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WISC-TV reports:
A tug of war over students and state aid could be shaping up in Dane County. News 3's Toni Morrissey has been looking into plans for a charter school that's making waves in the public school community. . .
"We agree with the concept of charter schools," said Joe Quick, legislative liaison for Madison School District. "We embrace it. But we've got grave reservations about setting up a charter school that there's no oversight and accountability from locally elected officials.
Read the full story online.
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The Madison School District has two positions for the new High School Extramural Program at MSCR. The purpose of this position is to develop, promote and coordinate after school clubs and extramural sports at two regular high school sites and for one alternative high school. Lucy Chaffin wrote: Hi everyone, I would really like to get the word out about these two positions open at MSCR. Please pass along and post at any place you feel is appropriate.
HOURS PER WEEK: 38.75 HOURS OF WORK: 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. w/**Flexibility to cover Saturday morning hours during extramural sports seasons. NORMAL BIWEEKLY STARTING RATE OF PAY: $1478.50. DEADLINE TO APPLY: October 14, 2005. For more information contact Lucy Chaffin, Executive Director, MSCR at 608-204-3015 or go to http://mmsd.org/hr/jobprof.htm (for this position or others).
EXAMPLES OF DUTIES:
The following responsibilities are normal for this position. These are not to be construed as exclusive or all-inclusive. Other duties will be required and assigned.
· Design and implement after-school, evening and weekend enrichment programs at assigned high schools that will appeal to a diverse audience of high school aged students.
· Recruits club leaders, extramural sport coaches and volunteers from within and outside of school staff. Provides staff training in the area of required record keeping, payroll.
· Works with high school staff to schedule facilities for use by clubs and extramural sports.
· Promotes clubs and extramural sports to students and teachers within the school setting. Promotes these activities in the school newsletter on a regular basis. Keeps school administration and secretary informed about clubs and sport activities.
· Conducts club/extramural program visits to monitor program effectiveness, provide feedback to club leaders and coaches, assist in trouble shooting and finding solutions to any concerns.
· Arranges participant transportation as required for programs.
· Establishes a physically and emotionally safe program environment. Ensures compliance with MMSD standards. Ensures compliance with MSCR participant code of conduct.
· Serves as a liaison between MSCR staff and school personnel. Meets regularly with MSCR High School Program specialist and high school staff, including athletic directors.
· Establishes and maintains effective working relationships with club and extramural leaders, participants, parents, community members and school personnel.
· Tracks participation statistics, maintains necessary records, and develops and submits required reports to recreation specialist and/or supervisor.
· Develop and implement program partnerships with area community centers, community agencies and individuals.
· Supervise daily after-school, evening and weekend programs.
· Monitor enrollment & registration of students in MSCR programs.
REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES:
· Experience working with students and families from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds.
· Ability to communicate effectively, verbally and in writing, with diverse students, staff, and community members.
· Experience working cross-culturally and/or commitment to work toward improving one’s own cultural competence, i.e., valuing difference/diversity, recognizing personal limitations in one’s skills and expertise, and having the desire to learn in these areas.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
· Bachelor’s degree preferred.
· High school diploma required, with a minimum of two years of post-high school education and two years experience working in programs for high school aged youth and supervising staff and/or volunteers; or any combination of education and experience that provides equivalent knowledge, skills and abilities.
· Proficiency with Microsoft Word and Excel software.
APPLICATION PROCEDURE:
All applications, including applications for transfer, promotion or demotion and Experience Inventory must be on file in the
Department of Human Resources no later than 4:15 p.m. on the deadline date.
SELECTION PROCESS:
All completed applications on file in the Department of Human Resources as of the due date will be evaluated. Applicants
may also be required to satisfactorily complete a written examination or skills test. The most qualified applicant(s) will be
referred to the hiring authority for an interview.
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Frontline has just made one of the most requested shows of all time available online for your viewing pleasure: A Class Divided:
A Class Divided is an encore presentation of the classic documentary on third-grade teacher Jane Elliott's "blue eyes/brown eyes" exercise, originally conducted in the days following the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. This guide is designed to help you use the film to engage students in reflection and dialogue about the historical role of racism in the United States, as well as the role of prejudice and stereotyping in students' lives today.Via Dewayne Hendricks video Very nicely done with transcripts, links and a teacher's guide.
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The task forces looking at eastside and westside enrollment and facilities operate under a set of "givens" that restrict the options they might consider, isolate them from publilc discussion, and control what items they can discuss at meetings.
The MMSD Web site lists the ground rules:
+ Options will avoid major program changes such as Year Round Education or the creation of Magnet Schools; options may include school pairings, closings, restructuring programs, etc.+ The Task Force will create up to three options. The options are advisory to the Long Range Planning Committee and Board of Education. The options need to be viable for a five year period.
+ Major construction of a school building requires successful passage of a referendum and a three-year timeline.
+ As a Task Force of the Board of Education, only items listed on the agenda will be discussed.
+ Public appearances are not part of the Task Force meetings. Public appearances may be made during meetings of the Board’s Long Range Planning Committee. Dates for the Long Range Planning Committee meetings are Oct. 24, Nov. 14, Dec. 19, and Jan. 30, with a final special meeting on Feb. 6.
The danger in these grounds rules is that the public will react to the task force recommendations in the same way as it reacted to the recommendations on Leopold. The reaction may well be something along these lines: The task forces were not allowed to look at all the possible alternatives so that voters still won't get to consider what might be the best and most effective options for teaching children. In the end, the continued limits on options could mean the rejection of any referendum needed to implement task force recommendations.
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In Education Myths, Jay P. Greene takes on the conventional wisdom and closely examines twenty myths advanced by the special interest groups dominating public education. In addition to the money myth, the class size myth, and the teacher pay myth, Greene debunks the special education myth (special ed programs burden public schools), the certification myth (certified or more experienced teachers are more effective in the classroom), the graduation myth (nearly all students graduate from high school), the draining myth (choice harms public schools), the segregation myth (private schools are more racially segregated), and a dozen more.Watch or listen to a recent Jay Green Speech here.
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The large majority of teachers, of course, are well-qualified and dedicated. Parents should weigh a child's complaints carefully: Is the problem really a bad teacher, or a misdirected kid? "Many times the parent only gets the child's side of the story," says John Mitchell, deputy director of the American Federation of Teachers union.The rumor mill can be misleading. Matt Sabella of Armonk, N.Y., was warned by other elementary-school parents that his daughter's teacher was "so-so." He found the opposite to be true. The teacher "helped my daughter become a whiz in math," Mr. Sabella says. Also, if you rescue a child too quickly, you risk producing what some administrators call "teacups" -- carefully crafted but fragile kids who lack resiliency, says Patrick Bassett of the National Association of Independent Schools, Washington, D.C.
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Gena Kittner posted a useful article on the growth, both in student population and facilities of suburban Dane County School Districts.
Eleven of 16 school districts in the county have shown increased enrollment between 2001 and 2004, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.Madison is grappling with growth in more than half of its district and declines elsewhere.Madison's enrollment has been flat for quite some time, though the population is moving around:
Two task forces, including parent representatives from each of the district's schools [East] [West, are working to find ways to accommodate a projected increase of more than 500 elementary school students over the next five years in the West and Memorial high school attendance areas - where several housing developments are in the works.The groups are also wrestling with high enrollment at some elementary schools and under-enrollment at others, in the East and La Follette high school attendance areas.
Based on last year's figures, the district projects that by 2010, it will have 192 more students than it has seats for on the district's west side, and 989 more seats than students on its east side.
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The MMSD’s “data-driven” administration provides plenty of numbers and authoritative sounding assertions.
Take none at face value. The facts are often riddled with incomplete data, and the assertions are usually unsubstantiated.
My efforts to get budget and spending information on Reading Recovery stands as a typical example of problems with data. I asked for a couple of months for 1) how much the MMSD budgeted for Reading Recovery in 2004-2005, 2) how much was spent in 2004-2005, and 3) how much the board budgeted for 2005-2006.
Roger Price, Assistant Superintendent-Business Services, finally provided 2004-05 Reading Recovery Totals on the MMSD Web site. However, they are in no way totals of anything. As Superintendent Rainwater wrote, after I questioned the figures, the posted “total” isn’t the total “because the budget for Reading funded through Title 1 is not included as part of the Teaching and Learning budget. Only the expenses are charged to the Department as they are incurred.” Additionally, the “total” does not include any salaries.
So don’t take any MMSD numbers at face value.
When I commented in an e-mail to board members that the spending appeared to exceed the budgeted amount, Superintendent Rainwater asserted, without any proof, “We have not increased the expenditure level for reading recovery.” How can we possibly know, when the MMSD cannot (or won’t) provide the amount budgeted for last year, amount spent for last year, and amount budgeted for this year? We simply cannot.
Never is caveat emptor more true than when dealing with the MMSD administration.
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State Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth Burmaster will address the Wisconsin Association for Talented and Gifted (WATG) State Conference on Thursday, October 6, 2005 at the Kalahari Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells, WI. Burmaster will proclaim October 9-15, 2005 as Gifted Education Week in Wisconsin. She will also announce the publication of the Gifted and Talented Resource Guide for Educators, Coordinators and Administrators in Wisconsin Public Schools, distributed to all school districts this past summer. The authors of this guide will be receiving special recognition and an award from WATG following Burmaster's address.
For more information contact Jackie Drummer 414-762-4785. The guide can be downloaded from the WATG site
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The Madison School Board approved (6-1) additional spending using Fund 80 (property taxes not subject to state revenue caps, in other words, local taxes that can go up as fast as the District approves) to create new rec sports programs:
Ruth Robarts, the only board member to vote against the spending increase, expressed concern that using Fund 80 to restore programs that have been cut from the portion of the district's budget subject to revenue cap feeds "the perception that Fund 80 is a slush fund."Robarts asked that a public hearing be held before the board took action, but a motion to table the measure failed.
Board President Carol Carstensen said board members agreed to cut the number of freshmen and junior varsity teams with the understanding that MSCR would try to create a recreational sports program to provide opportunities for more students to participate in athletics.
Three board members voiced concerns before the funding was approved. Member Ruth Robarts, the sole dissenter, tried to table the proposal until after a public hearing could be held. The table motion failed 5-2. Member Shwaw Vang said he was wary many of the district's neediest students still would not be reached and member Lawrie Kobza said she was concerned about costs of the sports-related aspect already in MSCR's budget.But despite concerns, a majority of board members felt it necessary to push the program's development ahead. Board President Carol Carstensen said the only reason she agreed to the elimination of no-cut freshman sports months ago was because of the possibility of this extramural program.
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"An uneasy amalgam of pride and discontent, Caroline Mitchell sat amid the balloons and beach chairs on the front lawn of Princeton High School, watching the Class of 2004 graduate. Her pride was for the seniors' average SAT score of 1237, third-highest in the state, and their admission to elite universities like Harvard, Yale and Duke. As president of the high school alumni association and community liaison for the school district, Ms. Mitchell deserved to bask in the tradition of public-education excellence.
Discontent, though, was what she felt about Blake, her own son. He was receiving his diploma on this June afternoon only after years of struggle - the failed English class in ninth grade, the science teacher who said he was capable only of C's, the assignment to a remedial "basic skills" class. Even at that, Ms. Mitchell realized, Blake had fared better than several friends who were nowhere to be seen in the procession of gowns and mortarboards. They were headed instead for summer school."
But I have learned that both my newspaper and I have been, in at least one instance, treating them as if they did not exist -- a bad habit shared by many across the country. Nobody likes to be ignored for no good reason, but that is what has been happening to charter schools, and it is not good for the 1 million students attending 3,500 such schools in 40 states plus the District.In Greenville, S.C., the Sirrine scholarships of $200 to $2,000 have helped many public school graduates over the years, but Laura H. Getty of the Greenville Technical Charter High School said charter school students are not eligible. She has also noticed that the state of South Carolina does not allow charter school teachers to participate in the state retirement system unless they were in the system before they moved to a charter school.
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Bruce Allardice, a public school teacher in Des Plains, ILL wrote a letter to the Capital Times in response to Madison Schools Superintendent Art Rainwater's recent article on the need for public education:
Dear Editor: If I was grading the Tuesday guest column of Madison School District Superintendent Art Rainwater titled "Free public education is cornerstone of country," I'd give the superintendent a D. His rhetoric is nice, but the logic is horribly misguided.
Mr. Rainwater's mistake comes when he proclaims public education "free." There's no such thing as a free lunch, and there's no such thing as a free education. Public education is paid for by government, which gets the money by taking it from our wallets. School taxes are taking an ever-increasing bite out of all our paychecks, with ever-decreasing results. Free? Ask anyone who pays taxes.Any school superintendent who claims education is "free" should be sent back to school, preferably to the private schools to which so many public school teachers send their own kids.
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Sandy Cullen recently posted two very useful articles on local Virtual School activity:
Their mother spends four to five hours a day guiding her daughters through daily lesson plans, drawn primarily from curriculum developed over the past century at the Calvert School, a private "bricks-and-mortar" school in Baltimore, where tuition ranges from $14,000 to $17,000 a year for its 500 on-site students.Home-schoolers can buy Calvert's curriculum and support services at prices ranging from $245 for pre-kindergarten to $760 for eighth-grade.
But because her children are enrolled in Wisconsin Connections Academy, Leonard pays nothing. State taxpayers provide about $5,745 to the Appleton School District for each of her daughters. That's the amount all school districts receive for students who live in another district and register through the state's open-enrollment option.
The state's largest teachers union has filed lawsuits -- one unsuccessful and another ongoing -- against two of the state's virtual charter schools, claiming they violate state laws.
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We may have thought the 2005-2006 MMSD budget was approved last spring, but, in fact, the budget for this school year will not be finalized until next month. Why? The district needs to wait to calculate the number of students for this school year, which is done on the 3rd friday of the school year. This number is used to calculate the amount of state funding the district will receive and is not ready until next month. Also, the School Board uses the final budget to vote on the property tax levy to pay the property tax portion of the budget for this school year.
There's something else that happens between the spring and fall and that is changes in expenses/revenue. In last year's budget, there was an increase in the budget of nearly $8 million between the spring and fall approval dates (04-05 Budget Comparison file). The district administration said they put the money where it would be needed, and the School Board did not ask any questions about changes to programs and services, staffing, etc. Most of this money is grant money, but how the money is allocated and how this affects services deserves a presentation not simply a one page summary at the department level.
I hope the School Board asks for changes in revenue/expenses since last spring, how this affects staffing and programs, administrative positions. There are two dates in late October to discuss the final budget. So the School Board can "digest" the changed budget information, if any, a presentation at one meeting with a final decision at the next meeting might make sense and provide for public discussion.
I've long been a proponent of keeping tabs on our elected representatives. Kristian Knutsen, writing at Isthmus's Daily Page is doing a fabulous job summarizing our federal representative's weekly voting record. Knutsen's latest: Here's one example (I'd love to know which lobbyist was powerful enough to cause the Senate to vote on horse inspections:
Roll Call 237 - Sep. 20Keep reading for a look at our Federal representives priorities.
Ensign Amdt. No. 1753, As Modified; To prohibit the use of appropriated funds to pay the salaries or expenses of personnel to inspect horses under certain authority or guidelines.
Feingold: Yea
Kohl: Yea
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Reader Troy Dassler emails this article by Jonathan Kozol "It seems appropriate that we should all read it on the eve of a day where everyone in the district is in an in-service talking about race":
"Segregation is not something that happens by chance, like weather conditions," says Jonathan Kozol. "It is the work of men." So it is not without irony that it has taken a hurricane -- and the excruciating images of stranded black faces, beamed across cable airwaves -- for Americans to confront the reality that vast numbers of their fellow citizens live in segregated ghettos and suffer from abject poverty. But for Kozol, who has built his career on exposing the race- and class-based injustices endemic to the United States' educational system, the knowledge that we live in a deeply divided society has long been a foregone -- if heartbreaking -- conclusion.Abigail Thernstrom says Kozol's analysis is "worthy of a third grader".
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Reader Barb Williams forwarded this article by Kim Severson:
But perhaps no school is taking a more wide-ranging approach in a more hard-pressed area than the Promise Academy, a charter school at 125th Street and Madison Avenue where food is as important as homework. Last year, officials took control of the students' diets, dictating a regimen of unprocessed, regionally grown food both at school and, as much as possible, at home.Experts see the program as a Petri dish in which the effects of good food and exercise on students' health and school performance can be measured and, perhaps, eventually replicated.
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I agree wholeheartedly with Johnny Winston’s comments that were reported in the Isthmus article on the upcoming board evaluation of the performance of Superintendent Rainwater. The article by Jason Shepard says:
Winston . . . cites Rainwater's reluctance to take risks to solve educational problems: “If we have an issue related to student achievement, I’d like the superintendent to say, ‘You know what? It’s not working right now, and I’d like us to try something different.’ I’d like Art to lead the charge on that.” Winston would also like Rainwater to "be more critical of the organization" as a means of self-improvement.
Unfortunately, I often sense that the school board itself cannot admit that a policy or program of the administration, board, or district might be less than ideal. Nor can the board say let's "try something different." As an example, the video of the discussion of Carol Carstensen's suggestion that the board seek an independent analysis of the district's business services operations starts with a strong defense of the business services operations. Board members offered a wide variety of opinions during the long discussion, and ended without any agreement on assessing the status quo in business services.
I too would like to see the school board be more critical of the organization as a means of improving the academic success of the district's students.
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Currently, 135 women receive bachelor's degrees for every 100 men. That gender imbalance will widen in the coming years, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Education.This is ominous for every parent with a male child. The decline in college attendance means many will needlessly miss out on success in life. The loss of educated workers also means the country will be less able to compete economically. The social implications — women having a hard time finding equally educated mates — are already beginning to play out.
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The Documentary SuperSize Me has two segments useful to readers: School food and PE. The school food segment includes a visit to Appleton Central Alternative School and a discussion of their healthy food partnership with Natural Ovens of Manitowoc. Interesting. 20MB Video excerpt from the film SuperSize Me
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I received this e-mail from Kaleem Caire, Executive Director of Fight for Children based in Washington D.C. Mr. Caire is a former Madison resident who although ran unsuccessfully for Madison School Board in 1998 brought up many key issues regarding Minority Student Achievement.
Kaleem Caire wrote:
A short, important slide presentation:
http://www.nccbuscc.org/cchd/povertyusa/tour2.htm
Enough said.
Kaleem
kaleem.caire@fightforchildren.org
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 | Introductions 8MB Quicktime Video Note: The audio during the first minute is not great. |
 | Question 1: Has the gang issue changed over the past 10 years? 29MB Quicktime Video |
 | Question 2: What have we learned from our initiatives? 19MB Quicktime Video |
 | Question 3: What partnerships are available to keep gangs away from schools? 13MB Quicktime Video |
 | Question 4: What procedures are available to individual schools to keep gangs away from schools? 13MB Quicktime Video |
 | The Complete Forum: 93MB Quicktime Video 25MB MP3 Audio |
Many thanks to Rafael Gomez for creating and organizing this event and a number of www.schoolinfosystem.org parents who helped with logistics along with our panelists:
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| Local Media Coverage | |
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The Economist via Tom Barnett:
Wooldridge says three reasons account for this: 1) the Fed plays a limited role, unlike in a France or Germany; 2) schools compete for everything, including students and teachers; and 3) our universities are anything but ivory towers, instead being quite focused on practical stuff (Great line: "Bertrand Russell once expressed astonishment at the worldly concerns he encountered at the University of Wisconsin: 'When any farmer's turnip go wrong, they send a professor to investigate the failure scientifically,'" So true, as anyone who's grown up in Wisconsin farmland can attest.)
Two interesting data points: listing of top global universities features 1 from Japan, two from UK and 17 from U.S. Wisconsin, my alma mater is 18 (ahead of Michigan!) and Harvard is number 1.Also interesting: Of the students who travel abroad, 30 percent come to America. Britain is next at 12%, then Germany, then Australia, then France and Japan. After Australia it's all single digits.
I guess America isn't exactly out of the source code business, at least in the most important software package known to man.
SECRETS OF SUCCESS Sep 8th 2005America's system of higher education is the best in the world. That is
because there is no systemIT IS all too easy to mock American academia. Every week produces a
mind-boggling example of intolerance or wackiness. Consider the twin
stories of Lawrence Summers, one of the world's most distinguished
economists, and Ward Churchill, an obscure professor of ethnic studies,
which unfolded in parallel earlier this year. Mr Summers was almost
forced to resign as president of Harvard University because he had
dared to engage in intellectual speculation by arguing, in an informal
seminar, that discrimination might not be the only reason why women are
under-represented in the higher reaches of science and mathematics. Mr
Churchill managed to keep his job at the University of Boulder,
Colorado, despite a charge sheet including plagiarism, physical
intimidation and lying about his ethnicity.With such colourful headlines, it is easy to lose sight of the real
story: that America has the best system of higher education in the
world. The Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai's Jiao Tong
University ranks the world's universities on a series of objective
criteria such as the number of Nobel prizes and articles in prestigious
journals. Seventeen of the top 20 universities in that list are
American (see table in article[1]); indeed, so are 35 of the top 50.
American universities currently employ 70% of the world's Nobel
prize-winners. They produce about 30% of the world's output of articles
on science and engineering, according to a survey conducted in 2001,
and 44% of the most frequently cited articles.At the same time, a larger proportion of the population goes on to
higher education in America than almost anywhere else, with about a
third of college-aged people getting first degrees and about a third of
those continuing to get advanced degrees. Non-traditional students also
do better than in most other countries. The majority of undergraduates
are female; a third come from racial minorities; and more than 40% are
aged 25 or over. About 20% come from families with incomes at or below
the poverty line. Half attend part-time, and 80% of students work to
help support themselves.Why is America so successful? Wealth clearly has something to do with
it. America spends more than twice as much per student as the OECD
average (about $22,000 versus $10,000 in 2001), and alumni and
philanthropists routinely shower universities with gold. History also
plays a part. Americans have always had a passion for higher education.
The Puritans established Harvard College in 1636, just two decades
after they first arrived in New England.The main reason for America's success, however, lies in organisation.
This is something other countries can copy. But they will not find it
easy--particularly if they are developing countries that are bent on
state-driven modernisation.The first principle is that the federal government plays a limited
part. America does not have a central plan for its universities. It
does not treat its academics as civil servants, as do France and
Germany. Instead, universities have a wide range of patrons, from state
governments to religious bodies, from fee-paying students to generous
philanthropists. The academic landscape has been shaped by rich
benefactors such as Ezra Cornell, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins
and John D. Rockefeller. And the tradition of philanthropy survives to
this day: in fiscal 2004, private donors gave $24.4 billion to
universities.Limited government does not mean indifferent government. The federal
government has repeatedly stepped in to turbocharge higher education.
The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 created land-grant universities
across the country. The states poured money into community colleges.
The GI Bill of 1946 brought universities within the reach of everyone.
The federal government continues to pour billions of dollars into
science and research.The second principle is competition. Universities compete for
everything, from students to professors to basketball stars. Professors
compete for federal research grants. Students compete for college
bursaries or research fellowships. This means that successful
institutions cannot rest on their laurels.The third principle is that it is all right to be useful. Bertrand
Russell once expressed astonishment at the worldly concerns he
encountered at the University of Wisconsin: "When any farmer's turnips
go wrong, they send a professor to investigate the failure
scientifically." America has always regarded universities as more than
ivory towers. Henry Steele Commager, a 20th-century American historian,
noted of the average 19th-century American that "education was his
religion"--provided that it "be practical and pay dividends".This emphasis on "paying dividends" remains a prominent feature of
academic culture. America has pioneered the art of forging links
between academia and industry. American universities earn more than $1
billion a year in royalties and licence fees. More than 170
universities have "business incubators" of some sort, and dozens
operate their own venture funds.NOTHING QUITE LIKE IT
There is no shortage of things to marvel at in America's
higher-education system, from its robustness in the face of external
shocks to its overall excellence. No country but America explores such
a wide range of subjects (including some dubious ones such as
GBLT--gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender studies). However, what
particularly stands out is the system's flexibility and its sheer
diversity.For a demonstration of its flexibility, consider New York University.
NYU used to be a commuter school with little money and even less
prestige. In the mid-1970s, it was so close to bankruptcy that it had
to sell off its largest campus, in the Bronx. But today it is flush
with money from fund-raising, "hot" with would-be undergraduates across
the country, and famous for recruiting academic superstars. The
Shanghai world ranking puts it at number 32.The academic superstars certainly helped, but two other things proved
even more useful. The first was NYU's ability to turn its location in
downtown Manhattan into an asset. Lots of universities have fine
economics departments, but having the stock exchange nearby adds
something extra. The second was the university's ability to spot market
niches.What made all this possible was the fact that power is concentrated in
the hands of the central administration. Most universities in other
countries distribute power among the professors; American universities
have established a counterbalance to the power of the faculty in the
person of a president, which allows some of them to act more like
entrepreneurial firms than lethargic academic bodies.The American system's diversity has allowed it to combine excellence
with access by providing a wide range of different types of
institutions. Only about 100 of America's 3,200 higher-education
institutions are research universities. Many of the rest are community
colleges that produce little research and offer only two-year courses.
But able students can progress from a humble two-year college to a
prestigious research university.To be fair, one reason why America's best universities are so good is
that they have borrowed liberally from abroad--particularly from the
British residential universities that grew up in Oxford and Cambridge
in the Middle Ages, and from Wilhelm von Humboldt's German research
university in the early 19th century.SERPENTS IN PARADISE
But America's academic paradise harbours plenty of serpents. The
political correctness that has plagued Mr Summers is just one example
of a deeper problem: America's growing inclination to abandon the very
principles that have made it a world leader.Ross Douthat has recently created a stir with his expose of Ivy League
education, "Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class".
High-school students compete furiously to get into Ivy League
universities such as Harvard, but Mr Douthat, who graduated from there
only three years ago, argues that they are seldom stretched when they
arrive. A few professors try to provide overviews of big subjects, but
many stick with their pet subjects regardless of what undergraduates
need to learn. Mr Douthat wanted to pick a comprehensive list of
classes in his chosen subjects, history and literature, but ended up
with a weird mish-mash taught by "unengaged professors and overburdened
teaching assistants". Looking back on his experience, he feels cheated.He is not alone. In many ways, undergraduates are the stepchildren of
American higher education. Most academics pay more attention to
research than to teaching, and most universities continue to neglect
their core curriculums in the name of academic choice.From time to time, universities try to improve the lot of the
undergraduate, as Mr Summers is currently doing at Harvard: reforming
the core curriculum, taming grade inflation and asking professors to
concentrate on teaching rather than self-promotion. But reformers are
fighting in hostile territory. The biggest rewards in academic life are
reserved for research rather than teaching, not least because research
is easier to evaluate; and most students are willing to put up with
indifferent teaching so long as they get those vital diplomas.Complaints about the neglect of undergraduate education are as old as
the research university, but the past few years have produced a host of
new criticisms of American universities. The first is that universities
are no longer as devoted to free inquiry as they ought to be. The
persecution of Mr Summers for the sin of intellectual rumination is
symptomatic of a wider problem. At a time when America's big political
parties are deeply divided over profound questions, from the meaning of
"life" to the ethics of pre-emptive war, university professors are
overwhelmingly on the side of one political party. Only about 10% of
tenured professors say they vote Republican. The liberal majority has
repeatedly shown that it is willing to crush dissent on anything from
speech codes to the choice of subjects worth studying.There are signs that scientists, too, are turning against free and open
inquiry, though for commercial rather than ideological reasons.
Corporate sponsors are attaching strings to their donations in order to
prevent competitors from free-riding on their research, such as forcing
scientists to delay publication or even blank out crucial passages from
published papers. When Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, agreed
to invest $25m in Berkeley's College of Natural Resources, for example,
it stipulated that it should get a first look at much of the research
carried out by the plant and microbial biology department.The second criticism is that America's universities are pricing
themselves out of the range of ordinary Americans. Between 1971-72 and
2002-03, annual tuition costs, in constant 2002 dollars, rose from $840
to $1,735 at public two-year colleges and from $7,966 to $18,273 at
private four-year colleges. True, the federal government spends over
$100 billion a year on student aid, and elite universities make every
effort to subsidise poorer students. One study of admissions to
selective colleges shows that, in 2001-02, students with a median
family income paid only 34% of the "sticker" price.Still, the sheer relentlessness of academic inflation is worrisome.
Elite colleges have little incentive to compete on price; indeed, they
tend to compete by adding expensive accoutrements, such as star
professors or state-of-the-art gyms, thus pushing up the cost of
education still further. And the public universities that played such a
valiant role in providing opportunities to underprivileged students are
being forced to raise their prices, thanks to the continual squeeze on
public funding. The average cost of tuition at public universities rose
by 10.5% last year, four times the rate of inflation.The dramatic rise in the price of American higher education puts a
heavy burden on middle-class families who are too rich to qualify for
special treatment. It also sends negative signals to poorer parents who
may be unaware of all the subsidies available. Deborah Wadsworth, an
opinion pollster, points out that universities may be courting a
popular backlash. Americans increasingly regard universities as the
gatekeepers to good jobs, but they also see them as prohibitively
expensive. The result is a steady erosion of public admiration for
these formerly much-esteemed institutions.This points to a third criticism: that universities are becoming
bastions of privilege rather than instruments of social mobility. From
the 1930s onwards, America's great universities did much to realise the
American creed of equality of opportunity. James Bryant Conant,
Harvard's president from 1933 to 1953, opened up scholarships to
academic merit, and the vast post-war expansion of higher education
extended Conant's meritocratic principle to millions of students.
"Flagship" public universities such as Michigan, Texas and Berkeley,
California, provided world-class education for next to nothing.MERITOCRACY IN RETREAT
But the march of academic meritocracy has now slowed to a crawl, and,
on some fronts, has even turned into a retreat. William Bowen of
Princeton University and two colleagues, in a study of admissions to
elite universities, found that in the 11 universities for which they
had the best data, students from the top income quartile increased
their share of places from 39% in 1976 to 50% in 1995. Students from
the bottom income quartile also increased their share very slightly:
the squeeze came in the middle.Mr Summers points out that Harvard now offers free tuition to students
whose families earn less than $40,000 a year, and greatly reduced fees
to students from families earning $40,000-60,000. Other elite
universities have followed suit. Yet at the same time those
universities give priority to athletes, people applying early (who
often come from privileged backgrounds) and the children of alumni
("legacies"). Duke University encourages the offspring of wealthy
parents to apply early and considers their applications
sympathetically.The real threat to meritocracy, however, comes not from within the
universities but from society at large. One consequence of the squeeze
on funding for public universities, created by Americans' reluctance to
pay taxes, has been an academic brain drain to the more socially
exclusive private universities. In 1987, seven of the 26 top-rated
universities in the US NEWS & WORLD REPORT rankings were public
institutions; by 2002, the number had fallen to just four.The biggest risk to American higher education is the erosion of the
competitive principle. The man often cited as the architect of American
academia's current success is Vannevar Bush, who was director of the
office of scientific research and development during the second world
war. After the war he insisted that research grants be allocated to
universities on the basis of open competition and peer review. But in
the 1980s universities began undermining this principle by lobbying
their local congressmen for direct appropriations. In 2003, the amount
of money from the federal research budget awarded on a non-competitive
basis topped $2 billion, up from $1 billion in 2000.American academia's merits still outweigh its faults. Many American
undergraduates are savvy enough to get a first-class education. Many
academics resist the temptation to censor ideological minorities. The
vast bulk of research grants are allocated on the basis of merit. Yet
American universities are acquiring a growing catalogue of bad habits
that could one day leave them vulnerable to competitors from other
parts of the world--though probably not from Europe, which has
overwhelming academic problems of its own.
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School Board member Keys will retire next year
SANDY CULLEN scullen@madison.com
Bill Keys, whose time on the Madison School Board has been marked by controversies ranging from whether students should recite the Pledge of Allegiance to whether taxpayers should shell out more money to maintain what Keys believes is one of the top five school districts in the nation, will step down next year after two terms.
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Last night was parent night at the MMSD middle schools. My daughter is in 8th grade at Hamilton Middle School, so I spent the evening going to her different classes to learn about what the syllabus was for each of her five academic classes - algebra I accelerated, english, history, Spanish and science. She also takes music theater, physical education and family and consumer education.
All was going well - lots of emphasis on content and organization. Then I got to her Algebra I class, which is also her homeroom. Her teacher said he had good news and bad news. Bad news in the third week of classes? Yes. He gave all his 8th grade algebra classes a pre-test that was an assessment of basic math calculations - percentages, fractions, decimals, etc. The average score - 40%!
How could this be one parent queried the teacher. Her child had gotten As last year in math class. His answer: children are lacking facility with the basic math skills necessary to be successful in algebra. Students did not know these basic skills and could not calculate answers without using a calculator.
If you don't know basic math facts and know them well by the time you begin algebra I, a student will stuggle to be a successful learner in algebra and more advanced math classes. You have to have the basics down. The teacher recommended the book "Algebra To Go" as a review text.
Hamilton Middle School offers five academic classes per day in 7th and 8th grades. Hamilton offers its students choices in math, foreign language and music. What do other MMSD and Dane County middle schools offer children? I'd be interested in seeing posts with this information.
Hamilton MS Foreign Language:
In 7th and 8th grade, children choose either French or Spanish. Classes meet every day all year for two years.
Hamilton Middle School Math
Connected math is taught at this school. However, there are accelerated math class choices for students. Algebra 1 accelerated is offered to 8th grade students (based upon teacher recommendation, student interest). There are a number of classes of 8th grade Algebra 1 accelerated. Children completing this course in 8th grade successfully are ready for Geometry or Algebra II in 9th grade at West High School.
There is also one 7th grade class of Algebra I accelerated and one 8th grade class of geometry.
Hamilton Music
All children in grades 6, 7, 8 are required to take a music class - options offered are general music, chorus, band and orchestra. Also, in 8th grade music theater is offered. The schedule for all three years is an A/B schedule with physical education. Children have music three times one week and two times in the next week for an average of 125 minutes per week. The MMSD School Board approved music education curriculum calls for 200 minutes of music education per week (50 minutes per day).
On Monday, August 29, Kate McWhirter, Kari Douglas, Helen Fitzgerald and I met at Sherman Middle School with Ann Yehle, Principal at Sherman, Barb Brodhagen, Learning Coordinator at Sherman, Maria Brown, Spanish Teacher at Sherman, and Pam Nash, Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools.
Foreign Language Issues
At this meeting, where we were pressed for time, Maria spoke about the foreign language classes for 6th, 7th and 8th grade. In past years, 6th grade students received 4 1/2 weeks of French and 4 1/2 weeks of Spanish. This year they will be receiving 9 weeks of each class (A/B schedule). In seventh grade the students only receive one semester of class. This is due to the block theory that they are trying to implement at Sherman. The Foreign Language teachers prefer this type of schedule because they have more consistancy with the students for a greater amount of time. Meeting every day the pronunciation of words would improve vs. every other day with more students. Working with a student everyday helps the teacher becomes more familiar with the student. Unfortunately, for those students who have it first semester, they will receive no foreign language again until 8th grade. That year, those students will take foreign language all year, every other day. All Sherman students are required to take a foreign language.Algebra
We spent most of the time discussing foreign language so we didn't get a chance to go into an in-depth discussion of other areas that we're concerned with. One of course, is Algebra. More information will be available tomorrow, and I'll update you as to what was decided. But just to keep you up to date on the situation, only 5 students "qualified" to participate in Algebra. After a letter was sent out from Superintendent Art Rainwater's office, 48 students are now opting for the Algebra class, with one teacher. This will change asap. However, students now can choose to participate in algebra, which conflicts with Sherman Principal Ann Yehle's plan for heterogenous classes.
Music
We are still concerned about the pull out program for music. Nick Lane is the new band and choir director at Sherman. Levi Olson, hired back at Sherman after being pink-slipped last year from his orchestra position, is now the General Music teacher. His responsibilities include orchestra along with teaching general music for all students (students must take general music even if they are in another music class). Students are pulled out of their exploratory classes including foreign language to participate in band/orchestra and choir. My daughter has selected both band and choir and as a result is missing spanish two days a week. This week she will miss only one class since she has just one day of band. This is not acceptable and I have informed both Pam and Ann about it.
Pam saw that there was a need for us to get back together after a few weeks of trying this new schedule. We are meeting in October.
We also suggested that each team designate a person as the "go to teacher" for accelerated students. Pam and Ann thought this was a great idea, and are going to look into it, but we've heard nothing on this suggestion.
Summary
Principal Ann Yehle is going ahead with her plans to make changes at Sherman, regardless of the number of parents who have expressed their concerns. Students are being forced to participate in classes, and no longer have the option to choose. The afterschool classes are still being called the 8th hour, but are not considered a gradeable class.My opinion is that the Madison School District Administration is going into these heterogeneous classes without considering the implications to Sherman students, this year and into the future. I see Sherman students falling far behind the other middle school students that feed into East, along with the entire MMSD. The downtown Madison School District Administration is allowing these changes to take place and ignoring the parents who are concerned about these schedules.
Experimenting on the children
I stated at a School Board meeting this summer, and have repeated over and over: "While Sherman tries to figure out what they want to do as far as education, and make changes year after year to "get it right", my children only have these three years of Middle School education and cannot get them back. How can I as a parent allow my children to be guinea pigs while they figure it out? And what can I do to finally get the Administration to sit up and realize that they can't mess with my children's education?"When did we begin to consider mediocrity acceptable?I am counting on this year as being a lost year for my 7th grade daughter. Do I give up the fight and send her to another school? Do I pull her out of a neighborhood school where all her friends are, so she can get an education that is superior rather than a substandard education at Sherman?
This evening's Gangs and School Violence Forum was quite interesting. Rafael organized an excellent panel. We'll post a link to video and audio files when they are complete. Following are links to local articles and commentary on this event:
Yudice said there has been a "huge development in the area of Latino gangs" in Madison specifically, and Blue noted an increase in girls in gangs."We have seen a great surge in activity," Yudice said.
All of the panelists offered ideas to help reduce the problem in Madison's high schools, including limiting off-campus privileges and continuing consistent enforcement against gang colors and clothing in schools.
"It's really easy to slip out a door," said Madison Memorial High School Principal Bruce Dahmen. "It's important that we have high expectations for all the children."
If you need any assistance regarding information about gangs in Madison or resources for schools to tackle the gang problem, feel free to contact me or visit my website at www.knowgangs.com.I am a former California police officer and a nationally recognized gang expert. I now reside in Jefferson County and continue to teach law enforcement officers, educators and social service workers about dealing with gang problems nationwide.
Students and parents listened during a Wednesday night meeting and took notes, a move in the right direction according to Officer Moore.Officer Moore also strongly suggested that the High Schools eliminate their open campus policy."Last year they were telling me there was no gang issue in or around any of our schools, I was told that by the administration here," he says. "So this is something that is really great for me that we are finally acknowledging that we do have gang issues."
There are resources for at risk youth in the Madison area, but many on the panel stressed that a unified strategic plan is needed.
Blue and other panelists attributed the increase in gang activity to a growing number of students who feel a disconnection with their school and community, and with adults who care about them."We're getting a wake-up call that says certain parts of our community are not healthy," Blue said.
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I have been trying for weeks to get a handle on how much the MMSD spends on various programs. As I’ve exchanged e-mails with Roger Price and Superintendent Rainwater, it has become clear that the MMSD cannot (or will not) provide figures on how much was budgeted for any particular program in the previous year, how much was spent in the previous year, and how much was budgeted for the current year.
Calculating and providing those three sums creates a “transparent” budget, i.e., a budget that allows the average citizen to see where the money came from and where it went.
Since school board elections began more than nine months ago, various people have called for a more transparent budget process. In attempting to get figures on Reading Recovery, I said to the superintendent in a recent e-mail:
Those of us who follow district activities are looking for some transparency in the budget and administration decision-making, meaning that the budget clearly documents where money comes from and where it goes -- a goal that I hope that we all share and will achieve in the next budget.
In response the superintendent wrote:
In regard to your concerns about "transparency" in the budget the Administration operates within the policies and procedures established by the elected Board of Education. I believe that the budget does clearly document where the money goes and where it comes from in a format that meets Generally Accepted Government Accounting Standards and the requirements of the Department of Public Instruction.
Then he hoisted his favorite dismissal of suggestions about how the MMSD might improve operations and information:
Obviously each individual person wants the budget to reflect his/her own individual detailed interest. That is not possible in a document intended for general distribution. The District's finances are audited every year by an independent auditor.
In other words, “Ed, but you are one individual, and the MMSD is not going to produce a transparent budget.”
Likewise the superintendent is saying:
Thank you very much, Barb Schrank, but you are one individual, and the MMSD is not going to produce a transparent budget.
Thank you very much, Larry Winkler, but you are one individual, and the MMSD is not going to produce a transparent budget.
Thank you very much, Jim Zellmer, but you are one individual, and the MMSD is not going to produce a transparent budget.
Thank you very much, Joan Knoebel, but you are one individual, and the MMSD is not going to produce a transparent budget.
Thank you very much to the 24,360 who voted against the referendum on the operating budget, but each one of you is only an individual, and the MMSD is not going to produce a transparent budget.
I offer this analysis to try to convince the superintendent and board that the majority of voters rejected the current budget process when they rejected the referendum question on exceeding the revenue caps. If the superintendent and the board want the next referendum to pass, they will have to win the confidence of voters with a new budget process that voters can easily understand.
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Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - Washington Post
Two new books on how to teach students of divergent abilities seem at first to have been written on different planets.
But Deborah L. Ruf's "Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind" and a new edition of Jeannie Oakes's "Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality" eventually reveal a similar frustration. Both want children to be given more individual attention and more of an academic challenge than they are getting in most schools.
· Oakes, a UCLA professor, has studied the results of putting children of different achievement levels in the same classrooms for several decades (the first edition of this book was published in 1985).
· Ruf, based in Minneapolis, is the national gifted-children program coordinator for American Mensa, an organization for people with high IQs, and works with families of gifted children.
· Oakes focuses on the problems of students considered below average. She argues that they are labeled slow learners for reasons that have little to do with careful assessment and often have much to do with the fact that their parents are poor or are ethnic minorities. She says such students should be given a chance at challenging lessons and such college preparatory classes as Advanced Placement. If they are kept in tracks reserved for low achievers, she says, that will not happen. The book includes results of work she has done since the first edition with schools that were persuaded to disregard the old tracks and give such students a chance to learn at higher levels.
· Ruf works on the other end of the spectrum, with students so quick and so bright that they are bored with the pace of most classrooms. But Ruf does not devote much space to defending tracking systems that put those high-achieving students in classes by themselves, since her research seems to indicate that school systems cannot be trusted to teach as well as many of them need and deserve. Instead, she says, schools have to treat all students as individuals and find ways to accelerate their learning as much as they are capable, by skipping grades or providing independent study or, if nothing else works, home schooling.
· Oakes, in turn, wants to get rid of the gifted label, but she promises worried parents that the school "will also find ways to accommodate any child whose intellectual 'gifts' are so extreme or whose disabilities are so severe that they require different schooling arrangements on a case-by-case basis."
-- Jay Mathews
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
A bus service that contracts with the Madison Metropolitan School District is back in business after transporting students without having insurance.One former employee said Mr. Mom's Transport was operating without insurance for a month and a half.
"I think things are back to normal," said school district spokesman Ken Syke.
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Vernice Jones, a New York Black Mother is writing a weblog on homeschooling her child:
I am a Woman of Color trying to homeschool my child of 4 1/2 even though he goes to preschool full-day every day. Call me a skeptic, but I don't feel I can trust the school system to educate my child. So far as I'm concerned, I am a homeschooling mother of one. Here's to a day in my life.via Joanne.
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WisPolitics [PDF]:
The two-day event at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Memorial Union will include sessions Wednesday on the future of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) at 10:30 a.m., high school redesign at 11:20a.m., and the “New 3 R’s for the UW-Madison School of Education” at 1:15 p.m. Sectionals that begin at 2:30 p.m. will include changes in special education law, open enrollment, rural schools and communities, NCLB in Wisconsin, and virtual education. Dennis Winters, vice president and director of research for NorthStar Economics Inc. of Madison, will present research on the economic impact of 4-year-old kindergarten (4K) at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. (Media have been invited to this briefing.)
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At large representatives representing an ethnic group who reside within the attendance areas:
Prasanna Raman
Brenda Gonzalez
Name
Community member without children in the district:
Tim Otis
Student Liaison to the Board of Education:
Connor Gants
School & Representative
Chavez - Rich Rubasch - Jennifer Sheridan (Alternative)
Crestwood - Marisue Horton - Mary Kay Battaglia (Alt.)
Falk - Dr. Matthew Raw - Karl Woodruff (Alt.)
Huegel - Laura Lenzen (Alt.)
Muir - Ann and Brett Larget
Orchard Ridge
Stephens - Carol Quintana
Jefferson - Wilma Gurl
Spring Harbor - Don Jorgensen
Toki - Sue Mowris
Memorial - Mary/Scott Whitcomb - Mary Fahey (Alt.)
Franklin/Randall - Michael Maguire
Leopold - Rusty Shoemaker-Allen
Lincoln - Lori Mann Carey
Midvale - Jerry Eykholt - Brian Tennant (Alt.)
Shorewood - Janice Ferguson - Michelle Vassallo (Alt.)
Thoreau - Gina Hodgson - Erin Weiss (Alt.)
Van Hise - Wendy Cooper - Jim Bauman (Alt.)
Cherokee - Arlene Silveira - Marcia Bastian (Alt.)
Hamilton - Mark Kaiser - Alan Kim (Alt.)
Wright - Fern Murdoch - Sandra Willis-Smith (Alt.)
West - Michelle Reynolds
Shabazz - Paula Volpiansky - Stacy Sandler (Alt.)
Affiliated Alt
Invited Observers:
Alderpersons
Neighborhood Association Representatives
Board of Education Members
Memorial and West Attendance Area Principals
Memorial and West Attendance Area parent/family/teacher organization Presidents
Central Office Representative and Chair:
Mary Gulbrandsen
Principals from outside the attendance areas:
Principal
Anne Nolan (Whitehorse)
Mike Meissen (LaFollette)
Research and Evaluation:
Tim Potter
Staff to the Task Force:
Jane Belmore
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At large representatives representing an ethnic group who reside within the attendance areas:
James Howard
Ramona Natora
Name
Community member without children in the district:
Pat Mooney
One East High School student:
Rebecca Berkenstadt
School & Representative
Emerson - Linda Galang - Michelle Rawlings (Alternate)
Gompers - Amy Riedemann
Hawthorne
Lake View
Lapham - Mike Wygocki - Chris Oddo (Alt.)
Lindbergh - Tonja Prodehl
Lowell - Maria Doyle
Marquette - Laura Chastain - Kimberly Neuschel (Alt.)
Mendota - Michelle Brokaw - Mike McCabe (Alt.)
Sandburg - Lisa Kind
Black Hawk - Jill Jokela
O’Keeffe - David Wallner - Josh Day (Alt.)
Sherman - Vicky Nelson - Angela Nash (Alt.)
East - Brenda Robinson
Shabazz - Kim and Richard Karlin-Kamin
Affiliated
Invited Observers:
Alderpersons
Neighborhood Association Representatives
Board of Education Members
East Attendance Area Principals
East Attendance Area parent/family/teacher organization Presidents
Central Office Representative and Chair:
Loren Rathert
Principals from outside the attendance areas:
Nancy Yoder (Stephens)
Karen Seno (Cherokee)
Ed Holmes (West)
Research and Evaluation:
Kurt Kiefer
Staff to the Task Force:
Rita Applebaum
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Wes Daily emailed a few comments on Gangs:
Gangs are not a new phenomenon in the United States and were originally formed as social clubs and a means of self-protection. Today, gangs have evolved into violent predators focused on obtaining money and power. According to the National Drug intelligence Center (NDIC), there are at least 21,500 gangs and more than 731,500 active gang members in the United States. NDIC defines a street gang as an ongoing group, club, organization, or association of five or more persons that has as one of its primary purposes the commission of one or more criminal offenses. Street gangs are no longer just an urban problem as they continue to seek new drug markets in suburban and rural areas. Gangs and their members can be identified by various methods including self admission, tattoos, possession of gang paraphernalia, information from other agencies, and photographs. Initiations vary from gang to gang and set to set. Most common inductions required for membership include the commission of a crime such as armed robbery, assault, rape, drive-by shootings, and murder. Other known initiations entail a beat-in or jump-in, in which the inductee must endure a severe beating by gang members, or a sex-in in which a female member must have sexual intercourse with multiple gang members.Rafael Gomez is leading a Forum this Wednesday (9.21.2005) @ 7:00p.m. on Gangs and School Violence at the Doyle Administration Building. Learn more.CRIPS
The Crips originated in 1969 in Los Angeles, California from a youth gang known as the Baby Avenues, which then became known as the Avenue Cribs. In the early 1970s, the Avenue Cribs changed their name to the Crips. This gang was originally an African American male gang, but it now accepts Hispanic, Asian, and Caucasian males and females to bolster their membership. The Crips wear blue and gray or purple and orange clothing. Members wear British Knight or Adidas sneakers. This changes in different communities throughout the nation. To the Crips, Adidas stands for All day I destroy a slob, and BK stands for Blood Killer, which are derogatory slangs towards their rivals the Bloods. NDIC estimates national membership at 30,000 to 35,000. Theses figures are based on national reporting, which is consistently low due to denial.
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Senn Brown forwarded these links and information:
Eco-charter schools with environment-focused and project-based programs are springing up throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota and other states. Environment and sustainability are the integrating qualities of learning in "green," high-performance charter schools. See website links (below) to several "green" charter schools.Earlier this summer, a group from Wisconsin and Minnesota's green/environmental focused charter schools gathered at Beaver Creek Nature Reserve, site of the new Wildlands Charter School (see link below), for a day-long "Green" High-Performance Charter Schools Conference. The gathering provided an opportunity for charter school, higher education and state-level folks to share information on green/environmentally focused programs, practices, experiences and "green" school design principles. The group agreed to establish a steering committee to develop plans for fostering the creation of environmental-focused charter schools, sharing effective practices, networking and describing design principles for all environmentally friendly charter schools. The WCSA and Minnesota Association of Charter Schools are assisting the steering committee to coordinate the green/environmental charter schools initiative.
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Referendum soundly defeated in Phillips School District
Greendale voters support $14 million tax levy
North Carolina will use lottery proceeds for schools
Slot machine revenue not best bet for public schools
What's new in the anti-TABOR toolbox?
School-funding reform calendar
The Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES) is a statewide network of educators, school board members, parents, community leaders, and researchers. Its Wisconsin Adequacy Plan -- a proposal for school-finance reform -- is the result of research into the cost of educating children to meet state proficiency standards.
Referendum soundly defeated in Phillips School District
An $830,000, non-recurring five-year referendum for operation and maintenance was soundly defeated last week by the voters in the Phillips School District, with 851 people voting yes and 1,783 voting no (http://www.phillipswi.com/bee/index.php?sect_rank=1&story_id=205231
According to superintendent Jerry Trochinski, if approved, the referendum would have covered expenses in the 2006-07 school year and thereafter (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9339382/).
The official vote tally found the referenda going down to defeat in all 12 of the district's voting locations, including the village and town of Catawba, home of the Catawba School which, according to Trochinski, may be closed along with staff and other cuts throughout the Phillips School District.
****************
Greendale voters support $14 million tax levy
Greendale School District residents voted overwhelmingly at their annual meeting in support of a $14 million property tax levy for the upcoming school year (http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/sep05/355316.asp). The "yes" vote came despite strong opposition from the Greendale Taxpayers Group, who expressed concerns over high property tax bills in the village.
The budget was approved by a show of hands raised with green cards. No more than two dozen of those in the crowd raised their green cards to reject the budget. Hundreds of others raised green cards to approve it.
During the questin-and-answer session of the annual meeting, voters on both sides of the issue expressed a need for state officials to stop relying on property taxes to fund schools and, instead, suggested a new funding source, something WAES has been working on for several years. The Wisconsin Adequacy plan can be found at http://www.excellentschools.org/resources/WAPMay04.pdf.
****************
North Carolina will use lottery proceeds for schools
After repeated failed attempts, North Carolina legislators have narrowly passed a lottery bill, the proceeds of which will be used to fund numerous school projects (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/09/14/03nc.h25.html?rale=KQE5d7nM%2FXAYPsVRXwnFWfexbqxLpd7mLxw4YDtlKayPnLCzCDElj9sMlxY89XSR7QmktnpPGi%2Fx%0A4pt7OcRvxTItMxMjQ42Z4dBdh%2F1WjGKFjjH8y1um1L%2FbALHX%2BP8DM35SUTdxNkXqEZv%2F%2BQnhgM6i%0AfzE8pMRc7DfJK26GvUy%2F2wCx1%2Fj%2FA4PF%2FZeKYrpQNHIG4grfnrFW6EcvM0Mhz7rmfyiFbcFCNETp%0A2dE%2FNlq369EL0VzQ3WQIWm97xO3oG4Vq8QquBwJtbKRiuPAsGPCZUov0EXF5cg16gPcZvjUj036y%0AX%2Bpl8YSrVNOpQdeBEmNiFbD7juQUG1A8bwN%2B9R3HaoSuELqEfPQJhwmIQbCE9H1X5CjtQOoRm%2F%2F5%0ACeGAUtB%2Bo4zXcfBO6yzglnsJ%2F84lcsvfLqKNjN190Ex%2F%2BFThCXspsDAG50F3JFxMd5OE4vc17Tas%0A938ZgEl%2FF7Q3cs3R6cnZVvfFLiX%2B92Y%2FcS3uEX9T3aGTFbDHEeo3Gtsj0WCLFK8xN85BiGDoBwGJ%0ARdjMQkLTOog8Ko%2FhcOxcgNbuEX9T3aGTFYFqjnFa9C%2BthKtU06lB14HqOVqMH6NH1KlehWnUCSLo%0Acg16gPcZvjWZ3NC%2BysLspgFDXmI%2FlcT08UJlcz%2BxSLABL4jpNHdkvJgS%2FdCdQtsH5nWlYSGYj1xL%0AvDt5SwDQTLlhoSio8hJKZZ8wxCNS%2BJ2cJ1W2VVRS5P6tTBEFOWBIv8Q7jS6UKXWKLJ5OrOr%2Flohp%0ATs300jgeSchyqvxyxb6RyG6pP2u3FWNmcRrJsIYv74sOed%2BSGHFqQz vhf Mpn aK%2BLo2WpfbrU
Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue cast the deciding vote in the state Senate to approve the controversial measure, 25-24.
The lottery is expected to reap more than $400 million annually, money that is slated for college scholarships, school construction, needy school districts, class-size reduction, and the state's pre-school initiative.
*****************
Slot machine revenue not best bet for public schools
Although the revenue would be used to provide up to $1 billion in property tax relief (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05256/570432.stm), not all the school district in Pennsylvania are thrilled with a plan proposed by Gov. Ed Rendell.
Only 111 school districts decided to take part in the program, known as Act 72, a 20-percent participation rate that was a political embarrassment to Rendell. The Governor has pledged to force boards to take part in Act 72, but will face strong opposition from the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
According to Scott Shewell, an association spokesperson, "We are not in favor of mandating Act 72 because it doesn't address the longer-term issues of controlling costs for school districts, addressing state and federal mandates or creating a comprehensive public education funding system for Pennsylvania."
***************
What's new in the anti-TABOR toolbox?
The revenue limits put on Wisconsin's public schools back in 1993 have had a devastating affect on many schools and children. Despite that track record, there are a handful of state legislators and others who want to make it worse.
This group is trying to amend the state constitution in order to force every unit of state and local government to freeze spending at current levels. Known as TABOR (which stands, facetiously, for Taxpayers Bill of Rights), the amendment, if passed would also allow any local government to ignore any new state law that isn't "paid for." TABOR has been in Colorado’s constitution since 1992, and residents in that state are now facing serious problems because there is not enough money to run state operations effectively.
If TABOR should ever go into effect in Wisconsin, hope for needed school-funding reform will be dashed. To learn what you can do to fight for local control, top-notch state and local government services, and adequate school funding, go to http://www.wisconsinsfuture.org, click on "Projects," then on "Taxes," and, finally, on "TABOR."
**************
School-funding reform calendar
Sept. 21 -- "Building Community Support for School-finance Reform" discussion for public school superintendents at the "Red Gym," 716 Langdon Street, Madison (next to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Memorial Union), 3:45 to 5:45 p.m. (contact Tom Beebe, 414-384-9094 or tbeebe@wisconsinsfuture.org). If you haven't registered but still want to attend, this click on "Reply" to this e-mail and let me know you're coming.
Sept. 22 -- School-funding reform presentation at 7 p.m. at the North Side Public Library in Kenosha (sponsored by the Kenosha/Racine AAUW)
Sept. 23 -- School-funding presentation at the Wisconsin Valley Business Officials, Building & Grounds Supervisors and Food Supervisors meeting, 9 a.m., Club 64, Merrill
Sept. 27 -- School-funding reform discussion with the Board of Directors and State Legislative Committee of the Wisconsin Retired Educators Association, Baraboo
Oct. 1 -- School-funding reform presentation at the Wisconsin PTA Leadership Conference in Racine (go to http://www.wisconsinpta.org/ and click on "Conference Registration")
Oct. 5 -- School-funding reform discussion at staff inservice for the Baraboo School District, 2:30 to 3:30 p.m., at the Jack Young Middle School
Oct. 13-14 -- School-funding reform presentations for the Northwestern Wisconsin Education Association at Eau Claire Memorial High School, 2225 Keith Street (presentations at 12:25 p.m. on Oct. 13 and 8:30 a.m. on Oct. 14)
Oct. 18 -- School-funding reform presentation fo Grassroots of Waukesha County, 7 p.m.
Nov. 16 -- School-funding reform presentation at the "Taking Care of Business" presentation of the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials in Pewaukee
Please feel free to share your copy of the WAES school-funding update with anyone interested in school-finance reform. Contact Tom Beebe (tbeebe@wisconsinsfuture.org) at 414-384-9094 for details.
--
Tom Beebe, Outreach Specialist
Institute for Wisconsin’s Future
1717 South 12th Street
Milwaukee, WI 53204
414-384-9094 (office)
920-650-0525 (cell)
tbeebe@wisconsinsfuture.org
http://www.excellentschools.org
http://www.wisconsinsfuture.org
About 100 young people were involved in a disturbance by the concession stand at the LaFollette versus East High School football game at Lussier Stadium at about 9:45 p.m. No one was hurt, but police detained 12 kids and arrested four.
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What IS it about some kids? Why does ONE teenager run into trouble time after time, when his or her siblings don’t? Why do kids make bad choices, just when parents think they’re doing the best they can to love, support, and encourage them? From kindergarten to college, a new school year brings kids new challenges, renewed problems. From bullying to binge-drinking. Dr. James Garbarino is recognized as a leading authority on child development and youth violence. His books include "Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them". And, "Parents Under Siege: Why You Are the Solution, Not the Problem in Your Chld’s Life". He speaks to St. Lawrence University classes today, and in a public presentation in the Canton Central School auditorium tonight at 7.
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Claire Simmons talks about lessons an elementary school teacher learns when given the time to listen to students. audio
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Carol Carstensen provided updated information on the people selected by the Board of Education to serve on the attendance task forces:
West-Memorial
- Prasanna Raman (nominated by Ruth Robarts to fill a position as an Asian member of the task force)
- Tim Otis (nominated by Bill Keys to fill a position as a resident with no children in the district)
- Brenda Gonzalez (nominated by Juan Lopez to fill a position as an Hispanic/Latino member of the task force)
- Charlie Daniel (to fill a positon as an African American member of the task force)East
- James Howard (nominated by Lawrie Kobza to fill a position as an African American member of the task force)
- Pat Mooney (nominated by Carol Carstensen to fill a position as a resident without children in the district)
- Ramon Natera (nominated by Juan Lopez to fill a position as an Hispanic/Latino member of the task force)
- A represenative of the Asian community has notyet been named
Carol Carstensen says that the district may soon release the names of the members selected by the principals and PTOs.
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This is an open letter from Darlinne Kambwa, a high school student
at LaFollette. It was published in the Cap Times on September 14, 2005
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion//index.php?ntid=54049&ntpid=11
Darlinne Kambwa: RACIAL DIVIDE IN HIGH SCHOOLS MUST BE
BRIDGED BY GROUP EFFORT
By Darlinne Kambwa
The Capital Times
September 14, 2005
Most students attend school five days a week,
approximately eight hours a day, for at least 11
years. With all of the time spent at school, it
literally becomes a second home.
Students should never feel uncomfortable, unsafe or
unwanted in our public schools. However, many do.
This fall I am a senior at La Follette High School. As
a minority student, I feel that the environment has
not been inviting to the entire student population.
Racial divisions at La Follette are a serious problem
that need to be addressed before it becomes worse.
The racial divisions make students, particularly
minority students, feel uncomfortable and unwanted.
Students at La Follette High School, just like any
other high school, tend to draw toward people they
feel comfortable around or have something in common
with. Groups are often formed based on race, age,
gender or social class.
As you walk through La Follette's halls, the first
thing that stands out is race. The halls are crowded
with little clusters of students everywhere - but most
of these groups are full of students of the same race.
Students are often told they can always approach a
teacher or faculty member with their problems. But not
all students know a faculty member they feel
comfortable talking with. This is just one example of
how the administration and teaching staff do not
connect with the entire student body.
How teachers interact with minority students has a
large impact on how the minority student body feels in
school.
Another striking example of how the teachers' and
administrators' actions at La Follette negatively
affect the minority student body is the unequal
enforcement taking place. Oftentimes African-Americans
and other minorities are stopped in the hallway for
passes or receive detention for being tardy, while
whites do not.
Teachers and administrators need to decide on one
system for enforcing the rules.
This is not to imply that students are not responsible
for their own actions, but rather that their actions
need to be fairly judged by the entire staff. Being an
African-American, I know this treatment makes students
feel unwanted and discourages success.
There is no one reason that racial division exists at
La Follette, but it is an issue that needs to be
discussed. Whatever the solution may be, it must be a
group effort. Teachers, students and administrators
need to come together to solve it.
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Karen MacPherson on the growing opposition to mental health screening in schools.
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Doug Erickson takes a useful look around Madison's gang scene, including the recent events in Oregon. Erickson also mentions this Wednesday's SIS supported event, lead by Rafael Gomez on Gangs and School Violence (9.21 @ 7:00p.m.):
"It sets a watershed mark for the number of individuals involved in one event," said Stephen Blue, who has studied local gangs since 1986 and is delinquency services manager for the Dane County Department of Human Services.Blue is among panelists scheduled to discuss gangs and school violence Wednesday at the Doyle Administration Building of the Madison School District. The event is sponsored by www.schoolinfosystem.org, a Web site devoted to school issues.
Rafael Gomez, a district parent who helped organize the forum and will be its moderator, said the topic was chosen before the Oregon shootings.
"One of the questions we will be asking the panel is how the whole issue of gangs in our schools has changed in the last 10 years," he said. "I think that's a good way to frame the situation in Oregon."
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I hate to break it to you, though, but it looks like e-books in their current form aren't going to break out of their early adopter ghetto any time soon. Certainly books stored in electronic form have flourished in a number of niche markets -- reference books, in particular, are becoming more and more prevalent as electronic form rather than paper (see Resources for more on this and other wacky links). But when it comes to the books that make up the bulk of our reading lives, the vast majority of us are still reading words printed with ink on paper bound with glue and string.I think the future, (or is it present?) of online learning is something between blogs, heymath, edhelper and wikipedia with interesting tools like RSS thrown in.
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A year's worth of Connected Math textbooks and teacher guides are on the left while the equivalent Singapore Math texts are on the right.
Friedman's latest ,where he demonstrates how other countries are "eating our kid's lunch in math" is well worth reading, as are these www.schoolinfosystem.org math posts. UW Math Professor Dick Askey has much more to say on K-12 math curriculum.
A few observations from a layperson who couldn't be farther from a math expert's perspective on this (in other words, I'm not a math expert):
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Tom Friedman writes "...math and science are the keys to innovation and power in today's world, and American parents had better understand that the people who are eating their kids' lunch in math are not resting on their laurels." His opinion piece in the New York Times writes more about HeyMath! and its use in Singapore and worldwide.
Tyler Cowen takes a quick look at William St. Clair's new book: The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period. This book, so interesting on many levels looks at:
During the four centuries when printed paper was the only means by which texts could be carried across time and distance, everyone engaged in politics, education, religion, and literature believed that reading helped to shape the minds, opinions, attitudes, and ultimately the actions, of readers. William St Clair investigates how the national culture can be understood through a quantitative study of the books that were actually read. Centred on the romantic period in the English-speaking world, but ranging across the whole print era, it reaches startling conclusions about the forces that determined how ideas were carried, through print, into wider society. St Clair provides an in-depth investigation of information, made available here for the first time, on prices, print runs, intellectual property, and readerships gathered from over fifty publishing and printing archives. He offers a picture of the past very different from those presented by traditional approaches. Indispensable to students, English literature, book history, and the history of ideas, the study’s conclusions and explanatory models are highly relevant to the issues we face in the age of the internet.
- The first study of actual reading using quantification and economic analysis
- Sheds new light on aspects of reading and its effect on the nation
- An indispensable resource for scholars working on literature, reading, and the history of publishing and printing
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HeyMath! is
an E-learning system that supports the work of teachers in teaching and assessment, whilst helping students build a strong foundation in Math and become independent learners.
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International Business Machines Corp., worried the United States is losing its competitive edge, will financially back employees who want to leave the company to become math and science teachers.The new program, being announced Friday in concert with city and state education officials, reflects tech industry fears that U.S. students are falling behind peers from Bangalore to Beijing in the sciences.
Up to 100 IBM employees will be eligible for the program in its trial phase. Eventually, Big Blue hopes many more of its tech savvy employees - and those in other companies - will follow suit.
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The Governance Divide: A Report on a Four-State Study on Improving College Readiness and Success authored by The Institute for Educational Leadership, The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, The Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research. Foreword, Executive Summary, Full Report (345K PDF):
The report also offers recommendations to help states transform ad hoc approaches into sustained action and institutionalized, long-term K-16 reforms. Every state needs to increase the percentage of students who complete high school and finish some form of postsecondary education; existing governance structures and policies cannot meet this overwhelming need. For most states, these structures and policies must be revised in significant ways.Phoebe Randall has more, including comments from the Wisconsin DPI:Currently, K-12 and postsecondary education exist in separate worlds in the United States. Policies for each system of education are typically created in isolation from each other-even though, in contrast to the past, most students eventually move from one system to the other. Students in K-12 rarely know what to expect when they enter college, nor do they have a clear sense of how to prepare for that next step. Particularly now, in the 21st century, when more students must complete some postsecondary education to have an economically secure life, the need for improved transitions from high school to college is urgent. This need for some postsecondary education extends beyond individual aspirations. In this global economy, businesses and communities-and our nation as a whole-must have residents who have achieved educational success beyond high school.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction acknowledges there is a problem and said the department is working to improve the situation with new programs.“In Wisconsin, there is a tremendous amount of coordination to ensure that students are prepared for college,” DPI Communications Officer Joe Donovan said.
This coordination comes in the form of a program called PK16, which stands for pre-kindergarten through grade 16. One of the program’s goals is to focus on keeping students motivated and challenged during the transition from their senior year of high school to college.
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THURSDAY, SEPTEBMER 22, 2005
6:30 p.m. Special Meeting of the Madison School Board and the East
Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force
Sherman Middle School
Library Media Center
1610 Ruskin Street
Madison, WI
1. Call to Order
2. Welcome and Introductions of the East Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force Members, Invitees, and Madison School Board Members
3. Members of the East Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range
Facility Needs Task Force going through the "Getting to Know one
Another" Activity
4. Charge to the East Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force
5.
a. Role of the Madison School Board6. Specific issues to be addressed by the East Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force:
b. Role of the Invitees
c. Role of the East Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force
d. Role of Facilitator of the East Attendance Area Demographics and
Long Range Facility Needs Task Force
e. Process of How the East Attendance Area Demographics and Long
Range Facility Needs Task Force will work together
a. Elementary schools in the East Attendance Area that have a declining student enrollment7. Timeline for completing the work of the East Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force
b. Elementary schools in the East Attendance Area that have
overcrowded student populations
c. Disparity of the income of parents whose children attend elementary schools in the East Attendance Area
d. Projected growth of the elementary schools in the East Attendance
Area
* Definitions: Purposes of Enrollment Calculations10. Summary of what transpired at the East Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force meeting and the next steps that the Task Force will take
* Enrollment trends
* Maximum Physical Plant Capacity Worksheet
* Considerations when Redrawing Boundary Lines
* Process for Dealing with Overcrowded Schools
* Process for Dealing with Elementary Schools with Declining
Enrollment
* Chart of Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) Schools
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2005
6:30 p.m. Special Meeting of the Madison School Board and the Memorial and West Attendance Areas Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force
Toki Middle School
Library Media Center
5606 Russett Road
Madison, WI 53711
1. Call to Order
2. Welcome and Introductions of the Memorial and West Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force Members, Invitees, and Madison School Board Members
3. Members of the Memorial and West Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force going through the "Getting to Know one Another" activity
4. Charge to the Memorial and West Attendance Areas Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force
5.
a. Role of the Madison School Board6. Specific issues to be addressed by the Memorial and West Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force:
b. Role of Invitees
c. Role of the Memorial and West Attendance Areas Demographics and
Long Range Facility Needs Task Force
d. Role of Facilitator of the Memorial and West Attendance Area
Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force
e. Process of How the Memorial and West Attendance Area
Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force will work
together
a. Elementary schools in the Memorial and West attendance areas that have overcrowded student populations7. Timeline for completing the work of the Memorial and West Attendance Areas Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force
b. Projected growth of the elementary schools in the Memorial and
West Attendance Areas
c. Disparity of the income of parents whose children attend
elementary schools in the Memorial and West Attendance Areas
* Definitions: Purposes of Enrollment Calculations10. Summary of what transpired at the Memorial and West Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force meeting and the next steps that the Task Force will take
* Enrollment trends
* Maximum Physical Plant Capacity Worksheet
* Considerations when Redrawing Boundary Lines
* Process for Dealing with Overcrowded Schools
* Process for Dealing with Elementary Schools with Declining
Enrollment
* Chart of Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) schools
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Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele released his blueprint for education reform yesterday, a series of 30 recommendations that call for schools to be graded and teachers to be paid for performance.Full Report (PDF)Members of the 30-person Governor's Commission on Quality Education in Maryland recommended efforts to promote charter schools but rejected school vouchers, a far more divisive topic
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BBC:
"California is facing an obesity epidemic," Mr Schwarzenegger said. "Today we are taking some first steps in creating a healthy future for California."Under the new rules, pizza, burritos, pasta and sandwiches must contain no more than four grams of fat for every 100 calories, with a total of no more than 400 calories.
From 2007, students will only be allowed to buy water, milk and some fruit and sports drinks that contain a controlled amount of sweeteners.
It is thought that the move could cost school districts hundreds of thousands of dollar in lost income, as they receive money from companies in return for allowing them to sell their products in schools.
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The OECD released their "Education at a Glance - 2005 Report" Daniel Drezner summarizes his take on the US Performance:
1) In science and math, the U.S. is ahead of only the really poor OECD countries -- Turkey, Mexico, etc. So yes, there is reason to worry.2) The poor performance is not because of a downward trend -- in fact, if you look at chart A7.1 ("Differences in mean performance of eighth-grade students from 1995 to 2003"), you discover an interesting fact: the United States showed the greatest improvement in science and math scores of the sample -- including Korea.
3) The poor performance isn't because of a dearth of funds -- table B1.1 shows that, Switzerland excepted, the United States spends the most amount of money per student in the OECD. You get a similar result if the metric is education spending as a percentage of GDP. Indeed, the OECD comments:
Lower expenditure cannot automatically be equated with a lower quality of educational services. Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands and New-Zealand, which have moderate expenditure on education per student at the primary and lower secondary levels, are among the OECD countries with the highest levels of performance by 15-year-old students in mathematics.
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Gangs and School Violence Presentation
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 7:00p.m. to 8:00p.m.
Organized by volunteers from www.schoolinfosystem.org
McDaniels Auditorium
Doyle Administration Building
545 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI 53703 Directions
Discussion Topics:
1) Has the gang issue changed over the past 10 years?
2) What have we learned from our initiatives?
3) What partnerships are available to keep gangs away from schools?
4) What procedures are available to individual schools to keep gangs away from schools?
Participants
Ed Holmes, Principal of Madison West High School
Mike Meissen, Principal of LaFollette High School
Robert Growney, Principal of Edgewood High School
Lt. Luis Yudice, Office of Justice Assistance
Stephen Blue, MSW Office Manager of Delinquent Services
Hector Alvarez, Centro Hispano
Bruce Dahmen, Principal - Madison Memorial High School
Lester Moore, City of Madison Police Department
For more information, please contact
Rafael Gomez: filosistema@yahoo.com
Joan Knoebel: jmknoebel@tds.com
Larry Winkler: winkllj@acm.org
This event will be recorded and published on www.schoolinfosystem.org
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The survey suggests that family time may be more important to children than many parents realize.It found teens having family dinners five or more times a week were 42 percent less likely to drink alcohol, 59 percent less likely to smoke cigarettes, and 66 percent less likely to try marijuana.
"At a time when kids are under a lot of stress for a lot of different reasons, having that regular meal time that they can count on, that their parents are there for support — that can be very helpful," said David Elkind, a professor of child development at Tufts University in Massachusetts.
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Sophos writing at IT Toolbox:
Government is still in the old broadcast mode of press conferences and press releases and talking at you rather than with you. Government only seems to have time to converse with lobby groups, mass media reporters and interests that are going to make them or their friends money. Money from the government.The conversations are growing – mass media is at a loss to understand how to deal with or contend with the number of blogs, cross-linking of blogs and the sheer volume of people getting involved in the conversation. It is no holds barred and far more interesting than the scripted Q&A being spouted from press conferences. Mass media is so flabbergasted, that they have resorted to reading blogs on their broadcasts! How crazy is that – broadcasting elements of the conversations from the blogosphere on TV. Media is stunned. The administration is stunned. It is only going to get worse for all of them.
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For more than a week, I've been trying to get the names of the people appointed to the East and West/Memorial task forces on attendance and facilities.
I have the following partial list of the names of people who were nominated by board members and the board member who nominated each.
Ruth Robarts nominated: - Prasanna Raman - Rafael GomezBill Keys nominated:
- Tim Otis
- Laura Gutknecht
Juan Jose Lopez nominated:
- Fabiola Hamdan
- Brenda Gonzalez
- Teresa Tellez-Giron
- Cheryl Knox
- Carola Gaines
- Mark Fraire
- Ramon Natera
- David Hart
- Dora Zuniga
- Debie Evans
- Sandra MaganaLawrie Kobza nominated:
- James Howard
- Ed Blume
- Don SeversonJohnny Winston, Jr. nominated:
- Faustina Bohling
- Angela Nash
- Par Jason Engle
- Andrea Teresa Arenas
- Earnestine Moss
- Deborah Speckman
- Eugene FujimotoCarol Carstensen nominated:
- Pat Mooney
- Lucia Nunez
- Carolyn Mungan
- Connie Smalley
- Keetra Burnett
- Judy Reed
- Eileen Sutula
- Jane Richardson
- Mike Moskoff
- Anne Arnesen
I have no information on whether Shwaw Vang nominated anyone.
Two nominees don't want their names released and three nominees have not contacted the MMSD about the release of their names, as of September 13.
When I asked for the names of people who have been selected from among these names, Board President Carol Carstensen responded:
The list of the Board appointees to the task forces is not yet complete but I hope that we will be able to release the names of all the task force members in the next day or so.
The West/Memorial task force meets on at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 20 at Toki Middle. The East Task Force meets at 6:30 p.m. at Sherman on Thursday, September 22.
Each school in the East, West, and Memorial attendance areas can appoint a member, but the board has not yet received a nominee from each of the schools.
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I picked up the message below from a local listserve.
Dear Members of the School Board:I am asking you to recommend interested persons for the Finance and Operations Subcommittee on Advertising. Please send Barb Lahman, name(s), contact information and a brief bio. Meetings will be once a month and probably during the day. I'm asking for people who have good ideas, "think outside the box", in business, marketing or related fields or anyone who might make a positive contribution to the committee.
Again, this committee is not going "debate" the idea or philosophy of advertising but hopefully give a wide range of options to the board. It would be very helpful if you made contact with the person that you nominate and ask them if their interested in serving. Please send possible names by Friday September 16th. Please contact me if you have questions. Thank you.
Johnny
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"McDonald's Passport to Play" will launch in 31,000 schools this fall, reaching an expected 7 million children in grades three through five, the company said.The move is part of McDonald's (Research) so-called "Balanced Lifestyles" initiative, an aggressive effort to promote physical activity and nutrition and deflect harmful claims that its food is unhealthy and fattening.
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Several AFT American Educator articles on Teaching Mathematics:
A professional mathematician shares his insights about effective instructional practice, how children learn, the importance of a coherent, systematic curriculum—and mathematics—after taking up the challenge of teaching in an Israeli elementary school.
There is general agreement that teachers’ knowledge of the mathematical content to be taught is the cornerstone of effective mathematics instruction. But the actual extent and nature of the mathematical knowledge teachers need remains a matter of controversy. A new program of research into what it means to know mathematics for teaching—and how that knowledge relates to student achievement—may help provide some answers.
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 | Madison School District Superintendent Art Rainwater is beginning to write a series of monthly articles which he will use as his Superintendent's Report. Listen to this month's report by watching this 5 minute video clip. I looked around the District's site and did not immediately see a text version of this report. UPDATE: The message was circulated via email Tuesday morning, 9/13/2005. Click the link below to read a text version: |
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* E-MMSD *
* An electronic community newsletter about Madison's schools *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
* September, 2005 *
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E-MMSD Newsletter subscribers,
This is the first in a series of columns about education by
Superintendent Art Rainwater. You are receiving this because you are a
subscriber to the E-MMSD Newsletter. As such, we think you will find
this column at least informative, and at best the springboard for
thoughts and discussion about public education.
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September, 2005
The Need for Public Education
Public Education is inherently political, often based on the critical
issue of the day. Somewhere in all of the rhetoric, though, we have
lost sight of the fundamental need for an appropriate education for
all of our children.
Our free public education system is the cornerstone of our country.
Throughout our history each generation has provided the support
necessary so that the next generation of students receives an
education that allows it to take its place as both economic
contributors and active citizens. It feels like we are losing that
commitment and what a terrible thing it would be to lose.
For the first time people are questioning the need to provide for the
education of "other people's children." As we look to the future
there are no "other people's children." "Other people's children"
*are* our future. They are the leaders and creators who will give us
a better country. But most importantly, they need to be strong,
caring and thoughtful adults who pass on and improve our country's
legacy for their children.
The fulfillment of the dream of our country's past with all of its
promise depends not on us but on this year's kindergarten student who
will enter a world very different to ours. This student is the one
that the continued diminishing of our commitment to a high quality
free public education for all will ultimately handicap. And in
handicapping him or her, we handicap us all.
Are there problems in our current system? Absolutely! Our current
public system of education serves the vast majority of our children
incredibly well. The answer to serving *all* children well lies not
in one size fits all testing and punishments. Rather, it calls for
careful analysis of the underlying causes of problems and attention to
addressing those causes by the whole community. Certainly our public
schools own a share of the solution and must change in many ways.
However, many of the causes are beyond our ability to affect change
and must be a wide community effort.
Through our state constitution the schools belong to all of us -- not
to parents, or students or superintendents, but to everyone. Not only
our community, but all communities throughout the country have to
accept the challenge of providing the best possible chance for every
child to have the opportunity that our country promises. "Our
children" are all of the children, the mathematical genius and the
child who is just learning English; the child who has the latest
computer and the child who doesn't know where he or she will sleep
tonight. If we fail any of them, then we fail all children.
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Want more information? Call 663-1879 or check out the district's web
site at
COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS? PLEASE CONTACT:
Madison Metropolitan School District
Public Information Office
545 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI 53703
608-663-1879
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I wanted to clarify (via the Board President) the reason for the equity policy meeting tonight. If you remember last winter a majority of the Board indicated it wanted to set up a task force to look at the equity policy - but did not give any further directions. Tonight’s meeting is to bringing the issue back to the Board for further discussion and to get more direction from the members about a possible composition and charge to a task force. In President’s defense, she gave her commitment to the community that the board would have a citizen group work on this issue and she’s following through.
Regarding “special meetings” regarding this or other board items – A special meeting is called when a topic isn’t assigned to a committee or needs further discussion. It is an opportunity for the board to discuss an item and take action to possible “next steps.” Now to be clear, the Board could make this the final step by someone making a motion. However, I don’t believe that is the Board President’s intent.
Personally, I am fine with the proposed equity policy. I have made these feelings known through my statements this past winter/spring and voting record. The equity resource formula that the district has been operating from for several years takes the politics out of the recourse allocations (which is a great concern for me) and allocates resources based on student populations. In essence, the district’s most needy schools get more resources but not at the expense of the other schools in the district.
There are some in our community who have raised issue regarding the proposed equity policy as well as some members of the school board. If members of the board and community would like to further study the proposed policy, I won’t stand in the way. Given the financial constraints of school districts throughout Wisconsin an equity policy is not going to stop the cutting of millions of dollars from the budget. Lastly – “Equity does not mean Equal.”
And I think people have a hard time with that.
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Two gubernatorial candidates endorse school-funding reform
Check out the school-funding reform calendar
What's new in the anti-TABOR toolbox?
School-funding reform calendar
The Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES) is a statewide network of educators, school board members, parents, community leaders, and researchers. Its Wisconsin Adequacy Plan -- a proposal for school-finance reform -- is the result of research into the cost of educating children to meet state proficiency standards.
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Two gubernatorial candidates endorse school-funding reform
Speaking at separate events in Florence County, last week, Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat, and his possible Republican opponent, Congressman Mark Green, both backed comprehensive school-funding reform while talking about the recent decision by the school board to dissolve the district (http://www.florenceminingnews.com).
According to Green, "every governor for the last couple of decades has recognized that the school-funding formula isn't working, that it is collapsing on itself." He said reform needs to be pushed by the governor because too many lawmakers represent districts that do well under the formula. You've got to have leadership from the man or woman who represents the entire state."
For his part, Doyle said his budget addressed one significant cost to rural schools, transportation. He bemoaned, however, the Legislature's failure to even include in the 2005-07 budget a change in the way enrollment is counted that "would have made several hundred thousand dollars difference in Florence." "Republicans in the Legislature," he said, "many of whom represent small school districts, never even gave it a hearing; just knocked it out."
**************
Check out the schol-funding reform calendar
As the school year begins, the pace of WAES school-funding reform presentations picks up throughout the state, with events scheduled in the next two months including Kenosha, Madison, Kelly Lake, Merrill, and Baraboo ... among others.
The full schedule is at the end of this e-mail update. If you need more information on any event, give me a call or e-mail.
It's also time for you to sign up for a presentation and get involved in the school-funding reform effort. All you have to do to get the ball rolling is go to http://www.excellentschools.org and click on "About WAES" and then on "Sign up for a free presentation." It's as easy as that.
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What's new in the anti-TABOR toolbox?
The revenue limits put on Wisconsin's public schools back in 1993 have had a devastating affect on many schools and children. Despite that track record, there are a handful of state legislators and others who want to make it worse.
This group is trying to amend the state constitution in order to force every unit of state and local government to freeze spending at current levels. Known as TABOR (which stands, facetiously, for Taxpayers Bill of Rights), the amendment, if passed would also allow any local government to ignore any new state law that isn't "paid for." TABOR has been in Colorado’s constitution since 1992, and residents in that state are now facing serious problems because there is not enough money to run state operations effectively.
If TABOR should ever go into effect in Wisconsin, hope for needed school-funding reform will be dashed. To learn what you can do to fight for local control, top-notch state and local government services, and adequate school funding, go to http://www.wisconsinsfuture.org, click on "Projects," then on "Taxes," and, finally, on "TABOR."
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School-funding reform calendar
Sept. 21 -- "Building Community Support for School-finance Reform" discussion for public school superintendents at the "Red Gym," 716 Langdon Steet, Madison (next to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Memorial Union), 3:45 to 5:45 p.m. (contact Tom Beebe, 414-384-9094 or tbeebe@wisconsinsfuture.org)
Sept. 22 -- School-funding reform presentation at 7 p.m. at the North Side Public Library in Kenosha (sponsored by the Kenosha/Racine AAUW)
Sept. 23 -- School-funding presentation at the Wisconsin Valley Business Officials, Building & Grounds Supervisors and Food Supervisors meeting, 9 a.m., Club 64, Merrill
Sept. 27 -- School-funding reform discussion with the Board of Directors and State Legislative Committee of the Wisconsin Retired Educators Association, Baraboo
Oct. 1 -- School-funding reform presentation at the Wisconsin PTA Leadership Conference in Racine (go to http://www.wisconsinpta.org/ and click on "Conference Registration")
Oct. 5 -- School-funding reform discussion at staff inservice for the Baraboo School District, 2:30 to 3:30 p.m., at the Jack Young Middle School
Oct. 13-14 -- School-funding reform presentations for the Northwestern Wisconsin Education Association at Eau Claire Memorial High School, 2225 Keith Street (presentations at 12:25 p.m. on Oct. 13 and 8:30 a.m. on Oct. 14)
Oct. 18 -- School-funding reform presentation fo Grassroots of Waukesha County, 7 p.m.
Nov. 16 -- School-funding reform presentation at the "Taking Care of Business" presentation of the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials in Pewaukee
Please feel free to share your copy of the WAES school-funding update with anyone interested in school-finance reform. Contact Tom Beebe (tbeebe@wisconsinsfuture.org) at 414-384-9094 for details.
--
Tom Beebe, Outreach Specialist
Institute for Wisconsin’s Future
1717 South 12th Street
Milwaukee, WI 53204
414-384-9094 (office)
920-650-0525 (cell)
tbeebe@wisconsinsfuture.org
http://www.excellentschools.org
http://www.wisconsinsfuture.org
The issue of the district’s equity policy is on the agenda for this evening’s discussion to get more direction from the Board. The last time the Board looked at this issue it indicated the need to establish a task force but did not specify membership, charge or process. When I described my goals as President (and during the spring campaign) I specifically said I would follow through with creating a task force to look at the equity policy. This is on a Special Board meeting because it is being brought to the Board for discussion not action. I am sorry that there seems to be some confusion about this.
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In addition to Ruth's blog, I would add the question of why this is being addressed in a "special" board meeting and not the regular meeting. (Sorry - it isn't clear from the message that the district sent on Friday, and the link to the regular board agenda is not working). And, if there are documents available related to the vote, why they are not publicly available in a timely fashion.
To be honest, I missed the impact of the message that arrived Friday morning via e-mail, so thanks to Ruth for flaggin it:
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2005
5:00 p.m. Human Resources Committee
1. Approval of Minutes dated February 7, 2005 and March 14, 2005
2. Public Appearances
3. Announcements
There are no announcements.
4. Proposed Leave of Absence Policy for Administrators
5. Proposed Leave of Absence Agreement for Administrators
6. Other Business
There is no other business.
7. Adjournment
Doyle Administration Bldg
Room 103
545 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI 53703
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6:00 p.m. Special Board of Education Meeting
1. Approval of Minutes dated August 29, 2005
2. Public Appearances
3. Announcements
There are no announcements.
4. Equity Resource Formula
5. Board Policy 9001 - Equity
6. Proposed Equity Policy
7. Other Business
There is no other business.
8. Adjournment
Doyle Administration Bldg
Room 103
545 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI 53703
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7:15 p.m. Regular Board of Education Meeting
Agenda of the Regular Meeting of the Board of Education
OR
Agenda may be picked up during business hours at the MMSD Public
Information Office, Room 100, Doyle Administration Bldg., 545 West Dayton
Street, Madison, WI 53703
Doyle Administration Bldg
McDaniels Auditorium
545 West Dayton Street
Madison WI 53703
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Starting next fall, Wisconsin residents can apply for discount tuition at 130 colleges in six Midwestern states under a plan approved by University of Wisconsin System regents.
In exchange, residents from those states could pay reduced rates at several schools in the UW System - but not the flagship UW-Madison campus. The regents voted Friday to join the Midwestern Higher Education Compact, a coalition of regional colleges and universities.
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On Monday, September 12, the Madison Board of Education will vote on proposed revisions to the district's Equity Resource Policy. The revisions gut the current policy and replace it with an already existing formula for allocating staff to schools based on socioeconomic factors. The meeting is a Special Board meeting called by President Carol Carstensen. At the meeting administrators will recommend this change and the full Board will vote on the recommendation. Not much notice to the public, not much opportunity to hear public opinion and analysis, no analysis by any Board committee. Only very savvy people who closely watch the Board agendas will know that this vote is coming.
What's at stake?
Equity Policy 9001 makes five important promises.
1. Staff will review and prioritize the needs of each school in the district.
2. There will be an annual examination of student "success indicators" including student achievement, participation, and
school climate.
3. After the review, the superintendent will recommend appropriate strategies for each school to the Board of Education.
4. The Board will vote on the strategies.
5. If necessary, strategies may result in different staffing, facilities and program options at individual schools. That is,
schools that need different resources to improve student success would receive them based on the superintendent's recommendation for the schools.
In contrast, the "Equity Resource Formula" that will be recommended to the Board drops all of these commitments to the individual schools. It continues a policy of allocating staff to schools based on socioeconomic and other factors. The ERF is based on total number of students, number of low income students, school attendance rates, level of education of parents, number of adults living with the student, and the number of students identified as needing Special Education services or assistance learning English.
What's the rush?
For many years parents have told the Board that they want Equity Policy 9001 implemented. In particular, parents and organizations on the Northside of Madison have told us that implementing Policy 9001 is essential to improving student results at many of their schools. They are not satisfied with the results of the ERF policy. They want to see the kind of high-level review of their schools and high level commitment to change that Equity Policy 9001 promises but does not deliver.
As recently as the North Side Planning Council's forum on the 2005 referendums in May, leaders from the community forcefully drew the attention of the Board to their desire to see individual school resource allocations depend on planning, review and strategies. They were clear. As far as they are concerned, the ERF does not produce the planning or the resources that they believe their schools need.
I will not support the proposed Equity Policy changes. I believe that the parents are right: Without the review and planning process required by current Equity Policy 9001, individual schools do not get the high-level attention, analysis and planning that they need and deserve. Moreover, I will not be voting for any policy changes handled in this manner. One of the most important duties of school board members is the duty to carefully review administrative recommendations and give the public an opportunity to comment on recommendations before we take the final vote. Special Board meetings that collapse the whole process into an hour undermine our ability to meet our obligations as elected representatives.
To comment on this meeting and the proposed policy change, send your thoughts to comments@madison.k12.wi.us. The entire Board receives messages at this address.
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During the first six years of the program, the analysis found, 15 suburban districts each earned more than $1 million in extra state aid because they gained more students than they lost through open enrollment transfers.MPS, meanwhile, lost more than $32 million.
Four other districts - Racine Unified, Waukesha, Oconomowoc and Kewaskum - each lost more than $1 million.
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Washington, D.C. – In a letter to Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Dick Durbin (D-IL), are calling on the administration to help schools across the nation that are taking in the thousands of students displaced by the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina by increasing funding to those schools while relaxing the accountability standards mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act.More money for less? More from Eduwonk.
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Kristian Knutsen nicely summarizes the upcoming spring 2006 Madison School Board election politics and mentions that the election will likely include a non-binding referendum to overturn the tavern smoking ban (Isthmus' The Daily Page):
There is ongoing speculation as to whether either incumbent will run for another term. Whether or not they do, the "anti-status quo" group of school board activists that support Robarts, helped boost Kobza to victory in April, and were mostly in opposition to the defeated May referendum questions, is gearing up for the next round, an election that could advance them to a majority position.More here.
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Jan Davidson, co-author of "Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds" will be speaking in Madison on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 at 7:30 p.m. in the McDaniels Auditorium of the MMSD Doyle Administration Building.
Jan and her husband Bob founded the Davidson Institute for Talent Development - a nonprofit operating foundation whose mission is to recognize, nurture and support profoundly intelligent young people and to provide opportunities for them to develop their talents to make a positive difference. Prior to this, they were the heads of the educational software publishing firm, Davidson & Associates, Inc. which produced a large number of popular educational software titles including the popular Math Blaster™ and Reading Blaster™ series.
Jan Davidson's visit to Madison is being co-ordinated by the Madison TAG Parents Group and by the Wisconsin Center for Academically Talent Youth (WCATY).
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The posting below, by Lloyd Bond, senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) looks at the importance of the evolution, as opposed to revolution, of ideas in teaching and learning.
Bond points out that research shows that cognitive development occurs in stages. Certain fundamentals or skills must be mastered before higher level abilities can develop. In the continuing debate on how best to teach subjects like reading and math, extremists on both sides of the debate overlook the role that the other approach needs to play in helping students develop the appropriate skill set.
It is #18 in the monthly series called Carnegie Foundation Perspectives produced by the CFAT http://www.carnegiefoundation.org.
June 2005
By Lloyd Bond
In his classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, physicist Thomas Kuhn argued that scientific revolutions are characterized by a completely new world view that is incompatible with what it replaced. In this sense, scientific revolutions are non-cumulative; rather than build on what has gone before, they jettison completely the assumptions and premises of the theories they replace. Darwin's theory of evolution did not tweak the prevailing notion of a static, instantaneously created natural world not essentially different from what we see today. The Origin of Species threw out the notion entirely and replaced it with a living world evolving over eons of time through natural selection. The heliocentric structure of the solar system proposed by Copernicus (and refined by Kepler and Newton) did not build on Ptolemy's elaborate geocentric model; it dismissed it out of hand, and in so doing changed forever the way we view our place in the universe.
On a less lofty scale, educational reforms often propose similarly radical new world views. In its original incarnation, the "whole language" movement in reading instruction dismissed "phonics" as a misguided way to introduce young learners to the written word. It was argued that children should be immersed in actual text with associated visuals and discussion. The ability to spell and read with understanding would come in due time. The "new math" reform of the 1960s rejected practice and drill on the "times tables" as a mindless activity that turned young learners off from mathematics. Tom Lehrer, the professional mathematician turned occasional cabaret performer, summed up the entire approach with his quip that the important idea underlying new math is "to understand what you are doing, rather than to get the right answer."
"Traditionalists" were deeply skeptical of these reforms, and with good reason; many of the innovations were based on faulty premises. There was precious little hard-nosed, empirical evidence to buttress the exalted claims on behalf of the new approaches to instruction. Moreover, the vast majority of elementary school teachers were ill-prepared, especially in mathematics, to handle the innovations. The net result, if one believes the traditionalists, was a generation of young people, the majority of whom could neither spell, read, nor perform simple mathematical operations. And the reaction by the public, the press, and elected officials was predictable: a call across the nation during the 1970s and 1980s for "back to basics" instruction and a proliferation of minimum competency standards for promotion and high school graduation.
Over the past quarter century, cognitive scientists, working closely with teachers in actual classrooms, have introduced a measure of sanity to the sometimes vitriolic debates. Studies of the development and nature of expertise in an ever-increasing variety of areas-from reading and writing to mathematics and electronics, from physics and piano playing to baseball knowledge and chess-indicate that with proper instruction and practice, proficiency develops from novice to expert in an orderly way and is characterized by a sequence of more or less distinct stages.
Briefly, these studies demonstrate that proficiency and expertise are predicated upon five fundamental principles: (1) newly learned information is processed through a series of "memory registers," each of which is subject to different limitations and each capable of different kinds of storage and processing; (2) proficiency depends critically upon the acquisition of "automaticity," the capacity to respond automatically to certain components of complex tasks, such as number facts and words in context, thus reducing the processing load of working memory; (3) problem-solving ability and the ability to read with understanding are not mysterious competencies that some persons possess and other do not, but rather depend upon a specific, prerequisite knowledge base that can be acquired by most people; (4) expertise in a given domain (mathematics or chess, for example) depends crucially upon how relevant knowledge is organized and stored in long-term memory; and (5) proficient performance is either retarded or facilitated by how problems and text are represented internally.
It turns out that traditionalists and reformers were both right in their own way, but both were overzealous in their devotion to a particular mode of instruction and in their blanket dismissal of the competing point of view. The drill and practice advocates of early mathematics instruction, and to a lesser extent the phonics advocates of reading instruction, appreciated the importance of the second principle above, that certain, "low level" skills must become second nature in order for higher-level performance to emerge. But they often failed to follow through with tasks that engage and challenge. For their part, the new math and whole language advocates failed to fully appreciate the critical enabling role of automaticity, sometimes with disastrous results. Nor did they fully accept what we now know to be true-that automaticity develops only through continued practice distributed over appropriate intervals.
Throwing out the baby with the bath water may well characterize scientific revolutions, but in the world of education and schooling, where new claims must be tempered with the wisdom of practice, progress is rarely made in such spectacular fashion.
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In his September 8, 2005, op-ed piece in the New York Times, Katrina's Silver Lining, conservative columnist David Brooks writes that rebuilding New Orleans presents a clean slate, an opportunity to culturally integrate the city rather than have large pockets of poverty - like the Gautreaux program:
"The most famous example of cultural integration is the Gautreaux program, in which poor families from Chicago were given the chance to move into suburban middle-class areas. The adults in these families did only slightly better than the adults left behind, but the children in the relocated families did much better.
These kids suddenly found themselves surrounded by peers who expected to graduate from high school and go to college. After the shock of adapting to the more demanding suburban schools, they were more likely to go to college, too."
Do Madison's schools present an environment of high expectations for all our children? Will this continue over time? Or, will suburban schools become a magnet for parents in this area? I'd be interested in people's thoughts via the blog.
As they wait for their children's first report card to come home this year, elementary-school parents across Pennsylvania also can expect to receive a separate report on a key indicator of their children's health.In an effort to combat childhood obesity, the state Health Department is requiring school nurses to compute students' body-mass index - or height-to-weight ratio - during annual growth screenings, starting this year with children in kindergarten through fourth grade.
Parents will receive letters about the results that will encourage them to share the information with their family physician. The letters will explain whether the BMI is above, below, or within the normal range for the child's age and gender.
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Carol Carstensen sent me the following about the task forces:
Because not all schools have named representatives yet, the first meetings of the task forces has been moved back a week - Sept. 20 for West/Memorial and Sept. 22 for East.
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A few months ago, I saw the movie “Crash” on a recommendation from Barbara Golden, founder and leader of MAFAAC. This movie has an ensemble cast and I highly recommend that you see this movie when it comes out on DVD. The movie talks in depth about race relations, stereotyping and racism.
The subject of race comes up frequently related to the Madison School District. More and more our schools are being asked to address societal issues particularly regarding race. During a Performance and Achievement committee meeting on Monday August 29th, Shwaw Vang, chair of the committee led a very spirited conversation about Hmong student attendance and race relations. This discussion was coupled by presentations from district staff Jeannette Deloya and Diane Crear. Attached are the presentations and statistics that show a series of meetings and plans to address Hmong student performance and that the school district is improving its race relations among its student body.
I often wonder about our district’s race relations and its impact in our community. Regardless of how many presentations we receive from Glen Singleton, Ron Ferguson, John Odom, Donna Ford and others there will still be challenges regarding race.
I believe I saw “crash” in real life and its impact within the school district. As a firefighter for the City of Madison I respond to many emergencies. Last week, my firefighting crew responded to a car accident that involved people from different nationalities. The uncle of the hurt passenger stated about the passengers in the other car, “Of course, they don’t have insurance, they don’t even speak English!” The niece of the person who said this yelled back, “That is a totally racist remark – Don’t say that!” That child (the niece) is a student in the Madison Metropolitan School District.
To hear one of our MMSD students make such an enlightened response gives me hope that our schools can make a difference in race relations!
Download file Hmong Attendance Power Point
Download file Summary of Effect of Race on Climate
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Candy, soda, pizza and other snacks compete with nutritious meals in nine out of 10 schools, a government survey found.Already plentiful in high schools, junk food has become more available in middle schools over the past five years, according to the Government Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
"Parents should know that our schools are now one of the largest sources of unhealthy food for their kids," Sen. Tom Harkin, who asked for the study, said in an interview.
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A person who was apparently appointed to one of the task forces to study attenance and facilities on the east and west sides says that the task forces have been scheduled to meet next week.
The MMSD has released no information about the task forces.
Does anyone know what's going on?
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David M. Herszenhorn: Representative Charles B. Rangel and Arthur Levine, the president of Teachers College at Columbia University, urged the Bloomberg administration and the teachers' union yesterday to create pay incentives of $10,000 a year or more to entice educators to work in some of city's lowest-performing schools.
SARITHA RAI: As part of a new wave of outsourcing to India, some tutors teach Americans using the Internet.
Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew speaks with Der Spiegel on Asia's rise to economic power, China's ambitions and the West's chances of staying competitive:
Mr. Lee: Right. In 50 years I see China, Korea and Japan at the high-tech end of the value chain. Look at the numbers and quality of the engineers and scientists they produce and you know that this is where the R&D will be done. The Chinese have a space programme, they're going to put a man on the Moon and nobody sold them that technology. We have to face that. But you should not be afraid of that. You are leading in many fields which they cannot catch up with for many years, many decades. In pharmaceuticals, I don't see them catching up with the Germans for a long time.
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CNN:
CNN: What will surprise us about the future evolution of the Internet?BERNERS-LEE: The creativity of our children. In many ways, people growing up with the Web and now the Semantic Web take the power at their fingertips for granted. The people who designed the tools that make the Net run had their own ideas for the future. I look forward to seeing what the next generation does with these tools that we could not have foreseen. ...
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School has once again successfully lifted off, thanks to a great deal of hard work on the part of many people including teachers, staff and administrators. I thought it would be useful to pass along a few observations:
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Mayor Dave issued the following message on how he hopes city residents can help shape Madison's next budget. I hope that the Board of Education uses a similar approach during the district's budgt process next spring.
Thanks to the combination of state levy limits and higher costs for providing City services (due to factors such as escalating fuel costs),the City of Madison faces a $4 million budget gap for 2006.
Closing this gap will force the City to make a number of tough choices.
As I work on developing my budget proposal, I want to hear from the public about what priorities we should set for scarce City resources.
To help get that input, I am holding a series of interactive "Build
Your Own Budget" forums this month. At these forums, participants will get to put themselves in my shoes, and balance the City budget through their chosen combination of spending cuts and revenue increases.
Background and worksheets will be provided to guide participants
through the budget process and outline various spending and revenue options to choose from. I will use the information gathered at these forums as I craft my executive budget for introduction in October.
The forums are all free and open to the public. The forum schedule is
listed below. I hope that you will take this unique opportunity to make your voice heard on how the City should set its priorities in the year to come.
"BUILD YOUR OWN BUDGET" FORUM SCHEDULE:
September 7, 6:30 p.m.: Mayor's Budget Workshop Alicia Ashman Branch
Library, 733 North High Point Road
September 14, 6:30 p.m.: Mayor's Budget Workshop Warner Park Community Recreation Center, 1625 Northport Drive
September 15, 6:30 p.m.: Mayor's Budget Workshop Catholic
Multicultural Center, 1862 Beld Street
Mayor Dave
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The great achievement of No Child Left Behind is that it has forced the states to focus at last on educational inequality, the nation's most corrosive social problem. But it has been less successful at getting educators and politicians to see the education problem in a global context, and to understand that this country is rapidly losing ground to the nations we compete with for high-skilled jobs that require a strong basis in math and science.American taxpayers have heard a fair amount about the fact that their children lag behind the children of Britain, France, Germany and Japan. But American students are also bested by nations like Poland, Ireland and the Czech Republic. Worst of all, they fall further and further behind their peers abroad the longer they stay in school.
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"We have to turn things around right away," he said. "They didn't bring me in to be safe. They brought me in to be a change maker."More on Eugene G. White, Indianapolis's new Superintendent. Via Eduwonk.So he has tossed out troublemaking students and offered ambitious plans for historic schools Crispus Attucks and Shortridge. He's demanded more from all, from teachers to students to janitors.
White has been the city's top newsmaker since becoming superintendent of the state's largest school system July 1. He seems to have commandeered space on the front page.
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An article by Claudia Wallis in the August 8, 2005 issue of Time asks the question.
IT'S 10 A.M. ON A BRIGHT May day, and the arts wing at Gustav A. Fritsche Middle School in Milwaukee, Wis., is hopping. In a band room, 21 members of the jazz ensemble are rehearsing Soul Bossa Nova with plenty of heart and impressive intonation, in preparation for a concert downtown. In another room, woodblocks, timpani and bells are whipping up a rhythmic frenzy as the 75-member Fritsche Philharmonic Orchestra tackles Elliott Del Borgo's Aboriginal Rituals. In an art room, eighth-graders are shaping clay vessels to be baked in the school kiln. Down the hall, students are dabbing acrylic paints on canvas to create vivid still lifes à la Vincent van Gogh. At 10:49, when the 82-min. arts period ends, kids of all sizes, colors and sartorial stripes pour out of classrooms, jostling and joking, filling the hallway with the buzz of pubescent energy. Then it's off to language arts, math, social studies and the array of other subjects offered at this sprawling arena for adolescents.
A few blocks away, at Humboldt Park Elementary School, which serves kindergarten through eighth grade, a charming scene unfolds in Karen Hennessy's classroom. Her kindergartners are enjoying a visit from their eighth-grade "buddies." All around the room, big kids sit knees to chest in miniature chairs or cross-legged on the alphabet carpet. Each little kid has chosen a picture book to share with a big buddy. Some lean on eighth-grade laps as they listen. Logan Wells, a strapping 14-year-old, reads The Little Engine That Could to Alec Matias and Jacob Hill. Jacob, 5, seems mesmerized equally by the bright illustrations and by the eighth-grader turning the pages. He presses against Logan as if to absorb some bigkid magic. The older boy reads on with gentle forbearance.
If you were 13 years old, where would you rather be? Big, frenetic Fritsche, with its thrilling range of arts classes, bands, Socratic seminars and TV studio, all aimed at 1,030 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders? Or calm and cozy Humboldt Park, where the teachers seem to know the names and histories of all 585 students, ages 4 to 14? If you're the parent of a 13-year-old, which would you choose for your child? The two schools represent two sides of a debate that has ripped through Milwaukee and other U.S. cities. For the past decade, middle schools have been the educational setting for roughly two-thirds of students in Grades 6 through 8. But increasingly, communities are questioning whether they really are the best choice for this volatile age group.
In Milwaukee, both Fritsche and Humboldt Park have fine reputations, but the district has decided to place most of its bets on the likes of Humboldt Park. Since 2001, it has expanded the number of K-8 schools from 12 to 48, with 14 more on the way. Meanwhile, the number of middle schools in Milwaukee has shrunk from 23 to 14. "Once young adolescents get to the sixth grade, the achievement level begins to decline a bit and disruptive behavior increases," says William Andrekopoulos, the superintendent of schools. "We're providing a number of different options," including some big middle schools, he notes, "but we know that a small learning community is going to make a difference."
A surprising number of other U.S. cities have come to the same conclusion, reversing the trend that created thousands of middle schools in the 1970s and '80s. Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio; Minneapolis, Minn.; Philadelphia; Memphis, Term.; and Baltimore, Md., are in various stages of reconfiguring their schools away from the middle school model and toward K-8s. Some suburban districts, including the wealthy Capistrano School District in Orange County, Calif., are also making the switch.
While issues such as crowding and cost cutting were factors for some of these districts, the change is driven largely by a series of studies that depict U.S. middle schools as the "Bermuda Triangle of education," as one report put it. It's the place where kids lose their way academically and socially-in many cases never to resurface. The most comprehensive report, a review of 20 years of educational research, was released last year by the Rand Corporation, the nonprofit research group in Santa Monica, Calif. Cheerfully titled Focus on the Wonder Years: Challenges Facing the American Middle School, it offered a harsh critique of the middle school record. Among its findings:
* More than half of eighth-graders fail to achieve expected levels of proficiency in reading, math and science on national tests.
* In international ratings of math achievement, U.S. students rank about average-ninth out of 17-at Grade 4, but sink to 12th place by Grade 8, setting the stage for further slippage in high school.
* Reported levels of emotional and physical problems are higher among U.S. middle school students than among their peers in all 11 other countries surveyed by the World Health Organization. The same "health behavior" survey found that U.S. middle schoolers have the most negative views of the climate of their schools and peer culture.
* Crime takes off in middle school. Statistics from 1996-97 show that while 45% of public elementary schools reported one or more incidents to the police, the figure jumps to 74% for middle schools-almost as high as high schools (77%).
* While not many studies directly compare K-8 schools with middle schools, those that do suggest that young teens do better both academically and socially in K-8 schools.
Most significant, the Rand report questioned the very idea of having separate schools for preteens: "Research suggests that the onset of puberty is an especially poor reason for beginning a new phase of schooling." Jaana Juvonen, the UCLA psychologist who spent more than 18 months crunching data for the report, believes that 11- and 12-year-olds are already dealing with so many changes that it makes little sense to pile on a change in schools. "Right around the time that most kids are transferring to middle school, everything starts to happen," she says. "There's physical development: you're starting to look different. And because of that, people's expectations of you are changing. In addition, there's cognitive development and new reasoning abilities. It is a very fragile period."
In Milwaukee, school vouchers and a policy of choice put a lot of decision-making power in parents' hands, and pressure to keep vulnerable sixth-graders in their familiar grade schools has sprung up from the grass roots. "I don't care if you have world-class middle schools, parents just don't like moving their children from the elementary school," says Andrekopoulos, who used to be principal at Fritsche. Pressure to score high on the math and reading tests mandated by the No Chad Left Behind Act also seems to favor K-8s. "Elementary schools have done a better job of organizing themselves around math and reading," he observes.
Boosting achievement in math and reading is a big factor in the drive to reshape schools in Philadelphia, where reform has come from the top down. A 2002 study found that eighth-graders at the city's K-8 schools typically score 50 points higher on state tests than peers who attend middle schools. Under Paul Vallas, the energetic CEO of Philadelphia's schools, the district is pruning the number of middle schools from 46 in 2003 to eight by 2008, while upping K-8s from 10 to 120. "I haven't seen anything to support the creation of middle schools, especially the way they work in large urban areas," Vallas says.
How did middle schools, which were ushered in with such fanfare 25 years ago, fall into such disrepute? The answer, many educators say, has less to do with the philosophy behind the middle school movement and more to do with how it was executed. Coming after a period of youth unrest, when juvenile crime and drug use were rising, middle school proponents argued that old-fashioned junior highs, which usually served Grades 7 and 8 and sometimes 9, were not meeting kids' social and developmental needs. Instead, they were providing a watered-down version of high school, literally a junior high. Reformers proposed that schools for this age group needed to educate "the whole child," addressing social and emotional issues as well as building academic skills. Sixth grade became the usual entry point for new middle schools, both because of crowding at grammar schools and because puberty was occurring earlier.
Among the key tenets of the middle school movement are these: fostering a close relationship between teacher and child so that every student has an adult advocate, having teachers work across disciplines in teams (example: students read Johnny Tremain in English while studying the Revolutionary War in social studies), creating small learning communities within larger schools and stressing learning by doing. "Young adolescents learn through discovery and getting involved," explains Sue Swaim, executive director of the Ohio-based National Middle School Association. "They're not meant to be lectured to the whole day."
Some critics contend that the whole movement was soft in the head. It "had as its ideological antecedent the notion that academics should take a back seat to self-exploration, socialization and working in groups," writes Cheri Pierson Yecke, a former education commissioner in Minnesota, in a forthcoming report for the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation titled Mayhem in the Middle: How Middle Schools Failed America and How to Make Them Work. "A disproportionate regard for student selfesteem and identity development," Yecke argues, yielded a "precipitous decline" in academic achievement.
But many educators believe that ideology was not the problem. "There were some very good middle schools out there, but middle school reform never got fully implemented," says Jacquelynne Eccles, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and a member of a task force that issued Turning Points, a landmark 1989 report on middle schools funded by the nonprofit Carnegie Corporation. Many districts created big warehouse-like middle schools to address crowding and courtordered busing but without embracing the pedagogy of the movement. "They ended up looking very much like the junior high schools they were designed to replace," says Eccles.
In urban areas, middle schools often became the antithesis of what reformers had intended. Instead of warm incubators of independence and judgment, they became impersonal, oppressive institutions. "In many urban schools," says Juvonen, "you can't help but notice that there are security guards around. There's someone expecting you to misbehave." That's especially destructive, she says, because young adolescents need their independence to be guided and nurtured, not squashed. "This is when kids start challenging social conventions. They say things like 'Why do I have to make my bed?' It's proof of their cognitive maturity, and it's all good." Sadly, this cognitive development isn't well supported by the middle school curriculum either, according to several studies. "It doesn't help students see the bigger picture or to understand abstract concepts," says Juvonen.
Ironically, K-8 schools are in some ways better positioned to implement the ideas of the middle school movement. Not only do these more intimate schools tend to foster strong teacher-student relationships, but they often put their older students in positions where they can exercise judgment and leadership. At Humboldt Park, for instance, seventh-graders have worked with the third-graders to write letters to U.S. soldiers in Iraq. "The older grades become mentors and tutors to the younger kids, giving them a sense of responsibility that may not happen in middle school," says Milwaukee parent Tina Johnson, who has two kids in a K-8 school. "All these raging hormones are kind of directed in a positive way." Some administrators believe there are fewer behavior problems in K-8s, where your old first-grade teacher-and her current pupils-are watching. Says Humboldt Park student Savannah Bracero, 14: "You have to be much more careful here so the little kids don't pick up bad behavior."
Along with grownup responsibilities, K-8s tend to offer the occasional-and still wanted-hug from a teacher, says Dr. Lottie Smith, a K-8 principal in Milwaukee. "In middle and high school, that's a no-no. We don't touch," says Smith. Middle schools were originally intended to be nurturing places, but it hasn't been easy to pull that off, says Harry Finks, a veteran middle school teacher and principal, who wrote one of the first handbooks for middle school staff: "You want to create a dialogue, so that an eighth-grade boy can come up to you and say, 'Man, my guinea pig died and I'm really upset.' Most schools don't have that atmosphere."
Those who champion middle schools, however, say that done right, such schools offer leadership opportunities, a caring environment plus a rich variety of courses, facilities and subject-matter specialists that K-8s can't begin to match. Fritsche, for instance, not only has its elaborate program in the arts but also offers an extensive library, a graphics and electronics lab, three gymnasiums and many extracurriculars. While the best of Milwaukee's K-8 schools have adopted such middle school features as lockers, science labs, changing classes throughout the day, they can't equal a program like Fritsche's. At Humboldt Park, for instance, Spanish is taught by a paraprofessional using computerized lessons; the only gym doubles as the cafeteria.
Milwaukee parent Jeff Wagner decided to send his daughter to Fritsche instead of keeping her at Humboldt Park past fifth grade. "There was no comparison," he says. Fritsche "had activities after school from forensics to track-plus the quality of teaching and the tough curriculum." Middle school fans also question the impulse to shelter young adolescents . "You're not in some sort of cocoon. You need to evolve," insists Fritsche eighth-grader René Espinoza. And what happens when it comes time to go to high school, asks Fritsche band teacher Joyce Gardiner: "To go from a little-bitty K-8 school to a high school that has 2,000 kids? I can't even imagine that."
But educators on both sides of the debate tend to agree that how the grades are packaged ultimately matters less than what's happening inside the school. "The exact configuration is a distraction," says Anthony Jackson, a middle school expert and co-author of the Turning Points report. What counts, he says, is good instruction and caring relationships. "You can make that happen in a stand-alone middle school or a K-8 school," Jackson adds, although he believes that schools with more than 100 kids per grade should be broken up into smaller units. Hiring qualified teachers and giving them time to plan and upgrade skills is also critical. Nationally, only about 1 in 4 middle school teachers has special certification for teaching middle school grades.
Educators watching the flight from middle schools are worried that school districts will see the K-8 building as a solution in itself, without devoting the resources needed to support good education. And there's reason to be worried. Because that's precisely what happened 25 years ago, when administrators rushed to abandon nasty old junior highs for those nifty new middle schools. -Reported by Carolina A. Miranda/New York and Betsy Rubiner/Milwaukee
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Madison Metropolitan School District:
Madison school officials on Friday said the district will make every effort to assist families and students displaced by hurricane Katrina by simplifying the enrollment process and getting students immediately into classes.By Friday, the district had received several calls from individuals in Madison, who have family in the areas affected by the hurricane, inquiring about school possibilities for their relatives. Calls were also received from individuals in relief shelters in the South.
"They are welcome in Madison and we will ensure that families temporarily relocating to Madison will be able to get their children into school immediately," said Superintendent Art Rainwater.
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The most disturbing development in the world of PowerPoint is its migration to the schools -- like sex and drugs, at earlier and earlier ages. Now we have second-graders being tutored in PowerPoint. No matter that students who compose at the keyboard already spend more energy perfecting their fonts than polishing their sentences -- PowerPoint dispenses with the need to write any sentences at all. Perhaps the politicians who are so worked up about the ill effects of violent video games should turn their attention to PowerPoint instead.In the meantime, Tufte, who's now doing consulting work for NASA, has a modest proposal for its new administrator: Ban the use of PowerPoint. Sounds good to me. After all, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the perils of PowerPoint.
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Leopold Teacher Troy Dassler, via email:
As part of full disclosure, I must admit that one of the two classrooms that were carved out the lunchroom is where I teach our children. So, this story has special significance to me and my students.
Troy DasslerNew School Year, Same Referendum Questions
Overcrowding on First Day
Updated: 6:29 PM Sep 1, 2005
Zac Schultz
Madison: The new third graders at Aldo Leopold Elementary probably did not pay much attention to the school referendum questions last spring.They don't know that the voters rejected a plan that would have given them a new school by the time they were in 5th grade. But some of them do understand overcrowding.
"I would say in terms of optimal learning environment Leopold is overcrowded now. We're using every square inch of Leopold with kids," says Madison Schools Superintendent Art Rainwater.
"We try to organize to minimize the impact on children," says Leopold Principal Mary Hyde.
Hyde says she was disappointed the $14.5 million dollar building project didn't pass, but she can't worry about that now. Hyde has to fit 720 kids into a building designed for 650. "I've taken part of the lunchroom and made it into 2 classrooms."With more growth in the neighborhood expected, doing nothing is not an option. So with voters rejecting a second school on the same site, all that's left is more boundary changes and a long bus ride.
The problem is the area is bounded by the Verona and Oregon School Districts. "We're like a peninsula," explains Rainwater. "And the school is located on the very northern edge. So it's very difficult to do some kind of boundary (change) that accommodates these children."
Hyde says something has to be done. "We're just getting to the point where we cannot continue because we have no more space."
Rainwater says a community task force is taking another look at the Leopold overcrowding issue. They'll be making a recommendation to the school board this year on whether they should go back to the voters with another referendum.
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The first paragraph of the link recommended by Barb Schrank says:
An effective school board plays an important watchdog role in keeping your local school on track, and setting policies that affect your child and your school. The school board sets the vision and goals for the school district, and holds the district accountable for results. One school board member cannot do the job alone. Effective school board members contribute their unique talents while collaborating and working as a team with other board members.
I find the Madison Board of Education and superintendent do well on collaboration, except for attacking Ruth Robarts, but I'd like to see the board improve dramatically on being a watchdog, setting policy, setting the vision and goals for the district, and holding the district accountable for results.
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A Harris Poll released in June 2005 on the attitudes of Americans toward arts education revealed that 93 percent of Americans agree that the arts are vital to providing a well-rounded education for children. Additionally, 54 percent rated the importance of arts education a "ten" on a scale of one to ten.
Great Schools a non-profit California organization writes about what it means to be a great school board member.
A North Carolina school board looked out 10 years asking where they wanted to be and set annual goals accordingly: "Griffin [a school board member in a North Carolina school district] began his first term on the board by asking the tough question: “Where do we want our schools to be in 2010 and how will we know that we have gotten there?” He then worked with his board and superintendent to set the vision and goals for their district. When a new superintendent was hired, he insisted that the adopted school district goals be written into his contract, and that the superintendent be evaluated annually based on the goals."
I exchanged e-mails with Superintendent Rainwater about two new classrooms at Marquette. I'll simply post the e-mails at this time and late add commentary, not on the program per se, but the budget process (or lack thereof) that created and funded it.
Art,
The rumor mill says that the administration moved the existing NEON program to Marquette or created a new one to be located at Marquette Elementary School.
The exiting NEON (New Educational Options and Networking) program serves "middle school-age students with an emotional/behavioral disability (EBD) who have not been successful in a full-day program at their home school despite numerous and varied interventions."
Could you please provide details of any program changes or moves?
Ed Blume
The Superintendent responded:
Ed
Thanks for the email. I am always glad to clarify rumors. The NEON Program has not changed or moved. It still exist at Hoyt with the same staffing, etc. that we have had in the past. We did, however, establish two elementary ED alternative classes that will begin at Marquette this year. They are similar in design to NEON but serve primary and intermediate age EBD students who need a more structured, alternative service delivery model. Many of these kids are active with PBST [Postive Behavior Support Team] as well. Both classrooms are staffed with a teacher and two SEAs [special education assistant]. This is a "district" program serving students from any elementary school who meet the criteria and need this type of alternative, structured setting. We also have a full-time school psychologist allocated to this program. Jim Hassely, Coordinator Behavior Support, has been working closely with Joy Larson to set this program up in the Marquette/O Keeffe space. It will have minimal impact on Marquette, though, as the students will be served outside the general education classroom for the much of their school day.
Art
I then posed a number of questions to the Superintendent and Jack Jorgensen, head of special ed, kindly responded in a detailed memo.
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An issue that interests and is important to me is arts education, and I hope to journal about this issue on this blog site and www.danearts.org over the coming school year. Also, I hope to be able to play a different role in supporting arts education as a community member on the Partnership Commmittee.
For the past six years there have been various cuts in fine arts education for Madison's students. If the current budget constraints continue, there will be continued cuts in Madison's public schools, which will lead to continued cuts in many areas that contribute to an excellent education for all Madison's children.
For example, in the arts for the upcoming school year, children will begin elementary classes with half the instrumental instruction. Students in middle school will have to juggle multiple classes in order to study an instrument. Fewer high school classes in the arts are being offered even though demand is there for these classes. These are the cuts in one academic area. Children will also be facing larger class sizes, reduction of services due to budget cuts. Where we can, we need to try to think and to act differently.
An important next step in addressing some of the arts education issues and the future of arts education in the Madison public schools might be the formation of a community arts education advisory committee composed of representatives from the community (including district educational and administrative staff) who are knowledgable about and interested in developing a community strategy and action plan for arts education in the Madison public schools.
There are those who say the budget is mismanaged and that there is adequate money to provide an excellent education for all our children. There are other's who say we are about to go over an education cliff into an abyss due to revenue caps. What I know is that arts education is being cut and I'd like those interest community members to have an opportunity to think and to plan about what we might do for our kids in this academic area. This type of approach is feasible is likely to be more feasible in the arts area than some other areas.
The recently completed community afterschool task force is an example of a successful community committee working together on a challenging problem - best mix of afterschool offerings for Madison's children using existing resources and working together across several businesses. This committee did an incredible amount of work and provided the School Board via the Partnership Committee with important information and recommendations on a number of issues.
This community committee began last year under the supervision of the Partnership Committee, which Johnny Winston Jr. chaired at the time. Numerous cities and school districts around the country have formed successful committees on arts education. Now might be the time for Madison to catch up before our children lose much more in this academic area.
The Economist on two new books, The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa and What Good Are the Arts:
Mr Kimmelman, a gifted piano student as a boy, returned more seriously to the keyboard in 1999 when he entered, and went on to the final round, of an amateur piano competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Organised by the Van Cliburn Foundation, which since 1962 has presented the world's leading piano competition for young professionals, the competition brought 90 people, who neither taught nor performed professionally, to Texas.Mr Kimmelman's article about his fellow pianists—a numismatist, two flight attendants, a hairstylist and a former crack addict who had been jailed for burglary and who found taking up music helped him recover—raised a sizeable correspondence from people who are not artists by profession, but for whom art adds an important other dimension to their lives. It was this idea, so emblematic of the author's own life, that spawned the book.
Far better is the second half of the book in which Mr Carey seeks to persuade us that the greatest of all art forms is not painting or music but literature, and English literature specifically. Uninflected and without gendered nouns, English was uniquely placed to offer Shakespeare the linguistic pliancy and suppleness he needed to turn out the epidemic of metaphors and similes that so mark his work.
WHAT is art for and what good does it do? Two centuries ago, Kant and Hegel spent much of their lives contemplating questions about art and aesthetics. Many others have done so since. The latest are two studies, from either side of the Atlantic, by Michael Kimmelman and John Carey. The authors are professionally involved in the arts, Mr Kimmelman as chief art critic at the New York Times and Mr Carey as a professor of English literature at Oxford University. Scholars both, they are prodigious readers, listeners to, and students of, art. Yet both their books are at their most impressive when the authors seem to be trying the least.Mr Kimmelman, a gifted piano student as a boy, returned more seriously to the keyboard in 1999 when he entered, and went on to the final round, of an amateur piano competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Organised by the Van Cliburn Foundation, which since 1962 has presented the world's leading piano competition for young professionals, the competition brought 90 people, who neither taught nor performed professionally, to Texas.
Mr Kimmelman's article about his fellow pianists—a numismatist, two flight attendants, a hairstylist and a former crack addict who had been jailed for burglary and who found taking up music helped him recover—raised a sizeable correspondence from people who are not artists by profession, but for whom art adds an important other dimension to their lives. It was this idea, so emblematic of the author's own life, that spawned the book.
“I have come to feel”, he writes, “that everything, even the most ordinary daily affair, is enriched by the lessons that can be gleaned from art. Put differently, this book is, in part, about how creating, collecting, and even just appreciating art can make living a daily masterpiece.”
The portraits Mr Kimmelman presents in order to illustrate his point are loosely associated. There is the artist who created without lifting a finger: Ray Johnson, a coolly analytical man who was fascinated by numbers and who killed himself a decade ago at the age of 67 on January 13th (6+7=13, his friends noted), having first telephoned an old colleague, William Wilson, whose name contains 13 letters. There is the accidental artist: a German policeman photographed for posterity in 1927 hanging on to the bottom of a zeppelin that had broken its moorings. And there is the illuminating artist, a Baltimore dentist who, in the course of a lifetime, collected 75,000 lightbulbs and created the Museum of Incandescent Lighting.
But his best example is Pierre Bonnard, whose accidental encounter with a young, elfin woman alighting from a Paris tram in 1893 led to an intense relationship that would last until her death half a century later. Easily derided after his death as a facile, if accomplished, colourist, it is Bonnard's secretive, moody portraits of the woman, Marthe, many of them posed in the privacy of her bathroom, that mark him out as a painter of elegy. Often described as a painter of pleasure, one critic observed, he was something even more rare: a painter of the effervescence of pleasure and the disappearance of pleasure.
Mr Kimmelman's book works best when he describes the ineffable by showing rather than telling. His brief anecdote about how Bonnard once asked a model not to sit still, but to move around the room, is far more effective than a convoluted explanation about the difficulty of painting presence and absence at once.
Too much telling, by contrast, is Mr Carey's error. What is a work of art, is high art superior, do the arts make us better, can art be a religion? One after the other, Mr Carey head-butts these questions. The result, however, is that he ties himself up in knots. Unable to reach any conclusion about what art is, he turns instead to what it is not. There are plenty of things that are not works of art: for example, human excrement. Probably. But what about Piero Manzoni, an Italian artist who died in 1963 after creating an “edition” of 90 tin cans each containing 30 grams of his own excrement? The Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Gallery and the Pompidou Centre snapped them up. More fool them, you say. Others would agree, but they would be no closer to defining what art is.
Far, far better is the second half of the book in which Mr Carey seeks to persuade us that the greatest of all art forms is not painting or music but literature, and English literature specifically. Uninflected and without gendered nouns, English was uniquely placed to offer Shakespeare the linguistic pliancy and suppleness he needed to turn out the epidemic of metaphors and similes that so mark his work. Here, Mr Carey turns in a bravura performance. Drawing on his great knowledge of poetry, he is able to show how literature outsmarts other art forms; how it alone is able to criticise itself, which makes it more powerful and self-aware than other forms; how only literature can comment, and therefore moralise, not by making you more moral but by giving you ideas to think with; and how by hinting rather than spelling out, it is literature's indistinctness that empowers the reader's imagination.
Read every word of Mr Kimmelman for ideas to think with, and start Mr Carey's book on page 171. You won't regret it.
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Police spokesman Mike Hanson said the report of an incident April 1, 2004, at Sennett Middle School "slipped through the cracks," and was not reviewed by a detective or a representative of the Dane County district attorney's office to determine if charges should be filed.More from Steve Elbow."It's an unfortunate event," Hanson said. "We need to backtrack and go back and investigate."
Hanson said it is not known exactly how the mistake occurred, but the report had been mislabled in a way that could have erroneously indicated that it had already been referred to the district attorney.
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