Milwaukee Schools Health Care Coverage Changes

Alan J. Borsuk and Sarah Carr:

Milwaukee Public Schools teachers will begin shouldering a larger share of the costs of their health care under an arbitrator's ruling issued Tuesday.

The decision ended 2 1/2 years of work on a two-year contract for more than 6,000 teachers with a victory for the School Board and the administration of Superintendent William Andrekopoulos.

After management and the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association deadlocked - almost entirely over health insurance issues - the dispute went to the arbitrator, Marquette University Law School Professor Jay Grenig, who was required to pick between the final offers of each side without making any changes.

Under the MPS plan, teachers would begin paying portions of the cost of their health care, including deductibles and co-pays on many services. Administrators say the district pays more than 60 cents in fringe benefits for every dollar it pays in salaries.

Gorman Drops Ridgewood Plans

By mid-December of 2005, a task force appointed by the Madison School Board will make recommendations about future school construction and possible school boundary changes in the West and Memorial High School areas of the district. In the following article from The Capital Times, August 30, writer Cliff Miller reports that developer Gary Gorman has withdrawn from his role in the redevelopment of a large apartment complex adjacent to Leopold Elementary School. The complex---Ridgewood Country Club Estates---has housed low-income families whose children have attended Leopold and Chavez Elementary Schools. The nature of the new housing and the timing of the redevelopment could have significant implications for west side elementary school enrollments, particularly the future enrollment at Leopold School.

Gorman drops Ridgewood plans
FITCHBURG - Redevelopment of Ridgewood Country Club Estates will move forward, new owner E.J. Plesko and Mayor Tom Clauder promised, despite Monday's stunning withdrawal from the project by Madison developer Gary Gorman in a disagreement over issues of "vision" and decision-making control with the 52-acre apartment complex's new owner.

"After a series of discussions with E.J. Plesko & Associates, the new owner of Ridgewood, our team concluded that we do not share a common vision for the property and regrettably had no choice but to withdraw," Gorman announced in a press release Monday afternoon.

Plesko pledged in a statement released this morning to continue to redevelop the property: "I want to assure the community of Fitchburg that our commitment is absolutely solid and that we have taken immediate steps to move this project forward."

Explaining his withdrawal as developer, Gorman said, "There aren't specific things, although I think it's fair to say E.J.'s vision is more conventional than ours. We truly embraced the urban village type of approach. He's more conventional. Nobody's right and nobody's wrong."

Plesko, a Madison investor, settled a foreclosure action against the 832-apartment complex's West Allis owners two weeks ago by buying it for a reported $29 million from bankers holding the mortgage.

"The real estate redevelopment business is a continuing process and a business that is not without bumps in the road," Plesko said in the statement. "We are moving forward with this project. We enjoyed working with Gary Gorman and his folks, and we are putting the team together to accomplish what we set out to do. We have an excellent working relationship with Fitchburg Mayor Tom Clauder and the City Council, and we'll continue on that road as we move the project forward."

Clauder said Monday he assured fellow city officials and staff, "We're changing the jockey, we're still going (forward.)" Clauder said Gorman called him on his cell phone while the mayor was driving Sunday afternoon. Hearing Gorman's decision, "I almost hit a big old oak tree," Clauder confessed.

Clauder and other officials persuaded Gorman, a Fitchburg resident, to take on the redevelopment project after a series of discussions earlier this year. The city has been working with Gorman to write an urban renewal plan for the physically and financially neglected neighborhood. The city now must shift gears to work with Plesko, who apparently has assumed the added role of developer.

Gorman said originally Plesko was to be the owner, Gary Gorman & Associates the developer and decision maker. Discussions in the following two weeks yielded a different picture.

"E.J. wanted to have a vigorous voice in the process, and I came to the conclusion that you can't have two pilots flying the airplane." "He has a $30 million investment and I don't," said Gorman, a high-profile developer behind several other projects under way or being planned in Fitchburg, Madison and other communities in Wisconsin and other states.

After Plesko's announcement of buying the Ridgewood complex, Gorman described a vision of an "urban village" containing rental and owner-occupied apartments, condominiums and houses within walking distance to shopping, open space, recreation and other amenities.

Plesko's assumption of control leaves in question those ideas as well as the fate of the city-owned Nine Springs Golf Course, an issue that aroused strong concern of residents during public meetings on the project early this year.

Clauder noted that except for the golf course, "It's private property. It doesn't belong to the city."

Pleska said he had retained Fiduciary Real Estate of Milwaukee to continue as property manager while redevelopment continues. In addition, Madison-based Suby, Von Haden & Associates will consult on the project, a new real estate legal counsel will be hired, the current urban land master planner will be retained and a highly respected redevelopment company will become part of the team.

Middleton Schools Referenda & New Website

The Middleton-Cross Plains School District has posted information on their upcoming vote on borrowing $53 Million to finance the construction and operation of a K-8 school, a new transportation center, and improvements to several elementary schools. Ann Marie Ames has more. The District also has a new website with the latest news posted on their home page. The site also includes the ability to pay for meals online.

Jefferson Middle School Spanish Teacher Suspended

Sandy Cullen:

A Madison middle school teacher has been suspended with pay pending the outcome of an independent investigation of a sexual harassment complaint filed by 28 parents, district officials said Tuesday.

Jefferson Middle School Principal John Burmaster said that when school resumes Thursday there will be a new Spanish language teacher in place of Hector Vazquez, whom parents say created a hostile learning environment for their children last year.

"That's good news," said Roger Greenwald, one of the parents who filed the Title IX complaint against Vazquez on Friday because they were not satisfied with the district's initial investigation of their concerns this past spring.

In their complaint, parents said Vazquez showed students an R-rated movie, made repeated references to his personal sexual exploits, stared at girls' breasts in class and touched students in a way that made them and observers uncomfortable.

More from Steve Elbow.

Conn. Files Long-Awaited Lawsuit Challenging No Child Left Behind Act

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has made good on his nearly 5-month-old threat to sue the U.S. Department of Education over the No Child Left Behind Act, making his state the first to take its objections about the law to the federal courts.

Filed Aug. 22 in U.S. District Court in Hartford, the state’s complaint in Connecticut v. Spellings argues that federal funding to the state for the No Child Left Behind law falls far short of what is needed to meet the law’s testing and accountability requirements. The suit contends the failure to fully fund the law violates a provision in the nearly 4-year-old education statute itself that says states will not be required “to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this act.”

From Education Week, August 22, 2005
By Jeff Archer

“Our message today is: Give up the unfunded mandates, or give us the money,” Mr. Blumenthal said at a press conference in his office after filing the lawsuit.

Although surrounded by key Connecticut education leaders and policymakers who expressed their support at the announcement, Mr. Blumenthal said no other state had joined the legal action. Since first threatening to sue over the law in April, he has said one of the reasons he has waited to do so was to give other states a chance to take part.

The 28-page complaint recounts how Connecticut’s attempts to get waivers of some of the student-assessment provisions in the No Child Left Behind law have been repeatedly denied in recent months by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.

In particular, Connecticut education officials sought unsuccessfully to get out of the law’s requirement that they expand their testing system—which assesses students in mathematics and reading in grades 4, 6, and 8—to cover the entire span of grades 3-8. An estimate by the state department of education pegs the cost of putting in place those and other additional assessments called for in the law at $41.6 million by 2008, compared with $33.6 million that the state is slated to receive from the federal government by then for test implementation.

“The additional tests, as imposed by the requirements of NCLB, are of questionable merit,” state Commissioner of Education Betty J. Sternberg said at the Aug. 22 press conference. “There is no research base that tells us that additional testing of this type will yield better results.”

Connecticut also has unsuccessfully sought flexibility in the law’s requirements on the testing of special education students and students who are learning English.

The state’s legal case rests largely on the so-called unfunded-mandates provision in the No Child Left Behind law, which says that “nothing in this chapter shall be construed to authorize” the federal government to “mandate a state or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this chapter.” The complaint also cites the spending clause in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which has been construed by the courts as requiring Congress to make unambiguous any conditions attached to states’ acceptance of federal money.

Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Education Department, called the lawsuit “unfortunate” in a written statement. Arguing that Secretary Spellings has worked to meet states' concerns about the law, she added nonetheless that testing in each grade, from 3-8, is needed to catch problems in a timely manner.

“Today's action doesn't bring the state any closer to closing its achievement gap, which is among the largest in the nation,” Ms. Aspey said.

In June, the department asked a judge in U.S. District Court in Detroit to dismiss a similar lawsuit filed by the National Education Association, arguing that the No Child Left Behind Act is not an unfunded mandate because states are under no obligation to take the federal money allocated for it. The department’s motion is pending. ("U.S. Asks Court to Dismiss Lawsuit Over NCLB," July 13, 2005.)

Turning that argument around at his press conference, Attorney General Blumenthal said that by threatening to withhold money from the state if it doesn’t comply with the law’s requirements, the federal government is putting hundreds of millions of dollars for Connecticut’s schools at risk. That fear, he added, is partly why other states haven’t joined the suit, although he left open the possibility that some other states may yet do so.

“That’s money that goes to schools that serve our neediest children,” he said. “It goes to school lunch programs, after-school programs, reading-achievement programs, all of the kinds of programs that are necessary for meeting the objectives and goals of No Child Left Behind.”

The federal Education Department has 60 days to file a legal response, which could be a motion to dismiss the case.

Meanwhile, the case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Mark R. Kravitz.

“We’re hoping he will expedite our case, and it won’t be years, but a matter of months,” Mr. Blumenthal said.

Madison Schools SAT Scores

The Madison School District announced that the 24% of eligible Madison students taking the SAT scored the highest ever and remain significantly above state and national averages:

Madison students' composite score is 1266, up 37 points from four years ago (1229) and up 16 points from last year's results (1250). The 1266 Madison composite is well over the state average composite of 1191, and significantly over the national average of 1028. (See tables below for details.)

The 16 point improvement is attributable to higher scores on both the verbal and math portions of the exam. The average verbal score for Madison students is 624, up from 615 the previous year. The average math score is 642, up from 635 in 2003-04.

The College Board posted national results and aggregate scores here.

More on the Elimination of No-Cut Freshman Sports

Susan Lampert-Smith:

At Memorial, Athletic Director Tim Ritchie said he hopes kids who get cut will find a team in an expanded intramural basketball league through Madison School Community Recreation.

"You hope that you have a good intramural program that keeps kids working towards making the team next year," he said.

I worry about the kids for whom basketball or volleyball would have been their only school activity. And I'm even more worried about the kids who won't try out because they fear not making the grade.

Those are the missing kids that Joe Frontier worries about.

Sometimes, there's no real way to know the true cost of saving money.

Lampert-Smith mischaracterizes this decision as a "cost of saving money." The Madison School District's budget grows annually (including the generation of grant funds, which is to be commended), this year to $320M+. Rather, the Madison School Board's decision to eliminate no-cut freshman sports reflects choices made, or not made, such as:

• Ongoing reductions in Fine Arts Curriculum
• Controversial growth in health care spending (WPS costs far more than the Group Health Care alternative)
• Growing administrative budgets ($1.5M more this year than last)
• Shifting programs to MSCR, which is funded by Fund 80. Fund 80 is a growing, controversial source of local property tax revenue that is not constrained by state spending caps.

Loehrke's recent speech to the Florence schools provides a roadmap for such decision making: putting students first.

What can you do? Send your thoughts on these matters to the Madison School Board: comments@madison.k12.wi.us and ask 2006 Madison School Board Candidates about these issues. Two seats are up for election in April, 2006; those currently held by Bill Keys and Juan Jose Lopez.

Herbert: Left Behind, Way Behind

Bob Herbert:

First the bad news: Only about two-thirds of American teenagers (and just half of all black, Latino and Native American teens) graduate with a regular diploma four years after they enter high school.

Now the worse news: Of those who graduate, only about half read well enough to succeed in college.

Don't even bother to ask how many are proficient enough in math and science to handle college-level work. It's not pretty.

Of all the factors combining to shape the future of the U.S., this is one of the most important. Millions of American kids are not even making it through high school in an era in which a four-year college degree is becoming a prerequisite for achieving (or maintaining) a middle-class lifestyle.

The complete report can be found here (PDF). Campaign for America's Future Website.

An Exchange with Juan Lopez on Minority Hiring

Isthmus featured a story on the concerns of Juan Lopez about MMSD hiring of people of color.

I sent Juan the following e-mail telling him that I shared his concern:

Juan,
I agree completely with your concerns about minority hiring in the district, as reported in Isthmus. When I attended committee and board meetings in the past, Valencia Douglas was the only district staff of color (unless Clarence attended). Now that she's gone, we'll only have a sea of white faces! So sad.
Ed Blume

As an afterthought in a second e-mail, I said:

Juan,
As chair of the Committee on Human Resources, you're in a great spot to look at district hiring. When you do, I hope that you can make some changes.
Ed

He responded in the following e-mail:

Mr. Blume,
Apparently you have not been closely following the BOE because I have been involved directly and indirectly in the district hiring especially as it relates to hiring people of color. I was also involved prior to being elected to the BOE as a member of the District's Affirmative Action and the Superintendent's Human Relations Advisory Committee. The only other people I know who have been as involved and outspoken were Jerry Smith, Jr. and Ray Allen. Johnny Winston and Shwaw Vang have also begun to make a difference. Not only have we been critics, we have actually done something about it. Thank you and have a great weekend.
Juan Jose Lopez

And I responded:

Juan,
I meant my comments as a compliment and support. You seemed to take them as a criticism.

I sincerely wish you luck in getting more people of color into the top administrative positions in the district.

It's been a concern of mine for years. I did a lot of analysis on the issue and tried to get the Cap Times, State Journal, and Isthmus to write stories, but they never did. If I'd had the blog at those times, I would have had a place to post my analysis. Now it's out of date, and the data is harder to find to redo the analysis because the district no longer posts reports on minority hiring on the Web site. The last useful information was posted in a press release in 1995. I'd love to see the district prepare a similar analysis comparing the 1995 figures on minority employees to today's figures.

Again, I wish you well in your efforts.
Ed

Korean Summer School

Norimitsu Onishi writes from Seoul:

JUST as she did during the school year, Jeong Hye Jin, 15, spent the long, sweltering summer commuting to her high school by day and to private classes in the evening.

Summer school was mandatory, not for students who had fallen behind, but for those who, as she put it, "have a chance of getting into good universities." Not attending was never an option for Hye Jin, who is ranked 17th out of 430 students in the 10th grade at Young Hoon High School, in a working-class neighborhood here in the capital.

Michigan Takes a Step Toward Small High Schools (400 Students)

Nolan Finley writing from Detroit:

The hope is that this first, small school will turn into a statewide system of high schools linked to businesses and hell-bent on preparing Michigan kids for the best colleges, the best jobs, the best futures.

"We know from research that small high schools are making a big difference in the lives of young people across the country," says Granholm, who approached Apple about coming to Detroit during a visit to Silicon Valley several months ago. "When a global corporation like Apple makes a commitment of this magnitude to education in Michigan, it underscores how critical it is that we prepare all of our children for the 21st-century economy."

Michigan certainly isn't doing that today. You've read these statistics before, but they are so bleak, so disturbing, that they bear repeating at every opportunity, lest parents forget how greatly their children are being cheated:

I think Madison should also explore smaller high schools (including smaller facilities).

School News Roundup

• Fuel Costs Pinch School District Budgets
• Nick Anderson on Prince George's County School System overpaid employees by more than $1m last year:

  The overpayments, mentioned briefly by the school system's outside auditor in a report made public in July, were documented in greater detail in an internal audit dated June 30. The Post obtained the internal audit through a public-records request.
  
  Some employees were allowed to rack up "negative leave balances," meaning they were paid for time off beyond what they were owed.
  
  Some employees who had retired and then returned to active service under a special state program had salaries larger than allowed under law.

• Local Legislator Takes on Bullying in Schools (Via WisPolitics)
• NPR News:Kids have easy access to junk food.

Isthmus: Is the Madison School District's Leadership too White?

Click on the image to view the article.
Jason Shephard starts Isthmus's excellent biweekly Talking Out of School Column with a look at the Madison School District's minority hiring policies.

"I don't think we're doing enough to put people of color into influential positions," says [Board Member Juan Jose] Lopez, who halted a routine approval of new hires at a board meeting earlier this month to criticize the district's minority hiring record.

School Board Member Ruth Robarts says [Superintendent] Rainwater's minority administrator hiring rate of more than 40% this year is to be commended.

According to a note next to this article, Talking out of School will be available on Isthmus's website. We'll link to those, of course.

Tutoring Firms Are Gaining From NCLB

In an August 4, 2005, an MS-NBC Report indicates tutoring firms (for profit, and non-profit), because schools and districts are ailing under the NCLB law, are doing well. Public schools are going to be funneling $900M to these private companies to tutor kids from schools that are not making adequate yearly progress. And, there are no standards that such firms need to maintain to get these funds, according to the article.

Among other issues:
"One sore spot is that some of the most troubled public school schools systems like Chicago’s have been forced to shut down their own after-school tutoring services because of federal rules that apply to failing districts.

Beth Swanson of Chicago Public Schools figures that means only 25,000 students will get services in the coming year, down from 80,000."

Reading First Under Fire

Title1online:

By January of 2003, Kentucky reading officials were frustrated. They had just been denied federal Reading First funds for the third time, and state leaders worried that they might lose the opportunity to bring in an unprecedented $90 million for reading instruction in grades K-3 over six years. Like most states strapped by budget cuts, they could not afford to lose that money.

Months before, consultants to the federal program strongly suggested to state officials that Kentucky’s choice of assessment was a major sticking point in their pursuit of the grant. According to the officials, consultants pushed them to drop the assessment they were using, Pearson’s Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), and choose the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), which was quickly becoming the most widely used test under Reading First. But there was a problem: One of the consultants on the four-member team had a second job — as a trainer for DIBELS.

Eduwonk has more.

Jefferson Middle School Teacher Accused of Sexual Harassment

Sandy Cullen:

Twenty-eight parents have filed a sexual harassment complaint with the Madison School District against a Jefferson Middle School teacher they claim created a hostile learning environment for their children last year.

Roger Greenwald, a member of the Committee of Concerned Parents of Jefferson Middle School, said the Title IX complaint was filed Friday because parents were unhappy with the district's initial response to their concerns about Spanish teacher Hector Vasquez, who came to Jefferson last year from Sennett Middle School.

Dallas Schools Require Some Principals To Learn Spanish

The Dallas School Board has approved a policy that will require some school administrators to learn Spanish. The new policy, approved by a 5-4 vote on Aug. 25, now requires that all elementary school principals who work in schools in which at least half of the students are English-language learners, or formerly carried that designation, must learn the native language of those students.

From Education Week, August 26, 2005
By Mary Ann Zehr

In the Dallas Independent School District, where 65 percent of the system’s 160,000 students are Hispanic, that basically means some principals must learn Spanish. Those administrators have one year from now to enroll in a Spanish course and three years to become “proficient,” which isn’t defined in the new policy. The district will pay for the courses.

Elementary schools that have received a “recognized” or “exemplary” label in the state’s accountability system are exempted from the policy. The policy applies similarly to middle and high schools with large numbers of English-language learners, but those schools are permitted to select a principal, vice principal, or dean of instruction to fulfill the requirement—rather than just the principal.

“I’ve never heard of a school board ever requiring this,” said Dora Johnson, a senior program associate who monitors school foreign-language issues at the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington. She said some police departments have mandated that officers learn rudimentary Spanish, but she hasn’t heard of a school district requiring its administrators to learn the language.
Opponents Critique Policy

The policy is the brainchild of Joe May, a Dallas school board trustee and Mexican-American. Mr. May grew up in a Spanish-speaking household in Laredo, Texas. He first learned English after he enrolled in school.

The policy is intended to increase parent involvement in schools with large percentages of parents who don’t speak English, Mr. May said. “The new [educational] approaches that are coming out are collaborative approaches,” he said. “That means working together with parents. If you are going to be applying it to kids whose parents don’t speak English, the only way that’s going to happen is through the requirement that the principal learns the language of the parent.”

But Ron Price, a board trustee who voted against the policy, said it is unfair. “To ask people who have active lives and busy schedules to learn a second language and become proficient is almost impossible in some cases,” he said.

It is important for school staff members to be able to communicate with parents who don’t speak English, he said, but the responsibility for that shouldn’t be put on administrators. Schools have other options, such as hiring bilingual liaisons to talk with parents, he noted.

“When you connect a person’s employment to the ability to speak a second language, that might be unconstitutional, and it’s un-American,” Mr. Price said.

In response to the characterization of the policy as “un-American,” Mr. May gave a little laugh.

“I chuckle,” he said, “because this is how naïve these people are. In Texas, a good portion of Hispanics are raised speaking Spanish and when they go to public schools, they learn English.”

Mr. May said the new policy will affect almost 50 schools in the district. Out of 14 elementary schools that have a high percentage of English-language learners, a dozen already have a principal who speaks both English and Spanish, he pointed out. But only about half of the middle and high schools with large percentages of English-language learners have a bilingual administrator, he added.

The Simpson Street Free Press Sounds Off On Arts Education

The current issue of The Simpson Street Free Press includes pieces by both Jazmin Jackson and Andrea Gilmore on the importance of arts education. This issue also has a letter to the editor from School Board member Johnny Winston, Jr. on the arts funding issues facing the District.

Participating in Arts Promotes Achievement and Academic Success

by Jazmin Jackson, age 15

When I was four years old, my mother took me to watch my older sister perform in a ballet. Since then, I knew I wanted to take dance lessons and perform like her. I’m fortunate to have hard-working parents who help pay for expensive classes. But many parents are not able to afford the cost of putting their kids into special programs like dance lessons. So what do those kids do?

Their best option is participating in the school art programs.
Music classes, show choir, theater, ceramics, painting, strings, band—I could go on and on. These are just a few of the great programs that our schools offer. These are also the programs that often face cuts from school budgets—especially these days.

Many people don’t realize the importance of these programs. The arts allow kids to learn many important life skills that they will use throughout their lives—skills for interviewing for a job, getting into college, and maturing into a responsible adult.

As a dancer, I must arrive on time and commit to attending every class and every rehearsal. Our teachers are constantly stressing how we have to be able to adapt quickly and step in for someone if they are sick or injured. If I want to get a good part, I have to work to the best of my ability. The lessons I learn I will use for the rest of my life.

Children involved in the arts are constantly developing good work habits that build strong character. Kids involved in arts and music not only benefit now, but they broaden their horizons for the future. They explore talents that they may wish to pursue later in life.

For a long time, sports have been an all-around-favorite school activity. Most teens are involved in some type of club having to do with a sport. And no matter how much we complain about running in 80-degree weather, gym class will continue to be mandatory. We all understand the importance of physical health.

Isn’t just as important to continue to hold music classes during the school day? Apparently it was to the parents of Sherman Middle School students.

In a recent letter to school board members, the principal at Sherman, Ann Yehle, proposed a plan to move music programs to after hours. Then, at a school board meeting, parents voiced strong disagreement about moving band and orchestra classes to the end of the school day. Superintendent Art Rainwater quickly stated, “music will be offered during the regular school day.”

However, Sherman plans to proceed in testing its after-school proposal.

I think it’s very important that all kids have the opportunity to participate in an arts program. Not all students are interested in sports. Arts and music programs are extremely important because they allow kids to express themselves and participate in something they enjoy doing.

But what’s even more important is that these kinds of programs are really academic programs. Andrea Gilmore, our senior teen editor, has made this point around our newsroom often in the past few months. Her editorials have been printed in this paper and in the Wisconsin State Journal. I tend to agree with Andy. Skills learned in art or music classes are easily transferred to math or science or English class.

Creating artwork, making music, or using the imagination allows kids to exercise their minds and explore their talents. Children participating in art or music better themselves by learning positive lifelong habits important academic skills.

Elementary Strings Should Be Part of Madison's Core Curriculum

An Editorial

by Andrea Gilmore, age 18

I am lucky. I have been playing the violin since I was in the fourth grade. I was exposed to music at an early age and music has helped me gain skills that have enhanced my school career. Through music, I learned self-confidence, self-discipline, time management, cooperation, and study skills.

Unfortunately, many young people may not have the opportunity I had.

The elementary strings program costs only $500,000 in a budget of more than $350 million. School board members recently decided to keep the elementary strings program next year in some form, while cutting approximately $500,000 overall out of the music-education programs.

Elementary strings programs are essential to the development of our community’s young people and should be supported in all Madison Schools.

One reason elementary strings programs are crucial to schools is that music programs help close the minority-student-achievement gap. Music programs, when incorporated in the academic curriculum, increase academic achievement of minority and low-income students.

Eliminating programs like elementary strings only adds to the widening differences among students that is often based on family income. The opportunity to play in an orchestra or to receive music education should not be based on whether parents can afford private lessons. If school districts eliminate music programs, students from low-income families will be adversely affected.

According to University of Wisconsin music professor Richard Davis, “underprivileged children will suffer the most. It’s another way of letting those who can afford it get the opportunities. The fear is that you’re going to have a very one-sided warped community, where one world will have all of the exposure and sophistication, and the other world won’t.”

Music and fine arts should be part of the core curriculum in our schools. I attribute much of my success in school, and in life, to my experience with music. I sincerely hope every fourth grader in Madison has this important opportunity.

A young person learning how to play music, who can put a price on that? School Board, please make your cuts elsewhere.

[Sources: Ruth Robarts of the Madison School Board; The Capital Times]

Andrea Gilmore is a senior at Madison Memorial High School and the Science Editor for the Simpson Street Free Press. She will attend UW-Madison this fall.

Rubric for School Improvement Posted on Performance and Achievment Blog

The Performance and Achievement Blog contains a new posting describing a rubric for school improvement. The rubrics allow one to estimate the current status of the schools and District with regard to the following: Student Achievement, Quality Planning, Professional Development, School Leadership, Partnerships with Community and Parents, Continuous Improvement and Evaluation.

Texas School Launches Virtual Cafeteria

Jamie Stengle:

A suburban Dallas school district launched the "Virtual Cafeteria" site to show what's being served each day at each school. It can tally nutritional information for items on a lunch tray, including calories, fat grams, carbs, protein, vitamin A and vitamin C.

For instance, a meal of a chef salad, a slice of pizza, a cookie and milk will cost $4.75 and runs about 746 calories.

"We are really making a valiant effort to put nutritional information in the hands of our customers, be it parents, a grandmother, a teacher or the student themselves," said Rachelle Fowler, student nutrition director for the Carrollton-Farmers Branch school district.

TOTN: Tips for First Time Teachers

Talk of the Nation:

Thousands of rookie teachers across the country nervously contemplate study plans and wonder if they can live up to the expectations of students, parents, the principal and themselves. Classroom veterans offer advice to the new teachers. Guests:

Jennifer Westra, first-time teacher at Liliam Lujan Hickey Elementary School in Las Vegas, Nev.

Rafe Esquith, author of There Are No Shortcuts and longtime fifth-grade teacher in Los Angeles

David Espinosa, New York City teaching fellow

audio>

DPI Open Enrollment Hearing

Wisconsin DPI (PDF):

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction will conduct a hearing Aug. 29 at the agency headquarters in Madison to take public testimony on a change in administrative rules affecting the open enrollment program. The hearing will be held from 5 to 6 p.m. in Room 041 of the GEF 3 Building, 125 South Webster Street, Madison.

Map

Rep. Black: Democrat to Offer Constitutional Amendment to Limit Governor's Veto Power

Representative Spencer Black will introduce a constitutional amendment that would limit the power and scope of the Governor’s veto.

Black said “This amendment is an attempt to move beyond the partisan gridlock and political game playing that has stymied efforts to reform the partial veto power for more than three decades. Amendments to our constitution should not be political footballs – they should be thoughtful attempts to improve the functioning of state government.”

Black said the constitutional amendment he will offer is based on the recommendation of the bi-partisan Legislative Council Study Committee on Improving Wisconsin’s Fiscal Management. Black’s proposed amendment to the State Constitution provides that the Governor may not use the veto to create new laws not passed by the Legislature. It would also prohibit the Governor from increasing appropriations beyond what was approved by the Legislature.

“This amendment would eliminate so-called ‘creative vetoes’ that have allowed Governors to single handedly write new laws and make new appropriations. The amendment would restore a true partial veto. The veto was originally intended to be a negative power, a check on the power of the Legislature,” said Black. “Instead, because of the State Supreme Court interpretations, the Wisconsin partial veto now allows the Governor, by creatively deleting words or digits to write new law, to raise taxes or make appropriations without legislative approval.”

“What was originally intended as a check on the power of one branch of government (the Legislature) has instead become an excessive grant of power to another branch (the Governor). The current veto power of Wisconsin’s Governor far exceeds that of any other Governor in the country or of the President,” Black noted. “The Wisconsin partial veto is a deep infringement on the separation of powers designed by our founding fathers,” stated Black.

Black noted that attempts to reform the partial veto have been considered by the Legislature for at least three decades, but dropped as the party control of the Governor’s office has changed. “In the mid seventies, Tommy Thompson led the charge to amend the constitution, but he dropped his support when a Republican (Lee Dreyfus) was elected Governor. Likewise, as Attorney General, Jim Doyle supported reform, he has now dropped his support for an amendment. Interestingly, the Republicans who are now sponsoring an amendment were silent when Tommy Thompson vastly expanded the use of the partial veto in the 80’s and 90’s. I suspect that if a Republican were to win the Governor’s race in 2006, some of the Republican legislators would drop their support for a constitutional amendment like a hot potato.”

Black said three factors that may allow the amendment to move beyond the usual partisan bickering are:

1. It is sponsored by a legislator from the party of the Governor.

2. It is the wording agreed to by a bi-partisan committee after much study and discussion.

3. It would not be effective until a new Governor is sworn in 2011. Otherwise, since an amendment would have to receive second consideration and a referendum vote in the 2007-08 session, the amendment would affect the sitting Governor and become a partisan battleground.

The proposed amendment would add the following language to Article V of the state constitution:

“In approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may reduce the dollar amount of an appropriation as shown in the bill, but may not increase it.

In approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may not approve any law that the legislature did not authorize as part of the enrolled bill.”

Press release from Rep. Black's office
8/24/2005
State Capitol P. O. Box 8952 Madison, WI 53708 (608) 266-7521

Jane Brody: Preparing for the School Year

Jane Brody:

Dr. Ari Brown - pediatrician in Austin, Tex., spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics and author of "Baby 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for Your Baby's First Year" - cautions that in haste to get children the clothes and supplies they need for school, health issues are sometimes overlooked.

She and other experts offer the following advice:

BACKPACKS Many children have no lockers in school and are forced to carry all their books back and forth to school and between classes. An overweight pack can cause muscle strains and overuse injuries and distort the child's posture.

A loaded backpack should not weigh more than one-fifth of a child's weight. The pack's shoulder straps should be wide and padded on the back as well. The pack should always be carried using both straps. "Now and then, a parent should check what's in the pack and determine if everything has to be carried daily," Dr. Brown suggested.

Reader Questions

Several Madison School District parents emailed the following questions recently:

• "I was just trying to find information on teachers in the Madison School System. Is there a site that you know of that gives information on the teachers (bio, cv, anything)?" This seems like a good idea. Perhaps each school's website could include a teacher page?
  
  
• "[There's been some discussion] that multi-age classrooms are not the best learning environment for all kids. Does your group have any access to studies or data on multi-age classrooms? Apparently, MMSD has plans to make these the district-wide approach to elementary schools."

Please post information you might have on these topics by clicking the comments link below. Thanks.

High School Sports: The Cruelest Cut

Eli Saslow:

He arrived 10 minutes before his fate, so Filip Olsson stood outside Severna Park High School and waited for coaches to post the cut list for the boys' soccer team.

Olsson, a sophomore, wanted desperately to make the junior varsity, but he also wanted justification for a long list of sacrifices. His family had rearranged a trip to Sweden so he could participate in a preparatory soccer camp; he'd crawled out of bed at 5:30 a.m. for two weeks of camp and tryouts and forced down Raisin Bran; he'd sweated off five pounds and pulled his hamstring.

Sort of related: Sunday's Doonesbury on overstressing our children.

Finally, a coach walked by holding a list, and Olsson followed him into the high school. He walked back out two minutes later, his hands shoved deep into his pockets and his eyes locked on the ground.

"It felt," he said later, "like a punch in the stomach."

Thousands of area teenagers suffered similarly last week during high school sports tryouts, an increasingly high-stakes process both coaches and players abhor. As more families invest money into year-round club sports and intensive summer camps in an effort to propel their kids onto top high school teams, the pressure has increased on what remains a subjective tryout process. Because a spot on a varsity or junior varsity team can dramatically impact a teenager's self-confidence and social status, there is little tolerance of mistakes.

In an effort to better explain cuts to players and parents, coaches have started to record player evaluation grades. Few coaches, though, agree on how to decide which players are cut. Fewer still agree on how to cut those players. Only one thing, coaches said, can be universally agreed upon: Tryouts are as imperfect as their punishing end result.

"The day you have to cut kids is the worst day at the school all year," said Andy Muir, the field hockey coach at W.T. Woodson. "Everybody is trying hard to do the right thing -- the kids to make the team, the coaches to pick the right team -- and everyone ends up devastated. It's heartbreaking."

Olsson, 15, tried hard not to think about that possible endpoint when he arrived at Severna Park at 7:30 a.m. last Monday. He had enough to worry about. As the coaches took attendance for the first time, Olsson stood out awkwardly from the other 48 aspiring junior varsity players. At 6 feet 2 inches, he hovered more than a foot above many of his freshman and sophomore counterparts. His long, wavy hair -- a style that befits his rock-and-roll guitar playing -- stamped him as unique amongst crew-cut soccer players.

Even more unusual, though, were the circumstances of his tryout. Of the 48 players competing for about 22 spots, only Olsson had been cut the previous year and chosen to return. "Kids who get cut as freshmen almost never come back," said Stan Malm, coach of the junior varsity team. "Nobody wants that pain twice."

Severna Park players never touched a soccer ball for the first two hours last Monday, the first day Maryland public schools were allowed to practice. Instead, they ran timed 40-yard dashes and shuttle runs, a result of a trend that has overtaken high school tryouts.

Because of increased complaints from parents, many high school coaches now strive to make cuts more scientific. Until she retired last season, longtime Eleanor Roosevelt girls' soccer coach Kathy Lacey made her players run 1.5 miles in less than 12 minutes to make the team. Mike Bossom, the volleyball coach at Centennial, scores players with a number -- 1 through 5 -- for each drill and then logs the scores on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

For the first time this season, Severna Park Athletic Director Wayne Mook required his coaches to record running times and player evaluation grades, then hand in that paperwork to him. It is an arduous process that many coaches find tiresome, but Mook instituted it for a reason: After a player was cut from the girls' lacrosse team last spring, the family hired lawyers to meet with the school.

"In this day and age, you have to cover yourself a little bit," Mook said. "When I meet with a parent whose kid has been cut, I need something to show them. I need proof."

Under those orders, Malm and his volunteer assistant coach, Joe Keough, marched their players to a grassy knoll near the Severna Park High School entrance last Monday for a series of physical tests that hardly qualified as scientific.

Keough and Malm walked off what felt like 40 yards, then timed players with stopwatches. Every player ran twice, and often his time changed by nearly a full second from one sprint to the next. During the shuttle run, a 25-yard sprint that required players to stop and touch the grass every five yards, players slid on the uneven ground so often Keough screamed "Safe!" and signaled like an umpire.

Olsson's times in the 40-yard dash (6.1 seconds), the shuttle run (36 seconds) and the mile (6 minutes 57 seconds) left him near the bottom of the list, but he felt confident about the soccer ahead. He'd played well for a competitive under-19 team during the last year; he'd retouched his skills and gained valuable face time during the World Class Soccer Camp -- run by Severna Park varsity coach Bob Thomas -- during the previous week.

"The only thing that should help you get on the team is soccer," Olsson said. "It's about how well you can play."

It was about a lot of other things, too. One player hurt his chances by wearing lacrosse shorts, a major offense to Severna Park's look-like-a-soccer-player dress code, Keough said. Another had a father who blossomed into a high-level player, so he was hard to cut. Another had a brother who stood 6-2, which made the coaches optimistic about a future growth spurt.

Most of all, though, the coaches wanted players to show leadership and communication, so Olsson, often shy, worked hard to be vocal around a group of kids with whom he didn't usually feel comfortable. After a scrimmage, he suggested gently that a few of his teammates try switching positions. They looked back at him quizzically.

During the first two days of tryouts, players spent a combined five hours actually playing soccer. Coaches gave each player a numbered and colored pinny -- Olson got 30 blue -- which was used in place of names as identification when making cuts. Yellow pinnies, given to returning players, acted like bulletproof jackets; an orange or a blue pinny indicated a new player who could get cut.

Each day, Malm and Keough ran the group through drills and scrimmages meant to reveal both soccer skill and dedication. First there was a dribbling drill, then shooting practice, then four-on-four scrimmages, then a full-field game. On both days, Olsson drank almost a gallon of water and two 32-ounce Gatorades to stay hydrated. "A kid who really wants to make the team will exhaust himself trying," Malm said. "He would eat poop for you."

The coaches at Severna Park had a particularly difficult task. Almost 90 percent of their players entered tryouts with several years of year-round club soccer behind them. The Falcons' recent success -- they advanced to the Maryland 3A state final last season -- enticed players to train exhaustively for tryouts.

"Most of the players we cut could start on other teams," Keough said. "Cutting the right kids is almost impossible."

Keough and Malm are well equipped for the job. Malm recently retired after 25 years as a police officer, in part so he could spend more time coaching. Keough works for a trucking company from midnight to 8 a.m. -- his regular shift -- before going to the high school. During tryouts, he slept two hours each night, sometimes restlessly. He was cut twice from the Arundel baseball team -- he still won't talk to the coach who cut him -- and he dreaded imposing the same feelings of failure on somebody else.

Since Keough saw his name in bold letters on a list of players cut, though, things have changed significantly. Though neither Maryland nor Virginia tells its schools how to cut players, coaches and athletic directors look for ways to dull the blow. Few high schools post the names of players cut because coaches find that too demoralizing.

At South River High School, a departmental policy requires every coach to inform athletes face to face. Several high schools, including Severna Park, post lists identifying players by assigned number. Bethesda-Chevy Chase field hockey coach Amy Wood posts a list of players who made the team, because she thinks numbers are impersonal.

"The way to do it right is to take every kid aside one by one and tell them privately what they did well and didn't do well," said Alan Goldberg, a sports psychologist at Competitive Advantage in Amherst, Mass. "You want to let kids understand that failure is a part of getting better. The big problem is when failure is just presented as failure. That's traumatizing."

At the end of Tuesday's four-hour tryout, Malm gathered his aspiring players and promised to be available for 10 minutes to anybody he cut. The list of players still on the team would be posted on the team's Web site and outside Mook's office at about 4:30 p.m., he said. Olsson nodded and then walked toward his water bottle.

"I think I'll definitely make it past the first cut," he said. "I'm pretty sure about that."

He went home for four hours, ate a sandwich from Subway, took a nap and hydrated to get ready for Wednesday's practice. Then he went back to school -- "It feels more real to see the actual cuts than just seeing it online," he said -- and searched the list for 30 blue.

He never found it.

While his mom, Annica, waited in the car, Olsson walked out to the school track to find Keough and Malm for his 10 minutes. They told him to work on his speed and his foot skills. They suggested he try a personal trainer.

"They think some one-on-one work would help me, so I'll do it," Olsson said. "I'm probably going to come out again next year. Getting cut hurts pretty bad, but that's what it takes. There's nothing harder than making your high school team."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

These things are tough, but of course, the real world is like this...

How Will the Madison School Board Evaluate the Superintendent? Stay tuned.

Since 1999, the Madison School Board has had a written employment contract with Superintendent Art Rainwater. It contains a job evaluation process that is fair to the superintendent and that requires the Board to perform its most important function, setting clear goals for the district.

Before the first day of each school year, the Board must set performance goals that are "measurable to the extent possible". By July 30 of the next year, the Board must meet with the superintendent, review his progress toward meeting the performance goals, review his self-evaluation, and review confidential evaluations by other administrators in the district.

If the Board followed the contract, the superintendent and the public would know what's expected of the most powerful employee in terms of "improvement in programs, projects and activities to be undertaken" during the upcoming year.

According to the MMSD Human Resources department, the last time the Board evaluated the superintendent was in 2002. It did not follow all of the requirements of the contract in that evaluation.

The first day of the school year is September 1. The Board has not set measurable performance goals for the superintendent for 2005-06, although it has had two discussions on the subject.

When the evaluation does occur, I suggest that we all compare the provisions of the contract with the evaluation. If the Board does not set measurable performance goals for the superintendent in 2005-06, it will again fail in its duty under the contract.It will again fail to inform the public about its priorities for our children and fail to hold the superintendent accoutable under the priorities.

The contract spells out the evaluation process very clearly.

PERFORMANCE EXPECTATIONS: Each year before the first day of school, the Board and superintendent must establish performance expectations for the next year in writing based on his duties and responsibilities under the contract and any other criteria mutally agree upon.

MEASURABLE OUTCOMES: "To the extent possible, all performance expectations shall have measurable outcomes".

JULY 30 DEADLINE: After setting performance expectations, the Board must meet with the superintendent to discuss his evaluation no later than July 30.

Two types of appraisals are required.

SPECIFIC RESULTS & ACCOMPLISHMENTS BASED ON PERFORMANCE EXPECTATIONS: The written performance expectations must include goals that reflect the superintendent's priorities for the improvement programs, projects and activities to be undertaken. Prior to meeting with the Board for his evaluation, the superintendent must complete a self-evaluation that summarizes his progress on each goal.

5 PERFORMANCE CATEGORIES---PLANNING, ORGANIZING, LEADING, SUPERVISING AND JOB KNOWLEDGE: In each category the Board must indicate the type of evidence of performance and data sources that will be used to evaluate the superintendent's performance.

SURVEYS OF OTHER ADMINISTRATORS: The Board must distribute surveys about the superintendent's performance in the five categories to individuals who report directly to him and a random selection of other administrators.

More on Technology & Schools

Additional grist:

• Amy Hetzner:

  Underheim argues that technology could save schools money if they used it more creatively. Instead of funding two classes of 10 students apiece with both an algebra and a geometry teacher, he asks, why not combine the classes, give every student a computer with software for the specific subject they are trying to learn and keep just one math teacher available to help with special problems?

• Matt Richtel:

  Yet in less than five years, that entire market has come undone. By 2004, sales of educational software - a category that includes programs teaching math, reading and other subjects as well as reference works like encyclopedias - had plummeted to $152 million, according to the NPD Group, a market research concern.

  "Nobody would have thought those were the golden days," Warren Buckleitner, editor of Children's Technology Review, said of the late 1990's. "Now we're looking back and we're saying, 'Wow, what happened?'"

• Troy Dassler, Larry Winkler, Tim Schell and Ed Kowieski posted a number of useful comments and links regarding Technology & Schools.

UPDATE: Hetzner posts the 3rd and last part of her series on Technology & Schools here:

University Lake School in Delafield has enough wireless laptop computers for every student and teacher in grades six through 12 — a 5-year-old venture that is part of an experiment known in education circles as one-to-one, or ubiquitous, computing.

Slashdot discussion.

Why Does College Cost so Much

Richard Vedder:

As college students begin a new academic year, many parents are reeling from tuition fees. This fall's probable average 8% increase at public universities, added onto double-digit hikes in the two previous years, means tuition at a typical state university is up 36% over 2002 -- at a time when consumer prices in general rose less than 9%. In inflation-adjusted terms, tuition today is roughly triple what it was when parents of today's college students attended school in the '70s. Tuition charges are rising faster than family incomes, an unsustainable trend in the long run. This holds true even when scholarships and financial aid are considered. One consequence of rising costs is that college enrollments are no longer increasing as much as before. Price-sensitive groups like low-income students and minorities are missing out. A smaller proportion of Hispanics between 18 and 24 attend college today than in 1976. The U.S. is beginning to fall below some other industrial nations in population-adjusted college attendance.

Why not target school ads at adults, not students?

No doubt that the Madison Schools would benefit from revenues that might come through increased advertising, as recently proposed by Johnny Winston Jr., chair of the Board of Education's Finance and Operations Committee.

On the other hand, increasing advertising to our students is undesirable for many reasons. Schools should not treat students as consumers, but as learners. Our students already live in an environment saturated with encouragements to consume. In addition, many of the advertisers with strong incentives to advertise to young people sell food products that are not in the kids' best interest.

My hope is that the Finance and Operations Committee will consider limiting any expansion of advertising opportunities to ads that target adults, not students.

Below is my proposal to this committee.

To: Johnny Winston, Jr. & Finance Committee
From: Ruth Robarts
Date: August 18, 2005

RE: Proposal for revised advertising policy for MMSD

I agree with you that the Madison School Board must consider whether there are significant opportunities to increase district revenues through increased advertising. At the same time, I am very reluctant to support more advertising to our students. In my opinion, we are already providing too many venues for advertising questionable products to students, particularly food and beverages that are unhealthy or are poor substitutes for healthier products.

Therefore, I propose that the Finance and Operations Committee consider limiting its exploration of this issue to researching the opportunities for advertising directed at adults. For starters, we have a web site and two cable TV channels. We have newsletters that go from schools to parents regularly as well as district publications that circulate widely. We have also a fleet of trucks and vans that move around the district every day. The demographics of our web site users, cable TV audience and recipients of school and district newsletters and publications alone should be attractive to many businesses that depend on adult expenditures, such as car dealerships, realtors, apartment managers, technology providers—especially those who sell education-related technology such as virtual learning tools---hardware stores, etc.

One advantage of this approach would be that we would protect our students from more marketing during the school day and school activities, while offering businesses that sell to adults a variety of venues and a good audience for their ads. Another would be that potential advertisers might be more willing to discuss their interest publicly, during our exploration of policy changes, because they would not be seen as preying on young consumers.

Obviously, if we raised significant dollars through ads, for example, on our cable TV offerings to the general public, we could use those dollars to reduce our dependence on taxes raised for “community services” and begin to expand the TV coverage of all Board of Education meetings. Dollars raised through other ads could be used to reduce the tax revenues that go to Business Services or Building Services.

The only change needed in our current policy on ads would be to add the words "to students". See below.

Policy 3660 - Advertising
The Board does not endorse the advertisement of any commercial or non-commercial product, materials, or service to students. Employees shall neither distribute to students nor otherwise use in school instructional or non-instructional materials that contain commercial or non-commercial advertising except as provided in Procedure 3660.
Advertising
1. Non-instructional Materials:
a. Non-instructional materials such as calendars and posters that contain advertising may be placed in schools by employees, subject to the approval of the principal of such school.
b. Non-instructional materials that contain advertising that are not covered in 1.a. above shall not be distributed to pupils or used in schools except as approved by the Superintendent or her/his designee.
2. Instructional Materials:
Instructional materials that contain advertising shall be selected in accordance with the program materials selection criteria and may be used in schools if such materials are not obtainable through usual educational resources.

Technology and Schools

Amy Hetzner:

"We don't have a lot of proof that this works," said Neah Lohr, the former director of the informational media and technology team for the state Department of Public Instruction. "Certainly students like the technology. That's not the question."

Research results are mixed. But most studies conclude that for computers and other technology to have much effect on student performance, a number of conditions are necessary: Teachers have to be technologically adept; classroom assignments have to allow for exploration; and curricula have to abandon breadth for depth.

Although schools have made changes in some of those areas, particularly increasing teachers' technical proficiency, the predominant uses of computers remain word processing, heavily filtered Internet searches and the occasional PowerPoint presentation. In addition, with pressure rising to improve test scores, more schools have embraced skill-drilling software that contributes little to long-term student learning, observers say.

My view is that technology is simply another tool that may be part of a successful learning process. Critical thinking, rigor and general inquisitiveness are far more important than learning Word 2003 (which will be obsolete by the time our students reach the workforce). Successful technologists are capable of learning and using any tool. I was reminded of our priorities yesterday while visiting Sun Prairie's CornFest: a teen could not make change (1.50 change was given for a 2.50 purchase from a $5.00 bill). More posts on this subject.

More on the Evils of PowerPoint in Schools

Amy Hetzner:

Teachers say creating a PowerPoint presentation captivates students and gives them background using a technological tool common in business.

Critics say PowerPoint requires students to do little more than assemble outlines and is a poor replacement for age-old standards such as essays.

Edward Tufte, professor emeritus at Yale University, has been one of the most vocal opponents, such as in an opinion piece called "PowerPoint is Evil" carried in the September 2003 edition of Wired.

"Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials," Tufte wrote.

With 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art for each PowerPoint slide, with only three to six slides per presentation, that amounts to only 80 words for a week's work. "Students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to the Exploratorium or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something," he wrote.

More on Powerpoint and schools here.

Board & Admin Don't Know Whether Read 180 Received Funding

Since May I've been asking the administration and board members, collectively and individually, whether the budget for this school year includes funding for a promising middle school remedial reading program called Read 180. The headline on a State Journal story on January 29, 2005, read: District Eyes Reading Program For Expansion. The subheadline said: Teachers Want More Students In The Read 180 Program, Which Has Raised Reading Levels Quickly.

But NO ONE seems to know whether the program received any funding at all in the budget!

At least no one has answered me when I've asked by e-mail and at various committee meetings of the board.

The failure of anyone to know highlights one of the weaknesses of the budget process, that is, no one (board and administration alike) has much control over academic achievement when no one knows whether a promising program did or did not get funding.

The MMSD needs a budget process that tells the board and administration, as well as the public, three things about spending on important programs and budget areas. In fact, we all need to know:

1) How much was budgeted last year.
2) How much was spent last year.
3) How much is budgeted for this year.

Until the budget includes these pieces of information, no one knows how taxpayer money is being spent.

UW may scrap software purchased by MMSD

According to a story in the Capital Times, the University of Wisconsin may scrap software that the MMSD is attempting to use. Like the UW, which spent 6 years and millions beyond the budget for the software, the MMSD devoted "16 hours a day" to get the software to generate a budget for the board to consider in the spring of 2005.

Florence School District Presentation: Is it Possible to Have a Good School District with Less Money?

Steve Loehrke:

Word for word, these are my original goals:

• 1. Keep our school in our community. Make the school a focal point in our community. Create opportunities for community involvement in our school. Maintain and increase school pride.
• 2. Balance the budget. Keep looking for costs savings that do not negatively affect the education of our students. Continue plans to balance the budget after the referendum money ends.
• 3. Provide the best education possible within the budget. Educate the most students possible for the dollars allocated by the revenue cap.
• 4. Improve test scores. Results must improve in every area tested. Hold the administration and teachers accountable for the test scores. Find ways to obtain test scores that make our students, parents, teachers, administrators, and members of our community proud.
• 5. Improve teachers. Reward the good teachers. Retrain, eliminate, or replace any ineffective teachers. Increase morale. Require accountability.
  
• 6. Improve administration. Reward the good administrators. Retrain, eliminate, or replace any ineffective administrators. Review and recommend updates to school procedures. Require accountability.
• 7. Improve the school board. Seek responsible board members. Hold the school board accountable for reaching the goals of the board.
• 8. Work with the parents of home-schooled and parochial school students to see if our school can find ways to help the students achieve a well-rounded education.
  
• 9. Listen & Learn. Listen to the concerned members of our community, students, parents, teachers, administrators, and staff. Implement the constructive suggestions of the Steering Committee and Action Teams for Long Range Planning that relate to board goals.
  
• 10. Pay attention to details. Review and update board policies and school procedures. Update union contracts. Require a day’s work for a day’s pay. Monitor expenses. Protect the assets of the school district.

(Print Friendly PDF version - 280K).
More on the Florence School District. Loehrke is President of the Weyauwega Fremont School District. [Map]
Loehrke referenced some results, such as:

• Raised the wages of our teachers, administrators, and every employee in the district.
• As of June 30, 2004, our fund balance (sometimes called Reserve Account) was $3,042,726
• Our mill rate was reduced from the highest in our area to the lowest.

Drop Out Rate Correlation to High School Enrollment

The Sun Prairie School District's increasingly active weblog:

On August 9, 2005, a public hearing was held on the proposed high school facilities in Sun Prairie. At the hearing a question was asked regarding the high school drop-out rates for all Wisconsin public high schools. Drop out rates refer to the percent of students who do not complete a high school education We have compiled information for three years for all public school districts except the Milwaukee Public Schools. The data is the latest information available from DPI. A clear pattern is evident over the three years. It is apparent that as high schools grow above 1500 students, the percentage of drop-outs doubles and triples over that of high school with enrollments between 1000-1500.

Sun Prairie is planning to construct two new, smaller higher schools rather than one very large facility.

Madison Schools ACT Scores

Madison School District:

Madison students who took the 2005 ACT college entrance exam continued to outperform their state and national peers. MMSD students' composite score was slightly higher overall on the ACT compared to a year ago, 24.3 vs. 24.2 (scale of 1 to 36), while the average ACT score this year for Wisconsin students was 22.2 and nationally, 20.9.

Almost 74 percent of the MMSD students in the Class of 2006 took the ACT, a record number. Generally, when more students take the test, scores drop. However, the average MMSD ACT participant scored higher than roughly 72% of all Wisconsin ACT participants and higher than 78% of all ACT participants across the country.

Many Going to College Are Not Ready - ACT

Tamar Lewin:

Only about half of this year's high school graduates have the reading skills they need to succeed in college, and even fewer are prepared for college-level science and math courses, according to a yearly report from ACT, which produces one of the nation's leading college admissions tests.

The report, based on scores of the 2005 high school graduates who took the exam, some 1.2 million students in all, also found that fewer than one in four met the college-readiness benchmarks in all four subjects tested: reading comprehension, English, math and science.

"Clean Bus" Bill Signed by Gov. Doyle

With strong bi-partisan support, a bill providing that Wisconsin school districts may use federal funds to cover the difference between the price of standard diesel fuel and the price of biodiesel for school buses recently passed the Wisconsin state legislature. On August 17, Governor Jim Doyle signed the bill into law.

The "clean bus" bill, aka Sentate Bill 39/Assembly Bill 67, had unanimous support in both houses of the legislature. Representative Jerry Petrowski (Marathon), who authored the bill, said that the new law "helps our children breathe cleaner air on buses, helps our farmers, and reduces our dependence on foreign oil".

Biodiesel is a cleaner-burning fuel that reduces toxic emissions and pollution. It can be derived from used vegetable oil or soybeans.

Soda Marketers To Reduce School Sales

American Beverage Association:

Under the new policy, the beverage industry will provide:

• Elementary Schools with only water and 100 percent juice.
• Middle Schools with only nutritious and/or lower calorie beverages, such as water, 100 percent juice, sports drinks, no-calorie soft drinks, and low-calorie juice drinks. No full-calorie soft drinks or full-calorie juice drinks with five percent or less juice until after school; and
• High Schools with a variety of beverage choices, such as bottled water, 100 percent juice, sports drinks, and juice drinks. No more than 50 percent of the vending selections will be soft drinks.

The American Beverage Association is asking beverage producers and school districts to implement the new policy as soon as possible. Where school beverage contracts already exist, the policy would be implemented when the contract expires or earlier if both parties agree. The success of the policy is dependent on voluntary implementation of it by individual beverage companies and by school officials. The policy will not supercede federal, state and local regulations already in place. ABA’s Board of Directors, which unanimously approved the policy, represents 20 companies that comprise approximately 85 percent of school vending beverage sales by bottlers.

Childhood obesity is a serious problem in the U.S., and the responsibility for finding common-sense solutions is shared by everyone, including our industry. We intend to be part of the solution by increasing the availability of lower-calorie and/or nutritious beverages in schools,” said Susan K. Neely, ABA president and chief executive officer.

Pepsi Statement | Coke Statement (not yet online). Betsy McKay has more (click the link below).

Betsy McKay:

Under mounting pressure from health advocates and parents, Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and other beverage marketers plan to announce today a set of voluntary restrictions to limit sales of their drinks in schools.

Under new industry guidelines, to be announced at a meeting of state legislators in Seattle and later in full-page ads in several national newspapers, the companies eventually will halt all sales of carbonated soft drinks in elementary schools and remove all sugared drinks from middle schools during school hours. The new policy applies only to new contracts, not existing ones, meaning that it could take several years for the restrictions to catch up with many schools.

The guidelines still permit sales of all drinks in middle schools after the school day, and allow sales of diet soft drinks, sports drinks, low-calorie juice drinks, juices and water all day. No beverages are banned from high schools, but the association is recommending that at least half of vending-machine slots in those schools be allocated to noncarbonated beverages such as juice and water.

Beverage-industry leaders say the new guidelines should appease the growing chorus of critics who blame soft-drink sellers for rising obesity among U.S. children, while still protecting the industry's financial interests in marketing to young people.

"The societal debate is about how to solve childhood obesity," said Susan Neely, president and chief executive of the American Beverage Association, an industry group. "This policy is on target with what parents want and what the objective is."

Industry officials concede the new restrictions are a somewhat watered-down version of a proposal that beverage companies have been debating all summer. Some industry representatives originally advocated removing soft drinks altogether from middle schools during school hours.

But according to people familiar with the negotiations, the ABA's board of directors returned that proposal, arguing that diet drinks -- which represent a huge and growing segment of their business -- don't pose a concern for childhood obesity.

"We put a lot of work into crafting these industrywide guidelines," said Don Knauss, president of Coke's North American operations. "We will offer our strong endorsement."

"Parents tell us they'd like help in determining what products are sold in schools, and we're listening," said Dawn Hudson, president and chief executive officer, Pepsi-Cola North America. She adds that Pepsi is also "providing incentives to our bottlers that will encourage compliance with the new policy."

Once viewed as benevolent American icons, the soda giants have become lightning rods for critics who blame them for the growing number of overweight kids and teens. Since 2003, at least six state legislatures have voted to restrict the sale of soft drinks in schools. At least 38 states have proposed bills this year to improve the quality of school nutrition, and 15 of those bills have been enacted, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a Washington group representing the interests of state governments.

A nutrition-advocacy group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, has been pressuring the Food and Drug Administration to slap tobacco-style warning labels on sodas and fruit drinks. And plaintiffs' lawyers are circling, raising the specter of litigation reminiscent of the courtroom battles that cost cigarette makers billions of dollars.

The new school approach is the first salvo in a broader public-relations counterattack by beverage companies to help the industry reverse its tarnished image. To lead that charge, the trade group tapped Ms. Neely in May to run the organization.

The creator of the "Harry and Louise" ads that helped torpedo President Clinton's health-care plan in the early 1990s and a veteran of Washington political battles, Ms. Neely is working on a multimillion-dollar advertising and PR campaign to show that the beverage industry derives a substantial portion of its sales and growth from healthier beverages.

Details of the new marketing push aren't being disclosed, but it will resemble industrywide campaigns launched in recent years to enhance the image of the plastics and pharmaceutical industries, said Ms. Neely. "I think you have an expectation that the biggest brands in the world will step up to the plate and help society grapple with problems," she said. "You have to have an industry voice."

Appeasing critics while protecting the industry's interests won't be easy. While it will cut some sales of regular soda to preteens, the new school policy doesn't entirely remove soda from schools, as some advocacy groups have wanted.

The guidelines aren't mandatory or enforceable, although ABA members say they plan to adhere to them. Companies represented on the association's board account for 85% of all school beverage sales, Ms. Neely said.

Some industry critics said they wondered how widely the new policy will be observed. Decisions on what beverages will be sold are often up to the schools themselves. "It's a good publicity ploy," said Lucy Nolan, executive director of End Hunger Connecticut! Inc., an advocacy group that campaigned unsuccessfully for restrictions on school soft drink sales in that state. "But what's the incentive to follow it?"

Whether existing contracts between beverage producers and schools will be amended to incorporate the new ABA policy remains to be seen. While Coke and Pepsi's biggest bottlers said they will implement the new policy, they noted that any changes in the beverages they supply are also up to the schools.

Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. the world's largest soft drink bottler, said that for the 2005-2006 school year, it had already planned to sell only water and 100% juice to elementary schools, and to allocate half of vending machine slots in high schools to noncarbonated drinks.

"We will be engaging in dialogue with our school customers to encourage them to adopt the ABA policy," said John Downs, CCE's senior vice president for public affairs and communications.

The big bottler, which supplies Coke products to 80% of U.S. markets, said it plans to send a note to its sales teams and bottling facilities to ask them to implement the new policy immediately.

"How to Reform Your Local School Board"

Steve Loehrke:

I have been the President of the Weyauwega-Fremont School Board for the last four years. I own a small realty and appraisal company,a small computer, and Internet website development company. I recently founded a non-profit charitable corporation to help underprivileged children in Wisconsin. I serve on the school board primarily as a concerned parent of school aged children and as a taxpayer

I always tell my employees “Don’t bring me a problem without bringing me at least two possible solutions.” So I’m going to tell you what I perceive to be the problem and give you some possible solutions. Some people perceive the problem to be not enough money for education and their only solution is to dig deeper into taxpayer’s pockets. From where I sit, the problem is “How do we maintain or improve the quality of education in Wisconsin while controlling the current and future costs to taxpayers?”

Most people associated with schools in Wisconsin are worried about some type of tax freeze because they think it will limit the money available to schools. I am not. Here’s why: Historically, school districts budgeted for what they thought they would need to run their respective district and raised taxes to match. Then, around 1993, as part of the QEO law changes, the State of Wisconsin established revenue caps. So instead of a bottomless billfold, school districts suddenly had a fixed amount of taxpayer’s money placed into their billfold each year. They had to learn to spend no more than they made, just like most people with regular jobs. However, instead of learning to do with what was available, school districts did things like promote referendums to exceed the revenue cap.

Before I got on the Board, our school district tried three times until they finally received voter approval for a referendum. When I got on the Board, I was told that our district would have to plan for another referendum when the existing one ran out in order to keep our district afloat. Demographics showed that our school district would be switching from an increasing enrollment to a declining enrollment. I have observed that an increasing enrollment hides many financial problems while a declining enrollment emphasizes the problems. Our school district had been running deficits budgets and was depleting its fund balance to pay regular expanses. Our mill rate was one of the highest in the area. Our administrative overhead was one of the highest in the county. Our employees’ health insurance costs were one of the highest in our neighborhood. Our post retirement costs were the highest in our conference. Yet, everyone said they expected another referendum to sustain the bloat. No one wanted to tighten the belt.

More on Steve Loehrke.

2005 ACT Scores: Minnesota #1, WI Minority Achievement Gap Increases

Alan Borsuk (69% of Wisconsin's Class of 2005 took the ACT):

Wisconsin kids in the Class of 2006 averaged 22.2 on a scale of 36 on the ACT, the same score for Wisconsin for the sixth straight year. But the average score in Minnesota moved up a tenth of a point to 22.3, breaking last year's tie for the best record among 25 states where the ACT is the dominant exam.

Wisconsin officials said 10.2% of the 45,700 students in the Class of 2005 who took the ACT were from minority groups, up from 9.8% in 2004.

However, the gap between white students and some minority groups, particularly African-Americans, remained a major concern, both Ferguson and Burmaster said, and the new results presented little evidence that the gap was closing.

The composite score of black students in Wisconsin was 16.9 this year, compared with 17.2 a year ago. The composite score of white students stayed the same at 22.6.

ACT officials also report results based on whether students took what is considered a "core curriculum" for getting ready for college - at least four years of English and three years of math, natural sciences and social sciences.

Wisconsin students who did that had an average score of 22.9 while those who took less than the core program averaged 20.9. Both figures were a point or better than the comparable national averages.

ACT data and results are available here.

Online Tutoring Part of Growing Web Education Tools

Mark Chediak:

When students in Leslie Chernila's English class at the Art Institute of Washington write an essay about the work of Garrison Keillor, she has them send it off to a critic halfway across the country before turning it in. The paper soon returns, complete with comments about structure and word choice.

The service, offered by District-based Smarthinking Inc., is part of a growing educational trend that has millions of students logging on to get assistance with reading, writing and arithmetic. Once a dot-com pipe dream, online education is now maturing into a viable market. More than 2.6 million students in the United States were expected to study online through courses and tutoring last fall, up from 1.9 million in 2003, according to the Sloan Consortium, an online research group.

Burck Smith, chief executive and co-founder of Smarthinking, credits the rise in demand for online educational services to several factors, including an increase in the number of non-traditional students who don't have a lot of time to look for on-campus resources, a more competitive educational landscape in which colleges and schools are trying harder to attract students with additional services and students' greater familiarity with the Internet.

More than 500 institutions, including Anne Arundel Community College, Gallaudet University and the Art Institute of Washington, subscribe to Smarthinking. And the company says it has signed up 19 institutions for this fall, including District-based Southeastern University.

Schools pay Smarthinking for a block of time and offer students free access to the service from a personal computer or a college lab. Colleges signing up for the first time can buy a plan that permits up to 15 hours of tutoring for each student and then adjust its next contract according to usage, Smith said. The company did not disclose the cost per hour.

Terry H. Coye, director of tutorial and instructional programs at Gallaudet University, said his school turned to Smarthinking to supplement its limited tutoring services for graduate students. With many of Gallaudet's deaf and hard-of-hearing students accustomed to learning online, the service was a good fit, Coye said.

Founded in 1999, Smarthinking employs more than 450 part-time instructors from around the world to offer round-the-clock tutoring. Washington students struggling in the middle of the night with a math question may get an answer from a tutor in India, where the morning's work is already underway.

The company says 80 percent of its online tutors have graduate degrees in their discipline. While tutors come from around the world, 98 percent of the writing instructors are based in the United States.

Though some critics might worry that a student could get too much help from someone outside the classroom, the company said it trains its tutors -- who get an average of 15 hours of training -- to guide students through problems and not give away the answers.

The company is not yet profitable, Smith said, but he estimated that sales grew by "35 to 40 percent" last year. The new fall contracts are expected to bring in an additional $500,000 to $750,000, Smith said.

As more students become accustomed to the technology, the competition for online tutoring services is likely to heat up. Already, educational services giants Kaplan Inc., owned by the Washington Post Co., and Princeton Review Inc. have made inroads in the online education market. And Baltimore-based Educate Inc. said it plans to expand its online tutoring service.

"Long-term, there is no reason to believe [online tutoring] is not going to grow as students go online and take classes," said J. Mark Jackson, director of K-12 research at Eduventures Inc., a market-research firm. Because it is a supplemental service rather than a core offering, he said, it is unclear how large the market might grow.

Online tutors are available 24 hours a day for one-on-one help in math, writing, science and other topics. Students and tutors discuss assignments through online chat sessions, using a virtual whiteboard that allows for use of charts, graphs and diagrams. Those wanting help with a paper can submit a draft for feedback, which usually comes back within 24 hours.

Chernila, coordinator for the academic achievement center at the Art Institute of Washington, said she relies on Smarthinking tutors to help students refine their writing. She encourages her students to use the tutors for "another voice and an another opinion." The additional feedback, she said, made for better student work. The Art Institute pays for the service, provided free to students.

Brent Mellecker, 19, a media arts and animation major who took Chernila's literature class, said he was pleased with the responses he received from Smarthinking. But, he said, it could sometimes take up to three days to get a paper back.

"I always asked for the first available tutor online to make sure I got [the paper] back in time," Mellecker said. A few other students also experienced small delays with their essays, Chernila said. But she said it rarely interfered with her class.

Amy Yang, 20, a game art and design major, said she found the comments helpful on her writing assignments and usually received a response from a tutor in a day or two.

Chuck Kleiner, vice president of sales and marketing at Smarthinking, said company records show that 80 percent of the papers submitted from the Art Institute of Washington since 2003 were returned within 24 hours. Kleiner said that records indicated only 4 percent of the papers were returned after 30 hours and that those delays were usually caused when essays were submitted before a holiday break.

Speaking of time, Kleiner said more than 70 percent of questions arise between 6 p.m. and 9 a.m. on weekdays, and on weekends.

"We're available when they can't get help anywhere else," he said.

Would you like to send this article to a friend? Go to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/emailafriend?contentId=AR2005081501265&sent=no&referrer=emailarticle

Milwaukee Public Schools Community Advisory Hearing on School Closings

Milwaukee Public Schools - PDF:

With 95,600 students enrolled in its facilities, and room for 122,000 students, MPS has too much vacant space. To save money and more prud