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February 28, 2011

New Berlin teen with Asperger's finds he belongs on the stage

Laurel Walker:

When Judy Smith was looking for someone to play the central role of stage manager in "Our Town," the classic Thornton Wilder play about life in small-town America, she wasn't expecting to cast a boy with Asperger's syndrome.

Yet when 14-year-old Clayton Mortl auditioned more than six weeks ago, Smith said she experienced a director's "quintessential moment." He was perfect for the role.

Legendary actors like Paul Newman have brought powerful performances to the play - a staple of Broadway, community theater and classrooms since its 1938 debut, said Smith, the performing arts center manager and theater arts adviser at New Berlin West Middle / High School.

But when the 18-member middle school cast takes the stage Thursday, at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., Clay's performance may be legendary in its own right.

Though everyone is different, people with Asperger's - an autism spectrum disorder - have impaired ability to socially interact and communicate nonverbally. Their speech may sound different because of inflection or abnormal repetition. Body movements may not seem age appropriate. Interests may be narrowly focused to the extent that common interests aren't shared.

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Indiana Statehouse focus now on schools

Kevin Allen:

Labor bills and union protesters drew most of the attention at the Indiana Statehouse last week, as Democrats in the House of Representatives walked out and headed to Illinois to block Republicans from conducting business.

But the other half of the stalemate is over wide-ranging education reform that could change where Indiana children go to school, how their teachers are evaluated, and the formula for funding the system that uses about half of Hoosiers' state tax dollars.

Democrats say Republicans are trying to dismantle public education. Republicans say Democrats are just protecting teachers unions.

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Charter school effort stirs fight in N.Y. district

Fernanda Santos

The guests sipped wine and nibbled sushi, guacamole and Gruyere - lawyers, bankers, preschool teachers, managers and consultants of various kinds, bound together by the anxious decision they must confront in the months ahead: where their 4-year-olds will go to school in the fall.

Downstairs, a flyer by the doorman's desk had greeted them with a provocative question: "Why should you have to spend college tuition on kindergarten?" Back upstairs, in the stylish apartment on West 99th Street, Eva S. Moskowitz, a former City Council member who runs a network of charter schools in Harlem and the Bronx, delivered a tantalizing sales talk.

"Middle-class families need options too," she said.

But Moskowitz is trying to expand her chain into a whole new precinct of the city, the relatively well-off Upper West Side. And outside the parties she has organized to drum up interest, the reaction has been anything but warm from the neighborhood's stridently anti-charter political establishment.

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Craft your own Wisconsin budget

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

This is your chance, Wisconsin taxpayer, to cut the 2012 state budget to fix the deficit.

To answer, you need to know what are the most expensive programs. Once you know that, you can set your own priorities. Is aid to public schools more important than health care spending, for example, or aid to local governments?

On Tuesday, you can see how your cuts compare to those that Republican Gov. Scott Walker will recommend.

So, let's start - and your budget cuts should total $1.3 billion. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the most state tax funds (not including federal and other funds) are spent on these programs.

No. 1: Aid to public schools: $5.3 billion in direct aid and $6.2 billion if you count tax credits paid property owners to hold down property taxes. Hint: Tuesday, Walker is expected to recommend a $450 million cut in aid to public schools next year. The governor signaled the size of this cut when he said that weakening collective bargaining laws for public employees would allow school districts to save even more - about $488 million - than the cut.

No. 2: Medicaid health care programs that now care for one in five Wisconsin residents: $1.55 billion from state taxes, although federal funds push the annual cost of this program to more than $6 billion. Hint: If you cut state tax funds for Medicaid, you will also be losing federal funds because about 60% of Medicaid funding comes from Washington. And if you cut state aid for Medicaid, you must also cut some care or pay less to medical professionals who provide that care, which could prompt them to no longer take Medicaid patients.



Related: Wisconsin's redistributed state tax dollars for K-12 public schools has grown significantly over the past few decades.

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Washington should stick to proven state math standards

Clifford Mass:

IF our state Legislature takes no action this session, Washington state will drop its new, improved math standards for an untested experiment: Common Core "national" standards that have never been used in the classroom and for which assessments have yet to be developed.

And there is a high price tag for such a switch, an expense our state can ill afford. Surprisingly, one of the most profound changes in U.S. education in decades has been virtually uncovered by the national media.

Until two years ago, our state had some of the worst math standards in the country, rated "F" by the Fordham Foundation, and lacking many of the essentials found in standards used by the highest-performing nations. That all changed in 2008, when under the impetus of the state Legislature, a new set of standards, based on world-class math requirements, was adopted.

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'Crazy U,' by Andrew Ferguson, about his family's college admissions experience

Steven Livingston:

My daughter's college applications are all in, and now we can quietly go nuts while admissions fairies from coast to coast get busy, as Andrew Ferguson wonderfully puts it, "sprinkling pixie dust and waving wands, dashing dreams or making them come true."

It's an apt metaphor because, as anyone who's been in it knows, the family caravan to collegeland is magical and terrifying: You begin wide-eyed and innocent, skipping along with outsized hopes, only to shrink before the fire-breathing ogres of the SAT, the essay, the deadlines, the costs. In "Crazy U," Ferguson invites you to join him on the dream-mare that he and his son endured.

The book is both a hilarious narrative and an incisive guide to the college admissions process. Ferguson, a senior editor at the Weekly Standard, has done his research, poring over mountains of published material and interviewing admissions officers, college coaches, academics and the guy behind the U.S. News & World Report college rankings.

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Give public employees a stake in economic revival

Tom Still:

During his Tuesday night "fireside chat" about Wisconsin's budget woes and his plan to dramatically curb the influence of public-sector unions, Gov. Scott Walker aptly referred to public employees as the state's "partners in economic development."

"We need them to help us put 250,000 people to work in the private sector over the next four years," Walker told a statewide audience.

It was an important point, and it suggests a path out of Wisconsin's nationally watched showdown between Walker, the Republican-led Legislature and the public-employee unions. Simply put, could public employees become fuller "partners" in Wisconsin's economic revival if they had more skin in the game?

That question should be asked as the budget-repair bill moves to the Senate, where majority Republicans and boycotting Democrats should aspire to find at least a toehold of common ground.

The dominant private-sector view about unionized public employees is that they're disconnected from the reality of the state and national economy. When times are good, public employees generally do well. When times are bad, most public employees still do pretty well, even if private-sector workers are taking pay cuts, benefit reductions or layoffs.

That view of insulated public employees isn't limited to employers and non-unionized private workers. It is sometimes shared by the 7% of private workers who still belong to unions. It's not uncommon to hear from workers in the auto industry or the construction trades who wonder why their fortunes ebb and flow with the economy, yet public-sector employees seem largely immune.

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Indiana Informs Wisconsin's Push

Steven Greenhouse:

Evaluating the success of the policy depends on where you sit.

"It's helped us in a thousand ways. It was absolutely central to our turnaround here," Mr. Daniels said in an interview. Without union contracts to slow him down, he said, it has been easy for him to merge the procurement operations of numerous state agencies, saving millions of dollars. One move alone -- outsourcing and consolidating food service operations for Indiana's 28 prisons -- has saved the state $100 million since 2005, he said. Such moves led to hundreds losing their jobs.

For state workers in Indiana, the end of collective bargaining also meant a pay freeze in 2009 and 2010 and higher health insurance payments. Several state employees said they now paid $5,200 a year in premiums, $3,400 more than when Mr. Daniels took office, though there are cheaper plans available. Earlier in his tenure, Mr. Daniels adopted a merit pay system, with some employees receiving no raises and those deemed to be top performers getting up to 10 percent.

Andrea Helm, an employee at a children's home in Knightstown, Ind., said that soon after collective bargaining was ended and the union contract expired, coveted seniority preferences disappeared. "I saw a lot of employees who had 20, 30 years on the job fired," she said. "I think they were trying to cut the more expensive people on top to make their budget smaller."

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Day of reckoning on pensions

Los Angeles Times

he housing bubble and subsequent Wall Street collapse wreaked havoc on the nation's retirement savings, as many pension funds and 401(k) plans suffered losses of 30% or more. State and local governments are now facing huge unfunded pension liabilities, prompting policymakers to scramble for ways to close the gap without slashing payrolls and services. But a new report from the Little Hoover Commission in Sacramento makes a more troubling point: Many state and local government employees have been promised pensions that the public couldn't have afforded even had there been no crash.

The commission's analysis of the problem is hotly disputed by union leaders, who contend that the financial woes of pension funds have been overblown. The commission's recommendations are equally controversial: Among other things, it urges state lawmakers to roll back the future benefits that current public employees can accrue, raise the retirement age and require employees to cover more pension costs. Given that state courts have rejected previous attempts to alter the pensions already promised to current workers, the commission's recommendation amounts to a Hail Mary pass. Yet it's one worth throwing.

A bipartisan, independent agency that promotes efficiency in government, the Little Hoover Commission studied the public pension issue for 10 months before issuing its findings Thursday. Much of the 90-page report is devoted to making the case that, to use the commission's blunt words, "pension costs will crush government." Without a "miraculous" improvement in the funds' investments, the commission states, "few government entities -- especially at the local level -- will be able to absorb the blow without severe cuts to services."

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Why America's unions are not working any more

Christopher Caldwell:

During the holiday break this winter, a woman in my neighbourhood was at the supermarket with her son when they ran into the son's teacher. "See you Monday," the mother said. The teacher gaily informed her she would not be back until mid-month, as she had planned a vacation in Central America. Teachers used to content themselves with the months off they enjoy in summers and at holidays, but they have got used to more. One can understand why American public employees ardently defend their unions, and the benefits they win. But one can also understand why, in a time of straitened budgets, union-negotiated contracts might be among the first places to make savings.

A fierce budget battle has been running for more than a week in Madison, Wisconsin. It goes far beyond salaries and benefits, to touch on the deeper question of whether collective bargaining has any place in government employment. Governor Scott Walker, a Republican elected last autumn with support from the Tea Party movement, believes it does not. His "budget repair" bill not only requires state employees to contribute to their pension and health plans. It would also end collective bargaining for benefits. Democratic senators, lacking the votes to defeat the bill, fled the state, denying the quorum necessary to bring it to a vote.

Mr Walker is not making a mountain out of a molehill. Wisconsin has a $137m budget gap to fill this year and a $3.6bn deficit over the next two. The big year-on-year leap reflects, in part, the expiration of federal stimulus spending, much of which was used to avoid laying off government workers. Citizens of other advanced countries sometimes make the mistake of assuming that the US has a skeletal bureaucracy. That is wrong. Once you include state, county and city employees, it is a formidable workforce and an expensive one. State employees account for up to $6,000bn in coming pension costs. Wisconsin's difficulties are milder than those elsewhere, which means that similar clashes are arising in other states, especially where Republicans rule.

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February 27, 2011

American Teaching Standards: Don't know much about history

The Economist:

Many states emphasise abstract concepts rather than history itself. In Delaware, for example, pupils "will not be expected to recall any specific event or person in history". Other states teach children about early American history only once, when they are 11. Yet other states show scars from the culture wars. A steady, leftward lean has been followed by a violent lurch to the right. Standards for Texas, passed last year, urge pupils to question the separation of church and state and "evaluate efforts by global organisations to undermine US sovereignty through the use of treaties".

Some states fare better. South Carolina has set impressive standards--for example, urging teachers to explain that colonists did not protest against taxation simply because taxes were too high. Other states, Mr Finn argues, would do well to follow South Carolina's example. "Twenty-first century skills" may help pupils become better workers; learning history makes them better citizens.

Related: The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011: Wisconsin = F.

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Wisconsin Ranks #4 in State & Local Tax Burden

The Tax Foundation:

For nearly two decades the Tax Foundation has published an estimate of the combined state-local tax burden shouldered by the residents of each of the 50 states. For each state, we calculate the total amount paid by the residents in taxes, then divide those taxes by the state's total income to compute a "tax burden." We make this calculation not only for the most recent year but also for earlier years because tax and income data are revised periodically by government agencies.

The goal is to focus not on the tax collectors but on the taxpayers. That is, we answer the question: What percentage of their income are the residents of this state paying in state and local taxes? We are not trying to answer the question: How much money have state and local governments collected? The Census Bureau publishes the definitive comparative data answering t hat question.

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Can parents effectively reclaim duties after funding cuts?

Alan Borsuk:

This is a boom time for parental choice in education. Frankly, that's pretty scary to me.

I'm not talking about the school voucher program or charter schools, or other things like that.

I'm talking about the choices parents make in how they raise their children - how they can do (or not do) things that maximize the chances of their children becoming well-educated, well-balanced, constructive adults.

Since, say, the 1960s, expectations have grown for schools to take care of an increasing range of children's needs. That goes for academics, of course, but also for social development, recreation, mentoring and, in many cases, providing nutrition, clothing and some basics of health care. That's especially true for schools serving low-income kids, but you'd be surprised how often it is true in all schools.

I believe that one of the things we are seeing in the continuing chaos in Madison is that the tide is cresting for schools to play such roles. Teachers and staff members are simply going to be unable to do some of the things they've done to make up for what parents aren't doing.

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Former D.C. Schools Chief Aims To Put 'StudentsFirst'

NPR:

It's not only Republicans like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who are challenging unions. When it comes to teachers unions, increasingly it's Democrats like Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the public school system in Washington, D.C.

Rhee led the school district for almost three years. While she was there, she tied pay increases to merit rather than tenure and fired hundreds of teachers who she said were underperforming.

Those moves angered teachers unions across the country and made Rhee one of the most controversial figures in education reform. Now, she's heading up an education advocacy group based out of Sacramento, Calif., called StudentsFirst. With it, she tells Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz, she hopes to create a powerful lobby to push for education reform.

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The Education Report: A breakdown of the Oakland school district's budget

This is a sampling of The Education Report, Katy Murphy's Oakland schools blog. Read more at IBAbuzz.com/education. Follow her at Twitter.com/KatyMurphy.

Feb. 18

Oakland schools, rather than the district's headquarters, might absorb almost all of the budget cuts coming from the state this year, district staff tell us. The rationale? That the central office took the brunt of the reductions last year, sustaining two-thirds of the cuts.
Do you buy it?

Before you answer, get the facts in a new financial report published by the district and posted on the blog. It's fascinating (for a financial report) because it slices the current and past-year's expenses in so many ways.

About half of the cuts to the school district's "unrestricted," or general-purpose, fund and 56 percent of the cuts to the total general fund came from central services, according to the report.

Note: This isn't the full picture. Slide 2 suggests that adult education programs are not included in that breakdown. (Adult schools took a $7 million hit last year; that has been counted as a "central services" cut in past accounting, though it arguably is not.) Early childhood education, food services, construction dollars and self insurance don't appear to factor in either.

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At Madison's All-City Spelling Bee, the winning word is a surprise but not a trick

Dean Mosiman:

After a morning of handling knotty words, Kira Zimmerman seemed almost stunned when asked to spell "peril" to win the All-City Spelling Bee on Saturday.

The defending champion, Vishal Narayanaswamy, had just narrowly missed on "receptacle," which Zimmerman then spelled correctly, leaving her the final, five-letter challenge.

She asked the Bee's pronouncer, Barry Adams, to repeat the word, paused almost like she suspected a trick, and then said, "Ohh, peril ... p-e-r-i-l" and won the hefty traveling trophy for her school and the honor of representing Madison in the Badger State Spelling Bee on March 26 at Edgewood College.

As the Hamilton Middle School eighth-grader posed for pictures, her first thought was of getting a doughnut her father, David Zimmerman, had promised during a break if she won. Then she talked about winning and moving to the state championship.

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A Simple Approach to Ending the State Budget Standoff

Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:

Here's an idea for resolving the state's budget repair bill crisis. Governor Walker's budget repair bill is designed to eviscerate public employee unions. But with a few changes it could actually lead to an innovative and productive way of addressing the legitimate concerns with the collective bargaining process, while preserving the most important rights of teachers and other public employees.

Background: A Tale of Two Unions

First, some background that highlights the two sides of the issue for me as a member of the Madison School Board. Early on Friday morning, February 25, our board approved a contract extension with our AFSCME bargaining units, which include our custodians and food service workers. The agreement equips the school district with the flexibility to require the AFSCME workers to make the contributions toward their retirement accounts and any additional contributions toward their health care costs that are required by the budget repair bill, and also does not provide for any raises. But the agreement does preserve the other collective bargaining terms that we have arrived at over the years and that have generally worked well for us.

AFSCME has stated that its opposition to the Governor's bill is not about the money, and our AFSCME bargaining units have walked that talk.

Our recent dealings with MTI, the union representing our teachers and some other bargaining units, have been less satisfying. Because of teacher walk outs, we have to make up the equivalent of four days of school. An obvious way to get started on this task would be to declare Friday, February 25, which has been scheduled as a no-instruction day so that teachers can attend the Southern Wisconsin Educational Inservice Organization (SWEIO) convention, as a regular school day.

Through a variety of circumstances, I've had an opportunity to recently visit with several Dane County (and Madison) businesses with significant blue collar manufacturing/distribution employment. In all cases, these firms face global price/cost challenges, things that affect their compensation & benefits. Likely reductions in redistributed State of Wisconsin tax dollars could lead to significantly higher property taxes during challenging economic times, if that's the route our local school boards take.

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More Flexibility to Raise Tuition?

Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab:

Central to debates over the New Badger Partnership is the question of whether additional flexibilities that make it possible to raise tuition are desirable.

Evidence can and must be used to make these decisions. A robust, evidence-based debate on our campus is obviously needed but to date has not occurred. Instead, to many of us outside Bascom it seems as though administrators have mostly relied on the input of a few economists and some other folks who work in higher education but are not scholars of higher education. It also seems like seeking advice from those mostly likely to agree with you. (Please--correct me if I'm wrong--very happy to be corrected with evidence on this point.)

It would be wonderful to see a more thorough review of existing evidence and the development of an evaluation plan that will assess positive and negative impacts of any new policy in ways that allow for the identification of policy effects-- not correlations. (Let's be clear: comparing enrollment of Pell recipients before and after the implementation of a policy like the MIU does not count.)

A few years ago I blogged about studies on the effects of tuition and financial aid on individual decision-making. To summarize-- effects of each are relatively small (especially when compared to effects of academic under-preparation, for example) but usually statistically significant. Also, what we call "small" reflects our value judgments, and we must recognize that.

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Unions brought this on themselves

David Blaska:

Let's face it: Teachers union president John Matthews decides when to open and when to close Madison schools; the superintendent can't even get a court order to stop him. East High teachers marched half the student body up East Washington Avenue Tuesday last week. Indoctrination, anyone?

This Tuesday, those students began their first day back in class with the rhyming cadences of professional protester Jesse Jackson, fresh from exhorting unionists at the Capitol, blaring over the school's loudspeakers. Indoctrination, anyone?

Madison Teachers Inc. has been behind every local referendum to blow apart spending restraints. Resist, as did elected school board member Ruth Robarts, and Matthews will brand you "Public Enemy Number One."

When then-school board member Juan Jose Lopez would not feed out of the union's hand, Matthews sent picketers to his place of business, which happened to be Briarpatch, a haven for troubled kids. Cross that line, kid!

The teachers union is the playground bully of state government. Wisconsin Education Association Council spent $1.5 million lobbying the Legislature in 2009, more than any other entity and three times the amount spent by WMC, the business lobby.

Under Gov. Doyle, teachers were allowed to blow apart measures to restrain spending and legislate the union message into the curriculum. Student test scores could be used to determine teacher pay -- but only if the unions agreed.

The most liberal president since FDR came to a school in Madison to announce "Race to the Top" grants for education reform. How many millions of dollars did we lose when the statewide teachers union sandbagged the state's application?

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For the Love of Math!

Helen:

You've heard this a million (10 to the power of 6) times, but it is frightening. In the 2009 (41 X 49) Program for International Student Assessment US 15-year-olds ranked 25th (4! + 1) among 34 (square root of 1156) countries in math falling behind Canada, New Zealand, Finland, and Asian countries such as China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

To counter this sad trend, stop by The Math Salon at Mosaic Coffeehouse on February 28th from 4-6 PM:

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February 26, 2011

Chicago's Urban Prep Academies Visits Madison: Photos & a Panorama

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Students from Chicago's Urban Prep Academies visited Madison Saturday, 2/26/2011 in support of the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter school. A few photos can be viewed here.

David Blaska:

I have not seen the Madison business community step up to the plate like this since getting Monona Terrace built 20 years ago.

CUNA Mutual Foundation is backing Kaleem Caire's proposal for a Madison Prep charter school. Steve Goldberg, president of the CUNA Foundation, made that announcement this Saturday morning. The occasion was a forum held at CUNA to rally support for the project. CUNA's support will take the form of in-kind contributions, Goldberg said.

Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men would open in August 2012 -- if the Madison school board agrees. School board president Maya Cole told me that she knows there is one vote opposed. That would be Marj Passman, a Madison teachers union-first absolutist.

The school board is scheduled to decide at its meeting on March 28. Mark that date on your calendars.

CUNA is a much-respected corporate citizen. We'll see if that is enough to overcome the teachers union, which opposes Madison Prep because the charter school would be non-union.

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Leader of Teachers' Union Urges Dismissal Overhaul

Trip Gabriel, via a kind reader's email:

Responding to criticism that tenure gives even poor teachers a job for life, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, announced a plan Thursday to overhaul how teachers are evaluated and dismissed.

It would give tenured teachers who are rated unsatisfactory by their principals a maximum of one school year to improve. If they did not, they could be fired within 100 days.

Teacher evaluations, long an obscure detail in an educator's career, have moved front and center as school systems try to identify which teachers are best at improving student achievement, and to remove ineffective ones.

The issue has erupted recently, with many districts anticipating layoffs because of slashed budgets. Mayors including Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and Cory A. Booker of Newark have attacked seniority laws, which require that teacher dismissals be based on length of experience rather than on competency.

Ms. Weingarten has sought to play a major role in changing evaluations and tenure, lest the issue be used against unions to strip their influence over work life in schools -- just as Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin and Ohio are trying to do this week.

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K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Wisconsin Cities Must Wrestle with Reality

Willie L. Hines, Jr.

As you have surely read, there's a lot going on in Madison, Wis., these days. The tens of thousands of protesters currently storming the Capitol came about when our new governor, Scott Walker, called a special legislative session in order to introduce a "budget repair bill." The stated purpose for this emergency session and this bill was that we have a short-term deficit that needs to be addressed.

Gov. Walker and Republican legislators have taken the liberty of extending their scope well beyond that original purpose. Instead of focusing on the short-term deficit as promised, they are using this emergency session as an opportunity to introduce dramatic, systematic changes to how local governments operate all over Wisconsin. The most controversial, which saves no money in the near future and perhaps no money ever unless policymakers make future decisions to cut benefits, is to eliminate collective bargaining for non-public safety employees.

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Film: The Finland Phenomenon & A Counter View

Inside the World's Most Surprising School System, via a kind reader's email.

The PISA survey tells only a partial truth of Finnish children's mathematical skills:

The results of the PISA survey (http://www.jyu.fi/ktl/pisa/) have brought about satisfaction and pride in Finland. Newspapers and media have advertised that Finnish compulsory school leavers are top experts in mathematics.

However, mathematics teachers in universities and polytechnics are worried, as in fact the mathematical knowledge of new students has declined dramatically. As an example of this one could take the extensive TIMSS 1999 survey, in which Finnish students were below the average in geometry and algebra. As another example, in order not to fail an unreasonably large amount of students in the matriculation exams, recently the board has been forced to lower the cut-off point alarmingly. Some years, 6 points out of 60 have been enough for passing.

This conflict can be explained by pointing out that the PISA survey measured only everyday mathematical knowledge, something which could be - and in the English version of the survey report explicitly is - called "mathematical literacy"; the kind of mathematics which is needed in high-school or vocational studies was not part of the survey. No doubt, everyday mathematical skills are valuable, but by no means enough.

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Seattle Times Fights Back Against Citizen Journalist

Melissa Westbrook:

Below is an e-mail from David Boardman of the Times. (I had not written to him; he sent this on his own.)

My take on this issue of whether the Times held this story back - I think it's possible. I say that because of the issues that Charlie has raised, namely, that embedded in the Times' story of the internal auditor's resignation were many possible questions about Silas Potter.

That they were trying to get their facts right is good and admirable but it certainly took them a longer time than I might of thought given their resources. I'm a just one person, a citizen journalist so it is harder for me to press people I call for information. (However, that doesn't stop me from calling. Hey, I just left Fred Stephens a message to give me a ring. I won't hold my breath but it never hurts to ask.)

Here is my take on the issue of a conspiracy at the Times to cover the district and in particular, Dr. Goodloe-Johnson. Do I think the Times and the Alliance and Stand and the district all sat down in a room and said, "Here's what each of needs to do to move forward what we believe is best for public education in Seattle." No, I don't think that ever happened. I don't think even two of those groups got together in a room and said that.

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On Science Exams, New York's Students Fall Short

Fernanda Santos:

Only 18 percent of the city's public school fourth graders and 13 percent of its eighth graders demonstrated proficiency on the most recent national science exams, far below state and national achievement levels, according to results released Thursday.

Alan J. Friedman, a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, the bipartisan group that oversees the tests, called the city's results "a big disappointment," particularly because New York has a number of cultural organizations devoted to science, like the Museum of Natural History and the New York Hall of Science in Queens, which he directed for 22 years.

The exam was given in 2009 to a sampling of 4,300 fourth and eighth graders in the city, or about 3 percent of students in those grades. Nationwide, 33 percent of fourth graders and 29 percent of eighth graders showed proficiency, and in New York State, those numbers were 30 and 31, respectively.

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February 25, 2011

On teachers unions, the devil is in the details

Robert Maranto
:

Here are the fiscal facts. Unlike most employees, few Wisconsin teachers have to contribute more than marginally to their retirement and health care costs. My colleague Bob Costrell, who has done substantial work in Milwaukee, calculates that the city's public school teachers get a remarkable package of benefits equal to 74% of salary, roughly double the normal benefits for workers calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics but in line with other Wisconsin teachers.

And that's not all. By collective bargaining agreement, the Wisconsin Education Association Council has a lock on health insurance coverage for members, not necessarily a great service for teachers but a wonderful profit center for the union.

What explains this? As one who has served in government and taught public personnel management, the answers are three-fold, and in combination explain why allowing a broad scope for collective bargaining undermines transparency and, ultimately, democracy.

First, teachers unions play a big role in politics, meaning that, as Terry Moe writes in "Teacher Unions and School Board Elections" (published in a Brookings Institution book on school boards), "the fact that school boards are elected means that the teacher unions can actually participate in choosing - or even literally choose - the management they will be bargaining with."

In the California school districts Moe studies, unions fund candidates and mobilize voters in (low-turnout) school board elections and often recruit the candidates. Unions thus control both sides of the collective bargaining table. Surveys of school board members suggest that business interests, in contrast, have little power.

I have not seen comparable research on Wisconsin, but I suspect similar dynamics.

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Unileaks: "Keeping Education Honest"

unileaks.org

A place to post information on public interest matters relating to higher education.

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A Look At Defined Benefit Pension Costs

The Economist:

FRESH from a duel with Free Exchange, I now find myself compelled to add some context to a Democracy in America post on the Wisconsin situation.

The problem with public sector/private sector pay comparisons is that pay comes in two forms; current and deferred (ie pensions). A pension promise from the government is a very valuable thing indeed; some states have made it constitutionally protected. So, unlike the typical private sector employee who is now in a DC scheme, the public sector employee has certainty about his or her pension entitlement. If the equity market falters, the DC plan member will suffer; the employer of the DB member will make up the shortfall. In effect, the employer has written the employee a put option on the market.

How valuable is this option? We can make a judgment by looking at the Bank of England scheme. It avoids all equity risk by buying index-linked bonds to cover its pension liability. This costs it 55% of payroll in the current year (the ratio varies with the level of real yields). The average contribution into a DC scheme (employer and employee) is 10%, in both Britain and America. In a room full of actuaries last week, I asked whether this was a fair basis of pay comparsion and the answer was yes.

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How Chris Christie Did His Homework

Matt Bai:

Like a stand-up comedian working out-of-the-way clubs, Chris Christie travels the townships and boroughs of New Jersey , places like Hackettstown and Raritan and Scotch Plains, sharpening his riffs about the state's public employees, whom he largely blames for plunging New Jersey into a fiscal death spiral. In one well-worn routine, for instance, the governor reminds his audiences that, until he passed a recent law that changed the system, most teachers in the state didn't pay a dime for their health care coverage, the cost of which was borne by taxpayers.

And so, Christie goes on, forced to cut more than $1 billion in local aid in order to balance the budget, he asked the teachers not only to accept a pay freeze for a year but also to begin contributing 1.5 percent of their salaries toward health care. The dominant teachers' union in the state responded by spending millions of dollars in television and radio ads to attack him.
"The argument you heard most vociferously from the teachers' union," Christie says, "was that this was the greatest assault on public education in the history of New Jersey." Here the fleshy governor lumbers a few steps toward the audience and lowers his voice for effect. "Now, do you really think that your child is now stressed out and unable to learn because they know that their poor teacher has to pay 1½ percent of their salary for their health care benefits? Have any of your children come home -- any of them -- and said, 'Mom.' " Pause. " 'Dad.' " Another pause. " 'Please. Stop the madness.' "

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Showdown in Madison: Labour Law in America

The Economist:

The fight to bring a little private-sector discipline to America's public sector has begun at last

ELECTIONS, Barack Obama once said, have consequences. The Republicans' triumph in last year's mid-terms was seen by many as an instruction from the electorate to hack away at America's sprawling government. In Washington, DC, that debate has gone nowhere. Both Mr Obama and his foes have produced fantastical budgets, full of illusory savings and ignoring the huge entitlement programmes. A government shutdown is looming. But look beyond the Beltway and something rather more promising is under way.

Unlike the federal government, which can borrow money to plug its budgetary gap, almost all the states are required to balance their budgets. Their revenues have been slashed by the recession; the stimulus funds that saw them through 2009 and 2010 have expired; medical costs are soaring. Tax rises remain unpopular, and so are deep cuts to important state-provided services like schools and the police. So governors are finally confronting the privileges that public-sector employees have managed to negotiate for themselves in recent decades.

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New Mexico House scrutinizes school promotion

Barry Massey

School administrators and teachers raised questions Wednesday about the potential costs of a proposal backed by Republican Gov. Susana Martinez to stop promoting public school students who lack basic skills in reading.

Legislation under consideration by the House Education Committee will stop third-graders from moving to the fourth grade if they aren't proficient in reading starting in the 2012-13 school year. A student could be held back one year and schools will be required to provide students with programs to improve their performance.

In testimony to the committee, educational groups suggested that school districts will need additional money for remedial and intensive instruction to help struggling students.
"We know that if we are going to do effective remediation, there are going to be costs associated with that," said Tom Sullivan of the New Mexico Coalition of School Administrators.

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A Payday for Your Kids?

Rachel Emma Silverman:

Giving kids' allowances raises lots of questions for parents: How much to pay? Should the money be tied to chores - and if so, which ones? Can the kids spend the money freely, or must they save part of it?

One family I read about in the Journal of Financial Planning paid their kids $6 a week, but allowances weren't tied to chores. The purpose of chores, said the parents (a financial planner and psychiatrist) was to develop a work ethic, while the purpose of an allowance was to help kids "learn to think, chose and consider alternatives when it comes to money." The $6, though, was divvied up very specifically: $2 went directly to the kids, who could spend it however they chose; $2 went to a charity of the kids' choice and $2 went to the bank. At the end of the year, the kids could withdraw half the money saved and spend it, leaving the other half to grow for longer. The purpose of the plan is to help the kids learn how to make smart decisions regarding finances and learn about the three main uses of money: spending, saving and giving.

I recently learned about another novel way to give allowance. One mom of a 4-year-old daughter, Alisa T. Weinstein, decided to forgo the traditional idea of paying for household chores. Instead, she compiled a list of careers and simple "kiddified" tasks associated with them. (A market researcher, for example, could do a small verbal survey of classmates' favorite ice cream flavors, or a banker could give different denominations of change.) Each week or so, her daughter would take on the role of a certain profession and perform the associated work. At the end, Weinstein rewarded her daughter with a "payday," according to the New York Times' Bucks blog, which profiled Weinstein.

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In Wisconsin's long shadow, unions and tea partyers face off across US

Patrick Jonsson:

Protests sparked by a push from Wisconsin Republicans to gut collective bargaining for unions - in order to balance the state budget - continue to spread, with several state capitals witnessing vitriolic faceoffs between union protesters and tea party activists this week.

About 300 union protesters and about 100 tea party activists taunted one another in front of the gold-domed Georgia Capitol in Atlanta on Wednesday, in a scene echoing similar standoffs earlier in the week in Columbus, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; and Denver, Colo.

Meanwhile, deadlock continues in Madison, Wis., ground zero of the debate over public-sector union benefits and their impact on deficit-burdened state coffers. Democratic senators there have decamped for Illinois in protest - and to thwart a quorum for a vote on the union-targeting legislation. A similar episode is playing out in Indiana, where the state legislature is also controlled by Republicans.

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Unlike Wisconsin, 'collective bargaining' doesn't exist for Arizona's teachers

Michelle Reese:

As Wisconsin teachers and other public union workers take on Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his plans to end collective bargaining, Arizona teachers wonder: Could there be an impact here?

Unlike Wisconsin, Arizona is a right-to-work state, along with 21 other states. The National Education Association has an affiliate here - the Arizona Education Association - and most school districts have individual chapters. But Arizona doesn't have collective bargaining, what public workers are arguing to keep intact in Wisconsin.

The education association represents teachers when lobbying Arizona lawmakers and in negotiation efforts, such as "meet and confer" or "interest based bargaining" with school district leadership.

"With collective bargaining, you're a little more of a partner at the table than what we see here. In some regards we are a partner, but there are other issues we're not always included on," Mesa Education Association president Kirk Hinsey said, pointing out that a school district's governing board ultimately makes the decisions.

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A Fund-Raiser Grown Wild

Shirene Saad:

The word "fund-raiser" evokes an image of endless speeches, bland evening gowns and even blander buffets, but Edible Schoolyard's yearly benefit should veer a little more toward the wild side. With three fabulous hostesses (the food artist Jennifer Rubell, the fashion buyer Julie Gilhart and the 303 gallerist Lisa Spellman) and a storied downtown locale (the Odeon), the event promises to be more Studio 54 than Cipriani Ballroom. "It's the kind of fund-raiser that I would love to attend, a fund-raiser that is not boring" says Rubell, just back from the opening of her "Engagement" show at the Stephen Friedman gallery in London. "My favorite women in the city will be there, including Lynn Wagenknecht" -- the restaurant's owner -- "who came up with the idea."

The $50 cover charge goes toward supporting Edible Schoolyard, the Alice Waters-founded organization that creates small farms in public schoolyards to reconnect children with the food-growing cycle. "I think kids should be exposed to the aesthetics of food from a very young age," Rubell says. "And growing food is so exciting."

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Wisconsin Senate majority leader's wife given layoff notice

Minnesota Public Radio:

The wife of the Wisconsin Senate majority leader is among school staff receiving preliminary layoff notices.

Lisa Fitzgerald is a counselor in the Hustisford school district and is married to Republican Senator Scott Fitzgerald.

Superintendent Jeremy Biehl says the school board decided Wednesday night to send preliminary layoff slips to all 34 members of the teaching staff, including librarians and counselors. Biehl says the action was taken because of the uncertainty of the state budget bill.

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February 24, 2011

Madison School District preparing hundreds of teacher layoff notices

Matthew DeFour & Gena Kittner:

The Madison School District and others across the state are scrambling to issue preliminary layoff notices to teachers by Monday due to confusion over Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill and the delay of the state budget.

Madison may issue hundreds of preliminary layoff notices to teachers Monday if an agreement with its union can't be reached to extend a state deadline, school officials said Thursday.

The School Board plans to meet at 7 a.m. Friday in closed session to discuss the matter.

The Wisconsin Association of School Boards this week urged local school officials to decide on staff cuts by Monday or risk having potential layoffs challenged later in court.

"It's hugely important and hugely upsetting to everyone," said Craig Bender, superintendent of the Sauk Prairie School District, which will issue preliminary notices to 63 of its roughly 220 teachers. "It has a huge effect on how schools can function and how well we can continue to educate all kids."

Bender said the preliminary notices reflected "a guess" about the number of teachers who could lose their jobs because the state budget has not been released.

Related: Providence plans to pink slip all teachers Due to Budget Deficit

Amy Hetzner & Erin Richards:

The first tremors of what could be coming when Gov. Scott Walker releases his 2011-'13 budget proposal next week are rippling through Wisconsin school districts, where officials are preparing for the worst possibilities and girding for fiscal fallouts.

"I'm completely nervous," Cudahy School District Superintendent Jim Heiden said. "Walking into buildings and seeing teachers break into tears when they see you - I mean, that's the level of anxiety that's out there."

For the past two weeks, protests in Madison have been the focus of a nation, as angry public-sector workers have descended on the Capitol to try to stop Walker's proposal to roll back most of their collective bargaining rights, leaving them with the ability to negotiate only limited wage increases.

Next week, the demonstrations could move to many of the state's 425 school districts, the first local entities that will have to hash out budgets for a fiscal year that starts July 1.

Susan Troller:
Gov. Scott Walker's secrecy and rhetoric regarding his budget plans are fueling rumors and anxiety as well as a flurry of preliminary teacher layoff notices in school districts around the state.

In Dane County, the Belleville school board voted to send layoff notices to 19 staff members at a meeting on Monday. Both the Madison and Middleton Boards of Education will meet Friday to determine their options and if they will also need to send out layoff notices, given the dire predictions of the governor's budget which will be announced March 1.

In Madison, hundreds of teachers could receive layoff notices, district officials confirmed. Superintendent Daniel Nerad called it an option that would provide "maximum flexibility under the worst case scenario" in an e-mail sent to board members Thursday evening.

Most districts are bracing, and planning, for that worst case scenario.

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Why Has Google Been Collecting Kids' Social Security Numbers Under the Guise of an Art Contest?

Bob Bowdon:

As the director of The Cartel documentary, one of the things I learned was how poorly the traditional news media cover issues pertaining to children, in that case corruption in public education. Since the film's release, I often get contacted about other aspects of child protection that I would have never imagined -- stories that don't seem to get attention elsewhere. Like this.

What you're about to read hasn't been reported anywhere, and when it was brought to my attention, I could hardly believe it.

It turns out that the company sporting the motto "don't be evil" has been asking parents nationwide to disclose their children's personal information, including Social Security Numbers, and recruiting schools to help them do it -- all under the guise of an art contest. It's called, "Doodle-4-Google," a rather catchy, kid-friendly name if I do say so myself. The company is even offering prize money to schools to enlist their help with the promotion. Doesn't it sound like fun? Don't you want your kid to enter too?

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Cutting Tuition: A First Step?

Room for Debate:

Despite the outcry over high college costs, tuition rates are still going up. Princeton, Brown, Stanford and George Washington, for example, all announced increases in the last few weeks.

But a Tennessee college, the University of the South, better known as Sewanee, is reducing the cost to attend the school next year by 10 percent.

Tuition, fees, and room and board are all affected, with the overall cost falling from around $46,000 to about $41,500. The university said it will alter its student aid formula, but officials say no students will pay more next year than they pay now, and most will pay less.

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Measure to give Utah Governor control over education advances

Lisa Schencker

A resolution that could give the governor control over Utah education moved one step closer to becoming law Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the sponsor of another resolution that sought to amend the state constitution to make it clear that the state school board's control and supervision over education is "as provided by statute," said he will likely no longer push that measure.

The Senate voted 23-6 to give preliminary approval to SJR9, which seeks to amend the state constitution to place public and higher education under the governor's control. The Senate must now vote on the resolution one more time for it to advance to the House.

In order to take effect, SJR9 would ultimately have to pass the House and Senate by a two-thirds majority. The question would then be put to voters in the 2012 general election.

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The Enormous Technological Challenges Facing Education

Thomas:

Advances in technology continue to change how adults view and interact with the world. Of course, those same advances are available to teachers and the youngsters who populate their classrooms.

These developments are leading to enormous challenges for teachers regarding the role digital devices can and should play in the learning process. For some educators, the view is that technology should only be utilized as a tool to help facilitate student understanding and mastery of the current curriculum. For other educators, technology is as fundamental to learning as reading and writing and therefore must become a separate segment of the school curriculum.

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The Zen of Grading

Ruthann Robson:

As law professors, we spend a substantial amount of time engaged in the activity of reviewing exams, papers, and other "evaluative devices" with the purpose of assigning our students grades. Personally, I estimate that I have spent over four thousand hours (almost six months of days and nights, or a year of long summer days) hunched over student work during my teaching career. It can be difficult not to consider student exams as a mere obstacle, a chore of the most unpleasant type to endure, and the worst part of our otherwise usually rewarding work as professors. Grading law school exams has been declared a "deadening intimacy with ignorance and mental fog" which saps a professor's pedagogical and scholarly energies.I It is a "terrible occupation," a "cloud," a task which we accomplish with less efficiency and more distaste as our teaching career advances.2 Professorial engagement with Blue Books, in which most law student exams continue to be written, is deemed tedious and boring, leading to a "corrosive negativity" regarding the intellectual abilities of our students as well as a destructive influence upon our own character.3

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NEA to Double Member Dues Contribution to Political War Ches

Mike Antonucci:

Amid substantial membership losses and a $14 million shortfall in its general operating budget, the National Education Association plans to double each active member's annual contribution to the national union's political and media funds.

Currently, $10 of each active member's NEA dues is allocated to these special accounts. The more than $20 million collected each year is then disbursed to state affiliates and political issue campaigns - such as last year's SQ 744 in Oklahoma. A portion of the money also pays for state and national media buys to support the union's agenda.

But the most recent numbers show NEA lost more than 54,000 active K-12 members since this time last year. Coupled with less-than-expected increases in the average teacher salary - upon which NEA dues are based - the union will find itself with $14 million less revenue than it had planned. This includes about $500,000 less in the political and media funds.

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Oakland teachers, shaping school reforms

Katy Murphy:

These days, it sure seems like a radical idea: asking teachers, rather than telling them, what's needed to improve their schools.

It's happening in Oakland, though. You can read more about the purpose and the early work of a largely teacher-led project, the Effective Teaching Task Force, here. The story ran over the weekend.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED: The task force makes a stop tomorrow (Wednesday) on its "Teachers Talking to Teachers" listening tour. This one is for high school and adult education teachers, and it takes place at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the gym of United for Success Academy (Calvin Simmons campus), 2101 35th Avenue. Another event, for pre-k through eighth-grade teachers, is scheduled on March 23, at the same time and place.

Want to represent your school at an Oakland teacher convention in Emeryville April 7-9? Delegate elections -- two for each school -- are scheduled to take place at faculty meetings the week of March 7-11.

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Future of education? Droids teaching toddlers

Charles Choi:

Robots could one day help teach kids in classrooms, suggests research involving droids and toddlers in California.
A robot named RUBI has already shown that it can significantly improve how well infants learn words, and the latest version of the bot under development should also be able to wheel around classrooms, too.

The idea to develop RUBI came to Javier Movellan, director of the Machine Perception Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, when he was in Japan for research involving robots and his kids were in a child care center.

"I thought, 'Let's bring robots to the child care center,' and the children got really scared. It was a really horrible experience," Movellan recalled. "But it showed that the robots really got their attention, and that if we got the experience right, it could be potentially very powerful at evoking the emotional responses we'd want."

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K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Walker's claim on health insurance savings for public schools questioned

David Wahlberg:

School districts required to offer health insurance through WEA Trust, a company created by the teachers' union, would save $68 million a year if employees could switch to the state health plan, Gov. Scott Walker said this week, repeating a claim he made last year.

"That's one of the many examples of why it's so critically important to change collective bargaining," Walker said at a news conference Monday before bringing up the issue again in his public address Tuesday.

Madison-based WEA Trust, created by the Wisconsin Education Association Council, disputes the claim. The insurer says it provides lower-cost choices, and districts can already join the state health plan.

"It's been an option for them for some time," said WEA Trust spokesman Steve Lyons.

About 65 percent of the state's school districts contract with WEA Trust, covering about 35 percent of school employees. Several large districts, including Green Bay, Madison and Milwaukee, don't offer the plan.

The cost of providing WPS coverage to Madison teachers has long been controversial.

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Teaching quality and bargaining

The Economist:

SCOTT LEMIEUX passes along a pretty useful point to keep in mind, courtesy of his friend Ken Sherrill.

Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:South Carolina - 50th
North Carolina - 49th
Georgia - 48th
Texas - 47th
Virginia - 44thIf you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country.
As Mr Lemieux says, this doesn't show that collective bargaining makes school systems better. But it makes it pretty hard to argue the converse.

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K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: When Pretending Fails to Hide Bankruptcy

Laurence Kotlikoff:

Our country is bankrupt. It's not bankrupt in 30 years or five years. It's bankrupt today.

Want proof? Look at President Barack Obama's 2010 budget. It showed a massive fiscal gap over the next 75 years, the closure of which requires immediate tax increases, spending cuts, or some combination totaling 8 percent of gross domestic product. To put 8 percent of GDP in perspective, this year's employee and employer payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare will amount to just 5 percent of GDP.

Actually, the picture is much worse. Nothing in economics says we should look out just 75 years when considering the present-value difference between future spending and future taxes. Over the full long-term, we need an extra 12 percent, not 8 percent, of GDP annually.

Seventy-five years seems like a long enough time to plan. It's not. Had the Greenspan Commission, which "fixed" Social Security back in 1983, focused on the true long term we wouldn't be sitting here now with Social Security 26 percent underfunded. The Social Security trustees, at least, have learned a lesson. The 26 percent figure is based on their infinite horizon fiscal- gap calculation.

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February 23, 2011

Providence plans to pink slip all teachers Due to Budget Deficit

Linda Borg:

The school district plans to send out dismissal notices to every one of its 1,926 teachers, an unprecedented move that has union leaders up in arms.

In a letter sent to all teachers Tuesday, Supt. Tom Brady wrote that the Providence School Board on Thursday will vote on a resolution to dismiss every teacher, effective the last day of school.

In an e-mail sent to all teachers and School Department staff, Brady said, "We are forced to take this precautionary action by the March 1 deadline given the dire budget outline for the 2011-2012 school year in which we are projecting a near $40 million deficit for the district," Brady wrote. "Since the full extent of the potential cuts to the school budget have yet to be determined, issuing a dismissal letter to all teachers was necessary to give the mayor, the School Board and the district maximum flexibility to consider every cost savings option, including reductions in staff." State law requires that teachers be notified about potential changes to their employment status by March 1.

"To be clear about what this means," Brady wrote, "this action gives the School Board the right to dismiss teachers as necessary, but not all teachers will actually be dismissed at the end of the school year."

Providence's 2010-2011 budget is $405,838,878 for 23,715 students ($17,113.17 per student). Locally, Madison's per student spending this year is 15,490.13.

The Wisconsin Association of School Boards PDF:

The layoff clauses and the later deadlines for issuing layoff notices that are established by many of the layoff provisions in teacher collective bargaining agreements may be unavailable to districts if the budget repair bill passes in its current form. If this happens, the only way to reduce staff size for 2011-12 in some districts may be through the nonrenewal provisions of Wisconsin Statute 118.22. The absolute latest deadline for giving preliminary notice of nonrenewal to teachers for 2011-2012 would be February 28, 2011, but it would be preferable to have such notices issued by the 25th. Further, school districts that have always adhered to the section 118.22 nonrenewal deadlines to enact staff reductions must consider whether there is a need to issue additional preliminary notices of nonrenewal/staff reduction by the statutory deadline.

ACTION: WASB's Employment and Labor Law Staff encourages all school districts to give public notice of a special school board meeting for Thursday February 25, 2011 (or Friday February 26th if meeting on the 25th is not possible).

WASB website.

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Data for Action 2010: DQC's State Analysis

Data Quality Campaign:

This presentation discusses the results of the DQC's sixth annual state analysis Data for Action 2010, a powerful policymaking tool to drive education leaders to use data in decision making.

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Pennsylvania's Unaccountable Voucher Bill

Lawrence Feinberg:

In support of Pennsylvania's Senate Bill 1, which would provide taxpayer-funded vouchers to private schools, voucher evangelists have been citing a report by the Foundation for Educational Choice, "A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on How Vouchers Affect Public Schools." However, a review of the report by the National Education Policy Center finds no credible evidence that vouchers have improved student achievement.

Located at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the National Education Policy Center aims to provide high-quality information on education policy. Its review found that the "Win-Win" report, "based on a review of 17 studies, selectively reads the evidence in some of those studies, the majority of which were produced by voucher advocacy organizations.

"Moreover, the report can't decide whether or not to acknowledge the impact of factors other than vouchers on public schools. It attempts to show that public school gains were caused by the presence of vouchers alone, but then argues that the lack of overall gains for districts with vouchers should be ignored because too many other factors are at play." The review goes on to note that "existing research provides little reliable information about the competitive effects of vouchers, and this report does little to help answer the question."

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Your Life Torn Open, essay 1: Sharing is a trap

Andrew Keen:

The author of The Cult Of The Amateur argues that if we lose our privacy we sacrifice a fundamental part of our humanity.

Every so often, when I'm in Amsterdam, I visit the Rijksmuseum to remind myself about the history of privacy. I go there to gaze at a picture called The Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, which was painted by Jan Vermeer in 1663. It is of an unidentified Dutch woman avidly reading a letter. Vermeer's picture, to borrow a phrase from privacy advocates Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren, is a celebration of the "sacred precincts of private and domestic life". It's as if the artist had kept his distance in order to capture the young woman, cocooned in her private world, at her least socially visible.

Today, as social media continues radically to transform how we communicate and interact, I can't help thinking with a heavy heart about The Woman in Blue. You see, in the networking age of Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, the social invisibility that Vermeer so memorably captured is, to excuse the pun, disappearing. That's because, as every Silicon Valley notable, from Eric Schmidt to Mark Zuckerberg, has publicly acknowledged, privacy is dead: a casualty of the cult of the social. Everything and everyone on the internet is becoming collaborative. The future is, in a word, social.

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Detroit Schools' Cuts Plan Approved

Matthew Dolan:

The state of Michigan approved a plan for Detroit to close about half of its public schools and increase the average size of high-school classrooms to 60 students over the next four years to eliminate a $327 million deficit.

The plan was submitted in January by Robert Bobb, Detroit Public Schools' emergency financial manager, as a last-ditch scenario if the district couldn't find new revenue sources, which it hasn't so far. Final approval came after Mike Flanagan, the state superintendent of public instruction, cleared Mr. Bobb's initial plan with some new requirements, including that the district not file for bankruptcy protection during Mr. Bobb's remaining months in office.

The state approved the plan in a Feb. 8 letter, which the Detroit public-schools district released Monday.

Mr. Bobb said the deep cuts were necessary if the district hoped to be solvent again without additional state aid. But he said the strategy was ultimately ill-advised because it will likely drive even more students away, depriving the district of needed state funds, which Michigan apportions on the basis of enrollment.

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Teachers in Fort to be docked pay

Ryan Whisner:

Teachers in the School District of Fort Atkinson will not be paid for time taken off to participate in the ongoing protests at the State Capitol in Madison.

Fort Atkinson was among districts that were forced to cancel classes Friday in response to the number of teachers who failed to report for class, apparently opting to attend the protests on the governor's budget-repair bill. No Jefferson County schools were closed today due to either weather or the protests.

Following the adverse public reactions to teachers' departures causing school closures, the head of Wisconsin's teachers' union called upon educators to return to classrooms today and Tuesday rather than continue being absent to protest the anti-union bill in Madison.

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2010-2011 Madison School District Citizen's Budget

Superintendent Dan Nerad, 74K PDF:

Attached to this memorandum you will find the Fall Revised Budget version of the 2010-11 Citizen's Budget. The Citizen's Budget is intended to present financial information to the community in a format that is more easily understood. The first report includes 2009-10 Revised Budget, 2010-11 Revised Budget and groups expenditures into categories outlined as follows:
  • In-School Operations
  • Curriculum & Teacher Development & Support
  • Facilities, Other Than Debt Service
  • Transportation
  • Food Service
  • Business Services
  • Human Resources
  • General Administration
  • Debt Service
  • District-Wide
  • MSCR
The second report associates revenue sources with the specific expenditure area they are meant to support. In those areas where revenues are dedicated for a specific purpose (ie. Food Services) the actual amount is represented. In many areas of the budget, revenues had to be prorated to expenditures based on percentage that each specific expenditure bears of the total expenditure budget. It is also important to explain that property tax funds made up the difference between expenditures and all other sources of revenues. The revenues were broken out into categories as follows:
  • Local Non-Tax Revenue
  • Equalized & Categorical State Aid
  • Direct Federal Aid
  • Direct State Aid
  • Property Taxes
Both reports combined represent the 2010-11 Fall Revised Citizens Budget. This report can also be found on the District's web site.

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New Way to Check Out eBooks

Katherine Boehret:

Get out your library cards: Now you can wirelessly download electronic books from your local library using the Apple iPad or an Android tablet.

Last week, OverDrive Inc. released OverDrive Media Console for the iPad, a free app from Apple's App Store. With the app, you can now borrow eBooks for reading on the go with a tablet.

You can already borrow an eBook from a library using an eReader, including the Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble Nook, but you'll need a PC and a USB cable for downloading and synching. Amazon's Kindle doesn't allow borrowing eBooks from libraries.

For the past week, I borrowed and wirelessly downloaded digital books onto tablets primarily using OverDrive, the largest distributor of eBooks for libraries. I tested the OverDrive Media Console for the iPad. I also used the Dell Streak 7 tablet to test the app on the Android operating system; this app also works on Android smartphones. An iPhone app is available.

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A review of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage

Barton Swaim:

The third edition of the work of the brilliant and cantankerous Englishman H. W. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, published in 1996, signaled the triumph of the descriptivist view of language--the view, that is, that the lexicographer's duty is merely to describe the language as it's used, not to make pronouncements about how it ought to be used. It also signaled the triumph of tedium over enjoyment, and of abstract truth over utility. Edited by the late R. W. Burchfield, The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, as the third edition was titled, addressed all the significant questions about English grammar and usage and explained with sufficient clarity the ways in which those questions have been addressed in the past.

But it only gave unambiguous counsel if there were some practical reason for it, and then only in the mildest terms: "this use should probably be eschewed." If you wanted to know whether "their" may refer to singular antecedents, for example (If someone isn't doing their job, they should be fired), Burchfield told you that "the issue is unresolved, but it begins to look as if the use . . . is now passing unnoticed." Maybe the issue is "unresolved," one thought, but could you please resolve it and tell me whether I should write "they" or "he" or "he or she" and so avoid sounding like an ignoramus to an educated audience? For his part, Fowler--the original Fowler--had called this use of the plural pronoun a "mistake." He acknowledged rare instances of the use in Fielding and Thackeray, but suggested that "few good writers" could get away with it.

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February 22, 2011

Final report of the Governor's Task Force on Transforming Education in Kentucky

11.5MB PDF

The keys to success lie beyond K-12 education. It is critical to ensure that the earliest learners - those birth to age 5 - come to school prepared for learning in a school setting and that college students not only enter college but also succeed.

The recommendations made in this report align with and support these values. In addition to initiatives already underway, the task force recommends the following priorities, as well as the complete recommendations found in the full report:

  • Reorganize the Early Childhood Development Authority; create a system of support, including parent education, for students at all levels of kindergarten readiness; and create common school readiness standards and instruments.
  • Include sufficient funding in the state budget to improve access to effective, high-quality preschool programs.
  • Require, beginning in 2012-2013, collaboration among state-funded preschool, Head Start, and qualified child care programs in order to access state funding.
  • Create family literacy programs dedicating new state resources to provide comprehensive family engagement in all schools, especially the Commonwealth's lowest achieving schools.
  • Raise the compulsory school age, effective in 2016, from 16 to 18 with state-funded supports for students at risk of dropping out.
  • Create an advisory council, the Advanced Credit Advisory Council, to recommend policies, legislation, and a comprehensive funding model for advanced secondary coursework, college credit during high school, and early graduation options for the 2012 General Assembly.
  • Establish a steering committee to develop a comprehensive statewide plan for implementing a new model of secondary career and technical education with an emphasis on innovation, integration of core academics, 21st-century skills, project-based learning, and the establishment of full-time CTE programs, for implementation in the 2012 General Assembly.
  • Implement policies to enhance and expand virtual and blended learning, including funding options to ensure equitable access to students across the Commonwealth.
  • Include funding in the state budget to expand programs in Kentucky to recruit high-quality teacher candidates, including those who may enter through alternative certification routes.
  • Ensure school districts incorporate a balance of technology-enhanced formative and summative assessments that measure student mastery of 21st-century skills.

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Tennessee vs. the Teacher's Union

John Carney:

State Sen. Jim Tracy of Shelbyville, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, has said in a letter that he supports teachers but that teachers unions "are in the business of protecting membership and power, not serving the best interests of students or the teachers they represent."
Tracy also said teachers are receiving misinformation about some of the current proposals.

Tracy released the letter after news stories quoting his comments from a recent committee meeting. Gov. Bill Haslam's first legislative agenda includes proposals to make it more difficult for teachers to gain tenure.

"This is not at all about pointing fingers at the teachers," Haslam said. "It's about raising standards for all of us."

The governor said he's not taking a position on a bill that would eliminate teachers' collective bargaining rights that was advanced to a full Senate vote earlier this week.

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Charter school says it's private, though it gets millions in tax dollars

Joel Hood:

A Chicago charter school that has received more than $23 million in public money since opening in 2004 is arguing that it is a private institution, a move teachers say is designed to block them from forming a union.

In papers filed with the National Labor Relations Board, attorneys for the Chicago Math and Science Academy on the city's North Side say the school should be exempt from an Illinois law that grants employees of all public schools the right to form unions for contract negotiations.

The school of about 600 students is appealing an unfavorable decision by a regional director of the national labor board. Academy officials say charter schools don't have the governmental ties that characterize public schools, such as government-appointed leadership or controls over wages, hours and working conditions. In other words, they say, the same freedoms over personnel and policy that many credit to charter schools' success are also indicative of their independence.

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NJ schools superintendents' pay cap debated

Bob Jordan:

Gov. Chris Christie's controversial salary cap on new contracts for New Jersey public school superintendents is on track to cut about 10 percent from the combined $100 million currently paid to school chiefs throughout the state.

The pay ceiling went into effect Feb. 7, despite challenges from a superintendents' association, which says the cap will lead to massive turnover and discourage rising administrators from seeking the jobs.

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Michigan's Planned K-12 Budget Reductions

Associated Press:

State schools superintendent Mike Flanagan is urging Michigan educators and parents not to "panic" over Gov. Rick Snyder's budget plan that calls for spending cuts for cash-strapped public schools.

Flanagan said Friday in a podcast that Snyder is calling "for sacrifices from all of us, including schools" and urges school officials to remain calm despite the call for education cuts, The Grand Rapids Press reports.

"I'm asking all of us to hear this budget message and not do something I did as a superintendent 20 years ago and panic," he said.

Snyder's budget plan released Thursday proposes cutting public school funding by $470 per student, while intermediate school districts would be cut 5 percent.

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Why does college cost so much?

Tyler Cowen:

David Leonhardt serves up a dialogue with Robert B. Archibald, and also David H. Feldman. Archibald starts by citing the cost disease and also the heavy use of skilled labor in the sector. I don't think they get to the heart of the matter, as there is no mention of entry barriers, whether legal, cultural, or economic. The price of higher education is rising -- rapidly -- and yet a) individual universities do not have strong incentives to take in larger classes, and b) it is hard to start a new, good college or university. The key question is how much a) and b) are remediable in the longer run and if so then there is some chance that the current structure of higher education is a bubble of sorts.

I never see the authors utter the sentence: "There are plenty wanna-bee professors discarded on the compost heap of academic history." Yet the best discard should not be much worse, and may even be better, than the marginally accepted professor. Such a large pool of surplus labor would play a significant role in an economic analysis of virtually any other sector.

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Back to school for kids, teachers -- But back to normal? Not quite

Matthew DeFour & Gena Kittner:

Madison schools will open Tuesday for the first time in a week, but it won't be just any other school day.

Civil rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson will greet East High School students over the loudspeaker in the morning. Students have made posters in support of their teachers. And classrooms likely will be buzzing with discussion over the four-day teacher walkout prompted by Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to limit collective bargaining.

With that backdrop, district officials have been preparing principals and staff for what could be a dramatic day.

"We know that there's a lot of emotion here and we need to recognize that there's a lot of upset and upset in the parent community as well," Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad said.

Meanwhile: Jesse Jackson to Address Madison East High School Students Tuesday.

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K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Federal, state and local debt hits post-WWII levels

Steven Mufson:

The daunting tower of national, state and local debt in the United States will reach a level this year unmatched just after World War II and already exceeds the size of the entire economy, according to government estimates.

But any similarity between 1946 and now ends there. The U.S. debt levels tumbled in the years after World War II, but today they are still climbing and even deep cuts in spending won't completely change that for several years.

As President Obama and Republicans squabble over whose programs to cut and which taxes to raise, slow growth and a rising tide of interest payments - largely beyond their control - are making the job of fixing the budget much harder than in the past. Statehouses and governors face similar challenges.

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You can lead kids to broccoli, but you can't make them eat

Monica Eng:

Anyone who has ever tried to sneak healthy food into kids' lunches knows what Chicago Public Schools is going through.

Sometimes kids openly embrace the new food. Sometimes they eat it without realizing the difference. And sometimes they refuse it altogether.

CPS has met with all three reactions this school year, when it stopped serving daily nachos, Pop-Tarts and doughnuts and introduced healthier options at breakfast and lunch. But in a sign of how challenging this transition can be for schools, district figures show that lunch sales for September through December dropped by about 5 percentage points since the previous year, or more than 20,000 lunches a day.

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Schools can't hide from Washington state budget ax

Donna Gordon Blankinship:

The Washington Constitution makes education the highest priority of state government, but that doesn't stop lawmakers from cutting the money they spend on schools.

In fact, education spending as a percentage of the state budget has been declining for years.

In the past decade, education spending has gone from close to 50 percent to just above 40 percent of the state budget, despite the fact that some education spending is protected by the constitution.

The key to understanding state spending on education lies in knowing what qualifies as basic education and what does not. The definitions - some obvious, some less so - have been crafted over the years by state lawmakers, with pressure from the Washington Supreme Court.

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February 21, 2011

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Matt Taibbi:

Financial crooks brought down the world's economy -- but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them

Instead, federal regulators and prosecutors have let the banks and finance companies that tried to burn the world economy to the ground get off with carefully orchestrated settlements -- whitewash jobs that involve the firms paying pathetically small fines without even being required to admit wrongdoing. To add insult to injury, the people who actually committed the crimes almost never pay the fines themselves; banks caught defrauding their shareholders often use shareholder money to foot the tab of justice. "If the allegations in these settlements are true," says Jed Rakoff, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, "it's management buying its way off cheap, from the pockets of their victims."

To understand the significance of this, one has to think carefully about the efficacy of fines as a punishment for a defendant pool that includes the richest people on earth -- people who simply get their companies to pay their fines for them. Conversely, one has to consider the powerful deterrent to further wrongdoing that the state is missing by not introducing this particular class of people to the experience of incarceration. "You put Lloyd Blankfein in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for one six-month term, and all this bullshit would stop, all over Wall Street," says a former congressional aide. "That's all it would take. Just once."

But that hasn't happened. Because the entire system set up to monitor and regulate Wall Street is fucked up.

Just ask the people who tried to do the right thing.

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State Workers in Wisconsin See a Fraying of Union Bonds

AG Sulzberger & Monica Davey:

Among the top five employers here are the county, the schools and the city. And that was enough to make Mr. Hahan, a union man from a union town, a supporter of Gov. Scott Walker's sweeping proposal to cut the benefits and collective-bargaining rights of public workers in Wisconsin, a plan that has set off a firestorm of debate and protests at the state Capitol. He says he still believes in unions, but thinks those in the public sector lead to wasteful spending because of what he sees as lavish benefits and endless negotiations.

"Something needs to be done," he said, "and quickly."

Across Wisconsin, residents like Mr. Hahan have fumed in recent years as tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs have vanished, and as some of the state's best-known corporations have pressured workers to accept benefit cuts.

Wisconsin's financial problems are not as dire as those of many other states. But a simmering resentment over those lost jobs and lost benefits in private industry -- combined with the state's history of highly polarized politics -- may explain why Wisconsin, once a pioneer in supporting organized labor, has set off a debate that is spreading to other states over public workers, unions and budget woes.

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Ed Hughes on Madison Teacher Absences & Protest

Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes, via email:

It's been a non-quiet week here in Madison. Everyone has his or her own take on the events. Since I'm a member of the Madison School Board, mine is necessarily a management perspective. Here's what the week's been like for me.

Nearly as soon as the governor's budget repair bill was released last Friday, I had a chance to look at a summary and saw what it did to collective bargaining rights. Basically, the bill is designed to gut public employee unions, including teacher unions. While it does not outlaw such unions outright, it eliminates just about all their functions.

Our collective bargaining agreement with MTI is currently about 165 pages, which I think is way too long. If the bill passes, our next collective bargaining agreement can be one paragraph -- way, way, way too short.

On Monday, Board members collaborated on a statement condemning the legislation and the rush to push it through. All Board members signed the statement on Monday evening and it was distributed to all MMSD staff on Tuesday.

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There will be peace in the Valley. But anger in Wisconsin

Brian S. Hall:

It is no coincidence that the night President Obama sat down for a lovely dinner with a dozen of America's richest executives in Silicon Valley this week, that protests in Wisconsin over budget cuts and union worker rights reached a fever pitch. Though the President paid lip service to the protesters, a well-heeled, well-funded voting bloc he will no doubt rely on heavily for the 2012 presidential race, he understood what mattered most -- to him and America.
  • Technology
  • Innovation
  • Globalization
  • Education -- as offered by highly competitive colleges and universities that have little to no monopoly power
  • Entrepreneurialism - unshackled from government regulations, free from unionized labor and unfettered by legacy depictions of work and economy and business
Politics may force President Obama to become more actively, more visibly involved in the events of Wisconsin, where public worker unions, essentially America's last remaining unions, fight for de facto guarantees of job security, lifetime healthcare, lifetime benefits, sanctioned limits on hours worked and on responsibilities blurred. But the President is acutely aware that, as protests in Egypt offered a glimpse into the future, protests in Madison, Wisconsinwere a reminder of America's past.

This is Tea Party Redux. The Union Strikes Back. Yet just as with the angry tea party protests from two years ago, the song remains the same. Large swaths of Americans, having been party to an unspoken agreement that they would have a guaranteed middle class life, filled with highly targeted government benefits -- which they repeatedy insisted they "earned" and which they knew could not survive should they be spread throughout the wider population -- so too is it with the government worker unions. Unlike the entirety of the US population, they have a unique sanctuary within the American economy. Just like those in the Tea Party voiced their angry over policies that diminished their unique standing, in America and the world, so too do the protests in Wisconsin reflect anger and fear over exactly the same concerns. Both groups, of course, argued, believed perhaps, that what was good for them was good for workers, good for the middle class, good for America.

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Unions vs. The Common Good

The Chicago Tribune via The Milwaukee Drum:

America's labor movement can claim historic victories that have served the common good. Safer workplaces. Laws to protect children from workplace exploitation. The eight-hour workday. Those who are in unions can justifiably be proud of those and other accomplishments.

But how proud are they that the children of Madison, Wis., have missed school the last two days because so many of their teachers abandoned their classrooms and joined a mass demonstration? Joined a mass demonstration to intimidate the members of the Wisconsin Legislature, who are trying to close a $3 billion deficit they face over the next two years?

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has demanded that state workers contribute roughly 5.8 percent of their wages toward their retirement. He wants them to pay for 12 percent of their health-care premiums. Those modest employee contributions would be the envy of many workers in the private sector.

Walker wants government officials to have authority to reshape public-employee benefits without collective bargaining. Walker wouldn't remove the right of unions to bargain for wages.

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Former Monona School Board Member Mary Possin on Teacher Unions

Mary Possin

To the Monona Grove School Board,
The group of people in this school district who have sat across the bargaining table from the MGEA is rather small, and I am one of them. Bargaining with the MGEA was, hands down, the most bizarre and surreal trip through the looking glass I have ever experienced. I could drone on about a myriad of frustrations, but all else aside, I could never understand their complete and utter failure to realize the MG school board was not only not their enemy, but we also lacked the statutory power to improve their wages and benefits. While we could partake in rearranging the deck chairs on our own little Titanic, purchasing additional life boats was not within our power. Simply put, they directed a whole lot of energy toward a group who was essentially powerless all the while engaging in job actions that did little but harm students, demoralize many of their own members and generate ill will among the public. At times my own children were targeted, so please understand what I say next comes within this context.

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Dawn of the dumbest school data

Mr. Teachbad:

Dawn of the dumbest data ... data-driven dementia... data: It keeps teachers busy. Take your pick. But these cats at my school really have to be stopped.

As you may suspect, we here at my school are "data-driven." That's right. There is no substitute for data. And the best thing about it, from an administrator's point of view, is that you don't have to worry about how long it takes teachers to collect the data or if it is really of any value in the first place. Just collect that data and tell everybody that you are collecting it and using it to make data-driven decisions ... for the kids. The rest, my friend, will fall into place. No worries.

Here is our scenario:

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Why do great school systems fear charters?

Jay Matthews:

I admire the erudite and public-spirited members of the Montgomery County Board of Education. Their superintendent, Jerry D. Weast, is one of the best in the business, a national leader with a smart staff.

So why are they so frightened of two little charter schools?

The Maryland State Department of Education shares my puzzlement. It looked carefully at the two most recent Montgomery charter applicants, Global Garden Public Charter School and Crossway Montessori Charter School, and promised them a $550,000 grant each once they got their charter approved. The charter groups had fresh ideas, energetic supporters and experienced educators, including two members of the Global Garden board who worked in Montgomery schools.

That was not enough to quell the fears of Weast's staff and an assortment of internal and external advisers. Weast's nine-page summary of their worries reads like a neurotic mother's letter to her son at summer camp, bemoaning all the terrible things that might happen to him.

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School Board Vote Called 'Modern-Day Segregation'

NPR

In a controversial move, the Wake County School board in North Carolina voted to end its "busing-for-diversity" program in favor of sending children to schools in their own neighborhood. Host Liane Hansen talks with Superintendent Tony Tata, a military brigadier general and the former COO of the D.C. school system.

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K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Thanks for flying Air USA. Please ignore the exits

Spencer Jakab:

Perhaps this comes from too much time spent on airplanes but this week's White House budget projections reminded me of nothing more than a pre-flight safety video. The voiceover tells passengers to "stay calm and listen for instructions from the cabin crew in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure" as eerily placid actors carefully strap on their oxygen masks or inflate their underseat life vests before attending to their children.

Of course this bears no resemblance to the unbridled panic that would ensue if a hole opened up in the fuselage at 35,000 feet. Perhaps US government economists operate on the same principle as airlines who refrain from showing videos of passengers trampling one another underfoot as the cabin fills with smoke. On the current fiscal trajectory, investors in America's Treasury market will rush madly for the emergency exits one of these days, but official forecasts assume they will never even break a sweat.

Of all the variables in any budget projection - economic growth, taxes, foreign military engagements - the thorniest is what Treasury investors will do. Discretionary items and even entitlements like social security can be cut but interest must be paid no matter what and, in the absence of perpetual quantitative easing, the government must pay what the market deems fair.

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K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Enough with trickery; just fix the problem

The Milwaukee Journal - Sentinel:

Wisconsin's fiscal crisis is real - not something ginned up by Gov. Scott Walker as a way to punish political opponents. The numbers don't lie. Like many other states, Wisconsin is in a fiscal quagmire, and not one of Walker's making.

The state has a budget hole of $3.6 billion for the 2011-'13 period. The budget must be balanced. But this time, it must not be "balanced" through trickery and gimmicks. This time, it should be balanced in fact as well as in theory. Walker intends to do that.

Walker is scheduled to deliver his budget address on Tuesday, although he may not release the budget document until later. We encourage the governor to show not only fiscal prudence but also ideological restraint. And we urge Walker to take special care with programs that help Wisconsin's most vulnerable citizens. Fairness and compassion should not take a holiday.

Walker's tough approach with state public employee unions in his budget repair bill is justified; their benefits for too long have been exempt from scrutiny. The governor's proposals would save $300 million over the next two years, he says.

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Why school zero tolerance policies make no sense

Valerie Strauss:

The discipline policy in Fairfax County public schools failed Nick Stuban.

Stuban was a 15-year-old football player at W.T. Woodson High School who committed suicide during a disciplinary process that he was forced to undergo after he purchased a capsule of a legal substance.

According to a story by my colleague Donna St. George, he was kept out of school for seven weeks and not allowed on the school grounds to attend weekly Boy Scout meetings, sports events, or driver's education sessions. He killed himself Jan. 20.

This is not say the disciplinary system drove him to kill himself, or another boy before him in 2009. Suicide is complicated, and the reasons someone decides to take his/her own life are complex and often unknowable.

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More schools convert to charters as California education funds dip

Associated Press:

More traditional neighborhood schools are looking to operate as charters because they can get huge increases in funding as well as flexibility in how they use it.

The latest example is El Camino Real High School, one of Los Angeles Unified School District's star schools.

Although conversions are holding steady at about 10 percent of new charters nationally, in California they're on the rise. Long a forerunner in the charter school movement, the Golden State saw a jump in the number of conversions from six in 2009 to 16 in 2010, according to the California Charter School Association.

It's a troubling pattern for school districts -- every student enrolled in a charter means a funding loss, and defections of their own schools and principals are a blow to district esteem.

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February 20, 2011

Milwaukee & Madison Public Schools to be Closed Monday, 2/21/2011 Due to Teacher Absences

Tom Kertscher:

Milwaukee Public Schools is closed Monday for Presidents Day, according to a statement on the home page of the district's website.

Superintendent Gregory Thornton said in the statement he wants to "assure families that we intend to have classes on Tuesday as scheduled."

The home page also includes a "fact sheet for families" about the demonstrations in Madison. It says MPS closed schools Friday because more than 1,000 MPS teachers attended the demonstrations. Another day of school will be added to make up for Friday, and teachers who were absent without leave face possible disciplinary action ranging from pay deductions to termination, according the fact sheet.

Members of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association union plan to participate in demonstrations in Madison on Monday.

The Madison Metropolitan School District, which was scheduled to be open for Presidents Day, will close because of "substantial concerns about significant staff absences," according to a statement issues Sunday evening by the district.

However, classes are scheduled to resume Tuesday because the district "received assurances" that teachers would return then, the statement said.

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Why the world's youth is in a revolting state of mind

Martin Wolf:

In Tunisia and Egypt, the young are rebelling against old rulers. In Britain, they are in revolt against tuition fees. What do these young people have in common? They are suffering, albeit in different ways, from what David Willetts, the UK government's minister of higher education, called the "pinch" in a book published last year.

In some countries, the challenge is an excess of young people; in others, it is that the young are too few. But where the young outnumber the old, they can hope to secure a better fate through the ballot box. Where the old outnumber the young, they can use the ballot box to their advantage, instead. In both cases, powerful destabilising forces are at work, bringing opportunity to some and disappointment to others.

Demography is destiny. Humanity is in the grip of three profound transformations: first, a far greater proportion of children reaches adulthood; second, women have far fewer children; and, third, adults live far longer. These changes are now working through the world, in sequence. The impact of the first has been to raise the proportion of the population that is young. The impact of the second is the reverse, decreasing the proportion of young people. The third, in turn, increases the proportion of the population that is very old. The impact of the entire process is first to expand the population and, later on, to shrink it once again.

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Gifted Programs Go on Block as Schools Must Do With Less

Jennifer Gollan:

When she was just 3, Teela Huff understood how to add numbers. By third grade, she was tutoring her peers.

"She can explain the problems to you without making you feel stupid," one of Teela's classmates wrote of her, according to her father, Tom.

But Teela's quick mind -- she is now a 10-year-old fifth grader but reads at a 12th-grade level -- meant her classes at Silver Oak Elementary in San Jose were often boring and frustrating. She finally enrolled in a program for gifted children, where students wrestled with things like mind-bending math riddles and thought-provoking questions like how to survive on a desert island. And she loved it.

Her new adventures in learning ended in September, however, when the Evergreen School District eliminated all programs for its 790 or so gifted children. The move was part of a statewide wave of cuts in a program known as Gifted and Talented Education.

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California School District Uses GPS to Track Truant Students

David Murphy:

Not even Ferris Bueller himself could have gotten around this one: A six-week pilot program by California's Anaheim Union High School District is testing the use of technology to combat tardiness amongst the district's seventh- and eighth-grade population.

How it works is fairly simple. Students with four or more unexcused absences in a year--approximately 75 are enrolled in the Anaheim test--are given handheld GPS devices instead of detentions or prosecutions. To make sure that said students are in school when they should be, the students are required to check in using the devices during five preset intervals: When they leave for school in the morning, when they arrive at school, lunchtime, when they leave school, and at 8 p.m. each day.

And if that's not enough, students in the program also receive a phone call each and every day to tell them that it's time to get up and get to school. An adult coach also calls the students three times per week to check up and discuss different methods the students can employ to ensure that they're where they should be at any given point during the day.

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Jeopardy is just the start for Watson

Christopher Caldwell:

Americans must be either very excited about the artificial intelligence that IBM has built into a new computer called "Watson" or very scared. This week, when Watson competed on ABC's Jeopardy against two of the best players in the quiz show's history, the network got its highest ratings in six years. Crammed full of data from reference books and trained to understand questions in regular human speech, Watson wiped its human rivals out, correctly answering questions on everything from who wrote the Études-Tableaux for piano (Sergei Rachmaninoff) to who designed the Emmanuel College chapel at Cambridge (Christopher Wren).

The feat has been compared to the 1997 victory of IBM's chess-playing computer, Deep Blue, over Garry Kasparov, the world's champion at the time. But for a computer to master language is a far more unsettling encroachment on the sanctum of uniquely human behaviours than superiority in a game played on an 8-by-8 grid. Outside the walls of IBM headquarters, Watson has provoked mostly anxiety - over the practical question of what jobs it will destroy, and the metaphysical question of whether talking machines will erode our sense of what it means to be human.

To some extent, this is a misunderstanding. Watson is not a smart machine that has shown its intelligence by winning at Jeopardy. It is a Jeopardy-playing machine which, after years of tinkering by dozens of IBM's top scientists, now works reasonably well. As big as a room, it combines a supercharged version of the grammar check on your word-processing software with a supercharged version of Google's "I'm feeling lucky" button.

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The standoff in Madison and the fallout for 2012

Craig Gilbert:

The explosive budget debate in Madison, like the explosive budget debate in Washington, is setting the table for 2012.

Part of the same struggle, the two battles are now feeding off each other, defining the parties and a broader political argument that both sides hope to somehow "settle" in the next election.

Some political consequences of the stand-off in Wisconsin are hard to predict, such as which side will win the fight for public opinion and where else the battle will "spread."

Others are more immediate. One obvious consequence of Gov. Scott Walker's push to curtail bargaining rights for public employees is the fire he has lighted under Democrats, labor and the left. While there are many ways the issue could play out over the coming months, this fact alone has significance for 2012, since by any measure Democratic voters were less motivated in 2010 than their GOP counterparts.

"Gov. Walker has done more to galvanize progressives and working people than anyone possibly could have done ... By going at people's throats and trying to destroy their rights, he has not only galvanized people in Wisconsin but across the country," former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said in an interview Thursday, a day after launching a new political action committee.

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Grand jury: We would abolish inept School Board

Megan O'Matz:

A statewide grand jury investigating the Broward School District issued a scathing final report Friday evening, saying there was evidence of such widespread "malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance" by school board members and senior managers alike that only "corruption of our officials by contractors, vendors and their lobbyists" could explain it.

Leadership in the district is so lacking, the jurors said, they would move to abolish the whole School Board if only the state constitution would allow it.

The panel met in secret for a year, reviewed hundreds of documents and took widespread testimony reaching from past and current School Board members to school principals and secretaries. The conclusion: The district suffers from "gross mismanagement and apparent ineptitude" on a grand scale.

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Idealism, confidence about schools' future seems to run short

Alan Borsuk:

What do we want in the schools our children attend? People have a lot more in common in answering that than you might think.

A warm, caring environment, one where teachers, staff, parents and especially children feel like they count.

Good teachers. Beyond all the debate about how to improve teacher quality, anyone who ever went to school knows there are people who are really good teachers and people who aren't, because we had them both. And we want our kids to have good ones.

Small classes, or at least ones of reasonable size. The research on class size paints a somewhat mixed picture of how important it really is. A top flight teacher with a few more kids in the class is better than someone who is not very good with fewer kids. That said, show me parents who want larger classes for their kids and I'll show you really rare parents.

Enriching programs. They come in a lot of different, very good forms, but in every case, these are programs in which children become good at reading and reasonably good at math. Students gain a grasp of science, social studies, history. They get exposure to music and art and physical education. They learn how to learn. Positive character traits and habits are built and reinforced. Students work hard but have fun, too.

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Report: Public employees make less, including benefits, than private workers

Steven Verburg:

Gov. Scott Walker argues that public employees can sacrifice more of their paychecks for health insurance and retirement because they pay so little for those benefits compared to workers at private companies.

Walker is correct about the disparity, but a new report by the liberal Economic Policy Institute suggests that looking at benefits alone is misleading.

The study looks at total compensation - pay and benefits together - and found that public workers earn 4.8 percent less than private sector employees with the same qualifications and traits doing similar jobs.

Average compensation for public workers is higher because the jobs they do - such as teaching - require a relatively high level of education, and a higher education is one of the main factors that drives wages up, said Ethan Pollack, a senior policy analyst at the institute.

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February 19, 2011

This Budget Hawk SUPPORTS MMSD Staff - A Response to ACE

I spoke in support of teachers at Monday night's meeting (2/14). I spoke from my seat as a board member. I appear to have missed the instructions to do so as private citizens (from board counsel) because SB11 was not on the agenda.

First, I find it bizarre that board members are not supposed to respond to comments from the public during public appearances. That is a long-standing tradition in this district, and any board responses are construed as just that. Responses from individual board members, not a board vote or proposal for board policy or action.

Second, I get the anger over taxes, property taxes and school costs. I am a non-union state employee who is paying more for benefits (already), lost the pay raise I was promised, and took a 3% pay cut from what I was earning through the mandated furlough system that we work within. I am seeing a great deal of pain in both the public and the private sector as we ALL deal with job insecurity, shaky hours, and a range of nasty impacts from the bad economy.

In full disclosure, I am a former union member who was on strike for six weeks in 1980. I agree with MTI on some issues, and strongly disagree on others. I support the right to bargain collectively. Period.

I also believe that it is reasonable to assert that I typically am the most consistent critic of MMSD when it comes to budget decisions and fiscal policy. I do not always prevail, but I have fought long and hard for transparency and for decisions that minimize the impact on property taxes.

This budget hawk believes that SB11 is draconian, malicious, and counterproductive to the goals the governor claims that he wants to achieve. I do not believe that it is necessary to end the right to bargain anything but wages in order to close Wisconsin's budget gap. I also note that the gap is less than we were led to believe (unless we are now saying that the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau is a tool of union sympathizers.)

I do not believe that the proposal to recertify collective bargaining organizations each year will enhance productivity or come without significant costs in conducting and verifying certification results. And I am stumped as to how turning back federal funds for Title I (aid to schools with high levels of poverty) will in any way improve schools or close the budget gap.

Speaking on the 14th, I responded that I find it unfortunate that this is portrayed as solely a debate over benefits and pay. It is not. It is about the rights that were won through established and legal systems labor organization, union formation, and collective bargaining. It is about the attempt to de facto decertify public sector unions rather than go through a decertification vote. That this is being done in a one-week timeline is mind boggling in its exercise of unilateral power.

Simplistic rhetoric may be handy for people seeking to raise support for their cause, but it helps no one in addressing a fundamental and complex issue: should public employees have the right to unionize.

My answer is yes. The perverse claim that unionized public employees have refused to compromise on wages or benefits is simply untrue in my experience as a board member. Most of the unions that we work with have been willing to make changes to benefits and other conditions of work as we have responded to the biennial budget cuts in promised state aid. MTI has been the least willing to concede. However, its members have overwhelmingly voted to reduce health insurance costs by choosing GHC vs. the far more expensive WPS programs.

The non-economic protections afforded union members have been immeasurable in protecting staff who have spoken out in the interest of helping students, saving district funds and cutting expenses, and improving safety and well-being within our schools.This applies to the full range of staff, not just teachers: aides, nurses, nursing assistants, custodians, trades workers, social workers, psychologists, and clerical staff.

The structure of grievances and dispute resolution has been important to resolving conflicts within schools and between school staff and the district. Simply put, even when I disagree with our unions on important issues, I value the structures and processes that are in place. Unilaterally ending those structures and processes is not likely to improve much in our schools, and least of all for our students.

Worst of all, the rhetoric invoked by people supporting the governor and his trajectory, is shameful. Before any of us seek to trash the work done by public employees, it would be wise to think again about who will be out plowing your highways and streets when the next storm hits, or who is caring for your disabled neighbor or family member, or who is putting in extra time at school because their students need them.

And before trashing the board of education, I would encourage people to consider why it is that so few people are willing to run for that office when our schools so urgently need engagement and participation. We don't always agree with each other or with administration. But each one of us puts in long hours reading about the issues, consulting with the community and with staff, and working to find answers to confounding questions. If you do not like the way the board is running, there are elections every year. Run. And then do the job the way that you think it needs to be done.

In the meantime, this budget hawk will stand by our staff. Because the vast majority have stood by our children and our schools for the past 15+ years of cuts, teacher/school-bashing, and increasingly difficult challenges in and out of the classroom.

Posted by Lucy Mathiak at 9:00 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Panoramas from Pro-union, Tea Party rallies at the Wisconsin Capitol









Click on the images above to view the full screen panoramas on mac/pc/iPhone/iPad and Android devices. Look for one or two more panoramas tomorrow.






I've posted a number of still images, here.
Many Madison residents went about their weekend as always, including the ice fisherman captured in this scene (look closely for the eagle):

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Average Milwaukee Public Schools Teacher Salary Plus Benefits Tops $100,000; Ramifications

MacIver Institute:

For the first time in history, the average annual compensation for a teacher in the Milwaukee Public School system will exceed $100,000.

That staggering figure was revealed last night at a meeting of the MPS School Board.

The average salary for an MPS teacher is $56,500. When fringe benefits are factored in, the annual compensation will be $100,005 in 2011.

MacIver's Bill Osmulski has more in this video report.

Related Links: Finally, the economic and political issue in a nutshell: Wisconsin's taxbase is not keeping up with other states:

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Madison School District's "K-12 Literacy Program Evaluation"

Prepared by the Literacy Advisory Committee with support from the Hanover Research Council, 6MB PDF Recommendations and Costs pages 129-140, via a kind reader's email:

1. Intensify reading instruction in Kindergarten in order to ensure all No additional costs. Professional development provided by central students are proficient in oral reading and comprehension as office and building-based literacy staff must focus on Kindergarten. measured by valid and reliable assessments by 2011-2012. Instruction and assessment will be bench marked to ensure Kindergarten proficiency is at readinQ levels 3-7 {PLAA, 2009).

2. Fully implement Balanced Literacy in 2011-12 using clearly defined, Comprehensive Literacy Model (Linda Dorn), the MMSD Primary Literacy Notebook and the MMSD 3-5 Literacy Notebook.

a. Explore research-based reading curricula using the Board of Education Evaluation of Learning Materials Policy 3611 with particular focus on targeted and explicit instruction, to develop readers in Kindergarten.

b. Pilot the new reading curricula in volunteer schools during 2011-12.

c. Analyze Kindergarten reading proficiency scores from Kindergarten students in fully implemented Balanced Literacy schools and Kindergarten students in the volunteer schools piloting the new reading curricula incorporated into a

Balanced Literacy framework to inform next steps.
d. Continue pilot in volunteer schools in Grade 1 during 2012-13 and Grade 2 durino 2013-14. 2011-12 Budget Addition Request $250,000

3. Incorporate explicit reading instruction and literacy curricula into 6th grade instruction.

.....

3. Review previous Reading Recovery recommendations, with Additional Reading considerations to:

  • Place Reading Recovery Teachers in buildings as needed to (displaced rate when new teacher is hired).reflect the needs of 20% of our District's lowest performing first graders, regardless of what elementary school they may attend;
  • Analyze the other instructional assignments given to Reading Recovery teachers in order to maximize their expertise as highly skilled reading interventionists
  • Ensure standard case load for each Reading Recovery teacher at National Reading Recovery standards and guidelines (e.g. 8 students/year).
  • Place interventionists in buildings without Reading Recovery. Interventionists would receive professional development to lift the quality of interventions for students who need additional support in literacy.
Additional Reading Recovery and/or Interventionist FTE costs. 1 FTE-$79,915 (average rate when teacher is re-assigned). 1 new FTE-$61,180 (displaced rate when new teacher is hired).
Related:

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The Wisconsin Teachers' Crisis: Who's Really to Blame?

Andy Rotherham:

On Tuesday, Feb. 15, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan convened hundreds of teachers'-union leaders and school-district leaders in Denver to discuss ways management and labor could work together better. Kumbaya!
Two days later, all hell broke loose in Madison, Wis. The flash point was Republican Governor Scott Walker's plan to address the state's budget gap by making public employees contribute more to health care coverage, coupled with a proposal to eliminate collective bargaining for most public employees -- including teachers. Democratic state legislators went into hiding to thwart a vote on the measure, and schools closed as thousands of teachers left their classrooms to descend on the state capital.

The two episodes vividly illustrate the hope -- and the reality -- of labor-management issues in education today. As Madison becomes ground zero for the debate over government spending and public-sector reform, some hard questions are getting lost in political theatrics and overwrought rhetoric. Here are questions Wisconsin's governor, labor leaders and President Obama should have good answers for but so far don't:

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Reno's IB High School

Wooster IB High School: Reno, NV

# Design and implement strategies to meet high expectations while providing the support necessary to maintain student engaegment. (RIGOR)

# Embrace the teaching and learning of the core academic skills that build on foundations, connect to real-world applications, and ensure success beyond the classroom. (RELEVANCE)

# Encourage individuals to be self-advocating and responsible by promoting a positive, safe and accepting environment. (RELATIONSHIPS)

# Act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and high expectations for the diginty of the individual, group and community. (RESPECT).

Wooster's website includes a course syllabus.

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Nevade School District School District preparing to face difficult decisions

Robert Perea:

Cuts in its 2011-12 fiscal year budget figure to be painful for the Lyon County School District, but District officials hope to make sure those cuts have as little effect on students as possible.

District officials began brainstorming sessions last week, with the input from the members of the Board of Trustees' Budget Committee, to begin to identify and list priorities for which programs they are willing to cut.

LCSD Director of Finance Wade Johnson said the District's administration and the Board of Trustees will work to create a priority list of cuts and how much each cut could potentially save the District.

Then, when the District receives its actual budget figures, it will make whatever cuts have been prioritized to get down to the actual budget figure (listed for expenditures).

"Making concrete plans is premature, but we do need to start planning," Johnson said.

The Lyon County School District supports 8,730 students with an annual budget of $92,147,208 ($10,555,24/student). Locally, the 2011 State of the Madison School District reports $379,058,945 in planned 2010-2011 spending for 24,471 students. Madison's per student spending this year is $15,490.13.

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Charter schools are the Justin Bieber of education reform - a fad gone too far

Sam Gill:

President Obama released his 2012 budget proposal earlier this week to a fanfare of predictable criticism from the right and a few cries from the left. In a budget that saw cuts to many cherished programs, one of the big winners was education - with an 11 percent boost in total funding. Within education spending, however, the popular charter school movement wound up as a slight loser - with proposed funding reduced to $372 million after a pledge of $490 million in last year's budget.

While some charter school advocates may wring their hands over the slight reduction in proposed funding, the rest of us should be asking whether charter schools have been adequately scrutinized as part of a "tough choices" budget.

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A tale of three teachers: Checking in with protesters inside the Wisconsin Capitol

Bill Lueders:

There are as many stories to tell about the ongoing protests at the state Capitol are there are protesters - tens of thousands. This is a story about three protesters I spoke to today. I noticed them because of their sign: "Sauk Prairie teachers." On the back was another message: "Stop GOP Class War."

All three teach at Sauk Prairie High School. This is the second day in a row that they've come to Madison to protest Scott Walker's move to strip them of their collective bargaining rights and undercut their unions. It probably won't be the last.

Their names are Betty Koehl, Alison Turner and Lynn Frick. Betty has taught at Sauk Prairie High for nearly 30 years; she's a Sauk Prairie native and a graduate of that school. Alison has taught for eight years. It is her second career. From 1993, she worked "in this building as a legislative aide," for state Reps. Mark Meyer and Gwen Moore. Lynn has been a teacher for 26 years, 21 of them at Sauk Prairie.

I ask each of them why they are here, and what they hope to accomplish.

Responds Betty, "I taught social studies for 30 years and, as a citizen and worker, I have to stand up for my rights and show my students that it's important to stand up for what you believe in."

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February 18, 2011

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: University of Wisconsin Athletic department's budget is increased 6.3% (!) to $88.368 million for 2011-12

Andy Baggot:

The University of Wisconsin Athletic Department had its operating budget request of $88.368 million for 2011-12 approved without rancor or debate Friday.

Members of the UW Athletic Board voted unanimously to allow the department to spend $5.29 million more than its current operating budget of $83.219 million, an increase designed primarily to address two major capital projects.

The matter-of-fact process and calm pulse of the meeting was in contrast to the mood at the Capitol, where protesters, controversy and edgy rhetoric defined a state budget crisis.

Asked to weigh the two developments, UW athletic director Barry Alvarez acknowledged that sooner or later they will become one.

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Nampa police: Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna threatened, vehicle vandalized

Idaho Press Tribune:

Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna's vehicle was vandalized overnight at his Nampa home and he and his family have received threats, he told police.

"Yes, he has made us aware of threats to him and family members and we are looking into those, and we are aware of those, and we are doing what we can to provide protection," Nampa Police Deputy Chief Craig Kingsbury said.

On Saturday night, a man who identified himself as a teacher reportedly showed up at Luna's mother's home in Nampa in order to speak with her about the superintendent's contentious education reform plan. Luna happened to be at his mother's house at the time, Department of Education spokeswoman Melissa McGrath said.

"The man was very angry... the superintendent did feel threatened," she said. The man eventually left after Luna spoke to him for several minutes. Luna told the man it was an inappropriate place and time, and later filed a police report, McGrath said.

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Madison Superintendent Nerad calls on teachers to return to classroom

Gena Kittner:

Madison School District superintendent Dan Nerad called on teachers late Thursday to end their protest and return to the classroom.

"These job actions need to end," Nerad said in an e-mail to families of students. "I want to assure you that we continue to examine our options to more quickly move back to normal school days."

Madison schools are closed Friday for a third straight day. Nerad also apologized for the closures.

On Thursday, state and Madison teachers union leaders urged their members to report to the Capitol on Friday and Saturday for continued protests against Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining proposal.

"Even though the Madison School District can only react to the group decisions of our teachers, I apologize to you for not being able to provide learning for the last three days to your students," Nerad said.

Related: Judge denies Madison School District request to stop teacher sick-out and "Who Runs the Madison Schools?"

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On The Recent Madison Events

Jackie Woodruff, via email:

For the last five years Community and Schools Together (CAST) has worked hard to assure that students in Madison and around the state have access to excellent educational opportunities. With you, we have been amazed by the events at the Capitol this week. The massive outcry is justified. The radical changes contained in Governor Walker's so-called budget repair bill will harm education and the future of our state.

The bill takes several unnecessary steps, such as limiting a union's ability to collect dues. These steps have no relevance to budget repair, but are instead about damaging union effectiveness.

Making public education work relies on trust and partnership. Despite Wisconsin's strong record on public education and despite all the benefits our communities receive from public education, Gov. Walker has decided to break trust and partnership with WEAC and other unions. In so doing, he has unnecessarily broken the state's relationship with teachers. The outcry has been mobilized by the broad assaults to organized labor, but they are marked most visibly by the many teachers, parents, and students who have provided the core and bulk numbers to the strong protests.

We support the protests and are against the bill. The bill damages our ability as a community to improve our schools. The bill takes an existing, deficient educational policy regarding school funding, leaving caps and constraints on school boards to raise revenues locally, but denies collective bargaining - one of the key measures that was needed to form the original policy. We believe the net effect is extremely damaging to education - destroying a climate of trust and good will that has served as a cornerstone of the collective bargaining process. We may pay less in taxes, but teachers, classrooms and students will suffer.

Quality teachers are essential to quality education, removing their right to bargain collectively demonstrates great disrespect for their contributions and will make it more difficult to attract and retain the quality teachers our children need.

CAST, instead, welcomes reasonable and rational debate on educational funding and policy. We believe that policy should allow collective bargaining, equity, and the opportunity for community involvement to answer critical funding needs schools may have - given the likelihood that the state is unable to fund them appropriately.

CAST also calls for the safety of protesters and for those working to protect public safety at the Capitol. We ask Governor Walker and others responsible for state leadership to open debate, to seek to find rational budget policies that best represent the communities they serve. We look forward to our teachers and students returning to the classrooms, where together they create the foundation for Wisconsin's future.

Submitted by Jackie Woodruff
Treasurer of CAST


Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire -- William Butler Yeats

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DNC/Organizing for America playing role in Wisconsin protests

Ben Smith:

The Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America arm -- the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign -- is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.

OfA, as the campaign group is known, has been criticized at times for staying out of local issues like same-sex marriage, but it's riding to the aide of the public sector unions who hoping to persuade some Republican legislators to oppose Walker's plan. And while Obama may have his difference with teachers unions, OfA's engagement with the fight -- and Obama's own clear stance against Walker -- mean that he's remaining loyal to key Democratic Party allies at what is, for them, a very dangerous moment.

OfA Wisconsin's field efforts include filling buses and building turnout for the rallies this week in Madison, organizing 15 rapid response phone banks urging supporters to call their state legislators, and working on planning and producing rallies, a Democratic Party official in Washington said.

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An Email From Russ Feingold's New PAC

Russ Feingold's Progressive's United, via email:

Jim,

You've probably seen it all over the news this week: Your neighbors across Wisconsin are standing up and speaking out against the outrageous push by Governor Walker and Republican legislators - backed by big business -- to strip public workers of their collective bargaining rights.

I went on the Rachel Maddow Show Wednesday night to talk about what the protests this week in Wisconsin mean for our state and our country - and how our new grassroots organization, Progressives United, is joining the fight.

Watch the video of my appearance with Rachel Maddow now
-- and get information about joining a Wisconsin rally in your neck of the woods:

Through Progressives United, activists from across the country are coming together to fight back against the corruptive corporate influence in politics and give regular Americans a voice in how our country is run.

Here in Wisconsin, we might never have as loud a voice as we have right now on this crucial issue, during what could be a crucial moment for our country.

Big business threw unlimited money at electing Governor Walker, who now is returning the favor by trying to advance a pro-corporate, anti-worker agenda. That flies against the hard-fought worker protections we've worked generations to achieve in Wisconsin, and we won't let our work be undone.

So right now, America needs progressives like you to go out and get that message across: by rallying with our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin.

These rallies are getting huge TV coverage. You can make your voice heard. Look up the rally near you now and add your voice today.

Thank you for uniting with your fellow progressives,

Russ Feingold
Founder
Progressives United

P.S. Progressives are so eager to unite that our website was overwhelmed when we launched earlier this week. I can't thank everyone enough for their support. We're back fully online today, and I hope you'll check out our new site, if you haven't already.

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The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011: Wisconsin = F

Sheldon M. Stern, Jeremy A. Stern

Presidents' Day 2011 is right around the corner, but George Washington would be dismayed by the findings of this new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Reviewers evaluated state standards for U.S. history in grades K-12. What they found is discouraging: Twenty-eight states--a majority--deserve D or F grades for their academic standards in this key subject. The average grade across all states is a dismal D. Among the few bright spots, South Carolina earns a straight A for its standards and six other jurisdictions--Alabama, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and the District of Columbia--garner A-minuses. (The National Assessment's "framework" for U.S. history also fares well.) Read on to learn how your state scored.
The Wisconsin History Report Card:
Overview
Wisconsin's U.S. history standards, for all practical purposes, do not exist. Their sole content is a list of ten eras in American and Wisconsin history, followed by a few brief and vague directives to understand vast swaths of history and broad historical concepts. Determining an actual course's scope, sequence, and content rests entirely on the shoulders of local teachers and districts.

Goals and Organization

Wisconsin's social studies standards are divided among five strands: geography, history, political science and citizenship, economics, and behavioral sciences. Each strand consists of a "content standard"--a one-sentence statement of the strand's purpose--and a one- paragraph "rationale" justifying its importance. The history strand also includes short lists of ten chronological/thematic eras for Wisconsin, U.S. history, and world history. The ten listed eras of U.S. history are said to apply to grades 5-12, and those for Wisconsin history to grades 4-12.

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NJ education chief: Overhaul teacher tenure, pay

Geoff Mulvihill:

New Jersey's acting education commissioner on Wednesday unveiled a plan to overhaul the way teachers are evaluated -- and the consequences of poor evaluations.

Under the concept unveiled by Christopher Cerf, many key decisions about teachers -- including whether they receive lifetime tenure protections, how big their raises are and which ones are laid off when budgets are slashed -- would be based largely on how much their students progress.

Cerf said making the changes are essential to improving schools in New Jersey, where the public education system by many measures is among the best in the nation -- but with a serious caveat. Schools in the state's impoverished cities generally perform poorly -- and at great expense.

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Seattle's Science Curriculum Alignment

Melissa Westbrook:

Seattle Public high schools have a wide variety of really good science classes. They range from the BioTech program at Ballard (celebrating its 10th year in 2011) to Marine Science to Forensics and many others. Here is a link to the SPS page on this issue.

The district is now moving onto science curriculum alignment as part of their overall alignment process. I do understand the idea of alignment so that students who move from school to school (and it happens more than you might think) will find the same level of instruction. This is fine.

The issue is that the district wants to make 4 science classes mandatory for graduation. Those classes are physical science, biology, chemistry and physics.

What that means is that most of the other science classes, unless they get certified as a substitute for one of the four, will be electives (AP and IB science courses will also count as substitutes). With so many other subject requirements for graduation, it is unlikely that most of the elective science classes would survive. It would be a big loss.

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Urban Prep Academy of Chicago celebrates perfect college acceptance

WALB

Every member in an Illinois school's senior class has been accepted into college for the second time in the school's two-year history.

"No other public school in the country has done this," said Tim King, CEO and founder of Urban Prep Academy in Chicago.

The school was established to battle the low high school and college graduation rates among black men.

"We are Urban Prep men," said Israel Wilson, a 2010 graduate and student at Morehouse College. "And at Urban Prep, we believe."

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The 5 Biggest Myths About School Vouchers

Andrew Rotherham:

One of the most contentious budget debates this year may be over something the president did not include in his 2012 spending plan -- school vouchers. Now more often called "scholarships," vouchers have been debated for decades, but support for these initiatives is on the rise.'

Let's start with D.C. After years of discussion, Congress established a plan in 2004 to give 1,700 students in Washington a voucher of up to $7,500 to attend private and religious schools in the city as alternatives to the frequently lousy neighborhood schools. The program was controversial from the start -- it was the first federal funding for vouchers in three decades. But in 2009, under intense pressure from the teachers unions, Congress and the Administration began to dismantle the program and no new students are participating today. New Speaker of the House John Boehner says restoring the program is a top priority.

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Blogging teacher blogging again

Christinia Kristofic:

The Central Bucks teacher who was suspended last week for complaining about her students defends herself online and in an interview.

The Central Bucks East High School English teacher who got suspended last week for complaining about her students on a blog is at it again.

And she is making no apologies for what she said - defending herself through her blog and in an interview with this newspaper Monday.

"While I never in a million years would have guessed that this many people would ever see my words, and I didn't even intend them to, I stand by what I wrote and I think it's good that people are aware now," Natalie Munroe wrote on her blog Saturday morning.

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Washington, DC Mayor Gray is misguided on school vouchers

The Washington Post

IF D.C. MAYOR Vincent C. Gray isn't careful, he could well argue the District out of $60 million in federal education dollars. Testifying before a Senate committee against the voucher program that enables low-income students to attend private schools, Mr. Gray (D) was warned that extra money for the city's traditional and public schools was likely conditioned on congressional reauthorization of vouchers. Money alone isn't reason for Mr. Gray to change his mind, but given that District children benefit from the program and that parents are desperate for the choice if affords, it's unfathomable that he is opposing this worthwhile program.

Mr. Gray was among those who appeared Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs as it considered legislation to extend the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, including an important provision to allow new students to be enrolled. Mr. Gray said that efforts should be focused on improving public schools, that Congress was inappropriately intruding into local affairs and that D.C. parents have enough education choices, given the number of flourishing charter schools and the public school reforms starting to take hold.

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K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Just How Deep are the Federal Spending Cuts?

John Merline:

The headlines appear to say it all. "Painful Cuts in Obama's $3.7 Trillion Budget." "Budget Director Calls Steep Budget Cuts Necessary." "Obama Budget Pivots From Stimulus to Deficit Cuts." "Cuts to Target Working Poor, Middle Class and Students." On and on they go.

But how deep are these cuts really? Take a closer look, and they turn out to be less than meets the eye.

Consider: President Barack Obama's 2012 budget proposes to spend $3.48 trillion on everything except interest on the national debt. That's a 7 percent increase over what the government spent in 2010. And keep in mind that in 2010, there was a lot of stimulus money flying out the door.

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February 17, 2011

On Wisconsin

Mike Antonucci:

A lot of people have a lot to say about the union protests in Wisconsin and the governor's plan to curtail collective bargaining for teachers. Those on the ground are best qualified to hash out the big issues, so I'll just add three morsels to the conversation.

1) Sickouts. The Madison school district and others were closed yesterday due to teacher sickouts. There has been some debate about whether this constitutes an illegal strike, but for a protest that centers on public employee collective bargaining, it's ironic that whatever you want to call it, yesterday's protest was a violation of the Madison teachers' collective bargaining agreement.

Madison teachers are allowed five personal leave days per year, but are required by contract to notify the principal at least three working days in advance. Since the teachers themselves didn't have that much notice of the protest, they had to use sick leave. The contract spells out in exacting detail the purposes for which sick leave can be used. Union rallies are not among them.

Some may consider the protest a matter of principle or civil disobedience, That's all well and good. But remember, the only reason to call in sick is so you still get paid for the day. So go ahead and yell. Just remember who's paying for the microphone.

The Madison contract also contains this provision:

Therefore, MTI agrees that there will not be any strikes, work stoppages or slow downs during the life of this Agreement, i.e., for the period commencing July 1, 2009 and ending June 30, 2011. Upon the notification of the President and Executive Director of MTI by the President of the Board of Education of the Madison Metropolitan School District of any unauthorized concerted activity, as noted above, MTI shall notify those in the collective bargaining unit that it does not endorse such activity. Having given such notification, MTI shall be freed of all liability in relation thereto.
Whatever you call it, it was certainly an "unauthorized concerted activity."
Much more here and here.

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ACE Statement Regarding MMSD (Madison School District) Actions

Don Severson, via email:

Attached is the Active Citizens for Education statement regarding the MMSD Board of Education and Administration actions related to the Governor's Budget Repair Bill.

Here is the link to the video of the MMSD Board meeting on 02/14/11

http://mediaprodweb.madison.k12.wi.us/node/601 go to the 9:50 minute mark for Marj Passman.

Letters from the Board and Superintendent to Governor Walker are accessible from the home page of the MMSD website.

http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/

Glaringly, there is no leadership from the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education nor administration for the overall good of the community, teachers nor students as evidenced by their actions the past few days. Individual Board members and the Board as a whole, as well as the administration, are complicit in the job action taken by teachers and their union. The Board clearly stepped out of line. Beginning Monday night at its Board meeting, Board member Marj Passman took advantage of signing up for a 'public appearance' statement as a private citizen. She was allowed to make her statement from her seat at the Board table instead of at the public podium--totally inappropriate. Her statement explicitly gave support to the teachers who she believed were under attack from the Walker proposed budget repair bill; that she was totally in support of the teachers; and encouraged teachers to take their protests to the Capital. Can you imagine any other employer encouraging their employees to protest against them to maintain or increase their own compensation in order to help assure bankruptcy for the organization or to fire them as employees? All Board members subsequently signed a letter to Governor Walker calling his proposals "radical and punitive' to the bargaining process. With its actions, including cancellation of classes for Wednesday, the Board has abdicated and abrogated its fiduciary responsibility for public trust. The Board threw their responsibility away as elected officials and representatives of the citizens and taxpayers for the education of the children of the District and as employers of the teachers and staff. The Board cannot lead nor govern when it abdicates its statutory responsibilities and essentially acts as one with employees and their union. Under these circumstances, it is obvious they have made the choice not to exercise their responsibilities for identifying solutions to the obvious financial challenges they face. The Board will not recognize the opportunities, nor tools, in front of them to make equitable, fair and educationally and financially sound decisions of benefit to all stakeholders in the education of our young people.

Don Severson
President, ACE

Much more, here.

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Clips from Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad's News Conference on Closed Schools & Teacher Job Action

Matthew DeFour: (watch the 15 minute conference here)

Madison School District Superintendent Dan Nerad discusses on Wednesday Gov. Scott Walker's bill, teacher absences, and Madison Teachers Inc.


Related: Dave Baskerville is right on the money: Wisconsin needs two big goals:
For Wisconsin, we only need two:

Raise our state's per capita income to 10 percent above Minnesota's by 2030.
In job and business creation over the next decade, Wisconsin is often predicted to be among the lowest 10 states. When I was a kid growing up in Madison, income in Wisconsin was some 10 percent higher than in Minnesota. Minnesota caught up to us in 1967, and now the average Minnesotan makes $4,500 more than the average Wisconsinite.

Lift the math, science and reading scores of all K-12, non-special education students in Wisconsin above world-class standards by 2030. (emphasis added)

Wisconsinites often believe we lose jobs because of lower wages elsewhere. In fact, it is often the abundance of skills (and subsidies and effort) that bring huge Intel research and development labs to Bangalore, Microsoft research centers to Beijing, and Advanced Micro Devices chip factories to Dresden.

Grow the economy (tax base) and significantly improve our schools....

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Which Teachers Should be Let Go First?

Linda Thomas:

If teacher layoffs are needed as school districts around the state balance budgets, who should go first?

Under the current system, teachers with the most seniority are protected from cuts. Some lawmakers are trying to change that with a bill that would allow districts to cut those who aren't effective, regardless of how long they've been on the job. Teachers "with a track record of closing the achievement gap" would be safe.

Sonya Langford, a seventh grade teacher in the University Place School District, wrote an interesting "letter to the editor" for the Tacoma News Tribune . She says the proposed House legislation would "send our public schools back years."

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Barcode-to-Bibliography App Makes College Ridiculously Easy

David Zax:

Sometimes a technology comes along that is so great it seems almost unjust to former generations. Aviation. The personal computer. The polio vaccine.

One gets the same feeling today when considering a new app out for iPhone and Android. Quick Cite, a 99-cent app, automates the task of putting together a bibliography--that arduous list of books, articles, and other sources consulted that goes at the end of a master's thesis of PhD dissertation. The first thought you have is, "How much time scholars will henceforth save!" The next thought you have is, "Anyone who got a PhD before the year 2011 was a poor sucker."

The app works by using the smartphone's camera to scan the barcode on the back of a book. Then it emails you a citation formatted to fit one of four common bibliographic styles: APA, MLA, Chicago, or IEEE. The app was one of seven developed over seven sleepless days by seven undergraduates at the University of Waterloo. Thus they called the week-long experiment in coding creativity and class-cutting "7Cubed," and even made a little video about it.

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Did Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber raid schools for human services?

Dan Lucas:

Money for schools is always a hot topic, even more so as the Legislature starts tackling the budget for 2011-13. Earlier this month, Gov. John Kitzhaber released his proposal, including $5.558 billion for K-12 schools. That figure, charges former Oregon House candidate Dan Lucas in an online post, sacrifices schools for the Department of Human Services and the Oregon Health Authority.

"Governor's proposed budget raids K-12 school funds to grow DHS again" is the title of the piece, posted on the conservative-minded Oregon Catalyst. Lucas explains that Kitzhaber not only takes $225 million out of the State School Fund but that he gives the money to human services, which is growing by $333 million.

Since the budget is set anew every two years, it's hard to trace one agency's growth to the demise of another. But we wanted to know if Lucas's numbers were accurate. Is K-12 losing money from the previous two-year period? Is social services growing? How much is one to blame for the other?

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Colorado school district has wealth, success -- and an eye on vouchers

Nicholas Riccardi:

Douglas County, a swath of subdivisions just south of here that is one of the nation's wealthiest, is something of a public school paradise.

The K-12 district, with 60,000 students, boasts high test scores and a strong graduation rate. Surveys show that 90% of its parents are satisfied with their children's schools.

That makes the Douglas County School District an unlikely frontier in the latest battle over school vouchers.

But a new, conservative school board is exploring a voucher system to give parents -- regardless of income -- taxpayer money to pay for their children to attend private schools that agree to abide by district regulations. If it's implemented, parents could receive more than $4,000 per child.

The proposal's supporters argue that competition can only improve already-high-performing schools.

Related: A School Board Thinks Differently About Delivering Education, and spends less.

Colorado's Douglas County School District spends $8512.74 per student ($476,977,336 for 56,031 students in 2009). Madison spent $15,241 per student in 2009, a whopping $6,728.26, 79% more than the "wealthy Denver suburbs".

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Iowa Governor Unveils New Preschool Plan

Nina Earnest:

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad unveiled on Tuesday his new preschool program designed to award scholarships to low-income families, setting aside $43.6 million in state appropriations.

"By providing all Iowa children the opportunity to attend preschool, we will reduce the need for special-education services and for children to repeat grades," Branstad said in a press release.

The Iowa Preschool Scholarship eliminates universal preschool for 4-year-olds, but it aims to provide $3,000 scholarships to eligible 4-year-olds who attend at least 10 hours of preschool a week beginning in the 2011-12 school year.

Under the annual scholarship, families pay costs on a sliding scale depending on federal poverty guidelines up to 300 percent poverty. The plan means higher income families to pay full tuition.

Related: Madison's planned 4K program.

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February 16, 2011

The US Department of Education Has Failed



Lindsay Burke:

The new makeup of the House of Representatives has brought with it new leadership on the House Education and Workforce Committee, and fresh ideas about education policy. Chairman John Kline (R-MN), at the helm of the committee that will be charged with overseeing a possible reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) this year, is already asking hard questions through a series of committee hearings on the effects of ever-growing federal involvement in education.

Last Thursday, the House Education and Workforce Committee held a full committee hearing to examine the challenges and opportunities facing the nation's classrooms. The hearing included testimony from Ted Mitchell, CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund; Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom; Dr. Tony Bennett, Indiana superintendent of public instruction; and Lisa Graham Keegan, founder and president of the Education Breakthrough Network.

The hearing comes as national policymakers consider a possible reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the implications for local schools. Each of the expert witnesses' testimonies on the subject favored empowering those closer to the student. In his testimony, Bennett urged the federal government to get out of the way of states so that state and local leaders can more effectively meet student needs:

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School Board Votes For Independent Review Of Budget Per Union's Request

Marty Kasper:

Tensions were high and the hallways packed for a special meeting of the Rockford School Board on proposed budget cuts to close schools, eliminate programs and layoff more than 300 employees.

Earlier this week the Rockford Education Association questioned whether those cuts need to happen at all, and now they're offering to pay fifty grand for an independent review.

Today, the board was split but approved a motion 4-3 to support the union's request

"The main reason is because it is projections, it is projections, legitimate projections based on trends, and I don't see the point to second guessing that," said School Board Member Jeanne Westholder.

"I think it is worth while to take a look, either to put it to rest or to be sure that we have the accurate figures to vote on," said School Board Member Alice Sautargis.

The district's finance team says they need to cut 50- million dollars, while the union believes it's more like 15- million.

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K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Obama's 2012 Budget Proposal: How It's Spent

Shan Carter & Amanda Knox:. Sam Dillon & Tamar Lewin and Valerie Strauss have more on the President's proposed $3,700,000,000,000 budget.

Terrence Keeley:

President Barack Obama has unveiled a hugely disappointing budget, cutting only a few percentage points from the $100,000bn in projected US federal deficits over the remainder of this century. Why was it such a dud? Because Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - the entitlement programmes that will comprise more than 60 per cent of all spending just a decade from now - were left untouched.

Deck chairs are being rearranged on the Titanic. American politicians promise their constituents an ever-expanding social safety net, but with no intention of paying for it. Most experts know entitlement reform is essential, but few political leaders dare to lead - because doing so would be self-immolating.

Mr Obama's budget should have proposed much more significant cuts, but ultimately it is the US Congress that is responsible for tax and spending legislation. Mr Obama's budget is therefore aspirational, but unbinding. In the vernacular - he proposes, Congress disposes.

To put this failure right America's leaders must begin to make a strong moral case for entitlement reform. And to develop this argument they should turn first to an unlikely source of policy advice: The Vatican.

Andrew Sullivan:
The logic behind president Obama's budget has one extremely sensible feature: it distinguishes between spending that simply adds to consumption, and spending that really does mean investment. His analogy over the weekend - that a family cutting a budget would rather not cut money for the kids' education - is a sound one. We do need more infrastructure, roads and broadband, non-carbon energy and basic science research, and some of that is something only government can do. In that sense, discretionary spending could be among the most important things government could do to help Americans create wealth themselves. And yet this is the only spending Obama wants to cut.

But the core challenge of this time is not the cost of discretionary spending. Obama knows this; everyone knows this. The crisis is the cost of future entitlements and defense, about which Obama proposes nothing. Yes, there's some blather. But Obama will not risk in any way any vulnerability on taxes to his right or entitlement spending to his left. He convened a deficit commission in order to throw it in the trash. If I were Alan Simpson or Erskine Bowles, I'd feel duped. And they were duped. All of us who took Obama's pitch as fiscally responsible were duped.

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Origami finds new dimensions at MIT

Joseph Khan:

"We're trying to get people to understand it's not about paper boats and cranes.''

So said Yanping Chen, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology sophomore, as he expertly folded and refolded a 6-inch square piece of paper. Six minutes later, he set down in front of him -- what's this? -- a paper crane. Only it did not resemble any crane a grade-schooler might make from a beginner's origami primer.

Chen's had five tiny heads and looked ready to fly away at any moment. But then he's no origami novice, either. Chen arrived at MIT with a sophisticated knowledge of origami design, quickly connecting with like-minded enthusiasts through OrigaMIT, a club for serious paper folders who know how to push the envelope, not just turn one into a paper yacht.

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More on the Seattle School District Construction Management Audit

Melissa Westbrook:

I, along with other citizens, had written to the State Auditor several years back, complaining about the BEX capital building program. When you write to the Auditor, they log your letter and make sure you get a follow-up (I know that seems odd to have a public entity actually listen and keep track of your concerns but that's just how the SAO rolls.)

The letter said some points made in the audit like:

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Google, China, and Chinese College Students - Part III

Brian Glucroft:

A speech which was seen by many in the US as a strong step in the right direction or even as not strong enough was in fact a gift to the Chinese government.

Before Hillary Clinton's speech, for many Chinese students the conflict was between Google and the Chinese government. After the speech, it was Google / US government vs the Chinese government - US interests vs Chinese interests. Concerns this might be the case were earlier expressed on this site here and here.

An analysis of Clinton's words misses the point. Most of the students didn't know them. All that mattered to the students was that the US government had aligned itself with Google and now "Google" & "US government" were synonymous. The existence of such a close partnership was not at all a stretch for Chinese students to believe since they were already very accustomed to a blurry line, if any, between government and business in their own country - often associated with corruption.

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Young people need hope to thrive in school, beyond

Bruce Fuller:

Rising stock prices signal upbeat expectations - echoed by employers and consumers - that the economy is finally bouncing back, Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke says.

California's young people aren't so sure.

Three in 5 of them, age 16 to 22, now express sharp worries about finding a job or working long hours to pay for college, according to an eye-opening poll out last week. No civilization thrives when the next generation lacks optimism and chutzpah.

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Colorado "Governor Hickenlooper's Class Solidarity"

David Sirota

The Grand Junction Sentinel headline today says it all: "Hickenlooper Proposes Huge Budget Cuts." Yes, while Colorado's new governor campaigned on promises of being an education governor, he has just proposed historically massive cuts to Colorado's already comparatively underfunded public schools. If that wasn't enough, he had the nerve to pretend he isn't choosing this path for his state, telling reporters "There's nothing I've ever grappled with as long and hard as" education cuts.

Evidently, we should all shed tears for the allegedly remorseful guv... except, we shouldn't. Because he's as much making this choice as circumstances are dictating it.

Yes, it's true - the new governor must propose a balanced budget and the legislature cannot raise revenues in the short-term. Thus, the education cuts. However, it is also true that this governor has been running around Colorado insisting he cares about education while simultaneously saying he opposes efforts to raise public revenues through any changes to Colorado's hideously regressive tax code.

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Role for Teachers Is Seen in Solving Schools' Crises

Sam Dillon:

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, convening a two-day labor-management conference here on Tuesday, argued that teachers' unions can help solve many of the challenges facing public schools.

But as the conference opened, that view was under challenge in a number of state capitals.

Republicans in several states have proposed legislation in recent weeks that would bar teachers' unions from all policy discussions, except when the time comes to negotiate compensation. In Tennessee and Wisconsin, Republicans have proposed stripping teachers' unions of collective bargaining rights altogether.

Education historians said the unions were facing the harshest political climate since states began extending legal bargaining rights to schoolteachers decades ago.

The conference, convened by the Department of Education, drew school authorities and teachers' union leaders from 150 districts across the nation to Denver to discuss ways of working together. To participate, each district's superintendent, school board president and teachers' union leader had to sign a pledge to collaborate in good faith to raise student achievement.

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Rhee's five big missteps

Jay Matthews

Richard Whitmire's deft and revealing book about former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee chronicles a difficult time in the history of the city's schools, when good people fought hard against one another because of sharply contrasting views on how to help our children.

The book is "The Bee Eater," the title a reference to a moment when Rhee as a young teacher gained respect from her unruly Baltimore students by killing and swallowing a wayward insect flying around her classroom. The point was that this young woman had a taste for aggressive, if sometimes unappetizing, action.

The question of Rhee - her history, her iron confidence, her successes and failures - is still a hot topic. I got twice the usual page views on my blog last week just by raising the issue of her early teaching results. In this book, Rhee fans like me will enjoy remembering her unexpected success in bringing energy and sanity to the District's central office, closing 23 underused schools and getting an innovative new teachers contract. Her critics will nod as they read of her needlessly alienating city officials and good teachers and carelessly reawakening the race issue. Whitmire makes his admiration for Rhee clear but seems as baffled by some of her decisions as many of her friends were.

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February 15, 2011

Union leader calls for Madison schools to close during planned sickout

Matthew DeFour:

The Madison School District is preparing for "excessive" teacher absences Wednesday, and a teacher union leader urged school be closed because few teachers are expected to show up for work.

School officials announcement Tuesday in a letter to parents they expected many teachers to call in sick Wednesday.

The letter was distributed the same day nearly 800 Madison East High School students -- half the school -- walked out to participate in a demonstration at the state Capitol protesting Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to limit public employee bargaining power.

Students at West, Memorial and at other schools around the state -- from Shullsburg to Sheboygan -- also participated in demonstrations during school hours.

As of Tuesday evening, Superintendent Dan Nerad said a higher-than-usual number of teachers had called in sick for Wednesday, though he declined to disclose exact numbers. He said the district would monitor the expected absences overnight before deciding whether to cancel school.

Jessica Vanegeren and Susan Troller have more.

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Crisis Mode Persists for Detroit Schools

Matthew Dolan:

Two years after his appointment as emergency financial manager for the Detroit Public Schools, Robert Bobb has outsourced many services, unearthed corruption and closed a number of schools.

Yet the district's mammoth deficit has continued to grow during amid the state's downturn and growing pension and debt obligations, and the city's schools are still grappling with longstanding problems, including political battles involving the state, school board and teachers' unions and a long-term exodus by students.

With weeks left in his term, Mr. Bobb has put forth some radical ideas to overhaul the system. One would split the district into two entities to help retire its debt, along the lines of the government-engineered bankruptcy of General Motors. Another would use money from a national tobacco settlement to inject $400 million into the Detroit schools and some 40 other deficit-ridden Michigan districts. A third is modeled on post-Katrina New Orleans, where a shrunken district was remade with mostly charter schools.

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On Rhode Island Charter School Expansion

The Brown Daily Herald:

Governor Lincoln Chafee '75 P'14 elicited concern from charter school supporters when he announced last month that he would take a "thoughtful pause" before expanding the state's charter schools. The governor made waves again earlier this month when he shook up the state's Board of Regents, which helps oversee Rhode Island's public schools. Given the importance of public education, we took a pause of our own to consider these changes.

Former state House Majority Leader George Caruolo will take over the chairmanship of the Board of Regents from former Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice Robert Flanders Jr. '71. Flanders, along with several other board members Chafee replaced, supports Education Commissioner Deborah Gist. Teachers' unions are often at odds with Gist, especially over her support for charter schools, and how well Chafee will work out his disagreements with the commissioner is a looming question. Caruolo is known as an effective politician. We hope he puts his skill to use, shaping conflicts between Chafee and Gist into compromised agreements to take action, not discord-fueled gridlock.

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Real reform is the only way to improve Rochester schools



Peter Murphy:

In his recent "State of our Schools" presentation, the Rochester schools Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard showed that three years into his tenure, Rochester's schools have had slow, but measureable progress in elementary and middle school achievement levels, fewer suspensions and more students graduating high school.

Still, Rochester continues to struggle with many challenges common for large urban communities in the state and throughout the country - challenges that will take much longer than three years to significantly improve.

While Rochester's school superintendents come and go, one district fixture remains: Adam Urbanski, the long-time head of the Rochester Teachers Association. He recently wrote in this newspaper that Rochester schools are "worse off" in the last three years, a period which happens to coincide with the Brizard's tenure.

Rochester, NY 2011 State of the Schools PDF Presentation and Scorecard Strategy Map. Rochester's 2010-2011 budget is $694,515,866 for 32,000 students. $21,703.62 per student. View Rochester's 2010-2011 budget presentation document here.

Related: The 2011 State of the Madison School District reports $379,058,945 in planned 2010-2011 spending for 24,471 students. Madison's per student spending this year is $15,490.13.

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Big moment for Chicago schools

Chicago Tribune:

Chicago's school reform movement faces one of the most important moments in its too-short history. Don't underestimate what's happening right now. The future of a school system with 415,000 children is at stake.

Here's why:

The most powerful and persistent champion of Chicago school reform, Mayor Richard Daley, will leave office in May.

No one knows who will be leading the Chicago Public Schools in a few months. The quite capable interim CEO, Terry Mazany, and chief education officer, Charles Payne, are on a short-term lease. The next mayor will choose the next CEO. No major candidate for mayor has identified who would get the job in his or her administration.

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Green Bay school superintendent proposals sought

Patti Zarling:

The Green Bay School Board agreed Monday to send requests to about 17 search companies -- including the one used to recruit Superintendent Greg Maass -- for proposals to guide its efforts to find a new school leader.

Maass announced last week he will leave his Green Bay post at the end of June. He plans to accept a similar position in Marblehead, Mass., pending background checks and contract negotiations. He's been in Green Bay for three years.

Illinois-based Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, the recruitment company that the Green Bay board hired last time to conduct its search, said it would waive its consulting fee because Maass is leaving within five years, School Board president Jean Marsch said. The district paid the firm $22,000 and covered another $12,500 or so in additional expenses, for things such as advertising, travel and lodging, in the search for Maass, she said. The district still would be on the hook for the additional costs.

But members said they'd still like to hear what other search firms have to offer.

Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad previous position was in Green Bay.

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Open High Blazing New Path

Tom Vander Ark:

Imagine "one-on-one tutoring for every student in every subject" and you get a picture of Open High School, a virtual charter school serving 250 Utah students in ninth and tenth grades, expanding to up to 1500 students 9-12 by 2014.

Aptly named, the Open High School of Utah Trailblazers are forging new paths in multiple arenas,s but what sets them apart is their commitment to use open education resources (OER) where possible and to share what they develop under Creative Commons licenses.

The curriculum is hosted on MoodleRooms learning management system (but they miss their BrainHoney gradebook).

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February 14, 2011

Nerad gets one-year extension as Madison schools superintendent

Matthew DeFour:

The Madison School Board approved a one-year extension of Superintendent Dan Nerad's contract on a 5-2 vote Monday.

Board members Lucy Mathiak and Arlene Silveira voted against the extension. Maya Cole, Beth Moss, Ed Hughes, Marj Passman and James Howard voted to extend the contract through June 30, 2013.

Only Mathiak and Hughes spoke during the meeting. The board has been discussing Nerad's contract in multiple closed-door meetings.

Mathiak didn't address why she voted against the extension but said that she had reviewed board minutes, e-mails, notes of conversations and newspaper articles as she completed an evaluation that she received in December.

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Print me a Stradivarius: How a new manufacturing technology will change the world

The Economist:

THE industrial revolution of the late 18th century made possible the mass production of goods, thereby creating economies of scale which changed the economy--and society--in ways that nobody could have imagined at the time. Now a new manufacturing technology has emerged which does the opposite. Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did.

It works like this. First you call up a blueprint on your computer screen and tinker with its shape and colour where necessary. Then you press print. A machine nearby whirrs into life and builds up the object gradually, either by depositing material from a nozzle, or by selectively solidifying a thin layer of plastic or metal dust using tiny drops of glue or a tightly focused beam. Products are thus built up by progressively adding material, one layer at a time: hence the technology's other name, additive manufacturing. Eventually the object in question--a spare part for your car, a lampshade, a violin--pops out. The beauty of the technology is that it does not need to happen in a factory. Small items can be made by a machine like a desktop printer, in the corner of an office, a shop or even a house; big items--bicycle frames, panels for cars, aircraft parts--need a larger machine, and a bit more space.

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Q&A with Madison schools superintendent Dan Nerad

Matthew DeFour:

WSJ: What is Madison's biggest challenge?

DN: Unless we get more of our kids to standards, children will not remain strong and the community will not remain strong. Our vision has to be about advancing learning for all kids while we work to address these very notable achievement gaps for certain groups of kids. It's not an either-or. It's not a zero sum. That's why I believe we can be about a conversation about achievement gaps and we can be about a conversation about how we can better serve talented-and-gifted students.

WSJ: Is that the central tension?

DN: That's the manifestation. If it's about human capital development, it has to be about all kids moving forward, but there's real constraints around that because we do in fact make budget decisions year by year and people feel disaffected by those budget decisions. There's real concern, and I'm right in line with that concern, that we aren't doing enough to face these achievement gaps in an aggressive enough way. (Other) people feel very strongly that we're not doing enough to advance the needs of our advanced learners.

WSJ: Summarize your first 2½ years in Madison.

DN: We immediately jumped into a referendum discussion. The need for that was identified prior to my coming. We spent a considerable amount of time in that first year focused on those issues. From there I worked with the board on some board reorganization. And then it moved into comprehensive strategic planning with our community. From there we did the reorganization of the administration. Creating a teacher and a parent council was part of our thinking about how we do our work differently. And then we had a major focus needed on this current year's budget. That was a very difficult conversation. We were looking at this huge gap and this huge amount of money. There has been one major thing after another. Take one, it's significant. Take them all, it's been very significant. And while I've been here 30 months, I'm still learning the culture of this organization and of this community. I've tried to be sensitive to the culture and there's been some tension about how we've done our work and has it been sensitive enough to the culture. None of that is lost on me.

Much more on Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad, here.

The Madison School Board votes on the Superintendent's contract tonight.

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Khan Academy Education Videos Arrive in the Bittorrent App Studio

Bittorrent Blog:

Imagine an organization with one mission - to provide a world-class education, for free, to anyone, anywhere. Now imagine having instant access to all that knowledge directly in your BitTorrent or uTorrent client.

Today we launched a brand-new app in collaboration with Khan Academy, a renowned not-for-profit organization fulfilling the mission of global education through video classes. We are extremely honored to support their vision.

The Khan Academy exemplifies the type of content creators for whom we built the App Studio - independent artists looking to build relationships with our global community of over 100 million users. With the Khan Academy, we have the added bonus of helping to promote a worthy cause through technology innovation.

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Beating ban stirs debate in S. Korean schools

Jung Ha-Won:

With the new school year starting in March, high school teacher Jennifer Chung is worried about coping without her longtime classroom companion --- a hickory stick for smacking misbehaving students.

"I don't know if I can survive the jungle of 40 restless boys in each class, let alone keeping them quiet with no means to punish them," said the 36-year-old maths teacher in Gyeonggi province surrounding Seoul.

Education authorities in Seoul, the country's largest school district with 1.36 million pre-college students, last November banned corporal punishment.

Gyeonggi and one other province followed suit, with the new rule to take effect there in March.

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The Tragedy of Elgin Cook & Other Milwaukee Public Schools' Black Athletes

The Milwaukee Drum:

I'm certain many of you read (or heard) about Milwaukee Hamilton star basketball player Elgin Cook's sudden departure from the team. I'm also certain you heard his mother has taken him out of state fearing for her son's life due to his (alleged) role in what led to the Milwaukee King basketball player being shot. If not, click here to read the story on jsonline.

My comments aren't going to address the drama Cook and the other boy got themselves caught up in. I'm focused on a tragedy that continues to occur with the Black Student-Athlete over and over in Milwaukee Public Schools. I'm sick and tired of reading and hearing about OUR BEST (and average) student-athletes being academically ineligible before, during and after the sports season. What the hell is going on when kids who are being offered scholarships to play in college cannot maintain a simple 2.0 gpa?

Let's look at Cook for a moment. In the jsonline article, it mentions that he missed the first 3 games of this season due to being academically ineligible. Yet, in October he signed a letter of intent to accept a scholarship to play basketball at Iowa State. How is this possible? It's one thing for OUR kids to be lacking the grades and preparation for higher learning, but it is another thing when large colleges and universities know they aren't ready but bring them in anyway.

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Closing the Achievement Gap Without Widening a Racial One

Michael Winerip:

There is no more pressing topic in education today than closing the achievement gap, and there is no one in America who knows more about the gap than Ronald Ferguson.

Although he is a Harvard professor based in Cambridge, Mass., Dr. Ferguson, 60, spends lots of time flying around the country visiting racially mixed public high schools. Part of what he does is academic, measuring the causes of the gap by annually surveying the performance, behaviors and attitudes of up to 100,000 students. And part is serving as a de facto educational social worker, meeting with students, faculty members and parents to explain what steps their schools can take to narrow the gap.

The gap is about race, of course, and it inevitably inflames passions. But there is something about Dr. Ferguson's bearing -- he is both big (6-foot-3) and soft-spoken -- that gets people to listen.

Morton Sherman, the Alexandria school superintendent, watched him defuse the anger at a meeting of 300 people. "He talks about these things in a professorial way, a kind way," Dr. Sherman said. "It's not about him. He doesn't try to be a rock star, although he is a rock star in this field."

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Parables teach lessons of Milwaukee Public Schools' struggles

Alan Borsuk:

Three parables for Wisconsin's educational times:

• No. 1. Once there was an enormous omelet, as big as a city, full of all sorts of stuff. Some of it was great. A lot of it was lousy. Almost nobody liked the omelet. "We can make it better by unscrambling it," some people said. But you can't unscramble an omelet. So everyone who tried to do that moved on to other things.

• No. 2. Once there were a bunch of big kids playing baseball. A little kid - well, he used to be a big kid, but things changed somehow - ran up and said he wanted to get in the game. He began throwing rocks at a tree to show how good he could pitch. The big kids said that was nice. Actually, they hoped the little kid would go away.

• No. 3. Once there were children who stood each day at the busiest corner in the city. Everyone could see they were hungry. Drivers who went by said the kids ought to be fed. Politicians said the kids ought to be fed. Everyone said the kids ought to be fed. The end.

OK, so they're not very entertaining parables. Sorry. I'm not even sure how well they fit what's going on. In fact, I really hope there's a much better ending to the third one. The history of the last couple decades around here supports the pessimistic storyline that leads to nothing. But this is a new day. Maybe something good will occur.

Which brings me to the proposal to break up Milwaukee Public Schools into a set of smaller districts.

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School-stimulus benefit may be short-lived

Michele McNeil:

In the two years since Congress made the federal government's largest one-time investment in public schools, change has rippled through classrooms from coast to coast, as districts have expanded school days, improved teacher training, and tried to tie teacher evaluations to student performance.

But the stimulus package's long-term impact on public education is far from certain and may already be flagging, according to a three-month investigation by 36 news organizations working in collaboration with the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news outlet, and the Education Writers Association. Indeed, the research found that many of the resulting policy changes are already endangered by political squabbles and the massive budget shortfalls still facing recession-battered state and local governments.

"We have a long way to go,'' Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, adding that his goal is for the United States to lead the world in academic achievement.

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February 13, 2011

Wisconsin Teachers Union plan too late to help schools

Chris Rickert:

Under its "performance pay" proposal, teachers would get more for staffing hard-to-staff schools and filling hard-to-fill positions. Pay would also be related to regular employee evaluations -- if in some as-yet-undefined, possibly very weak way. WEAC president Mary Bell declined to specify how closely student test scores should track with evaluations and thus pay hikes, for instance.

Protecting pay is, of course, the most important of the union's objectives in its reform plan. But pay is a function of how much money is available, and while WEAC is advocating paying better teachers better salaries, it's not in favor of cutting pay for teachers who aren't so good. This is about a bigger education pie, in other words, not about the same pie cut into different-sized pieces.

Pay is also a function of who's handing out the raises, and WEAC is doing what it can to ensure those partly or mostly responsible for handing out the raises are as sympathetic as possible.

To wit, it would like to see the majority of the members on a teacher's evaluation panel be teachers themselves -- thus paving the way, it seems to me, for a lot of good reviews.

"It's an extremely difficult task," Bell said of evaluating one of your peers, but one that can work because "people care so deeply about the quality of the profession."

Related: 2010 Fall Election - WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators in a Losing Cause.

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Texas Governor Perry's call for $10,000 bachelor's degrees stumps educators

Ralph K.M. Haurwitz:

When Gov. Rick Perry challenged the state's public institutions of higher learning this week to develop bachelor's degree programs costing no more than $10,000, including textbooks, Mike McKinney was stumped.

"My answer is I have no idea how," McKinney, chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, told the Senate Finance Committee. "I'm not going to say that it can't be done."

Tuition, fees and books for four years average $31,696 at public universities in Texas, according to the Higher Education Coordinating Board. Sul Ross State University Rio Grande College is the cheapest, at $17,532.

The governor's call for low-cost degrees comes as legislative budget writers and the governor himself have proposed deep cuts in higher education funding -- cuts that would put pressure on governing boards to raise tuition, not lower it.

But officials of some university systems -- whose governing boards are fully populated by Perry appointees -- nevertheless struck an upbeat tone, or at least a neutral one. As McKinney, a former Perry chief of staff, put it: "If it can be figured out, we've got the faculty that can figure it out."

A spokesman for the University of Texas System said, "We look forward to reviewing details of the governor's proposal."

This is exactly the kind of thinking we need: fresh approaches toward all aspects of education.

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Hip Hop Studies at Madison West High School

The Wisconsin State Journal, via several kind reader emails:

Students in a new Hip Hop Studies class at West finished a unit on hip-hop history by writing verses. A few excerpts:
"'Why do you study hip-hop?
Isn't it just rappers that never ever stop?'
That right there's the problem,
People think it's just angry pop.
And even though they don't know
They go and talk about the videos
And go and slam it on their shows
One reader notes: "Is this the fabulous programming that we may lose if West (gasp) has real honors classes? ".

Much more, here.

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K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Bye, bye easy money

Tim Harford:

Don't fixate on the financial crisis. Our economic problems have been far longer in the making, and would have caught up with us sooner or later anyway.

That is one of the conclusions I take away from two striking essays: "The Great Divergence", published in Slate last September by the journalist Timothy Noah; and The Great Stagnation, just published as a short e-book by the economics professor and blogger Tyler Cowen.

The two essays describe two disturbing trends that, while logically separable, seem to be related. Noah discusses a sharp increase in income inequality in the US since the early 1970s. After analysing many explanations, he concludes that the chief culprits are a tolerance for super-high salaries and bonuses on Wall Street and in the boardroom, and a failure of the US education system. Blaming China is considered, but largely dismissed.

Cowen begins with the fact that median family income in the US has barely increased, again since the early 1970s. Its growth rate has been about 0.5 per cent a year after inflation. The median family income is the income of the family in the middle of the income distribution. It is a useful measure precisely because it ignores the action at the top: if a Connecticut hedge fund manager made an extra $11bn in a year, this would raise the mean income of the US's 110 million-ish households by $100 each. It wouldn't alter the median income by a cent

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California Chinese program prompts school board recall

Jacob Adelman:

Four members of a suburban school board are being targeted in a recall effort over their support for a middle-school language program funded by the Chinese government, one of the members said Friday.

Hacienda La Puente Unified School Board President Jay Chen said he and the three other members of the five-member panel were being served with notices of intent to circulate recall petitions, each signed by 12 residents of Hacienda Heights in east Los Angeles County.

Chen, along with board members Norman Hsu, Joseph Chang and Anita Perez, voted last year to approve the agreement with China's international language-teaching agency to cooperate on the so-called Confucius Classroom Mandarin program.

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Number of $100,000 retirees skyrocket in California teacher pension system

Brian Joseph:

More proof that pension costs are spiraling out of control: The number of retirees earning $100,000 or more from the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) has increased dramatically since 2009, according to new data obtained by the nonprofit California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.

For those of you not familiar with the foundation, it's one of the leading advocates for pension reform in California. On its website, the foundation publishes searchable databases of retirees earning $100,000 or more from a couple of state pension systems, including CalSTRS, the pension system for retired California teachers.

The foundation initially obtained the data for its "CalSTRS $100,000 pension club" database in May 2009. Back then there were 3,010 retirees earning $100,000 or more annually from CalSTRS. Earlier this month, the foundation obtained updated data from CalSTRS and the number has grown to 5,308 (5,309 if you count one woman earning $99,998.88).

That's a 76 percent increase. In less than two years.

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Playground politics: Devolving power over schools while tightening purse strings requires guile

The Economist:

THE success of the government's bid to create new "free schools"--funded by the state, but able to set conditions for staff, pick and choose from the national curriculum, and so on--rests on its ability to wrest power from local authorities and give it to community groups. The policy is a key element of David Cameron's "Big Society", but suffers from the same difficulty as the overall project: pushing through devolution in a time of austerity is tricky.

The aim of free schools, which are based on American and Swedish models, is to give parents more choice and promote competition. New schools can be established by parents, teachers, charities, religious outfits, universities, private schools and not-for-profit groups. They will be given public funds based on how many pupils enroll, with those from poor families attracting a premium.

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School Board Dysfunction

Dr. Joe Harrop:

"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards." - Mark Twain in Pudd'nhead Wilson

I was somewhat dismayed by the article in last Saturday's Daily News about the sudden thud in the bargaining process between the Red Bluff Union Elementary School Board and the teachers' union. It was a year ago last August when I congratulated the District and the teachers' union on the agreements they made to stave off fiscal problems for the 2009-2010 school year. Based on the article in the Daily News things are not so harmonious at this point. I have faith that in a community like ours things will work their way out, but it is difficult to tell given the limited statements made by the School Board representative and statements about filing a grievance or an unfair labor practice charge.

Saturday's article was followed up by coverage of the School Board meeting on February 8; it was equally dismaying.

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Tiered Diplomas Abandoned in Rhode Island

Susan Moffitt:

Advocates for low-income, minority students and students with special needs, including the Rhode Island Disability Law Center and The Autism Project of Rhode Island scored a major victory in Providence last week when Education Commissioner Deborah Gist announced she would scrap a plan for a three-tiered high school diploma system tied to standardized test scores.

The plan called for students with high scores to receive an "Honors'' diploma, those with average scores to earn a "Regents'' diploma, and ones who score "partially proficient'' to be granted a basic Rhode Island diploma. Children who fail the test would have the opportunity to take it again. If they fail a second time, but other requirements are achieved, they could still graduate with a certificate.

Opponents claimed the proposal created a state-sanctioned caste system that would stigmatize struggling students and haunt them when seeking future employment or college admission. Based on recent test scores, they countered that almost all students who were poor, minorities, had disabilities, or were learning English would get the lowest tier diploma, if they even got one at all.

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Gov. John Kitzhaber plans a powerful Oregon education board, connecting school funding to performance

Kimberly Melton:

Gov. John Kitzhaber aims to fix Oregon's broken school funding system by consolidating power and money into a single board for all levels of education -- a board that he would chair.

What youths need, he says, is a system that allows them to improve at their own pace, with funding that is targeted at schools and programs that are getting results.

On Friday, the governor ordered the creation of an investment team to design the framework for an Oregon Education Investment Board that would oversee education for children from birth through college. He will name the 12 members of the team next week.

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February 12, 2011

Proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School Budget

Urban Leage of Greater Madison:

The Urban League of Greater Madison (ULGM) is submitting this budget narrative to the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education as a companion to its line‐item budget for Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men (Madison Prep). The budget was prepared in partnership with MMSD's Business Services office. The narrative provides context for the line items presented in the budget.

Madison Prep's budget was prepared by a team that included Kaleem Caire, President & CEO of ULGM; Tami Holmquist, Business Manager at Edgewood High School; Laura DeRoche‐Perez, ULGM Charter School Development Consultant; and Jim Horn, ULGM Director of Finance. Representative of ULGM and MMSD met weekly during the development of the Madison Prep budget. These meetings included including Erik Kass, Assistant Superintendent for Business Services and Donna Williams, Director of Budget & Planning. The budget was also informed by ULGM's charter school design teams and was structured in the same manner as start‐up, non‐instrumentality public charter school budgets submitted to the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board in Washington, DC. DCPCSB is widely regarded as one of the most effective authorizers of charter schools in the nation.

In addition, Madison Prep's Facilities Design Team is led by Dennis Haefer, Vice President of Commercial Banking with Johnson Bank and Darren Noak, President of Commercial Building with Tri‐North Builders. Mr. Noak is also the Treasurer of ULGM's Board of Directors. This team is responsible for identifying Madison Prep's school site and planning for related construction, renovation and financing needs.

......

Budget Highlights
A. Cost of Education

In 2008‐09, the Madison Metropolitan School District received $14,432 in revenue per student from a combination of local, federal and state government and local property taxes. The largest portion of revenue came from property taxes, $9,049 (62.7%), followed by $3,364 in state aid (23.3%), $1,260 in federal aid (8.7%) and $759 in other local revenue (5.3%). That same year, MMSD spent $13,881 per student on educational, transportation, facility and food service costs for 25,011 students for a total of $347,177,691 in spending.

In 2010‐11, MMSD's Board of Education is operating with an amended budget of $360,131,948, a decrease of $10,155,522 (‐2.74%) from 2009‐10. MMSD projects spending $323,536,051 in its general education fund, $10,069,701 on food service and $8,598,118 on debt service for a total of $342,203,870. Considering the total of only these three spending categories, and dividing the total by the official 2010‐11 enrollment count of 24,471 students, MMSD projects to spend $13,984 per student.3 This is the amount per pupil that ULGM used as a baseline for considering what Madison Prep's baseline per pupil revenue should be in its budget for SY2011‐12. ULGM then determined the possibility of additional cutbacks in MMSD revenue for SY2011‐12 and reduced its base per pupil revenue projection to $13,600 per student. It then added a 1% increase to it's per pupil base spending amount for each academic year through SY2016‐17.
ULGM recognizes that per pupil funding is an average of total costs to educate 24,471 children enrolled in MMSD schools, and that distinctions are not made between the costs of running elementary, middle and high schools. ULGM also understands that the operating costs between all three levels of schooling are different. Middle schools costs more to operate than elementary schools and high schools costs more than middle schools.

Reviewing expense projections for middle and high schools in MMSD's SY2010‐11 Amended Preliminary Budget, ULGM decided to weight per pupil spending in middle school at 1.03% and 1.16% in high school. Thus, in SY2012‐13 when Madison Prep opens, ULGM projects a need to spend $14,148 per student, not including additional costs for serving English language learners and students with special needs, or the costs of Madison Prep's third semester (summer).

B. Cost Comparisons between Madison Prep and MMSD

Staffing Costs
In 2010‐11, MMSD projected it would spend $67,133,692 on salaries (and benefits) on 825.63 staff in its secondary (middle and high) schools for an average salary of $81,312. This includes teachers, principals and in‐school support staff. In its first year of operation (SY2012‐13), ULGM projects Madison Prep it will spend $1,559,454 in salaries and benefits on 23 staff for an average of $67,802 in salary, including salaries for teachers, the Head of School (principal) and support staff. In its fifth year of operation, Madison Prep is projected to spend $3,560,746 in salaries and benefits on 52 staff for an average of $68,476 per staff person. In both years, Madison Prep will spend significantly less on salaries and benefits per staff member than MMSD.

Additionally, MMSD spends an average of $78,277 on salaries and benefits for staff in its middle schools and $79,827 on its staff in its high schools.

Additional documents: budget details and Madison Prep's Wisconsin DPI application.

Matthew DeFour:

The high cost results from the likelihood that Madison Prep will serve more low-income, non-English speaking and special education students, said Kaleem Caire, president of the Urban League of Greater Madison, which is developing the charter school. The school also plans to have a longer school year, school day and require students to participate in volunteer and extracurricular activities.

"What we're asking for is based on the fact that we're going to serve a high-needs population of kids," Caire said. "We don't know yet if what we're projecting is out of line."

Caire said the proposal will likely change as potential state and federal revenues are assessed.

A Republican charter school bill circulated in the Legislature this week could also alter the landscape. The bill would allow charter schools to receive approval from a state board, rather than a local school board, and those that don't use district employees, like Madison Prep, would be able to access the state retirement and health care systems.

Much more on the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter school, here.

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Madison School District Considers 7.64% ($18, 719.470) Property Tax Increase for 2011/2012 Budget

Erik J Kass, Assistant Superintendent for Business Services:

The following analysis is done using the PMA Model information and is looking at the cost to continue budget figures that will be provided to the Board on March 14, 2011. The analysis includes the impact on the median home in Madison, and for that figure we contacted the City of Madison Assessor and were provided that value at $241,217. For comparative purposes ofthe effect on this home, we are using the assumed value from the 2010-11 analysis of$246,041 or 2%morethanthecurrentmedianvalue. Theequalizedpropertyvaluationforthe2011-12 budget year is also projected to decrease by 2.00% as part ofthis analysis.

What is the projected All Funds Property Tax Increase for the 2011-12 Budget Year?

$18,719,470 or a 7.64% increase when compared to 2010-ll actuals.

Where does the projected All Funds Property Tax Increase for the 2011-12 Budget Year come from?

Prior Decisions by the Board ofEducation:
Recurring Referendum from November of 2008: $4,000,000
4-K Levy Increase to start program: $3,554,415
Referendum Debt Service: ($2.327,900)
Subtotal: $5,226,515

Decisions to be made by the Board of Education:

Projected Revenue Limit Growth ($200 per pupil): $7,774,514
Projected Loss in State Aid: $4,515,523
Community Services Fund (MSCR and Non-MSCR): $469,460
Exempt Computer Aid (property tax relief): ($261,927)
Property Tax Chargeback ($4.615)

Subtotal: $13,492,955

Total $18, 719.470

The Madison School District's 2010-2011 budget increased property taxes by about 9%.

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Council: Strive for high grade points, not big political points

Elise Swanson:

After Detroit, Milwaukee is the country's most segregated city. The Milwaukee Public School District (MPS) has an endemic racial achievement gap, in which, in terms of aggregate statistics, African American students perform three to four years below their European American counterparts in both math and reading. Combine this with a general dearth of resources -- as is common to virtually all of public education -- and you have a recipe for inadequate schooling that is failing its almost 90,000 students.

The crisis in Milwaukee is indicative of the educational crisis roiling the nation. Across the United States, school districts are facing enormous budget deficits, decreasing enrollment and intense pedagogical and ideological debates questioning the very foundations of modern education. The debate is particularly vociferous here in Wisconsin, where the Wisconsin Education Association Council feels threatened by Governor Scott Walker's educational platform. This past Tuesday, however, WEAC introduced a series of reforms it would endorse, many of which took observers by surprise, and received mixed reactions.

The reform drawing the most ire is the proposal to carve up MPS into multiple smaller districts to make them more manageable, and thus more successful. However, as pointed out by one observer, this separation of districts would probably mirror racial divisions within the city, compounding instead of alleviating racial achievement gaps.

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Rhee to lawmakers: Put kids first

Nancy Badertscher:

Michelle Rhee, a national voice on education reform, told state lawmakers Thursday that charter schools and vouchers for low-income students have a place in public education, but in a blend with strong traditional schools.

"Vouchers in and of themselves are not the answer. Charters in and of themselves are not the answer," said Rhee, who last fall stepped down as chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools after three years in which she was both lauded and derided for her overhaul of the school system.

"The answer in my mind is a really strong traditional public school system. That has very specific strategies to turn around failing schools [and incorporates both vouchers and charters]."

Rhee is on a national tour talking about education reform, particularly teacher evaluations and performance.

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Madison School District Considers Replacing Lawson HR/Financial System; School District Consortium to Dissolve

Superintendent Dan Nerad:

Madison School District is one of the members of the Wisconsin School Consortium (Consortium) for Human Resource/Financial Business Solution System. The other member school districts are Racine, Middleton-Cross Plains and Verona.

Madison implemented the current system solution (Lawson) in 2003-04 and began the Consortium in 2005-06. To assure that the Consortium districts are getting the best value on their HR!Financial Business application software and related services, the Consortium opted to have a competitive RFP process for the following areas:

Evaluation of K-12 business application software including our current vendor, Lawson Software Evaluation of hosting vendors related to the business application software
The RFP process began in May where there were four qualified responders. The Consortium held all day demonstrations that were both on site and electronically through involving numerous representatives from the following areas of: Human Resources, Finance, School Sites, Food Service, Community Service, and General Administration.
The Consortium then moved their consideration primarily toward two of the vendors with reference calls, another set of demonstrations for further detail clarification, site visits and a virtual site visit

At this point the Consortium members are at a consensus that they will be dissolving the Consortium where two members, Verona and Middleton-Cross Plains are looking at one solution, Racine is considering staying with the current solution, and Madison is considering moving forward with a different solution because of the improved and integrated functionality combined with cost savings.

Notes & links on Madison's Lawson implementation, here.

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Waking the sleeping education giant

Karen Francisco:

he 1970 film, "Tora! Tora! Tora!," ends with Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sullenly observing that his nation might have "awakened a sleeping giant" in attacking Pearl Harbor. The quotation's historical accuracy hasn't been verified, but I've been thinking the same line could apply to slumbering public school teachers in Indiana.

A Facebook page, Support Indiana Teachers, has drawn close to 16,000 friends in just over a week. Granted, it takes little effort to click a computer key, but comments on the page indicate that teachers and other Hoosiers have finally taken note of the current anti-public education agenda and are angry enough to act.

Hundreds of educators and public education supporters showed up at the Statehouse rally Tuesday. We're receiving an ever-increasing number of letters to the editor critical of the legislative assault.

Still, it's probably too late. One lawmaker tells me that the newly elected majority in the House is so far to the right that support for public schools doesn't register. The Senate GOP majority has been drifting further to the right with every election.

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February 11, 2011

New report examines promises, pitfalls of charter school autonomy

The Center on Reinventing Public Education, via a Deb Britt email:

A new report finds that charter schools use the freedoms they have from traditional school district mandates to define and operate schools in innovative new ways. However, expectations about what a school "should look like," the stress of tight and unstable budgets, and overwhelming administrative demands are powerful forces pulling charter schools back to traditional practice.

This report offers great reason for optimism that charter schools are well positioned to answer President Obama's call for public schools to innovate. But it also cautions that traditional regulatory structures and weaknesses in capacity must be addressed if they are to fully meet the challenge of innovation.

Based on a four-year study of the teachers, leaders, and academic programs in charter schools in six states, Inside Charter Schools: Unlocking Doors to Student Success observes that "autonomy only creates the opportunity for high-quality schools, it by no means guarantees it."

Author Betheny Gross, a researcher at the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) at the University of Washington, argues that autonomy makes it possible for charter schools to:

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Can Breaking the Milwaukee Public Schools Down Into Smaller Districts Work When Schools are Financially Dysfunctional on a Singular Level?

The Maciver Institute:

One of the biggest stories of the past week has been the Wisconsin Education Association Council's recommendation to fragment Milwaukee Public Schools into smaller districts. According to WEAC, this would create "more manageable components" as well as "drive greater accountability within the system." However, a look at how Milwaukee's public schools operate as separate entities suggests that these schools will run into problems regardless of the size of their district.

In 2009, Milwaukee's schools carried over operating debts of over $8 million into the new school year. Of the 148 schools surveyed in October of 2010, 93 (62.8%) finished the preceding school year in the red. 42 of these schools racked up debts of more than $100,000. 20 more overspent their budgets by $40,000 or more.

As the MacIver Institute has previously noted, schools like Bradley Tech (running a deficit of over $750,000), Vel Phillips (-$475k), Audubon Middle (-$436k), and Wedgewood (-$382k) are some of the city's biggest offenders. While some schools have been able to create careful surpluses with their funds, the system as a whole has shown to be flawed. In all, the city's school-by-school deficits added up to over $10.7 million dollars in 2009-2010 alone.

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Anne Arundel Board of Education approves superintendent's budget

Joe Burris:

The Anne Arundel County Board of Education on Wednesday approved Superintendent Kevin Maxwell's $968.6 million operating budget recommendations for next year by an 8-1 margin, after one board member unsuccessfully moved to have the budget amended and another complained that it requests too much additional spending as the county aims to be more fiscally responsible.

The board simultaneously approved the $156.9 million capital budget that gives $46.7 million to continuing construction projects at four schools, Northeast High School and Belle Grove, Folger McKinsey and Point Pleasant elementary schools. It also allocates $3.6 million for designs to replace Severna Park High School, $11 million for full-day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten additions, and $14 million for textbooks.

The operating budget for fiscal year 2012 is $37.3 million more than the previous year's budget. It funds negotiated agreements with unions, the system's health care obligations and 20 mentor teachers required to fulfill obligations associated with the Race to the Top federal money.

Anne Arundel spends $12,334.69 per student ($931,269,700 2011 budget for 75,500 students).

Locally, the Madison School District's 2010-2011 budget, according to the "State of the Madison School District Report" is $379,058,945. Enrollment is 24,471 which yields per student spending of $15,490.12.

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In Defense of the Blogging Teacher

Mike Antonucci:

Since it hit the Associated Press wires, the story has spread to more than 200 publications. Natalie Munroe, an English teacher at Central Bucks High School, was suspended and faces dismissal for what she wrote about her students and school on her personal blog "Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?"

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Forget Mandarin. Latin is the key to success

Toby Young:

On the face of it, encouraging children to learn Latin doesn't seem like the solution to our current skills crisis. Why waste valuable curriculum time on a dead language when children could be learning one that's actually spoken? The prominence of Latin in public schools is a manifestation of the gentleman amateur tradition whereby esoteric subjects are preferred to anything that's of any practical use. Surely, that's one of the causes of the crisis in the first place?

But dig a little deeper and you'll find plenty of evidence that this particular dead language is precisely what today's young people need if they're going to excel in the contemporary world.

Let's start with Latin's reputation as an elitist subject. While it's true that 70 percent of independent schools offer Latin compared with only 16 per cent of state schools, that's hardly a reason not to teach it more widely. According to the OECD, our private schools are the best in the world, whereas our state schools are ranked on average 23rd.

No doubt part of this attainment gap is attributable to the fact that the average private school child has advantages that the average state school child does not. But it may also be due to the differences in the curriculums th

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B-Schools Struggle to Get Global

Diana Middleton:

Business schools like to tout their focus on globalization, but a new report from a b-school accrediting agency says most of their strategies don't go far enough.

To boost globalization, many M.B.A. programs in the U.S. require students to complete internships abroad. Schools are also beefing up case studies that focus on international companies and partnering with foreign schools by sending faculty abroad and exchanging students.

These partnerships can be risky, according to the report, released Thursday by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. A school's reputations could be tarnished depending on the schools it chooses. Schools also often shoulder "severe" financial costs to expand their global footprint, the report says.

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Observations about Chinese (Chinese-American?) mothers

Tyler Cowen:

I agree with many of Bryan Caplan's views on parenting, and Yana can attest that I have never attempted a "dragon mother" style.  Yet I think that Bryan is overreaching a bit in rejecting virtually all of Amy Chua's claims.  The simpler view -- which most Americans intuitively grasp -- is that some Asian parenting styles do make kids more productive, and better at school, although it is less clear they make the kids happier.  It remains the case that most people overrate how much parenting matters in a broader variety of contexts, and in that regard Bryan's work is hardly refuted.  Still, I see real evidence for a parenting effect from many (not all) Asian-American and Asian families.

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NJEA is Not My Public School Teacher, Says N.J.

New Jersey Left Behind:

While the majority of New Jerseyans love public school teachers, more than half believe that the NJ Education Association (NJEA) is "playing a negative role in improving public education," according to a Quinnipiac poll released yesterday.

In addition, reports New Jersey Newsroom, 68% of residents favor implementation of a merit pay system and 62% support tenure reform. We're more split on school choice; the poll found that by a small margin we oppose school vouchers and charter school expansion. From Maurice Carroll of Quinnipiac:

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February 10, 2011

Wisconsin School Administrators Wear Many Hats; Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad tops Compensation list @ $256,715

The Wisconsin Taxpayer:

With state aid stagnant or dropping, state revenue limits tightening, and school compensation costs outpacing revenues, school districts--particularly their administrators--face growing financial pressures. At the same time, in the never-ending search for savings, the work of administrators is receiving greater scrutiny by school boards and the public alike.

Administrators increasingly wear many hats: fiscal expert, economic forecaster, management consultant, marketer, and savvy politician. In small districts, it is no exaggeration to add bookkeeper, guidance counselor, math teacher, handyman, or coach.

How varied approaches to school administration have become is illustrated by two small northern Wisconsin districts, each with about 500 students. One has four administrators (a superintendent, a business manager, and two principals), while the other has just one (a superintendent).

The same can be found among large districts. A relatively large central Wisconsin district has 22 administrators, while a similarly sized district (about 10% more students) has 32 administrators, or nearly 50% more.

These comparisons suggest there is much taxpayers, educators, and school boards can learn about how schools and districts are managed, both in terms of expenditures and work performed...

The comprehensive article mentions:
Among full time Superintendents, highest salaries were Madison ($198,500), Green Bay ($184,000), Racine ($180,000), Milwaukee ($175,062) and Whitefish Bay ($170,850). On the other hand, 49 full-time district heads earned less than $100,000, including those in Augusta ($65,649), Florence ($85,000), Wheatland J1 ($85,517), Cameron ($86,111), Phillips ($87,000) and Wauzeka-Steuben ($87,000).

When benefits are added, districts with the highest total compensation included Madison ($256,715), Milwaukee ($243,365), Green Bay ($239,700), Franklin ($236,573) and Hamilton ($218,617). Benefits include retirement contributions, employer share of Social Security and Medicare, health, life and disability insurance and other miscellaneous benefits such as reimbursement for college courses.

A comparison of 2010 Wisconsin School Administrative costs can be viewed in this .xls file.

Request a free copy of this issue of the Wisconsin Taxpayer, here.

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Stanford Corners the 'Smart' Market After Its Best Football Season in Years, School Chases Top Recruits With Elite Grades; Building Robots

Darren Everson & Jared Diamond:

As college football's 2011 recruiting classes took shape last week, much of the talk was dominated by the usual question: Which team pulled in the richest talent haul? Some say it was Alabama, others Florida State.

What was not acknowledged, or even noted, was the impressive and unusual incoming class assembled by Stanford.

The school, which is coming off its best football season in 70 years, didn't land the most physically talented class of high school football players. The consensus says their crop ranks somewhere around No. 20 in the nation among all the major college programs. What stands out about Stanford's class is something entirely different: what superior students they are.

Wayne Lyons, a four-star defensive back from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who has a 4.96 weighted grade-point average and likes to build robots in his spare time, is widely considered the best student among the nation's elite recruits. When he visited Stanford, he said he was whisked to a seminar on building jet engines and to a facility where robots are built.

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In Defense of Being a Kid Childhood takes up a quarter of one's life, and it would be nice if children enjoyed it.

James Bernard Murphy:

Amy Chua, the "tiger mother," is clearly hitting a nerve--especially among the anxious class (it used to be called the upper class), which understands how much skill and discipline are necessary for success in the new economy.

What Ms. Chua and her critics agree on is that childhood is all about preparation for adulthood. Ms. Chua claims that her parenting methods will produce ambitious, successful and happy adults--while her critics argue that her methods will produce neurotic, self- absorbed and unhappy ones.

It took economist Larry Summers, in a debate with Ms. Chua at the World Economic Forum in Davos, to point out that part of the point of childhood is childhood itself. Childhood takes up a quarter of one's life, Mr. Summers observed, and it would be nice if children enjoyed it.

Bravo, Larry.

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Government workers don't need unions

The Economist

a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/opinion/07mon1.html?_r=2&ref=opinion">TODAY'S New York Times editorial wisely comes out against the proposal to allow states to declare bankruptcy as a union-busting, budget-saving move. (Josh Barro's reasoning against state bankruptcy rings sound to me.) However, I think the Times' goes wrong here:

It is true that many public employee unions have done well during a time of hardship for most Americans. The problem, though, isn't the existence of those unions; it is the generous contracts willingly given to them by lawmakers because of their lobbying power and bloc-voting ability.

The Times' contention that the existence of public-employee unions is not the problem is true, if it is true, only because the unions "fix" a bargaining-power deficit public workers don't have. Without public-sector unions, government workers would lobby their way to padded paychecks, unobtanium-plated pensions, and hermetic job security anyway. Which is just to say, government workers don't really need unions at all. Indeed, the strategic logic behind private- and public-sector unions is fundamentally different. "The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," as some little somebody called Franklin Delano Roosevelt put it back in 1937. 

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School testing shows we have no idea what's happening in Bountiful

Chris Selley:

"The Fraser Institute released its controversial B.C. elementary school rankings today," a TV news anchor intoned earlier this week, "and this year a school in the polygamous community of Bountiful topped the list. That's giving opponents of the rankings more ammunition."

The report continued with Susan Lambert, president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation, saying that "everyone who has anything to do, credibly, with the public education system, will tell you that the rankings are worthless." (The thousands of parents who consult the rankings don't count, as they should have realized by now.) "It's just another example of how ... meaningless the rankings are, and that we should pay no attention to them."

And then the Fraser Institute's Peter Cowley rebutted: "How is it possible that ... a president of a teachers' union can say, on the basis of the evidence that shows that [the school is] doing well, for one year, in reading, writing and math skills at Grades 4 and 7, we have to invalidate those results because of [the community's religious] beliefs?"

And that was pretty much it. It was the line most media outlets took, and it was almost completely beside the point.

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Minnesota AP class results continue to improve, still behind national average

Tom Weber:

More high school seniors are taking Advanced Placement courses in Minnesota and scoring higher on the tests, but the state's rankings are still below national averages.

According to new data from the College Board, more than 15,000 Minnesota high school seniors took an AP course last year, and nearly 10,000 of them scored at least a three on an AP test. A score of three to five usually allows students to gain college credit for that class.

Students have other options to take advanced coursework in Minnesota schools, including throughout the International Baccalaureate program. Tuesday's report was confined to the AP program.

18.3% of Wisconsin high school seniors completed school with at least one successful AP experience. Wisconsin's report can be found here.

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Graduates, but Ill-Prepared Big Disparity Reported Between Getting a Diploma and College-Readiness Rates

Barbara Martinez:

New York state high-school students' college and career readiness lags far behind the graduation rates that most school districts post, according to data from the state Department of Education.

Across the state, the graduation rate in 2009, the last year for which figures are public, was 77%. But only 41% of high-school students were prepared for a career or college, the state said. The state defines students as college- and career-ready if they score at least an 80 on the state's math Regents exam and at least a 75 on the English Regents exam. New York students receive a high-school diploma if they achieve a score of at least 65 on Regents tests.

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MacIver's Christian D'Andrea Reacts to WEAC Reform Plans

Christian D'Andrea:

"WEAC unveiled their strategy Tuesday in the form of a pre-emptive strike as Governor Scott Walker prepares his upcoming budget proposal, which most insiders agree will have a significant impact on school funding and the way our schools operate.

"The organization's main focus is to break Wisconsin's largest district into multiple pieces by 2015. According to WEAC leaders, this move would create a more manageable system in the schools that have become a collective albatross hanging from the neck of Wisconsin's public education.

"[I]n its current configuration, we do not believe MPS can be fixed. It is simply too big," said WEAC President Mary Bell. Bell later went on to say that despite the state union's buy-in, the local Milwaukee Teachers' Educational Association (MTEA) isn't on board.

"While MPS is fraught with problems, a reduction of size won't be a panacea, nor will it make things much clearer in Wisconsin's largest city. While WEAC's change of heart is refreshing given their recent track record on education reform, they are resorting to a drastic step without fully exploring their other options for reform that are politically more feasible. MPS is only the 33rd largest school district in the country by enrollment, and while some of the cities that are larger than Milwaukee nationally have their own problems, many operate successfully despite a glut of students.

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February 9, 2011

Madison schools superintendent gets mixed grades as contract renewal vote looms

Matthew DeFour:

After 2½ years as Madison schools superintendent, Dan Nerad is still finding his footing.

For Nerad and his supporters, that's more of a statement about Madison's slippery and sometimes treacherous political terrain.

But among critics there is frustration that Nerad hasn't risen to the task, particularly given the high expectations for the former social worker and Green Bay superintendent.

The two views among Madison School Board members and others in the community are circulating as the board weighs whether to extend Nerad's contract beyond June 2012.

Supporters point to a long list of accomplishments so far despite severe obstacles -- implementation of 4-year-old kindergarten after decades of discussion, development of a strategic plan that brought in dozens of community voices and expansion of dual-language immersion programs.

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Student arrested after allegedly dragging ex-girlfriend out of school

Susan Troller, via a kind reader's email

A 16-year-old Madison West High School student was arrested Friday afternoon after he allegedly dragged his ex-girlfriend out of the school and threatened to harm her in a nearby cemetery.

The teen was tentatively charged with false imprisonment, intimidation of a victim and two counts of disorderly conduct, Madison police said.

According to police, the incident was reported at about 12:15 p.m. Friday at the high school, 30 Ash St.

"The 16-year-old female victim said the boy pulled her out of school against her will and led her by the arm to a nearby cemetery where he threatened to harm her," said police spokesman Joel DeSpain.

Madison's Sherman & Shabazz schools were locked down briefly Tuesday.

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Beating the odds: 3 high-poverty Madison schools find success in 'catching kids up'

Susan Troller:

When it comes to the quality of Madison's public schools, the issue is pretty much black and white.

The Madison Metropolitan School District's reputation for providing stellar public education is as strong as it ever was for white, middle-class students. Especially for these students, the district continues to post high test scores and turn out a long list of National Merit Scholars -- usually at a rate of at least six times the average for a district this size.

But the story is often different for Hispanic and black kids, and students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Madison is far from alone in having a significant performance gap. In fact, the well-documented achievement gap is in large measure responsible for the ferocious national outcry for more effective teachers and an overhaul of the public school system. Locally, frustration over the achievement gap has helped fuel a proposal from the Urban League of Greater Madison and its president and CEO, Kaleem Caire, to create a non-union public charter school targeted at minority boys in grades six through 12.

"In Madison, I can point to a long history of failure when it comes to educating African-American boys," says Caire, who is black, a Madison native and a graduate of West High School. "We have one of the worst achievement gaps in the entire country. I'm not seeing a concrete plan to address that fact, even in a district that prides itself on innovative education."

What often gets lost in the discussion over the failures of public education, however, is that there are some high-poverty, highly diverse schools that are beating the odds by employing innovative ways to reach students who have fallen through the cracks elsewhere.

Related: A Deeper Look at Madison's National Merit Scholar Results.

Troller's article referenced use of the oft criticized WKCE (Wisconsin Knowledge & Concepts Examination) (WKCE Clusty search) state examinations.

Related: value added assessment (based on the WKCE).

Dave Baskerville has argued that Wisconsin needs two big goals, one of which is to "Lift the math, science and reading scores of all K-12, non-special education students in Wisconsin above world-class standards by 2030". Ongoing use of and progress measurement via the WKCE would seem to be insufficient in our global economy.

Steve Chapman on "curbing excellence".

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Generation net: The youngsters who prefer their virtual lives to the real world

Liz Thomas:

Children are often happier with their online lives than they are with reality, a survey has revealed.

They say they can be exactly who they want to be - and as soon as something is no longer fun they can simply hit the quit button.

The study also shows that, despite concerns about online safety, one in eight young people is in contact with strangers when on the web and often lies about their appearance, age and background.

Researchers for children's charity Kidscape assessed the online activities of 2,300 11- to 18-year-olds from across the UK and found that 45 per cent said they were sometimes happier online than in their real lives.

The report - Virtual Lives: It is more than a game, it is your life - lays bare the attitudes of children today to the internet and includes revealing insights into how they feel when they are on the web.

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Charter Location Influences Sustainability

Tom Vander Ark:

Andy Rotherham just published a report with obvious conclusions: sustainability is impacted by location. More specifically, if you open a charter in California, you will spend a lifetime begging for money.

Find the New paper on charter school finance from Bellwether out today (pdf). Press release can be found here and The Wall Street Journal editorial page weighs-in on it here.

Andy summarizes:

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Data indicates 5 percent of Rochester graduates ready for college, careers

Erinn Cain:

The New York State Education Department has released data that it said indicates that not all students graduating high school are prepared to enter college or careers.

The data compares graduation rates versus college- and career-ready graduation rate calculations for general education students who entered ninth grade in the 2005-06 school year, through June 2009.

General education graduation requirements for a local diploma include a score of 65 or better on two Regents exams and 55 or better on three Regents exams. The designation of college- and career-ready is defined by graduates who received at least an 80-percent grade on the math Regents exam and 75 on the English Regents exam.

In Rochester, there was a 46.6 percent graduation rate, with only 5.1 percent of graduates being college- and career-ready, said state education officials. This compares to 49.5 and 14.7 percent, respectively, in Syracuse, and 64.5 and 22.8 percent in New York City.

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The takeaway language of slang

James Sharpe

In the Preface to his Dictionary of the English Language, Samuel Johnson informed his readers that there was one aspect of his compatriots' discourse that he was unwilling to engage with. "Of the laborious and mercantile part of the people", he wrote,

"the diction is in a great measure casual and mutable; many of their terms are formed for some temporary or local convenience, and though current at certain times and places, and in others utterly unknown. This fugitive cant, which is always in state of increase or decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a language, and therefore must be suffered to perish with other things unworthy of preservation."

Yet, as Johnson must have been aware, published works recording this "casual and mutable" English had existed since Thomas Harman added a glossary of canting terms to his Caveat or Warening for Commen Cursetors of 1567 and, indeed, a generation after Johnson dismissed what we would call slang as "unworthy of preservation", a very different view was being propounded. For Francis Grose, the antiquary and former military man, author of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, published in 1785, it was a matter of regret that "terms of well-known import, at New-market, Exchange-alley, the City, the Parade, Wapping, and Newgate", and which also "find their way into our political and theatrical compositions", were not recorded in conventional dictionaries. Indeed Grose (as had Johnson) managed to establish a patriotic slant to his dictionary-making. Referring to a recent dictionary of "satyrical and burlesque French", he claimed that with "our language being at least as copious as the French, and as capable of the witty equivoque", his dictionary was fully justified. He pursued this theme further, adding that

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Michigan Board of Education raises proficiency scores for MEAP and MME

Kyle Feldscher:

Don't be surprised if a surprising number of Michigan school districts fall short of proficient scoring after next year's round of standardized state testing.

The Michigan Board of Education approved higher cut scores, or scores that mark proficiency, for both the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) and Michigan Merit Exam (MME) tests at a board meeting Tuesday. According to experts, the new standards will be more honest about how well students are doing on the tests.

"It's going to make a real difference in the share of kids who are being labeled proficient and in the share of schools passing AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress)," said Susan Dynarski, associate professor of economics, education and public policy at the University of Michigan. "Michigan has been Lake Woebegone -- right now 95 percent of our third graders are labeled as proficient in math and under the new standards, it would become 34 percent."

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Laura Bush to announce 2nd education initiative from Bush Institute

Jamie Stengle:

The George W. Bush Institute's second big education initiative will seek to improve graduation rates by focusing on middle school as a foundation for future success.

Former first lady Laura Bush is set to announce the initiative, called "Middle School Matters," Wednesday in Houston at Stovall Middle School in the Aldine school district.

She says research has shown that 6th through 8th grade is a crucial time and that many high school dropouts essentially dropped out in middle school. One goal will be to ensure students are prepared for high school.

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Spotlight on LIFO in New York

Elizabeth Ling:

No one wants the big teacher layoffs that most analysts say are inevitable under our current state budget crisis. But many of us are very concerned that if such layoffs are necessary, the state's "last in, first out" rule will mean that many of our best teachers will be forced out regardless of their qualifications and effectiveness. This could be particularly devastating for schools in high-poverty neighborhoods, where teachers tend to have fewer years of experience

A new poll shows that a majority of New Yorkers disapprove of the state's "last in, first out" (LIFO) law that forces schools to fire the most recently hired teachers during a budget crisis, regardless of teacher quality

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New Wisconsin school medication rules tie hands

Bill Lueders:

Beginning March 1, public schools in Madison and across the state will be constrained in their ability to dispense medication to students and respond to health emergencies.

"Our options are now limited," says Freddi Adelson, the Madison district's health services coordinator.

The changes, crafted by the state Department of Public Instruction and passed by the Legislature last year, set stricter rules for dispensing medications at school than current district policy.

For instance, Madison schools now let school nurses dispense acetaminophen or ibuprofen to the students of parents who give written permission. The new rules say schools can dispense only medications

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Mansfield Arabic Program On Hold

CBS DFW:

A Mansfield ISD program to teach Arabic language and culture in schools is on hold for now, and may not happen at all.

The school district wanted students at selected schools to take Arabic language and culture classes as part of a federally funded grant.

The Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant was awarded to Mansfield ISD last summer by the U.S. Department of Education.

As part of the five-year $1.3 million grant, Arabic classes would have been taught at Cross Timbers Intermediate School and other schools feeding into Summit High School.

Parents at Cross Timbers say they were caught off-guard by the program, and were surprised the district only told them about it in a meeting Monday night between parents and Mansfield ISD Superintendent Bob Morrison.

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February 8, 2011

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: For Federal Programs, a Taste of Market Discipline

David Leonhardt::

Wouldn't it be nice if taxpayers could somehow get a refund for government programs that didn't work?

Instead, the opposite tends to happen. Programs that fail to make a difference -- like many of those that train workers for new jobs -- endure indefinitely. Often, policy makers don't even know which work and which don't, because rigorous evaluation is rare in government. And competition, which punishes laggards in the private sector, is typically absent in the public sector.

But there is some good news on this front. Lately, both American and British policy makers have been thinking about how to bring some of the competitive discipline of the market to government programs, and they have hit on an intriguing idea.

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Wisconsin Teachers' Union Proposed Education Reforms

Wisconsin Education Association Council:

State officers of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) today unveiled three dramatic proposals as part of their quality-improvement platform called "Moving Education Forward: Bold Reforms." The proposals include the creation of a statewide system to evaluate educators; instituting performance pay to recognize teaching excellence; and breaking up the Milwaukee Public School District into a series of manageable-sized districts within the city.

"In our work with WEAC leaders and members we have debated and discussed many ideas related to modernizing pay systems, better evaluation models, and ways to help turn around struggling schools in Milwaukee," said WEAC President Mary Bell. "We believe bold actions are needed in these three areas to move education forward. The time for change is now. This is a pivotal time in public education and we're in an era of tight resources. We must have systems in place to ensure high standards for accountability - that means those working in the system must be held accountable to high standards of excellence."

TEACHER EVALUATION: In WEAC's proposed teacher evaluation system, new teachers would be reviewed annually for their first three years by a Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) panel made up of both teachers and administrators. The PAR panels judge performance in four areas:

  • Planning and preparing for student learning
  • Creating a quality learning environment
  • Effective teaching
  • Professional responsibility
The proposed system would utilize the expertise of the UW Value-Added Research Center (Value Added Assessment) and would include the review of various student data to inform evaluation decisions and to develop corrective strategies for struggling teachers. Teachers who do not demonstrate effectiveness to the PAR panels are exited out of the profession and offered career transition programs and services through locally negotiated agreements.

Veteran teachers would be evaluated every three years, using a combination of video and written analysis and administrator observation. Underperforming veteran teachers would be required to go through this process a second year. If they were still deemed unsatisfactory, they would be re-entered into the PAR program and could ultimately face removal.

"The union is accepting our responsibility for improving the quality of the profession, not just for protecting the due process rights of our members," said Bell. "Our goal is to have the highest-quality teachers at the front of every classroom across the state. And we see a role for classroom teachers to contribute as peer reviewers, much like a process often used in many private sector performance evaluation models."

"If you want to drive change in Milwaukee's public schools, connect the educators and the community together into smaller districts within the city, and without a doubt it can happen," said Bell. "We must put the needs of Milwaukee's students and families ahead of what's best for the adults in the system," said Bell. "That includes our union - we must act differently - we must lead."

Madison's "value added assessment" program is based on the oft-criticized WKCE examinations.

Related: student learning has become focused instead on adult employment - Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman.

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Study finds funding gap between D.C. specialty and neighborhood schools

Bill Turque:

The two public high schools, 21/2 miles apart in Northwest Washington, serve vastly different student populations. And they do it with vastly different levels of financial support, according to an analysis of school spending by a District advocacy group.

School Without Walls accepts only the city's most accomplished students after a competitive application process that requires interviews with prospective parents as well. More than 700 students are vying for 120 spots in next year's ninth-grade class. Those who are admitted will attend classes in a freshly renovated vintage building on the George Washington University campus. District funds per student: $10,257.

Cardozo, near 13th Street and Florida Avenue, is a neighborhood high school that takes all comers in an attendance area that includes about a dozen group homes and homeless shelters. Parole officers and social workers are sometimes the only adults who appear at the school on students' behalf. The wiring in the cavernous 1916 building was so bad a couple of years ago that when all of the computers were turned on, power in half of the school would go out, said Principal Gwendolyn Grant.

District funds per student: $7,453.

Locally, the Madison School District's 2010-2011 budget, according to the "State of the Madison School District Report" is $379,058,945. Enrollment is 24,471 which yields per student spending of $15,490.12.

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The takeaway language of slang

James Sharpe:

In the Preface to his Dictionary of the English Language, Samuel Johnson informed his readers that there was one aspect of his compatriots' discourse that he was unwilling to engage with. "Of the laborious and mercantile part of the people", he wrote,

"the diction is in a great measure casual and mutable; many of their terms are formed for some temporary or local convenience, and though current at certain times and places, and in others utterly unknown. This fugitive cant, which is always in state of increase or decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a language, and therefore must be suffered to perish with other things unworthy of preservation."

Yet, as Johnson must have been aware, published works recording this "casual and mutable" English had existed since Thomas Harman added a glossary of canting terms to his Caveat or Warening for Commen Cursetors of 1567 and, indeed, a generation after Johnson dismissed what we would call slang as "unworthy of preservation", a very different view was being propounded. For Francis Grose, the antiquary and former military man, author of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, published in 1785, it was a matter of regret that "terms of well-known import, at New-market, Exchange-alley, the City, the Parade, Wapping, and Newgate", and which also "find their way into our political and theatrical compositions", were not recorded in conventional dictionaries. Indeed Grose (as had Johnson) managed to establish a patriotic slant to his dictionary-making. Referring to a recent dictionary of "satyrical and burlesque French", he claimed that with "our language being at least as copious as the French, and as capable of the witty equivoque", his dictionary was fully justified. He pursued this theme further, adding that

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Starving Charters A new study shows the funding bias against non-traditional schools.

The Wall Street Journal:

Look quickly and you might think that charter schools have it easy, given the celebrated documentary "Waiting for 'Superman,'" the efforts of reformers like Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein, and the support of the Obama Administration. That's why a report out Tuesday is a needed corrective: It demonstrates how government policies regularly discriminate against charters.

Published by Bellwether Education Partners, a reform-minded advocacy group, the report examines the finances of Aspire Public Schools, a network of 30 California charter schools with 9,800 students from kindergarten through high school. With extended school days and years, innovative curricula and other hallmarks of charter autonomy, Aspire ranks as California's single best school system serving a majority of very poor students. Yet it operates with margins of only 0.6%, or $60 per student, which make it harder to scrape together funds to open new schools.

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High-schoolers' 'recess': Benefit or brain drain?

Jay Matthews:

There is no limit to what you learn about schools if you listen to teachers. Did you know, for instance, that Fairfax County, the Washington region's largest school district, is using 10 days a year of valuable instruction time on do-what-you-like recesses for high school students?

I didn't, either. West Springfield High School physics teacher Ed Linz says this program, designed to help struggling students, is a waste. At his school, students get 90 free minutes a week, which they can use to find dates for Saturday night or check basketball scores, if they want. But his principal, Paul Wardinski, says most students do homework, work on group projects and enrich their studies. It helps teachers to be creative, he says, even if some students look for imaginative ways to goof off.

Linz disclosed the recesses to the county School Board last month. Like President Obama, he said that this is our Sputnik moment and that we can't win the future throwing away precious class time.

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Childhood: Obesity and School Lunches

Roni Caryn Rabin:

A study of more than 1,000 sixth graders in several schools in southeastern Michigan found that those who regularly had the school lunch were 29 percent more likely to be obese than those who brought lunch from home.

Spending two or more hours a day watching television or playing video games also increased the risk of obesity, but by only 19 percent.

Of the 142 obese children in the study for whom dietary information was known, almost half were school-lunch regulars, compared with only one-third of the 787 who were not obese.

"Most school lunches rely heavily on high-energy, low-nutrient-value food, because it's cheaper," said Dr. Kim A. Eagle, director of the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center, and senior author of the paper, published in the December issue of American Heart Journal. In some schools where the study was done, lunch programs offered specials like "Tater Tot Day," he said.

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More charters, more choices

Baltimore Sun:

Montgomery County is rightly proud of its public school system, which is widely regarded as one of the best in the state. Perhaps that's why, nearly eight years after state lawmakers passed a law allowing for the establishment of charter schools -- alternative institutions that receive public funds but operate independently -- the Montgomery County school board has yet to approve a single application to open one.

Is that because no one has come up with a credible plan for a school that would give parents more choices for educating their children? Or is it because local school officials simply don't want the competition?

The state school board looked into the matter last year, after Montgomery County school officials turned down the applications of two groups that wanted to set up new charter schools in the district. What they found goes a long way toward explaining why school reform advocates like the Washington-based Center for Education Reform have rated Maryland's charter school law as one of the weakest in the nation. Despite passing important reforms last year regarding lengthening of the time it takes teachers to earn tenure and linking student test scores with teacher evaluations, lawmakers need to take another look at strengthening the state's charter school law if Maryland is to build on those gains.

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Bills assert parents' right to home school in New Hampshire

Norma Love:

A long-simmering dispute between the state and parents who prefer to teach their children at home is being renewed.

The House Education Committee has scheduled for Tuesday hearings on three bills on home schooling in its largest room, the House chamber. Legislation regulating home schooling has drawn large crowds over the years.

Last month, a divorced couple who couldn't agree on how to educate their daughter took the fight to the state Supreme Court. The court is being asked if parents have a constitutional right to home school their kids. In this case, the father objected to his wife's strict Christian teachings and wants their daughter taught at public schools. The mother prefers home schooling.

Home schooling advocates say they want less regulation over what they argue is a parent's right.

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February 7, 2011

Welcome to our urban high schools, where kids have kids and learning dies.

Gerry Garibaldi:

In my short time as a teacher in Connecticut, I have muddled through President Bush's No Child Left Behind act, which tied federal funding of schools to various reforms, and through President Obama's Race to the Top initiative, which does much the same thing, though with different benchmarks. Thanks to the feds, urban schools like mine--already entitled to substantial federal largesse under Title I, which provides funds to public schools with large low-income populations--are swimming in money. At my school, we pay five teachers to tutor kids after school and on Saturdays. They sit in classrooms waiting for kids who never show up. We don't want for books--or for any of the cutting-edge gizmos that non-Title I schools can't afford: computerized whiteboards, Elmo projectors, the works. Our facility is state-of-the-art, thanks to a recent $40 million face-lift, with gleaming new hallways and bathrooms and a fully computerized library.

Here's my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children--all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch.

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Cuomo, Pushing School Cuts, Offers a Target: Superintendent Salaries

Thomas Kaplan:

Carole G. Hankin, the schools superintendent in Syosset on Long Island, made an unexpected cameo appearance in Albany last week: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo cast her salary as a prime example of wasteful spending by school districts.

Mr. Cuomo did not mention Dr. Hankin by name in his budget address, but he did offer her salary: $386,868, more than the pay of any other superintendent in the state. "I applied for that job," the governor joked, adding that he had decided to run for governor, which pays $179,000, only after he had been rejected.

Mr. Cuomo's remarks came as he presented a budget calling for a $2.85 billion reduction in local school aid, a proposal that has already drawn fierce criticism from educators. But the governor offered some criticism of his own for school officials.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said that school districts had enough means to withstand the decline in state financing, and pointedly suggested that they look at whether they are spending too much on their own bureaucracy.

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Wealthy donors demanding bigger voice in Catholic schools

Paul Vitello:

Private philanthropists have changed the face of public education over the last decade, underwriting the rise of charter schools and promoting remedies that rely heavily on student testing and teacher evaluation.

But with much less fanfare, wealthy donors have begun playing a parallel role in the country's next-largest educational network: Roman Catholic schools.

In New York -- as in Boston, Baltimore and Chicago -- shrinking enrollment and rising school deficits in recent years have deepened the church's dependence on its cadres of longtime benefactors. Donors have responded generously, but many who were once content to write checks and attend student pageants are now asking to see school budgets, student reading scores and principals' job evaluations.

In the jargon of education reform, they want transparency and accountability; and though the church bureaucracy has resisted similar demands from other constituents in the past, the donors are getting pretty much what they want.

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Love you and leave you

Kathrin Hille:

Wang Tingting last saw her parents nearly two years ago, but now that they are reunited, no one knows what to say to one another. Finally, Su Taoying, Tingting's mother, clasps her 12-year-old daughter's hand and says, ruefully, "Next time I see you, you will be taller than me." As they smile, the family resemblance is striking. And yet for the past five years they have not really been a family.

Wang Tingting is one of tens of millions of ­children in rural China growing up without their parents - parents who have decamped to the cities in order to earn a better living. Some of these children are cared for by their grandparents, but others are handed over to foster centres. Three years ago, as she was about to enter junior high school, Tingting's parents moved her from her grandparents' home to a foster centre in Gufeng, their remote village in the eastern province of Anhui. Nobody here found that strange: fewer than half of the children in Gufeng live with their parents, a situation repeated across several provinces in the heavily populated southern half of China.

The Chinese government estimates that there are 58 million "left-behind children", which accounts for almost 20 per cent of all the children in China, and close to half of all children in the countryside. Their lives illustrate the price China is paying for president Hu Jintao's goal of building a "moderately well-off society".

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Pennsylvania School voucher debate heats up

Mark Scolforo:

Supporters call them a matter of choice, a lifeline for children stuck in broken schools. Opponents deride them as unconstitutional and unworkable and warn that they will erode conditions in some of Pennsylvania's most troubled schools.

The debate over taxpayer-paid tuition vouchers to help poor children find alternatives to attending the state's weakest-performing public schools has emerged as a major item on the legislative agenda for the next six months -- perhaps the major item after the state budget.

The voucher issue will come to the fore in the General Assembly on Feb. 16, when the chairman of the Senate Education Committee will lead a hearing on his bill to establish the Opportunity Scholarship and Educational Improvement Tax Credit Act.

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Brewster Board of Education Addresses Cuomo's Budget

Katherine Pacchiana:

The board also expressed concern about the $1.3 billion earmarked for education in the federal stimulus package that was supposed to be distributed in addition to the state education budget. Instead, that money was used to substitute for state education allocations.

"This is an alarming trend," said Board President Stephen Jambor. "While it makes great headlines to blame the schools, it is underhanded to underfund us in the first place. Your state taxes keep going up the hill to Albany. We have to get busy in fighting back because push has come to shove."

These issues have been detailed in a letter to the governor which was personally delivered by Sandbank. A copy of the letter will be posted on the district's website.

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Duluth school district troubled by downward enrollment

Jana Hollingsworth:

Anna Cook chose online education for her 7-year-old daughter this fall after an unhappy year at Lincoln Park Elementary School, where she said overwhelmed teachers and bullying made traditional school seem like "chaos."

"I didn't feel like my child was in a safe situation there," Cook said. "All I could do was get her out of there."

Cook is part of a steady stream of people choosing to leave the district. As the School Board prepares to cut $7.3 million from its budget, partly because of declining enrollment, it's taking a look Tuesday at that number, along with where the students are going and how to get them back.

Red Plan opponents have long said angry families are sending their students in droves to neighboring districts because of the plan. But Cook's story shows there are a variety of reasons families are seeking education elsewhere, including more choice, smaller class sizes and fresh starts.

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Bill Gates: Vaccine-autism link 'an absolute lie'

Danielle Dellorto:

Microsoft founder Bill Gates sat down recently with CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta in Davos, Switzerland.

The billionaire philanthropist was attending the World Economic Forum to push his mission of eradicating polio by 2012. Gates, through his foundation, also pledged $10 billion to provide vaccinations to children around the world within a decade.

Gupta asked Gates for his thoughts about the alleged autism-vaccine connection. He also asked: Who holds ultimate accountability for the billions of dollars being spent on aid? Is a certain amount of corruption and fraud expected? Below is an excerpt of their conversation.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Ten billion dollars [pledged] over the next 10 years to make it "the year of the vaccines." What does that mean exactly?

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Cameron Criticizes 'Multiculturalism' in Britain

John Burns:

Faced with growing alarm about Islamic militants who have made Britain one of Europe's most active bases for terrorist plots, Prime Minister David Cameron has mounted an attack on the country's decades-old policy of "multiculturalism," saying it has encouraged "segregated communities" where Islamic extremism can thrive.

Speaking at a security conference in Munich on Saturday, Mr. Cameron condemned what he called the "hands-off tolerance" in Britain and other European nations that had encouraged Muslims and other immigrant groups "to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream."

He said that the policy had allowed Islamic militants leeway to radicalize young Muslims, some of whom went on to "the next level" by becoming terrorists, and that Europe could not defeat terrorism "simply by the actions we take outside our borders," with military actions like the war in Afghanistan.

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February 6, 2011

HR in public schools fails students

Chris Rickert:

The simplest of conversations, the most important of facts. And yet nearly six years after those images were discovered by the Madison School District, Nelson was a superintendent and had to be caught allegedly trying to solicit sex from what he thought was a 15-year-old boy online before the bizzaro world of public school human resources stood up and took notice.

I am assuming (safely, I really, really hope) that had my imagined exchange occurred, Nelson's public schools career would have been over. There also does not appear to have been anything contractually or legally to prevent it from occurring.

Madison human resources director Bob Nadler said Nelson had an oral agreement -- "not a contract" -- under which, in exchange for Nelson's resignation, the district would disclose nothing more than his dates of employment, position and salary.

These kinds of agreements happened with some frequency, according to Art Rainwater, the superintendent in Madison at the time Nelson was nabbed for porn. As to the exact circumstances surrounding how Nelson was lucky enough to get one and who it was with, well, "I honestly don't remember," Rainwater told me.

Not only could Madison have dropped the dime on its very own pervert; state law provides some liability protection for doing so. Employers who act in "good faith" when providing a reference are protected unless they knowingly lie or provide a reference maliciously or violate the state's blacklisting statute, according to Marquette University Law School Associate Professor Paul Secunda.

Rickert deserves props for contacting former Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater (who now is employed - along with others from the Madison School District - at the UW-Madison School of Education) on this matter.

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Another Closed Session on Madison's Superintendent Review..... Sixth since August, 2010

The Madison Board of Education:

2. Evaluation of the Superintendent pursuant to Wis. Stat §19.85(1)(c)
Much more on Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad, here.

This search reveals that there have been six closed session meetings since August, 2010 on the Superintendent evaluation. I wonder how this frequency conflicts with the public's right to know?

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Race to Nowhere Plays @ Madison West High School 2/8/2011

via a kind reader's email:

A concerned mother turned filmmaker aims her camera at the high-stakes, high-pressure culture that has invaded our schools and our children's lives, creating unhealthy, disengaged, unprepared and stressed-out youth. Featuring the heartbreaking stories of young people in all types of communities who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren't developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what's best for their kids, Race to Nowhere points to the silent epidemic in our schools: cheating has become commonplace; students are disengaged; stress-related illness and depression are rampant; and many young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired.

In a grassroots sensation already feeding a groundswell for change, hundreds of theaters, schools and organizations nationwide are hosting community screenings during a six month campaign to screen the film nationwide. Tens of thousands of people are coming together, using the film as the centerpiece for raising awareness, radically changing the national dialogue on education and galvanizing change."

Join us for a screening of this new documentary

RACE TO NOWHERE

on February 8 at 7:30 PM at the Madison West Auditorium

TICKETS: $10 ONLINE AND $15 AT THE DOOR http://rtnmadisonwest.eventbrite.com

Want more info?

http://www.RaceToNowhere.com

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What school vouchers have bought for my family

Vivian Butler:

I worried constantly about my daughter Jerlisa when she attended our neighborhood elementary school. I knew that I wanted a better education for her, but I didn't know how to make that happen. In 2005, I took a chance and applied to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. Little did I know how much more than $7,500 I would be gaining.

I grew up in the District and attended D.C. public schools. Jerlisa started off the same way. We enrolled her at Gibbs Elementary School for kindergarten, and as the years went by she started to fall behind. There was so much going on around the school and in the classroom. Every morning, I walked with her to school, and every afternoon I waited outside the school gates to walk her home again. She got teased for that, but I was worried about the drug dealers, addicts and bullies in the neighborhood. I didn't have any other choice. I had to make sure she was safe.

When Jerlisa was in fifth grade, she became anxious and didn't want to return to school. It was clear to me she wasn't getting the help that she needed. That's when I received fliers about the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Although I didn't know everything about the OSP, I knew I had to do something different, even if it meant getting out of my comfort zone. When you're a single mother on a fixed income, sometimes simple things like filling out your name, address or income on a form can be a scary thing to do.

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Postponing Mandatory Teacher use of Madison's Infinite Campus System

Superintendent Dan Nerad:

Background information: In 2010, the Board approved a number of administrative recommendations geared toward increasing usage of the Infinite Campus System. The current timeline requires all high school teachers to use grade-level appropriate Infinite Campus teacher tools by the end of the fourth quarter of the 2010-2011 school year.
The administration has been notified by the vendor that significant changes will be made to the Infinite Campus interface in July 2011. Accordingly, if training sessions were to continue as required to meet the current deadline, those same teachers would have to be trained on a new interface only months later.

It would be more prudent to wait until the new interface is available and require full implementation of the Infinite Campus teacher tools at the high schools by the end of the second quarter of the 2011-2012 school year.

D. BOE action requested: Postpone mandatory use of Infinite Campus teacher tools at the high schools until the end of the second quarter of the 2011-2012 school year.

Much more on the Madison School District's implementation of Infinite Campus, here.

A January, 2010 usage survey.

The system originally lifted off during the fall of 2007. I wonder how much has been spent on it without full use? This type of system can be a useful way for parents, teachers and students to communicate - if it is used.....

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A Walk Around Emory University



View a few still and panoramic images here.

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The Escalating Arms Race for Top Colleges

Jennifer Moses:

It is no secret that the children of certain families (and we all know who we are) are primed to take a disproportionate share of the places at the best--or at least the most prestigious--colleges. That's because we're already sending our kids to the kinds of excellent schools that help prepare them for admission to such colleges.

But just in case our children don't quite have the stats to make it into, say, Georgetown or UNC on their own steam, you can bet that we, as parents, will do everything in our power to make it happen. We are all caught up in a crazy arms race, where the order of the day (to borrow a useful term from the Cold War) is "escalation dominance."

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It May Be a Sputnik Moment, but Science Fairs Are Lagging

Amy Harmon:

Rarely have school science fairs, a source of pride and panic for generations of American students, achieved such prominence on the national stage. President Obama held one at the White House last fall. And last week he said that America should celebrate its science fair winners like Sunday's Super Bowl champions, or risk losing the nation's competitive edge.

Yet as science fair season kicks into high gear, participation among high school students appears to be declining. And many science teachers say the problem is not a lack of celebration, but the Obama administration's own education policy, which holds schools accountable for math and reading scores at the expense of the kind of creative, independent exploration that science fair projects require.

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Should Everyone Go to College?

Kristina Chew:

In a report issued on February 2nd, Harvard researchers question the value of 'college for all.'
According to the co-authors of the report, Academic Dean Robert Schwartz and Ronald Ferguson, a Senior Lecturer at Harvard, the US's four-year colleges are failing students by focusing too much on classroom-based academics and not adequately preparing students for careers. The proposal has sparked immediately concern from educators as it raises the 'specter of tracking,' in which students (often from lower-income or disadvantaged backgrounds) are 'channeled unquestioningly into watered-down programs that curtail their prospects,' according to EdWeek.

Currently, 42 percent of 27-year-olds in the US have no more than a high school degree. Only 30 percent of Americans earn a bachelor's degree by the time they are 27. President Obama has stated that he wants to improve the nation's college graduation rate to 60 percent in 10 years (ABC News). The US now ranks in 12th place in the world for college graduates, In comparison Canada's college graduation rate is 55.8 percent; in South Korea and Russia, the rate for college graduates is 55.5 percent, according to statistics from the College Board.

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Jamie Oliver Still at Odds With Los Angeles Schools

Anne Louise Bannon:

A little over two weeks after celebrity cook Jamie Oliver started shooting the second season of his Food Revolution reality TV show at the Westwood-based Jamie's Kitchen, the Los Angeles Unified School District remains at odds with the production company about letting the show shoot in district schools.

However, Robert Alaniz, spokesperson for the district said that officials have been meeting with Oliver's team.

"He'd be more than welcome, but sans cameras," Alaniz said, adding that district officials simply believe that the school district is no place for a reality television show.

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Idaho Superintendent of Schools Luna's proposed changes to education opposed by local school board

Idaho State Journal:

Pocatello-Chubbuck School District 25 has officially come out against an education reform plan backed by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, arguing it adds new costs at a time when the state can't cover existing expenses.

School board members, who hosted a special meeting Tuesday to discuss the plan, even took exception with the name of Luna's plan, called "Students Come First."

"The legislation itself is insulting in its title, thinking that any one of the school boards in this state would not put children first," board members wrote in the document they authored outlining their position on the plan.

They noted past policy changes, including core standards and heightened graduation requirements, involved considerable input and time for research. Luna's proposed legislation, they argue, wasn't based on sufficient input or extensive research. They suggest implementing pilot programs to test various aspects of the plan, which could be used to measure success or as a basis for modifications.

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What football can teach school reformers

Larry Lee:

The Birmingham school board plans to hire 60 Teach for America teachers over the next three years in an effort to bring more innovation to low-performing schools.

TFA is a privately run program that recruits recent college graduates, gives them five weeks of training in how to teach and sends them across the country for two years to work in largely under-performing schools.

In addition to paying their salaries, the Birmingham school system will also pay $5,000 per year per new hire to TFA for training.

On Jan. 15, I sat with my son, and 70,000 others, watching Auburn University celebrate winning the BCS national football championship because what my alma mater has just done could be a great example for Superintendent Witherspoon and members of the Birmingham school board.

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Texas High School Freshman Sends Robot to School in His Place

Shane:

This is so awesome. A school district in Knox City, Texas has allowed a student with a severe illness that keeps him at home to attend classes like a normal freshman by using a Vgo telepresence robot. My son's school had to have a meeting with the school board to let me GIVE them technology.

The boy is named Lyndon Baty and he suffers from polycystic kidney disease, and treatment for the disease has left his immune system suppressed. The poor immune system means he can't be around other kids to attend classes.

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Rhode Island education chief says schools can't put off improvements

Jennifer Jordan
:

Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist is putting the brakes on regulations that require high school students to reach at least "partial proficiency" on state tests in order to graduate. She's pushing the 2012 deadline back two years.

But she says Rhode Island's high schools can't continue to dole out diplomas to students who cannot read, write or compute at a high-school level.

Schools must do more to help students reach the higher goals, and state education officials must find better ways to support schools, she says.

"We need people to understand we are not putting a two-year pause in place," Gist said in an interview Friday.

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Madison 4K enrollment begins Monday

Matthew DeFour:

Enrollment begins Monday for Madison's new 4-year-old kindergarten program that begins next fall.

Parents of children who turn 4 on or before Sept. 1 can register at their local elementary school between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. for the half-day, tuition-free program.

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Arab World Built Colleges, but Not Jobs Unemployment, Broad Among Region's Angry Youth, Is High Among Educated

David Wessel:

The anger of demonstrators in Tunisia and Egypt runs, too, through 25-year-old Saleh Barek al-Jabri.

Mr. Jabri, the son of a Yemini bus driver, says he answered his government's call for young people to study petroleum engineering, enrolling in a course at Yemen's Hadhramaut University for Science and Technology. Officials visited his school to offer encouragement. An oil minister came through to promise jobs. Mr. Jabri excelled, finishing fifth in his class.

But after graduating last year, he has yet to find work. Classmates with family connections got what few jobs existed. Mr. Jabri moved to Yemen's capital, San'a, where he shares a single room with two other unemployed recent graduates.

"I had dreams," Mr. Jabri says. "They've all evaporated."

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The two paths to success

Paul Buchheit:

The recent WSJ article on the supposedly Chinese style of parenting has generated a lot of interesting discussion. The most amusing commentary comes from The Last Psychiatrist, who also points out that Amy Chua, the "Chinese" mother, was actually born in America. There were also claims that the WSJ misrepresented her views, which may or may not be true, but is ultimately irrelevant since it's the ideas that are being debated.

Here's the part of the article that interests me:

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something -- whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet -- he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.

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February 5, 2011

Wisconsin Legislature mulls changes to open enrollment program

Matthew DeFour:

As families begin to enroll their students Monday in virtual schools or neighboring districts through the state's open enrollment process, the Legislature is debating changes to the program.

The Senate approved a bill this week that would extend the enrollment period from three weeks in February to three months, starting this year. The bill still needs approval in the Assembly and the governor's signature.

The changes would make it easier for parents who want to enroll their students in public schools outside their own district, but may not be thinking about that decision in February, said Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, who introduced the bill.

Democrats opposed the changes, however, saying the wider window will cause administrative hassles and uncertainty for school districts about proper staffing levels as they try to budget for the next school year.

Much more on open enrollment, here.

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Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton lays out K-12 education plan

Doug Belden:

Gov. Mark Dayton pledged Friday to increase funding for K-12 education and laid out a plan that focuses on early learners and reducing achievement disparities between student groups.

But there was no detail on how much the plan would cost or how it would be accomplished with the state facing a $6.2 billion deficit.

Dayton deferred questions about funding to his Feb. 15 budget presentation, saying Friday's announcement was about fulfilling a campaign pledge to provide more money to schools.

He'll propose increasing aid each of the next two years, he said, "no excuses, no exceptions."

Dayton promised last year as a candidate to spend more on schools every year, but softened that stance because of the state's financial problems.

Dayton's seven-point education plan, titled "Better Schools for a Better Minnesota," calls for investment in early-childhood initiatives -- led by Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius -- and all-day kindergarten, as well as a push to increase the number of children ready for kindergarten and to ensure all children are reading by third grade.

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Universities On The Brink

Louis Lataif

Higher education in America, historically the envy of the world, is rapidly growing out of reach. For the past quarter-century, the cost of higher education has grown 440%, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Education, nearly four times the rate of inflation and double the rate of health care cost increases. The cost increases have occurred at both public and private colleges.

Like many situations too good to be true--like the dot-com boom, the Enron bubble, the housing boom or the health care cost explosion--the ever-increasing cost of university education is not sustainable.

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Brooklyn School Meeting Draws Protest

Barbara Martinez:

Hundreds of protesters descended on Brooklyn Thursday, laying bare the deep philosophical divide that has become central to the Bloomberg administration's education policy: whether the city should fix failing schools or shut them down.

The dichotomy came to a head this week as the Panel for Educational Policy met twice to vote on whether to shutter 22 schools deemed failures because its students can't read or do math on grade level.

The panel, which is populated mostly by Bloomberg appointees, voted to close 10 schools at its meeting Tuesday and was expected to vote to close the other 12 Thursday night.

The administration and charter-school advocates argue that some schools are such failures they must be shut down completely and replaced with new schools. Students are allowed to register at the new schools, but for the most part, the new schools start up with different teachers and administrators. The city maintains that the new schools are more effective.

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Parents protest longer academic year for Catholic schools

Howard Blume:

Several dozen parents protested Thursday outside the Los Angeles archdiocese plans for a longer academic year at Catholic schools.

The parents from at least eight schools are unhappy that church officials plan to extend the school year by 20 days to 200 days a year.

"Children need a break to rejuvenate and the time to try things they can't during the school year because they're overloaded," said Michelle Boydston, whose daughter attends St. Paul the Apostle School in Westwood. "Children need time to play outside, to sit, climb a tree, read a book. Our school is doing a very good job in terms of educating students. They don't need another 20 days."

For the archdiocese, the strategy is intended to improve the education program and provide an incentive for parents to choose to remain in Catholic schools, which charge tuition.

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New Jersey Voucher Bill Fact-Check

New Jersey Left Behind:


NJ’s voucher bill, the Opportunity Scholarship Act, is the big education news story today. Assembly Bill 2810 will be the subject of a hearing today before the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee and proponents and opponents are going to the mattresses. Excellent Education for Everyone (E3) is running print ads that begin, “My school is failing me! I go to one of the worst schools in New Jersey. There are 80,000 kids just like me. The New Jersey Education Association wants to me to stay here. Will you help me get out?" New Jersey Teachers Association is running its own ad campaign, and has put out this set of talking points for parent leaders to use to lobby against the bill, which passed through the Senate Education Committee last month. (Here’s coverage from The Wall Street Journal and NJ Spotlight.)

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Ending the education wars

Conor Williams:

Recently retired New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein made headlines this week when he told the Times of London that "it's easier to prosecute a capital-punishment case in the U.S. than terminate an incompetent teacher." The New York Post blared, "Joel: Easier to ax a killer than a teacher." The prize for most sensational probably goes to Liz Dwyer's headline, "Joel Klein Compares Teachers to Murderers."

There's plenty of scorched earth between Klein's words and these headlines, reflecting how unnecessarily polarized the education reform wars remain, even over the smallest changes in policy.

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February 4, 2011

Lessons for Online Learning

Erin Dillon and Bill Tucker:

Advocates for virtual education say that it has the power to transform an archaic K-12 system of schooling. Instead of blackboards, schoolhouses, and a six-hour school day, interactive technology will personalize learning to meet each student's needs, ensure all students have access to quality teaching, extend learning opportunities to all hours of the day and all days of the week, and innovate and improve over time. Indeed, virtual education has the potential not only to help solve many of the most pressing issues in K-12 education, but to do so in a cost-effective manner. More than 1 million public-education students now take online courses, and as more districts and states initiate and expand online offerings, the numbers continue to grow. But to date, there's little research or publicly available data on the outcomes from K-12 online learning. And even when data are publicly available, as is the case with virtual charter schools, analysts and education officials have paid scant attention to--and have few tools for analyzing--performance. Until policymakers, educators, and advocates pay as much attention to quality as they do to expansion, virtual education will not be ready for a lead role in education reform.

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Educating the Mayor

Melissa Westbrook:

I learned Mayor is having an informational briefing tomorrow morning about charter schools. It will be done by two staff from the Center for Reinventing Public Education from UW. Now this is fine but I will say that the CRPE is not exactly neutral on charters (the majority of their research is around it with them being in the pro column). Of course, it is a little odd use of time in a state that has no charter law and has turned it down three times.

When I saw the e-mail yesterday, I called and asked if I could come and listen. The staffer was very nice, said no and then said he would check. I was told today, sorry but no.

The issue isn't so much that I can't go. I'm sure there won't be any other media there but I operate on the "it doesn't hurt to ask" policy.

Speaking of Mayors, I've invited the four candidates for Madison Mayor to chat about education topics. Should they respond affirmatively, I will post the video conversations here.

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Carol Moseley Braun Answers: As Mayor of Chicago, How Will You Fix Education?

Fox Chicago News:

1. What criteria will you use in selecting the next CEO of the Chicago Public Schools?

I support hiring a superintendent for the Chicago Public Schools with a strong and proven track-record in education. Strong managerial skills and the ability to work with community leaders, parents, and teachers will also be extremely important qualities I will consider as mayor.

2. What will you do to keep the students who are in Chicago Public Schools safe?

I believe schools must be places where the community comes together. Parents, local businesses, community organizations, and local law enforcement must all play a role in providing a safe and secure space of learning for Chicago's youth. As Senator, I was sponsor of the Midnight Basketball program, which brought local youth together with local police officers. I will provide an educational curriculum with more art, drama, and music classes to keep more students in school and engaged in activities to keep the gangs at bay. In addition, vocational training will provide students with the skills to be more competitive in the workforce and less likely to join gangs.

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LIFO is Bad for Kids

EdReformer

"The sponsor of a bill that would make teacher effectiveness the main determining factor during layoffs says that the proposal is worth billions of dollars in school improvement," the AP in the Tacoma News Tribune reported last week. Senator Rodney Toms thinks seniority protections in teacher contracts that result in last-in-first-out (LIFO) doesn't make sense for kids.
There's nothing out there that I could do this year that makes a multibillion-dollar difference in education other than this legislation," he said. "To leave billions of dollars on the table because we like the status quo is unacceptable."

Tom said any other initiative aimed at improving student learning as much as one that ensures the best teachers remain in the classroom would cost the state billions of dollars. In other words, if his proposal is ignored and the system remains unchanged, a big potential savings would be lost, he argues.

Tom's bill, Senate Bill 5399, would require school districts facing layoffs to first lay off teachers who received the lowest average evaluation ratings during their two most recent evaluations, based on a formula that gives a weight of 60 percent to the most recent evaluation and 40 percent to the previous one.

An AIE release today supports Sen. Toms bill:

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Honesty on Application Essays

Scott Anderson:

While this particular website might be new, the idea is hardly innovative. That there are entrepreneurs willing to traffic in essays is no secret to anyone who evaluates admission applications for a living. And if the evidence and anecdotes of déjà vu experienced by admission officers are any indication, such sites probably do a brisk business. In that sense, the public premiere of a new outfit would border on prosaic if it weren't for the fervent and opposing arguments that inevitably follow:

"Access to essays levels the playing field and helps students from schools with lackluster college counseling programs compete in today's take-no-prisoners admission wars!"

"The sale of essays promotes plagiarism and diminishes the capacity of students to think for themselves!"

If the first claim is misguided (and conventional wisdom among admission professionals suggests that it is), the second one is incomplete. Yes, plagiarism is a nasty potential byproduct of these businesses. And reliance on samples of other people's work to create one's own can certainly constrain rather than inspire. But there's also an important practical point that usually gets overlooked:

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5 Seek 2 Deerfield, WI School Board Seats

Wisconsin State Journal

In Deerfield, five candidates are running for two 3-year terms on the Deerfield School Board. The top four vote-getters in the Feb. 15 primary will advance to the April 5 general election.

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Los Angeles Schools' Panel Looking at Race Issues

Leiloni de Gruy:

Acknowledging that the achievement gap between African-American students and those of other races has persisted far too long, the Los Angeles Unified School District has established an African-American Education Working Committee designed to help create a plan to replicate "best practices" district-wide.

The 25-member committee has met twice since it was formed in mid-January, and has yet to determine specifics on what practices will be implemented and how.

But, committee member and Community Coalition lead organizer for youth programs Tonna Onyendu said "The beginning has been about introducing everyone to what the task force is about, and what the purpose is and why we are convening. Then we also made sure we were all on the same page in terms of what the goals of the task force are, which is to improve the educational outcome of African-American students within LAUSD."

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Warning: This Game Is Not for Children

Donna Perry:

In the middle of this winter of our discontent, the rearrangement of a state education Board may be going unnoticed by busy, weary families. But changes announced this week for the state Board of Regents has a whole lot to do with the future opportunities these families can expect for their children, whether they realize it or not. Chairman Robert Flanders, who provided strong leadership as an unwavering supporter of the bold reform vision of state Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, is stepping down and former House Majority Leader and friend to unions and union lawyers, George Caruolo, is Governor Chafee's pick for new Board Chairman.

Though it may be unfair to prejudge incoming appointments, it's a foregone conclusion to state that for the Board to lose Judge Flanders and the equally strong Gist supporters Angus Davis and Anna Cano-Morales all at once spells setbacks for the Gist engine for sure. But to characterize this as a victory for the Chafee-Union alliance, and a defeat for the lightning rod Commissioner is to miss the shameful truth. After all, if the leadership of the teachers' unions wants to reclaim their turf as the unnamed but fully operating Commissioners of Education, what record of victory are they actually trying to reclaim?

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West Virginia State superintendent candidates

Davin White:

Deputy State Schools Superintendent Jorea Marple believes pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade education in West Virginia has reached a pivotal point, and the state's current direction for schools is just beginning to show benefits.

Mark Manchin, executive director of the state School Building Authority, wants to develop policies that help provide a "high-quality, 21st Century education" for children. He also promises to help support teachers and school administrators, provide safe and up-to-date school buildings and work with state lawmakers and the governor to ensure the state Board of Education's agenda is advanced.

Carolyn Long, chairwoman of the West Virginia University Board of Governors, believes her experience in both higher education and other public schools could help bring "these two cultures together" to serve the needs of West Virginia.

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February 3, 2011

Walker gives Madison Preparatory IB Charter School a better chance

Wisconsin State Journal:

Gov. Scott Walker just gave a boost to the Urban League of Greater Madison's intriguing proposal for an all-male charter school.

As part of his state budget address late Tuesday afternoon, Walker said he wants to let any four-year public university in Wisconsin create a charter school for K-12 students.

That gives the Urban League of Greater Madison a second potential partner for its proposal, should the Madison School Board reject the League's idea.

Kaleem Caire, president and CEO of the Urban League, has made a powerful case for an all-male charter school with high standards, uniforms and a longer school day and year.

Charter schools are public schools allowed more freedom to try new things in exchange for greater accountability for results.

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K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Education & Accountability at the Pentagon

Chuck Spinney:

On 4 August 1822, James Madison wrote a letter to W.T. Barry about the importance of popular education and, by inference, the importance of the relationship of the First Amendment to the task of holding an elected government accountable for its actions. He concluded his opening paragraph, setting the tone for the entire letter, by saying, "A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

Nowhere is the farce and tragedy feared by James Madison more evident than in the national debate over if, or how much, the defense budget should be cut back as part of our efforts to reduce the deficit. With the defense budget at war with Social Security, Medicare, and needed discretionary spending in education, investments in infrastructure, and elsewhere, it is a tragedy that must be undone if we are to protect our middle class way of life.

Related: A Madison Maintenance referendum audit?.

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Consolidation Of Schools And Districts

Craig Howley, Jerry Johnson, and Jennifer Petrie:

Arguments for consolidation, which merges schools or districts and centralizes their management, rest primarily on two presumed benefits: (1) fiscal efficiency and (2) higher educational quality. The extent of consolidation varies across states due to their considerable differences in history, geography, population density, and politics. Because economic crises often provoke calls for consolidation as a means of increasing government efficiency, the contemporary interest in consolidation is not surprising.

However, the review of research evidence detailed in this brief suggests that a century of consolidation has already produced most of the efficiencies obtainable. Indeed, in the largest jurisdictions, efficiencies have likely been exceeded--that is, some consolidation has produced diseconomies of scale that reduce efficiency. In such cases, deconsolidation is more likely to yield benefits than consolidation. Moreover, contemporary research does not support claims about the widespread benefits of consolidation. The assumptions behind such claims are most often dangerous oversimplifications. For example, policymakers may believe "We'll save money if we reduce the number of superintendents by consolidating districts;" however, larger districts need--and usually hire--more mid-level administrators. Research also suggests that impoverished regions in particular often benefit from smaller schools and districts, and they can suffer irreversible damage if consolidation occurs.

For these reasons, decisions to deconsolidate or consolidate districts are best made on a case-by-case basis. While state-level consolidation proposals may serve a public relations purpose in times of crisis, they are unlikely to be a reliable way to obtain substantive fiscal or educational improvement.

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How Race Relates to College Grad Rates

Cliff Kuang:

Even while some minorities are surging ahead, others are trailing far behind.

Higher education has always been the golden ticket to better fortunes. So you've gotta wonder: Who's cashing in, who's stagnating, and why? The answers are all contained in a must-see interactive infographic showing college graduation rates across the country, created by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

We'll get to the nuances of the story behind the data in a second, but let's look at how the map works. You get to see a color coded scale showing what portion of each county in the U.S. has a college degree -- the bluer the county, the more people are college graduates. And for every county, you can see a detailed chart, showing exactly how it stacks up against others:

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California student suspended after he calls teacher fat on Facebook

Julia Carpenter:

A California high school student was reportedly suspended after updating his Facebook status with rude remarks about a teacher's weight.

High school sophomore Donny Tobolski reportedly referred to his biology teacher, Mr. Cimino, as a "fat a-- who should stop eating fast food, and is a d-----bag" after Cimino assigned his classes three times more homework than usual in December 2010, Mashable.com reports.

Sacramento's Mesa Verde High School was notified of the Facebook post and reportedly suspended Tobolski for one day on charges of "cyberbullying."

According to the San Franciso Chronicle, the American Civil Liberties Union then sent a letter to school authorities asserting that Tobolski had been within his right to free speech when posting the "fat a--" comment to Facebook.

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The value of humanities

Chrystia Freeland:

Throughout its 900-year history, Oxford University has survived the Bubonic Plague, the English Civil War, and a host of other maladies. Oxford Vice Chancellor Andrew Hamilton takes solace in the University's resilient history as he grapples with the decision by the UK coalition to slash funding for higher education by 80%:
[The budget cuts] are pretty bad. The challenge for us obviously is the speed with which we have to confront the issues that result from them... One of the proposals that has been recently passed by government in the UK is to allow the cost of undergraduate education charged to students to rise. And again, that is happening in a very short period of time. Changes of this significant kind-I think we would all much prefer to be able to manage the cuts and manage any rise in tuition fees that will occur over a longer period, but we're not being given that luxury. We're going to have to manage them over a very short period of time, as little as two or three years. And that is going to be quite the challenge.

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Oregon Governor Proposes in State K-12 Tax Dollars

Paris Achen:

Fears of having to make millions of dollars in budget cuts at Oregon school districts were fueled Tuesday when Gov. John Kitzhaber proposed a K-12 education allocation of $5.56 billion for the next biennium.

Local school district officials said the amount would be insufficient to support existing services at schools, and they continued to hold out hope that the Legislature would augment that number.

One-time federal stimulus funds in this biennium helped to postpone some of the cuts districts now face, and education lobbyists are urging the Legislature to backfill what's lost in stimulus funds, so that total K-12 funding would reach $5.8 billion for the biennium.

"We were expecting this," said Ashland schools Superintendent Juli Di Chiro. "We are hoping the Legislature will see differently. At the minimum, we need level funding."

The Medford School District, with 12,300 students, expects cuts of $13.5 million to $14 million from its $90 million budget, under the governor's budget proposal.

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Prepare your middle-schooler for college

Jay Matthews:

Even in middle school, there are a few easy things (and some more challenging steps) students can do to up their chances at a college admission. Join Jay Mathews to discuss these tactics.

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Houston School District offering free SAT testing in class

Ericka Mellon:

All high school juniors in the Houston Independent School District will have the chance to take the SAT college entrance exam in class for free this April.

Typically, students only can take the SAT on Saturdays or Sundays. HISD officials say the district will be only the third in the country to offer the in-class testing -- which should significantly increase the number of students taking the exam.

Nearly 5,000 of HISD's graduates in 2010 -- less than half -- took the SAT, according to the district. It's likely other students took the ACT exam, which most colleges accept as well, but that number wasn't immediately available for the Class of 2010.

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February 2, 2011

Teacher Licensure in Wisconsin - Who is Protected: The Parents or the Education Establishment?

Mark Schug & Scott Niederjohn:

It has been 10 years since Wisconsin overhauled an old set of rules for state teacher licensure (PI 3 and PI 4) and replaced it with a new set called PI 34. At the time of its approval in 2000, PI 34 was warmly welcomed by state leaders and legislators from both sides of the aisle. It was praised as a way to create a new generation of Wisconsin teachers.

The purpose of this report is to assess PI 34 in an effort to learn whether it has made good on these high expectations.

The underlying issue in this assessment has to do with occupational licensure. Why is it widespread in many states including Wisconsin? There are two viewpoints. The first is that consumers don't have enough information to make judgments regarding the purchase of services from members of certain occupations. Licensure, according to this view, serves as a means to protect consumers from fraud and malpractice.
The second argument is made by economists. It opposes the first. Prominent economists claim that licensure benefits members of various occupations more than it benefits consumers. It does so by limiting access to the occupations in question, thus reducing competition. Those seeking protection from barriers of this sort believe that the various regulations will eventually enhance their incomes. The costs to consumers include reduced competition and restricted consumer choice.

...

PI 34's weaknesses far outweigh its strengths. The weaknesses include the following:

  • PI 34 undervalues the importance of subject-matter knowledge in initial training programs for teachers and in teachers' professional development activity.
  • PI 34 imposes an overwhelming regulatory system--dwarfing, for example, the regulatory system governing licensure for medical doctors.
  • PI 34 rules for licensure renewal fail to ensure that renewal will depend on demonstrated competence and professional growth. These rules create incentives for pro forma compliance, cronyism, and fraud.
  • PI 34 sets up high barriers (a single, proprietary avenue) for entrance into teaching. It makes licensure conditional on completion of approved training programs requiring, normally, at least two years of full-time enrollment in education coursework. Many highly trained professionals contemplating career changes are deterred by these requirements from becoming teachers, despite demand for their services.
  • PI 34 has no built-in measures for linking teacher licensure to teacher competence. Wisconsin has no evidence that any incompetent teacher has ever been denied licensure renewal.
  • PI 34 enables education producers (WEAC and the DPI) to dominate the licensure system. In this system, parents and students are marginalized.
  • PI 34 is particularly onerous for educators in large urban districts like Milwaukee, where producing academic gains is a challenging problem, and school principals, struggling to hire competent teachers, would benefit greatly from a flexible licensure system.
Related: An Email to Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad on Math Teacher Hiring Criteria.

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New York Governor Cuomo Proposes Slight Cuts to Education Spending

Jacob Gershman:

Mr. Cuomo's plan, particularly his hard line on public-school spending, drew criticism from teachers' unions and Democrats, who control the Assembly.

The budget would lower total spending on education and Medicaid to levels slightly below current-year amounts. For local governments that relied on stimulus money, the governor's budget will feel like a bigger cut. The budget pain is especially tough for New York City schools, which would see state aid cut by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The governor's plan would freeze higher-education spending and general aid to localities. He also seeks to squeeze $1 billion out of state agencies. Spending on public employee pensions, health insurance and other benefits would increase by $474 million, an 8% rise over the current fiscal year.

Mr. Cuomo, who has said he wants to create a lower-cost pension for new employees, did not include such plans in his budget, saving the battle for another day.

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The Thomas Beale Cipher: A Modern Take on an Old Mystery

Jane Doh:

It's the stuff of legends: A group of men comea across what would be today worth $65 million in gold and silver while on expedition in early-19th-century New Mexico territory. Then, they transport said treasure thousands of miles and bury it in Virginia. One of them, named Thomas Jefferson Beale, leaves three ciphertexts, simply strings of comma-separated numbers, with an innkeeper in Virginia, who forgets about it for more than 20 years.

One day, the innkeeper, realizing that Beale isn't coming back, opens the box and tries to solve the riddle. Frustrated, he then tells the story and passes along the texts to a friend, J.B. Ward, who cracks one of the three ciphertexts, but not the one that actually gives the precise location of the treasure. More than a hundred years go by, and no one can solve the remaining two ciphers, not even with the benefit of modern computers, and the treasure, if it exists, may still be out there, waiting in the mountains of Virginia.

Picking up on this unsolved mystery, modern storyteller Andrew S. Allen created a short film The Thomas Beale Cipher, a refreshingly modern take on this century-old mystery. In Allen's story, Professor White, a cryptographer who has recently run into some poor luck, has figured out a way to solve the Beale ciphers. But this knowledge is dangerous, and federal agents are hunting him down.

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Think twice About an MBA

The Economist:

Business schools have long sold the promise that, like an F1 driver zipping into the pits for fresh tyres, it just takes a short hiatus on an MBA programme and you will come roaring back into the career race primed to win. After all, it signals to companies that you were good enough to be accepted by a decent business school (so must be good enough for them); it plugs you into a network of fellow MBAs; and, to a much lesser extent, there's the actual classroom education. Why not just pay the bill, sign here and reap the rewards?

The problem is that these days it doesn't work like that. Rather, more and more students are finding the promise of business schools to be hollow. The return on investment on an MBA has gone the way of Greek public debt. If you have a decent job in your mid- to late- 20s, unless you have the backing of a corporate sponsor, leaving it to get an MBA is a higher risk than ever. If you are getting good business experience already, the best strategy is to keep on getting it, thereby making yourself ever more useful rather than groping for the evanescent brass rings of business school.

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Make our schools safe, effective

Caryl Davis:

I was assailed at my workplace. This wouldn't be out of the ordinary had my workplace been a boxing or MMA ring. But it is not typical, as my workplace is a school.

I was struck in the head and face from behind as I escorted a group of students from the cafeteria. I didn't pass out or fall down, but I was stunned.

I sought medical attention and received the pat "I'm sorry that happened to you" response from those who likely couldn't find the words to make meaning of what occurred.

My assault occurred several weeks after Flamond Hightower, a paraprofessional educator at Milwaukee's Phyllis Wheatley Elementary School, sent a notorious e-mail that identified the challenges at his school. The e-mail had been intended only for Wheatley faculty and staff but found its way to the electronic mailboxes of Milwaukee Public Schools employees throughout the district. Its message was clear and strong: HELP!

Hightower pointed to and was concerned about the disorder in his school. Perhaps his means of communicating were a bit extreme, but sometimes it takes an event before people listen.

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Is Going to an Elite College Worth the Cost?

Jacques Steinberg::

AS hundreds of thousands of students rush to fill out college applications to meet end-of-the-year deadlines, it might be worth asking them: Is where you spend the next four years of your life that important?

The sluggish economy and rising costs of college have only intensified questions about whether expensive, prestigious colleges make any difference. Do their graduates make more money? Get into better professional programs? Make better connections? And are they more satisfied with their lives, or at least with their work?

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Proximity to freeways increases autism risk, study finds

Shari Roan

Children born to mothers who live close to freeways have twice the risk of autism, researchers reported Thursday. The study, its authors say, adds to evidence suggesting that certain environmental exposures could play a role in causing the disorder in some children.

"This study isn't saying exposure to air pollution or exposure to traffic causes autism," said Heather Volk, lead author of the paper and a researcher at the Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. "But it could be one of the factors that are contributing to its increase."

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Detroit Public Schools consider public boarding school

Chastity Pratt Dawsey:

The Detroit Public Schools is looking for an organization willing and able to open a public boarding school in fall 2012, the district announced today.

Now through Feb. 28, DPS is accepting applications for a high school that would be a charter school offering residential housing.

The school would target students in grades 9 to 12 and focus on providing a high-quality, rigorous college-preparatory curriculum for youths "who need a thoughtful, caring, safe, and nurturing day and residential environment," according to a DPS statement released today.

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February 1, 2011

The Children Must Play What the United States could learn from Finland about education reform.

Samuel Abrams via a Mary Battaglia email:

While observing recess outside the Kallahti Comprehensive School on the eastern edge of Helsinki on a chilly day in April 2009, I asked Principal Timo Heikkinen if students go out when it's very cold. Heikkinen said they do. I then asked Heikkinen if they go out when it's very, very cold. Heikkinen smiled and said, "If minus 15 [Celsius] and windy, maybe not, but otherwise, yes. The children can't learn if they don't play. The children must play."

In comparison to the United States and many other industrialized nations, the Finns have implemented a radically different model of educational reform--based on a balanced curriculum and professionalization, not testing. Not only do Finnish educational authorities provide students with far more recess than their U.S. counterparts--75 minutes a day in Finnish elementary schools versus an average of 27 minutes in the U.S.--but they also mandate lots of arts and crafts, more learning by doing, rigorous standards for teacher certification, higher teacher pay, and attractive working conditions. This is a far cry from the U.S. concentration on testing in reading and math since the enactment of No Child Left Behind in 2002, which has led school districts across the country, according to a survey by the Center on Education Policy, to significantly narrow their curricula. And the Finns' efforts are paying off: In December, the results from the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an exam in reading, math, and science given every three years since 2000 to approximately 5,000 15-year-olds per nation around the world, revealed that, for the fourth consecutive time, Finnish students posted stellar scores. The United States, meanwhile, lagged in the middle of the pack.

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G.O.P. Governors Take Aim at Teacher Tenure

Trip Gabriel & Sam Dillon:

Seizing on a national anxiety over poor student performance, many governors are taking aim at a bedrock tradition of public schools: teacher tenure.

The momentum began over a year ago with President Obama's call to measure and reward effective teaching, a challenge he repeated in last week's State of the Union address.

Now several Republican governors have concluded that removing ineffective teachers requires undoing the century-old protections of tenure.

Governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and New Jersey have called for the elimination or dismantling of tenure. As state legislatures convene this winter, anti-tenure bills are being written in those states and others. Their chances of passing have risen because of crushing state budget deficits that have put teachers' unions on the defensive.

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Florida Lawmaker Wants Teachers To Grade Parents

WBPF:

A central Florida lawmaker wants school teachers to grade parents on their children's report cards.
State Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, recently proposed a bill that would require public school teachers to grade the parents of their students in kindergarten through third grade.

A grade of "satisfactory," "unsatisfactory" or "needs improvement" would be added to their children's report cards.

The grading system would be based on the following criteria:

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'A Rosa Parks moment for education'

Kevin Huffman:

Last week, 40-year-old Ohio mother Kelley Williams-Bolar was released after serving nine days in jail on a felony conviction for tampering with records. Williams-Bolar's offense? Lying about her address so her two daughters, zoned to the lousy Akron city schools, could attend better schools in the neighboring Copley-Fairlawn district.

Williams-Bolar has become a cause célèbre in a case that crosses traditional ideological bounds. African American activists are outraged, asking: Would a white mother face the same punishment for trying to get her kids a better education? (Answer: No.)

Meanwhile, conservatives view the case as evidence of the need for broader school choice. What does it say when parents' options are so limited that they commit felonies to avoid terrible schools? Commentator Kyle Olson and others across the political spectrum have called this "a Rosa Parks moment for education."

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New Advanced Placement Biology Is Ready to Roll Out, but U.S. History Isn't

Christopher Drew:

While the College Board plans to unveil a sweeping revision to Advanced Placement biology courses on Tuesday, it is delaying similar changes in United States history by a year to address concerns from high school teachers.

The changes in both subjects are part of a broad revamping of A.P. courses and exams to reduce memorization and to foster analytic thinking. But while the new biology curriculum is specific about what material needs to be covered, some teachers complained that parts of the history course seemed vague, and the board said it needed more time to clarify what should be studied.

Board officials said they expected to publish the new United States history curriculum next fall. That curriculum will now take effect in the 2013-14 school year, they said, rather than in 2012-13, when the new biology program is to begin.

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Out Educate: School and the State of the Union

Amanda Read:

namored with President Obama's plans for the country.

Perhaps it's no surprise that the rumored "Sputnik moment" fell flat. After all, the "clean green" mantra lit up with squiggly bulbs just doesn't ignite the creativity of the populace like the notion of going to the moon. Of course there was more to the president's technological ideals than that, but he invested too many words in education to make them sound believable.

In a way Obama was playing it safe by pulling out the motherhood-and-apple-pie concept of winning the future through education for the children. Nobody (except the Grinch) would argue against something done for the children, would they?

"When a child walks into a classroom, it should be a place of high expectations and high performance. But too many schools don't meet this test. That's why instead of just pouring money into a system that's not working, we launched a competition called Race to the Top."
Ah, but Mr. President, a crucial distinction must be made here. There is a difference between education and federal spending on education. Since when has federal involvement in education helped the economy or improved learning?

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Oshkosh native teaching, and learning, in Vietnam

Jennifer K. Woldt:

Mikaela Van Sistine was having lunch with one of her students and thought nothing about finishing all of the food on her plate.

But the look on her student's face, and the accompanying explanation that it's polite to leave a bite of food on your plate as a sign that the serving size was more than enough and you are full, told her a different story. Afterwards Van Sistine explained the "clean plate" mentality common in the United States.

It's moments like that - the exchange of information about the two cultures - that Van Sistine says are some of the most gratifying moments she has come across during a teaching stint in Vietnam.

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Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think

Bryan Caplan:

We've needlessly turned parenting into an unpleasant chore. Parents invest more time and money in their kids than ever, but the shocking lesson of twin and adoption research is that upbringing is much less important than genetics in the long run. These revelations have surprising implications for how we parent and how we spend time with our kids. The big lesson: Mold your kids less and enjoy your life more. Your kids will still turn out fine.

Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids is a book of practical big ideas. How can parents be happier? What can they change--and what do they need to just accept? Which of their worries can parents safely forget? Above all, what is the right number of kids for you to have? You'll never see kids or parenthood the same way again.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 1:10 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

'A Rosa Parks moment for education'

Kevin Huffmana:

Last week, 40-year-old Ohio mother Kelley Williams-Bolar was released after serving nine days in jail on a felony conviction for tampering with records. Williams-Bolar's offense? Lying about her address so her two daughters, zoned to the lousy Akron city schools, could attend better schools in the neighboring Copley-Fairlawn district.

Williams-Bolar has become a cause célèbre in a case that crosses traditional ideological bounds. African American activists are outraged, asking: Would a white mother face the same punishment for trying to get her kids a better education? (Answer: No.)

Meanwhile, conservatives view the case as evidence of the need for broader school choice. What does it say when parents' options are so limited that they commit felonies to avoid terrible schools? Commentator Kyle Olson and others across the political spectrum have called this "a Rosa Parks moment for education."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 1:08 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Higher education is not broken

Michael Wixom:

Gov. Brian Sandoval's State of the State address has certainly given us all a great deal to consider. His proposals for Nevada's public higher education system, in particular, will prompt needed dialogue. However, it is critical that such discussions begin with correct assumptions, and contrary to what we have been told, the Nevada System of Higher Education is not broken.

As evidence of that assertion, some point to our universities' six-year graduation rates (for the period beginning in 2004) of only 50 percent. However, that statement is misleading. When student transfers and eight-year graduation rates are reflected in the calculation, the graduation rate is much higher, ranging from 55 to 70 percent -- certainly in need of improvement, but a respectable figure in any national comparison.

Many have been critical of Nevada's community college graduation rates, which range from 5 to 26 percent. However, many, if not most, community college students don't attend community colleges to graduate from a community college -- they attend to take specific courses or they transfer within a relatively short period of time. These are designed to be access institutions, and graduation rates, taken alone, really don't adequately reflect their mission.

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