History facts. Winners compete at the 100 Black Men of America national competition.

Johnny Winston, Jr. Annual Streetball & Block Party

The Johnny Winston, Jr. 2005 Streetball and Block Party will be held on Saturday August 13th from 12 noon to 7:00 p.m. at Penn Park (South Madison – Corner of Fisher and Buick Street). Last year this event raised the funds necessary to keep the MMSD varsity reserve football and boys and girls basketball program operational.

“Streetball” is a full court, “5 on 5” Adult Men’s Basketball tournament featuring some of the best basketball players in the City of Madison, Milwaukee, Beloit, Rockford and other cities.

The “block party” activities for youth and families include: Music by the New Hot 105.9 FM; Free Bingo at 1 pm, 3 pm and 5 pm sponsored by DeJope Bingo; Face painting and youth activities sponsored by Madison School and Community Recreation, YMCA of Dane County and the Neighborhood Intervention Program; Singers, Dancers and Hip Hop performances by local talent. This event also includes information booths and vendors selling a variety of foods and other items.

This is a not-for-profit event. All proceeds are given directly to local charitable programs that benefit the community and support education.

In all, this event will provide a wonderful organized activity for everyone to enjoy this summer. If you have any questions or would like to discuss any further details, please feel free to call (608) 441-0224 or by e-mail at: johnnywinstonjr@hotmail.com.

Please feel free to forward this information to other interested persons or organizations.

Where Teachers Rule: Schools with no Principal

Sarah Carr:

That's largely because Community High lacks a traditional hierarchy. The school is one of a rapidly growing number of so-called "teacher-led" schools that operate without administrators - including principals and assistant principals. The teachers make decisions about the curriculum, the budget and student discipline. They perform peer evaluations of each other. Often, they come to decisions through discussion and debate, taking a vote if a consensus is not reached. The buck stops with them, not in the principal's office.

In Milwaukee, which is a national leader in the movement toward teacher-led schools, there will be at least 14 such programs next year, and that figure does not count private schools.

Can We Talk?

Can we Talk about communication?

My three busy kids participate in swimming, baseball, basketball, soccer, football, book clubs, math olympiad, etc..... you get the idea, my kids are healthy, busy kids. I see hundreds of families participating in these events, games, parties, and all of the commmunications relayed to every family right here in Madison is done on the computer, internet or better known as e-mail. If I did not have access to e-mail I would show up at incorrect times, fail to pay fees, miss important meetings, for all these activities my kids participate in and I volunteer to help. What does this have to do with MMSD education? Nothing, and I mean nothing at all because MMSD doesn't communicate with me via computer. When I moved to Madison, the PR on the Web and Madison.com lead me to believe this was the future, the end all, the best the US offered. I wish they spent more on PC's than PR because the technology in our district is archaic.

We used to live in Anchorage, AK and while it might be thousand of miles away from the rest of civilization their school district had joined the 21st century via computers. They sent emails to parents and you could do the same. The amazing thing is, they answered the email! They sent concerns, weekly summaries and PTO newsletters on computers. What a concept, save money on xeroxing, increase parent participation and knowledge, and improve communication.

Can we talk? Not if your kids go to MMSD. Not one teacher has offered me an email address and our elementary school obtained voicemail two years ago and just one of the teachers my 3 children has had is willing to use it. In order to get a message to a teacher I have to call during class time, send a hand written note, or physically go to the school. (In their defense I had one teacher give me her home phone number but I felt too guilty to interupt her home time to ever use that method of communication.)

Verona has had the futuristic vision to place grades, notes, and communication on the computer for parents to review. I realize low income families cannot communicate in this fashion, however, 70% of the families can and 30% could via current paper systems. I would like MMSD to join the rest of the U.S., heck the rest of Madison and adopt this new techonolgy called computers (OK 25 years old).

I propose MMSD purchase a software system, (I have been informed MMSD is in the process of doing this), and parents volunteer to spend a Saturday or two doing an inservice day to educate our educators about e-mail and the internet. I have had this conversation with many parents, and I could get a whole classroom full of parents ready to help increase communication with the teachers and schools. I realize people HATE change. The teachers that have never communicated with parents won't and those afraid of computers will continue to avoid them. I believe each school has to embrace this and the principals have to reward adoption of computer communication. It would have to be manditory and the union would have to agree or the new system the district is buying will be a waste of money. Just like the voicemail our elementary school acquired has been a waste of money.

I do NOT want daily evaluations. I do NOT want lots of "aren't we great" communications. I WANT grades available via computer, I WANT monthly "We are covering this in math" and perhaps correspondence saying your child "is struggling to get assignments done, is delinquent in turning in homework, is doing great". I want PTO letters, school newsletters, and letters concerning the schools and district to come home via internet. I want more information, less paper, and a two way communication option. Would this be more work for teachers? Perhaps if they are disorganized. Perhaps if it creates more conversation with parents. Perhaps not, if parents actually get information that was formally in the bottom of the locker. Perhaps not, if it eliminates miscommunications. We should interview Verona teachers that utilize modern communication systems and see how they feel about time spent communicating via computer.

And lastly, it could possible save lots of money. As a PTO president I spent hours, literally hours, xeroxing and sending home notices about whatever event was upcoming. We also spend money on monthly newsletters at most schools. Think about the paper savings not to mention the manpower time. If all these families participating in extracurricula activities can get to each event by simply reading their computer mail, why can't the district do the same. Why is this district so slow to a concept so progressive?

Let's Get Madison to Talk.

Study Great Ideas, But Teach to the Test

Four letters to the editor in response to Michael Winerip's recent article on teaching to the test:

Ms. Karnes learned all sorts of exercises to get children excited about writing, get them writing daily about what they care about and then show them how they can take one of those short, personal pieces and use it as the nucleus for a sophisticated, researched essay.

"We learned how to develop good writing from the inside, starting with calling the child's voice out," said Ms. Karnes, who got an A in the university course. "One of the major points was, good writing is good thinking. That's why writing formulas don't work. Formulas don't let kids think; they kill a lot of creativity in writing."

And so, when Ms. Karnes returns to Allendale High School to teach English this fall, she will use the new writing techniques she learned and abandon the standard five-paragraph essay formula. Right?

"Oh, no," said Ms. Karnes. "There's no time to do creative writing and develop authentic voice. That would take weeks and weeks. There are three essays on the state test and we start prepping right at the start of the year. We have to teach to the state test" (the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, known as MEAP).

Read the full article here. Read the letters to the editor by clicking on the link:

To the Editor:

Re "Study Great Ideas, but Teach to the Test," by Michael Winerip (Education page, July 13):

It is argued that standardized writing tests hurt the teaching of writing because teachers are forced to use the five-paragraph formula to help students pass even though it kills creativity and doesn't let them think.

Scott Stowell

The five-paragraph formula is not ideal; it's not even the ideal formula, but it's better than nothing. So, too, with standardized writing tests.

Let's be honest: Because of the No Child Left Behind Act's testing requirement, kids are writing more, the key to improving writing skills, because if they don't, they fail the standardized test.

American society places great emphasis on individual liberty and intellectual creativity, but students can't be great creative writers if they are not technically competent.

Strong writers don't need to use the five-paragraph formula; low-proficiency writers, and most school students, are better off using the defective five-paragraph formula than nothing.

Matt White
Swarthmore, Pa., July 13, 2005
The writer is director of the Writers Lab, a company that offers resources, books and training to improve results on the essay section of standardized tests.

•

To the Editor:

Michael Winerip cites the dilemma that many teachers face when they think they must teach the five-paragraph essay format for their students to be successful on standardized tests that include essay writing.

The College Board believes that students who follow this format may be denying themselves opportunities to write to their full potential.

The SAT essay is carefully designed to measure a student's mastery of many different elements of writing, with prompts to stimulate critical thinking about complex issues.

Critical thinking involves dealing with the complexity of an issue, not oversimplifying in the rush to produce an introduction, three "fitting" examples and a conclusion in 25 minutes.

In fact, students may be more likely to demonstrate critical thinking if they give one or two extended examples, taking the time to explain interactions between ideas.

Students will be better prepared for college writing success by learning formats that go beyond the five-paragraph essay.

Kathleen Williams
V.P., Office of Academic
Initiatives and Test Development
The College Board
New York, July 13, 2005

•

To the Editor:

"Study Great Ideas, but Teach to the Test" illustrates a dilemma: the needs of students to learn standard forms of communication sometimes interfere with what teachers love to do (teach creative writing).

But just as there is a place for dessert in a well-balanced meal, there is a place for creative writing in a well-balanced curriculum. In both instances, that place is usually toward the end - after the part that is less delicious but more nutritious.

The point is furthered by the fact that creativity by definition involves playing with conventions. Therefore, one cannot be creative without some level of mastery of the conventional.

K-8 may be a time during which the educational needs of children allow for less creative writing than some might like, especially for those children who have not yet been properly nurtured with regard to constructing the standard five-paragraph essay.

Paul Strand
Richland, Wash., July 13, 2005
The writer is an associate professor of psychology at Washington State University.

•

To the Editor:

Michael Winerip is concerned that formulaic writing strategies impede the development of students' thinking skills. I share his concern but question his diagnosis.

The "five-paragraph essay" is not the root of the problem; in fact, it's a reasonably good way to develop a little facility handling supporting evidence.

Like training wheels, the five-paragraph essay has its place. The real question is how to help kids move beyond it.

Creative departures from the five-paragraph formula should be encouraged, but there is little evidence that creative flights, as such, impart clarity, depth or cogency of thought.

The ability to organize and evaluate reasons (logic) was once the centerpiece of a good education. Sadly, it has been displaced by content-centered courses: courses that teach kids what to think rather than how to think. The solution is a return to thinking-skills instruction.

Andrew Norman
Pittsburgh, July 14, 2005
The writer develops thinking-skills curriculums for high school students.

Public Hearing on Wisconsin Virtual Schools

WisPolitics:

After months of encouragement from the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families to engage in such a dialogue, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster has recently convened a group of expert advisors to examine virtual schools and online learning in the public PK-12 schools of Wisconsin. Their findings may include suggested changes in DPI practice, administrative rule, and Wisconsin States.

The Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families will testify before this committee.

Monday, July 18th
9:30 AM to 2:30 PM
Room G09 of the GEF2 Building
101 South Webster Street, [Map]
Madison

The Coalition consists of hundreds of parents, students, teachers and others concerned about the educational opportunities available to Wisconsin families. It was formed in the wake of legal threats to virtual education in Wisconsin. On January 7, 2004, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) filed a complaint in Ozaukee County Circuit Court against a virtual public school (the Wisconsin Virtual Academy), the Northern Ozaukee School District, and the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) in an effort to shut down the school. They argued that parental participation was too significant. DPI, although it originally had approved the charter school, took the union's side in the dispute in December.

Public and the media are invited to attend.

For further information, contact:
George 414-763-3661

Board & Administration Don't Respond to Request

I've twice sent the e-mail below, and I have received no acknowldegement or response.

From: Ed Blume
To: rprice@madison.k12.wi.us
Cc: jwinstonjr@madison.k12.wi.us ; arainwater@madison.k12.wi.us ; ccarstensen@madison.k12.wi.us
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 9:26 PM
Subject: Program spending

Roger,
Can you please tell me the amount the MMSD budgeted and spent in the 2004-2005 fiscal year on the following programs:

TEP
Reading Recovery
Read 180
Direct Instruction
Educational Framework
SIP

Could you also give me the amount budgeted for each program in the 2005-2006 fiscal year?
Ed Blume

Practicing Math with Your Children

Catherine Johnson sends a link to her Kitchen Table Math Wiki. Quite useful. (What's a wiki?)

National High School Survey Results

The National Governor's Association, as part of their "Redesiging American High School initiative" recently conducted a survey of over 10,000 American students, ages 16 to 18. Major findings include:

• Less than 1 in 10 say high school has been “very hard.”
• More than one-third say high school has been “easy.”
• 32% “strongly agree” they would work harder if high school offered more demanding and interesting courses.
• 71% think taking courses related to the kinds of jobs they want is the best way to make their senior year more meaningful. (they also mention taking courses that count as college credit)

The survey also collects information from those who dropped out or are considering dropping out of high school.

Survey Conclusions:

• It is critical to communicate to students that they need to seek out and take rigorous courses to be prepared for the future
• Educators and parents must do a better job of encouraging students to find meaning in senior
  year by emphasizing its importance to their futures.
• The message “you too can benefit from a high school education,” if continually reinforced, can work because a majority of teens who dropped out
  or who plan to drop out want to finish high school.

Read the entire summary here (250K PDF)

Task Forces Need Community Expertise & Open Debate

I delivered the following statement to the MMSD Long Range Planning Committee on July 11:

Back on October 18, 2004, I spoke to the Long Range Planning Committee at a meeting at Leopold School. I suggested that “the Long Range Planning Committee take the time to think beyond an April referendum on a new school” at Leopold. I see the West side task force as just that, and I compliment the board for forming the group.

I also made the statement that “citizens of the broad Madison school community include people with a tremendous amount of expertise in education, management, finance, urban planning, real life, and more. You should use every possible opportunity to tap their knowledge.”

I’m here again tonight to restate my plea that the Long Range Planning Committee draw on the vast knowledge and experience of people in the community, because as I said in October, “I have this perhaps naive democratic belief that the more ideas you get the better the final outcome.”

I’ve also suggested to the Board of Education at a meeting earlier in July that you need not avoid controversy. “. . . [B]attles over substance, managed well, can be constructive. A furious volley of fact is met with a fierce counterattack of analysis—and the battlefield is littered with useful information. The self-interest on both sides tends to cancel out as long as the boss stays neutral.”

To edit that quote from a Fortune magazine article posted on schoolinfosystem.com, I urge the board and administration to stay neutral while the task forces work. Don’t stake out a position and expect the task forces to justify a predetermined outcome.

To ensure battles over substance on the West task force, I urge the board and long range planning committee to appoint Don Severson to serve on the board, because 1) his personal views (not the views of the Active Citizens for Education or ACE) match those of a large segment of us who wanted to vote for a solution to Leopold overcrowding but felt like the process had not explored all of the options, and 2) he can also tap many professional and business people who will freely give of their time and knowledge to help the task forces.

With Don’s help and the help of the whole community, I’m confident that the task forces can find widely supported options to improve the education of the children of Madison.

Joe Gotjard, Toki's New Middle School Principle

Cristina Daglas:

He was known as "Big Joe" when he transitioned from student to staff member in the Madison school district more than 10 years ago. But times have changed and titles altered, and "Big Joe" is now Principal Gothard.

For the first time in 13 years, Joe Gothard will not be coaching football this season, and he says he's open to hobbies. However, the new top job at Toki Middle School and chasing after his three young children at home may just take up this 32-year-old's "extra" time.

Just recently hired, Gothard is settling into his new office and working diligently to get accustomed to the environment before the year's beginning rolls around. He's hoping to make the transition as smooth as possible keeping consistency for the Toki community. But the scenery isn't all too new for the Madison native, a true product of the district's "grow your own" administrator initiative, which one board member campaigns for rather frequently.

UW's Lawson Software Implementation Problems

Channel3000:

The "Lawson Project" aim to replace old mainframe technology with new comprehensive payroll software.

A News 3 investigation finds after years of work, and tens of millions of dollars, system officials still can't say when it will be powered up or how much it will cost.

"We have spent more money at this point than the people who initially envisioned the project thought we would have spent five years out, and we're not as far along as they thought we would be," said Don Mash, chairman of the steering committee for the APBS/Lawson project, which is an unprecedented endeavor that will impact every UW System campus and its 42,000 workers statewide.

The Madison School Distrct has also been working to implement a new Lawson HR/Finance (ERP) System.

The Evils of Excellence

Susan Black on the "Trouble with Classroom Competition":

How much competition is too much?

I asked myself that question some years ago when I was appointed director of curriculum and instruction for a Midwestern city school district. Making the rounds of the district’s 12 schools I found competition everywhere.

In a 10th-grade English class, I found kids writing essays on citizenship for a local bar association’s contest. Moving on to a middle school, I saw seventh-grade science students drawing posters for a county humane society contest in hopes of winning stuffed animals. That afternoon, I watched third-graders hop around a gym as part of a national charity’s pledge drive. The kids who hopped the longest won crayons and coloring books.

When I counted up the number of competitive activities in classrooms -- more than 200 in one school year -- I knew it was time to put on the brakes. It wasn’t easy, but with the school board’s support and principals’ cooperation, we reclaimed the instructional program. Competitive activities were still allowed, but they were held after school for students who wanted to sign up.

Via Joanne Jacobs and Gadfly. I wonder if students in India, China, Japan, Finland and elsewhere have curriculum planners with this point of view? This thinking seems rather Soviet, where everyone is the same except for those who are not.

Education Gains are Lost on High School Students

Alan Borsuk:

The message put forth by, among others, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings on Thursday, is that the data point to the urgency of the hot new issue in education: What can we do about high school?

The priority of the issue increased with the release of data on long-term, nationwide trends in performance by students in math and reading. The information is from the National Assessment of Education Progress, a Department of Education effort that calls itself "The Nation's Report Card." NAEP has been testing samples of students from across the United States since the 1970s.

The results show that among 9-year-olds, reading performance in 2004 was up a significant amount, compared with both 1999 and the oldest data available, from 1971. In fact, the overall score was the highest on record.

But among 17-year-olds, the average score in 2004 was exactly the same as in 1971, and the trend has been downward slightly since the early 1990s.

Sam Dillon, NY Times: For Parents Seeking a Choice, Charter Schools Prove More Popular Than Vouchers

CLEVELAND - When Ohio enacted a pilot program of school vouchers here a decade ago, David Brennan, an Ohio businessman, quickly founded two schools for voucher students.

Three years later, with voucher programs under attack, Mr. Brennan closed the schools and reopened them as charter schools, another educational experiment gaining momentum at the time.

That decision reflected the fortunes of the two parallel school choice movements that once shared the cutting edge of the nation's school reform efforts. Charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately administered, have proliferated across the nation, with 3,300 such schools now educating nearly one million students in 40 states. In contrast, voucher programs, which use taxpayer funds to pay tuition at private schools, serve only about 36,000 students in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C.

"Vouchers are moving slowly," said Paul T. Hill, a professor who studies school choice as director of the University of Washington's Center on Reinventing Public Education. "The American people don't want a complete free market in education. They want some government oversight of taxpayer-funded schools."

Last month voucher advocates achieved a rare victory when the Republican-dominated Ohio legislature created 14,000 new publicly financed "scholarships" or vouchers to allow students in failing public schools to attend private schools. That will make Ohio's voucher program, which began in 1996 with the Cleveland pilot program, the largest in the country. Earlier this spring the Utah Legislature also created a small voucher program that will allow disabled students to study at private schools at public expense.

But those twin victories were the meager results from the most ambitious legislative campaign yet by voucher advocates. Republicans introduced proposals in more than 30 legislatures for voucher or tuition tax credits, an arrangement under which parents receive a subsidy for children's private schooling through the tax code rather than as a direct grant. Vouchers were defeated in Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Indiana and Missouri.

Still, in the view of voucher proponents, the legislative sessions brought significant advances, and they are celebrating, especially because this is the 50th anniversary of the 1955 essay in which University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman suggested the use of vouchers.

In an interview, Dr. Friedman, now 93, said he believed that vouchers would eventually become more widespread than charter schools. But he acknowledged disappointment with vouchers' modest growth. "My personal belief is that the rapid expansion of charter schools will be a short-lived phenomenon, because they are only a halfway solution."Dr. Friedman said.

Many voucher students attend parochial schools like St. Agatha-St. Aloysius, housed in a crumbling brick hulk of a building on Cleveland's East Side. The neighborhood has changed much, from mostly Irish-American to mostly black, but the school, where Sister Sandra Soho has been a teacher or principal for 35 years, has not. Boys wear white shirts and ties, shelves in the basement library are stocked with trophies won by teams a half-century ago, discipline is strict and daily homework is a given.

Charter schools here and elsewhere encompass a range of curriculums and styles. The several Hope Academies in Cleveland, managed by Mr. Brennan's company, follow a back-to-basics approach. Some charter schools, like the City Day Community School in Dayton, are intimate academies. Others are technology-rich, where students take notes in class on computers.

Legislative debates over voucher programs and charter schools have tended to become fierce political brawls. "The entire educational establishment - the unions, the administrators, the school boards - is opposed to vouchers," said Kent Grusendorf, a Republican Texas state representative who chairs the House Education Committee.

Several Republican lawmakers voted with Democrats to defeat a voucher proposal in Texas last month. "This is one area where management and unions work in perfect unison," Mr. Grusendorf said.

The nation's first voucher program and its first charter schools began at about the same time. In 1990, Wisconsin enacted the first voucher program, in Milwaukee. A year later, Minnesota voted the nation's first charter school law. Many legislatures approved charter schools because they seemed less radical and aroused less opposition than vouchers, said Clint Bolick, president of the Alliance for School Choice, a Phoenix-based group.

"Charters are glasnost and vouchers are perestroika," Mr. Bolick said, referring to Mikhail Gorbachev's twin reform policies in the Soviet Union, the former a halfway measure of openness, the latter a more radical restructuring. "The educational establishment has been willing to allow charters in some states just to forestall vouchers."

As an example, he cited Arizona, where in 1995 lawmakers came within a few votes of enacting a broad voucher program. Instead, the Legislature passed a law that has made it easier to create charter schools there than anywhere else in the nation. Arizona now has 500 charter schools, but no voucher program. This year, the Legislature enacted a tuition tax credit, but Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, vetoed it.

Voters got a chance to give their opinions on voucher programs in 2000, when proponents succeeded in getting initiatives on the ballot in California and Michigan. That year vouchers programs got much positive publicity when George W. Bush spoke in favor of them during his presidential campaign. But voters overwhelmingly rejected the two state proposals that November.

Ohio launched its pilot voucher program in Cleveland in 1996, offering taxpayer-financed "scholarships" to about 2,000 students. By this past school year, the program had grown to about 5,600 students attending 44 private schools.

Also over the past decade, more than 200 charter schools have been started in Ohio. Mr. Brennan, the businessman who opened and then closed the two voucher schools in Cleveland, today runs 34 profit-making charter schools across Ohio.

The Cleveland voucher program has become quite popular, especially with black parents like Andrea Holland. Black children make up about half of the city's voucher school students.

Ms. Holland, who runs an electrical contracting business with her husband, enrolled their son Jonathan, 13, at St. Agatha-St. Aloysius parochial school two years ago, transferring him from a public elementary school where he had faced bullying, she said.

"I'm not otherwise able, like rich folks, to take my kid out and put him into a private school," Ms. Holland said. "But with this program I can afford to."

Kim Metcalf, an education researcher who conducted a nine-year study of the Cleveland voucher program, concluded that average achievement levels of Cleveland's voucher students were in some instances significantly higher, and were never lower, than those of students in the Cleveland public schools. In contrast, achievement levels at most of Cleveland's charter schools were somewhat lower than in Cleveland's traditional public schools with similar student populations, according to a 2003 study by Ohio's Legislative Office of Education Oversight, a nonpartisan agency.

Because voucher programs divert tax dollars from public to private schools that are not subject to the same government accountability measures - standardized tests, for example - both national teachers' unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, oppose them. Officially, at least, the unions support charter schools, as long as they are governed by nonprofit groups, are held accountable for student achievement and meet other criteria. In New York City, the United Federation of Teachers is working to start its own charter schools.

In states like Ohio that permit private companies to govern whole chains of charter schools, the unions have fought them bitterly.

"Charters and vouchers are equal on our agenda," said Tom Mooney, the president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers. "We consider charters more insidious right now, because they've grown larger, but vouchers could grow, too."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
July 13, 2005
For Parents Seeking a Choice, Charter Schools Prove More Popular Than Vouchers

By SAM DILLON

Planning for MMSD Legislative Committee for 2005-06

As chair of the MMSD School Board's Legislative Committee for 2005-06, I post information about state and federal laws and legislative issues related to the Madison Schools on this blog under Hot Topics , Madison School Board Legislative Committee blog.

In June I asked MMSD staff for the committee, Joe Quick, for his ideas on future directions for the committee. My questions and his answers are available under as well as news reports and background materials.

My June memo to Legislative Committee:

At the first meeting of the Legislative Committee’s for 2005-06, I will ask the committee to review a plan of action for the year. I hope that we can meet with Dane Cou