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After a rowdy, four-hour meeting last month, the Jordan School District Board is considering tightening its policy on public comments.A proposal for tonight's Board of Education meeting would make a number of changes to the district's rules regarding public participation at board meetings, including limiting the time spent on comments. At the last board meeting, hundreds of people showed up to protest a proposal to lay off 500 workers, including 250 teachers. The board's regular agenda was suspended to make time for four hours of comment.
"It cannot continue to do that every meeting, or the district will come to a halt," Jordan spokeswoman Melinda Colton wrote in an e-mail, noting that people also can chime in via letters, e-mails and phone calls. "The board feels it needs to restore decorum to its board meetings. Their meetings are meetings held in public, not public hearings."
Robin Frodge, president of the Jordan Education Association, said she hopes the board keeps in mind the importance of public input. "One of the primary purposes for public meetings is to conduct business in front of the public and to also take public response on board actions," Frodge said.
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Carl Dorvil started Group Excellence in his SMU dorm room. The son of Haitian immigrants, Carl never took his education for granted. He was the first African American president of his high school and balanced four jobs while completing a triple major and starting a business as an undergraduate.Some good advice from the founder of Macaroni Grill led Carl to pursue an MBA. But when his professor saw the revenue projection for Group Excellence, he suggested a semester off to work on the business.
Carl finished his MBA in 2008, but the break allowed him to build a great business. Today Group Excellence (GE) employs 500 people in four cities and serves over 10,000 Texas students. GE provides tutoring services to struggling low-income students. Dorvil says, "The knowledge that I gained from business school propelled GE into becoming one of the most respected tutoring companies under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act."
In one Dallas middle school, math scores shot up from 12% to more than 60% passing the state test only 8 months after activating the GE program.
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Dan has been working hard snooping around in the RCW. It's pretty amazing what you can find in there if you look.Here's what he found: RCW 28A.320.015
School boards of directors -- Powers -- Notice of adoption of policy.(1) The board of directors of each school district may exercise the following:
(a) The broad discretionary power to determine and adopt written policies not in conflict with other law that provide for the development and implementation of programs, activities, services, or practices that the board determines will:
(i) Promote the education and daily physical activity of kindergarten through twelfth grade students in the public schools; or
(ii) Promote the effective, efficient, or safe management and operation of the school district;
(b) Such powers as are expressly authorized by law; and
(c) Such powers as are necessarily or fairly implied in the powers expressly authorized by law.
(2) Before adopting a policy under subsection (1)(a) of this section, the school district board of directors shall comply with the notice requirements of the open public meetings act, chapter 42.30 RCW, and shall in addition include in that notice a statement that sets forth or reasonably describes the proposed policy. The board of directors shall provide a reasonable opportunity for public written and oral comment and consideration of the comment by the board of directors.
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Amidst the Race to the Top excitement this week, an important story may have gotten lost in the buzz. On Wednesday, my colleague Jamie Davies O'Leary, a 27 year-old Princeton grad, liberal Democrat, and Teach For America alumna described her surprise bookshop encounter with former Weatherman and lefty school reformer Bill Ayers.If Bill Ayers and Fred and Mike Klonsky were 22 again, they would be signing up for Teach For America. The whole thing is worth reading (it's a great story) but note this passage in particular, about Ayers' talk:
[Ayers] answered a young woman's question about New York Teaching Fellows and Teach For America with a diatribe about how such programs can't fix public education and consist of a bunch of ivy leaguers and white missionaries more interested in a resume boost than in helping students. Whoa.Almost as soon as Jamie's essay was posted, the Klonsky brothers (Fred and Mike--both longtime friends and associates of Ayers, both involved in progressive education causes) went after her. Fred posted a missive titled, "File under misguided sense of one's own importance." Mike tweeted that her depiction of the encounter was a "fantasy."And:
As someone who read Savage Inequalities years ago and attribute my decision to become a teacher partially to the social justice message, I almost felt embarrassed. But that was before I learned a bit of context, nuance, data, and evidence surrounding education policy debates. It's as if Bill Ayers hasn't been on the planet for the last two decades.
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It's absurd to believe anyone wants ineffective teachers in any classroom.So when President Barack Obama, in a speech last fall at Madison's Wright Middle School, called for "moving bad teachers out of the classroom, once they've been given an opportunity to do it right," the remark drew enormous applause. Such a pledge is integral to the president's commitment to strengthen public education.
But this part of Obama's Race to the Top agenda for schools has occasioned much nervousness. Educators and policymakers, school boards and school communities have questions and genuine concern about what it means. What, exactly, is a bad teacher, and how, specifically, do you go about removing him or her from a classroom?
Many other questions follow. Do we have a "bad teacher" problem in Madison? Does the current evaluation system allow Madison to employ teachers who don't make the grade? Is our system broken and does it need Obama's fix?
A look into the issue reveals a system that is far from perfect or transparent. But Madison school board President Arlene Silveira agrees it's an issue that must be addressed.
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via a kind reader's email: Parent Diane Harrington:
Dear Board Members, Dr. Nerad, and Madison Alders,Parent Lorie Raihala:My 11-year-old and I visited John Muir Elementary for basketball practice one recent evening. Their gym has banners noting that for several years they've been named a "School of Excellence."
Ben's school, Orchard Ridge Elementary, had just been dubbed a "School of Promise."
Which school would YOU rather go to?
But Ben didn't need a marketing effort to tell him which school was which; he knows some John Muir kids. Ben, too, would like to go to a school where kids are expected to learn and to behave instead of just encouraged to.
Just like those banners, the very idea of your upcoming, $86,000 "branding" effort isn't fooling anyone.
You don't need to improve your image. You need to improve your schools.
Stop condescending to children, to parents and to the public. Skip the silly labels and the PR plans.
Instead, just do your #^%* job. (If you need help filling in that blank, head to ORE or Toki. Plenty of kids - some as young as kindergarten - use several colorful words in the hallways, classrooms, lunchroom and playground without even a second look, much less disciplinary action, from a teacher or principal.)
Create an environment that strives for excellence, not mediocrity. Guide children to go above and beyond, rather than considering your job done once they've met the minimum requirements.
Until then, it's all too obvious that any effort to "cultivate relationships with community partners" is just what you're branding it: marketing. It's just about as meaningless as that "promise" label on ORE or the "honor roll" that my 13-year-old and half the Toki seventh graders are on.
P.S. At my neighborhood association's annual Winter Social earlier tonight, one parent of a soon-to-be-elementary-age child begged me to tell him there was some way to get a voucher so he could avoid sending his daughter to ORE. His family can't afford private school. Another parent told me her soon-to-be-elementary-age kids definitely (whew!) were going to St. Maria Goretti instead of ORE. A friend - even though her son was finishing up at ORE this year - pulled her daughter out after kindergarten (yes, to send her to Goretti), because the atmosphere at ORE is just too destructive and her child wasn't learning anything. These people aren't going to be fooled by a branding effort. And you're only fooling yourselves (and wasting taxpayer money) if you think otherwise.
Regarding the Madison School District's $86,000 "branding campaign," recent polls have surveyed the many families who have left the district for private schools, virtual academies, home schooling or open enrollment in other districts.
Public schools are tuition free and close to home, so why have these parents chosen more expensive, less convenient options? The survey results are clear: because Madison schools have disregarded their children's learning needs.Top issues mentioned include a lack of challenging academics and out-of-control behavior problems. Families are leaving because of real experience in the schools, not "bad press" or "street corner stories."
How will the district brand that?
Lorie Raihala Madison
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The shootings on February 12 at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, which left three faculty members dead and two more professors and a department assistant wounded, have sparked a good deal of soul-searching within higher education. Amy Bishop, an assistant professor of biology at the university who was recently denied tenure, was arrested at the scene and has been charged with murder and attempted murder.Bishop's tenure denial may or may not be relevant to the shootings, but some scholars are asking what role, if any, the stresses of academic life played in the tragedy. What are the psychological effects of academic culture, particularly on rising scholars? Can or should something be done to change that culture?
The Chronicle asked a group of scholars and experts what they thought.
Cristina Nehring, writer and Ph.D. candidate in English literature at the University of California at Los Angeles:
Amy Bishop is nobody's poster girl--not even for the tragic perversity of the tenure process.
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Teachers and staff members in the Stowe School District have set an example for the rest of the state by agreeing to go without a pay increase built into their contract to help preserve programs and positions threatened by tough economic times.Related: Madison School District & Madison Teachers Union Reach Tentative Agreement: 3.93% Increase Year 1, 3.99% Year 2; Base Rate $33,242 Year 1, $33,575 Year 2: Requires 50% MTI 4K Members and will "Review the content and frequency of report cards".The teachers and staff agreed to forgo a 5.25 percent raise, shaving about $240,000 from the proposed $9.7 million budget. That was enough to save a list of athletic and academic programs, as well as save jobs in the school district.
People tasked with balancing a public budget in the midst of the worst economic downturnin a generation often talk about making difficult decisions. Those who feel the impact of reduced budgets often are quick to argue why their interests deserve to be spared. This is a phenomenon seen from the halls of the Statehouse to budgets meetings in communities throughout the state.
The Stowe teachers took a different tack, choosing to give something up so their colleagues could keep their jobs, and students could keep their classes and teams.
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L.A. Unified's teachers' union organized protests today and for next week against school district administrators. The union is upset that the superintendent has tentatively allowed outside groups to assume control of new and low-performing campuses.The school district received 85 proposals to run three dozen campuses. Teachers, charter school companies and other nonprofits crafted the plans. The superintendent is recommending teacher and district-written plans for more than half the schools. Outside groups could run another quarter of the schools.
A teacher, parent and student vote earlier this month favored the teacher plans. A nonprofit run by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa received the recommendation to run Carver Middle School.
Kirsten Ellis, a teacher there, doesn't like the idea. "We demand that the school board and the superintendent adhere to and follow the vote of the people, instead of throwing it out and ignoring it."
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Madison School Board member Ed Hughes sent me an e-mail pointing out another vexing problem with Wisconsin's school funding system and how it penalizes the Madison district, which I've written about in the past. Hughes notes in his e-mail "This particular wrinkle of the state school financing system is truly nuts."The complete text of Ed Hughes letter to Senator Risser:
Hughes is incensed that the IQ Academy, a virtual school operated by the Waukesha district, gets over $6000 in state aid for poaching students from the Madison district while total state aid for educating a student in a real school here at home is $3400. Waukesha makes a profit of about $500 per student at the expense of taxpayers here, Hughes says. And that's including profits going to the national corporate IQ Academy that supplies the school's programming.
Sen. Risser:Amy Hetzner noted this post on her blog:As if we needed one, here is another reason to be outraged by our state school financing system:
This week's issue of Isthmus carries a full page ad on page 2. It is sponsored by "IQ Academy Wisconsin," which is described as a "tuition-free, online middle and high school program of the School District of Waukesha, WI." The ad invites our Madison students to open-enroll in their "thriving learning community."
What's in it for Waukesha? A report on virtual charter schools by the State Fiscal Bureau, released this week, sheds some light on this. The Madison school district gets a little more than $2,000 in general state aid for each of our students. If you include categorical aids and everything else from the state, the amount goes up to about $3,400/student.
However, if Waukesha (or any other school district) is successful in poaching one of our students, it will qualify for an additional $6,007 in state aid. (That was actually the amount for the 2007-08 school year, that last year for which data was available for the Fiscal Bureau report.) As it was explained to me by the author of the Fiscal Bureau report, this $6,007 figure is made up of some combination of additional state aid and a transfer of property taxes paid by our district residents to Waukesha.So the state financing system will provide nearly double the amount of aid to a virtual charter school associated with another school district to educate a Madison student than it will provide to the Madison school district to educate the same student in an actual school, with you know, bricks and mortar and a gym and cafeteria and the rest.
The report also states that the Waukesha virtual school spends about $5,500 per student. So for each additional student it enrolls, the Waukesha district makes at least a $500 profit. (It's actually more than that, since the incremental cost of educating one additional student is less than the average cost for the district.) This does not count the profit earned by the private corporation that sells the on-line programming to Waukesha.
The legislature has created a system that sets up very strong incentives for a school district to contract with some corporate on-line operation, open up a virtual charter school, and set about trying to poach other districts' students. Grantsburg, for example, has a virtual charter school that serves not a single resident of the Grantsburg school district. What a great policy.
By the way, Waukesha claims in its Isthmus ad that "Since 2004, IQ Academy Wisconsin students have consistently out-performed state-wide and district averages on the WKCE and ACT tests." I didn't check the WKCE scores, but last year 29.3% of the IQ Academy 12th graders took the ACT test and had an average composite score of 22.9. In the Madison school district, 56.6% of 12th graders took the test and the district average composite score was 24.0.
I understand that you are probably tired of hearing from local school board members complaining about the state's school funding system. But the enormous disparity between what the state will provide to a virtual charter school for enrolling a student living in Madison, as compared to what it will provide the Madison school district to educate the same student, is so utterly wrong-headed as to be almost beyond belief.
Ed HughesMadison School Board
An interesting side note: the Madison Metropolitan School District's current business manager, Erik Kass, was instrumental to helping to keep Waukesha's virtual high school open and collecting a surplus when he was the business manager for that district.I found the following comments interesting:
An interesting note is that the complainers never talked about which system more effectively taught students.Madison is spending $418,415,780 to educate 24,295 students ($17,222 each).Then again, it has never really been about the students.
Related: Madison School District 2010-2011 Budget: Comments in a Vacuum? and a few comments on the recent "State of the Madison School District" presentation.
The "Great Recession" has pushed many organizations to seek more effective methods of accomplishing their goals. It would seem that virtual learning and cooperation with nearby higher education institutions would be ideal methods to provide more adult to student services at reduced cost, rather than emphasizing growing adult to adult spending.
Finally Richard Zimman's recent Madison Rotary talk is well worth revisiting with respect to the K-12 focus on adult employment.
Fascinating.
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"What's a court doing making a decision on math textbooks and curriculum?" This question and its associated harrumphs on various education blogs and online newspapers came in reaction to the February 4, 2010 ruling from the Superior court of King County that the Seattle school board's adoption of a discovery type math curriculum for high school was "arbitrary and capricious".In fact, the court did not rule on the textbook or curriculum. Rather, it ruled on the school board's process of decision making--more accurately, the lack thereof. The court ordered the school board to revisit the decision. Judge Julie Spector found that the school board ignored key evidence--like the declaration from the state's Board of Education that the discovery math series under consideration was "mathematically unsound", the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction not recommending the curriculum and last but not least, information given to the board by citizens in public testimony.
The decision is an important one because it highlights what parents have known for a long time: School boards generally do what they want to do, evidence be damned. Discovery type math programs are adopted despite parent protests, despite evidence of experts and--judging by the case in Seattle--despite findings from the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
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I have been exchanging emails with Gabe Rose, communications director of something called the Parent Revolution in my home state, California. Rose and his organization are part of a movement that has, to my open-mouthed amazement, persuaded the state government to give parents the power to close or change the leadership of low-performing public schools.It sounds great. It has many parents excited. It could shake up the state educational establishment, including the education department, school boards and teacher unions. They could use some shaking up.
Yet I can't shake my feeling it is a bad idea, a confusing distraction that will bring parents more frustration, not less, and do little to improve their children's educations.
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Sitting on the desk of the secretary of education are dozens of ideas bold enough to finally start solving our country's education crisis. They are contained in applications by 40 states and the District of Columbia for grants from the Race to the Top fund, a $4.35 billion piece of the stimulus package designed to dramatically improve student achievement.Congress established strong guidelines to guarantee that states spend Race to the Top money on audacious reforms. Many states responded with equal fortitude, submitting proposals to radically improve how they use data or to adopt college- and career-ready standards -- concepts that used to be considered third rails in the world of education. Never before has this country had such an opportunity to remake the way we teach young people.
One reason I am so optimistic about these developments is because, after decades of diffuse reform efforts, they all zero in on the most important ingredient of a great education: effective teachers. The key to helping students learn is making sure that every child has an effective teacher every single year.
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Have your kids ever gotten an A for work that you, or they, didn't think was worthwhile? Something like that happened recently with Education Secretary Arne Duncan.The National Center for Fair & Open Testing.Education historian and New York University Professor Diane Ravitch gave him an A for effectiveness at getting buy-in for linking teacher evaluations to student test scores and a D- for pushing bad ideas. I would forgo the A and lower the grade to an F for pushing ideas that are destructive.
Why destructive? At first blush, rewarding teachers for higher student test scores seems reasonable to many people. The second and third blushes are the problem.
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The Public Policy Forum, via a kind reader's email:
Between the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, fewer new schools joined the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) than ever before. In addition, 14 MPCP schools closed and another three schools merged--the most year-over- year closures the program has seen (Chart 1).Milwaukee Voucher Schools - 2010.In this 12th edition of the Public Policy Forum's annual census of MPCP schools, we find 112 schools are participating in the choice program, enrolling 21,062 students using taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers. The number of full-time equivalent students using vouchers is greater than in any other year of the program's 19-year history; however, there are fewer schools participating today than earlier this decade (Chart 2, page 2).
The decline in the number of new schools and the increase in the number of closed schools are likely due to new state regulations governing the program. These regulations require schools new to the program to obtain pre-accreditation before opening and require existing schools to become accredited within three years of joining the program.
Throughout this decade, the average number of schools new to the program had been 11 per year. Under the new pre- accreditation requirement, 19 schools applied for pre-accreditation, but just three were approved. Another 38 schools had previously indicated to state regulators an intent to participate in the program in 2009-2010, but did not apply for pre -accreditation. The pre-accreditation process is conducted by the Institute for the Transformation of Learning (ITL) at Marquette University.
Complete report: 184K PDF, press release: 33K PDF
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Susan Troller, via a kind reader's email
Will Morton was a happy, creative and enthusiastic child until he went to kindergarten.Learning Differences Network and Wisconsin State Reading Association.As his classmates sounded out letters, and began reading words and simple sentences, he fell behind. His teacher was perplexed by Will's lack of progress because he was clearly bright and had plenty of exposure to books and language at home. And his parents were worried, because Will's older brother and sister had learned to read easily.
"We knew nothing about reading problems because we hadn't ever had any experience with them, but I remember wondering in kindergarten if he was dyslexic because he seemed to have trouble recognizing letters and associating them with sounds," says Chris Morton, Will's mother. "His teacher told us not to worry, that it was a little developmental delay and we needed to give him time and he'd be fine."
But she was wrong, experts on dyslexia say.Students like Will - who have persistent trouble reading because the neural pathways in their brains do not decode letters and sounds in the ways that make reading and writing natural - need specific help, they say, and the sooner the better. Without that kind of help, they will never catch up, and even if they manage to disguise their different learning style, they are likely to continue to struggle with reading, spelling, language and sometimes with math; in short, they won't ever achieve their full intellectual potential.
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Deborah Gist & Pamela Reinsel Cotter:
Deborah Gist: Chasm: Seniority is no longer a way in which teachers will be selected and assigned in our state. I sent a letter to all superintendents last fall to remind them that the Basic Education Program Regulation in going in effect this summer, and seniority policies would be inconsistent with that regulation. Unfortunately, state statute requires that layoffs be done on a "first in, first out" policy. Legislation would be required to change that, and I would wholeheartedly support it if it were introduced. I will do whatever is necessary to ensure that the very highest quality teacher is in every classroom in our state.Clusty Search: Deborah Gist. Deborah Gist's website and Twitter account.Deborah Gist: I can't imagine how any district or school leader could interpret my words or actions to be anything other than ensuring the top quality, so "change for change's sake" would be contradictory to that.
Bob: Please run for governor. I love your go getter attitude!
Deborah Gist: I appreciate your support very much. Make sure to keep watching and hold me accountable for results!
Parent: As a parent of 2 children, I know how crucial parent involvement is. Has anyone looked at educating the parents of the kids of these failing schools? You can replace the teachers....and you can give new teachers incentives to change things around. But this is a band aid. Teachers are blamed for too many problems. They can't be expected to solve the problems of society. Teachers have many many challenges these days- more so than 25 years ago. Kis and parents need to take responsibility for on education. Just look at math grades around the state. Kids don't know how to deal with fractions because they don't know how to tell time on an analgoue clock. But the teachers are blamed. Let's take a look at the real problems. Educate the kids - the parents- look around the country at other programs. Please don't make this mistake.
Deborah Gist: Parent involvement is important, and supportive, engaged parents are important partners in a child's education. Fortunately, we know that great teaching can overcome those instances when children have parents who are unable to provide that level of support. I don't blame teachers, but I do hold them accountable for results. I also hold myself and everyone on my team accountable.
Matt: Will you apologize for repeatedly saying that "we recruit the majority of our teachers from the bottom third of high school students going to college"? The studies that you cite do not back this up.
Deborah Gist: Matt: As a traditionally trained teacher, I know this is difficult to hear. I don't like it either. Unfortunately, it is true. While there are many extraordinarily intelligent educators throughout Rhode Island and our country, the US--unlike other high performing countries--recruits our teachers from the lowest performers in our secondary schools based on SAT scores and other performance data.
Deborah Gist: If you have a source that shows otherwise, I'd love to see that. I'm always open to learning new resources. So, I'd be happy for you to share that.
A must read.
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Here is an open letter which I sent last night to Edie Harding, Executive Director of the State Board of Education. Under the letter I have paraphrased her reply; below that is my response to her.I am responding to your comment today in the Seattle Times:
' "It's long been established that in our state, the local board is always the prime decision-maker on curriculum." ....the Seattle decision was "a surprise, and if I were the Seattle School Board, I would -- well, I might take issue with the judge," she added.'
Having been one of the plaintiffs in the recent textbook appeal in Seattle, I'm well aware that School Boards make curriculum decisions. However, Ms. Harding, what recourse do you suggest to parents when School Boards abdicate their decision making power - refusing to consider voluminous, compelling, evidence from parents and community members, and instead give school administrators carte blanch to turn math education in directions that are unacceptable to informed parents and community members?
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The third- and fourth-graders at Sharon Elementary know where the veggies in their soup come from because they've visited the farms. They know the nutritional value of the carrots, onions and cabbage because they've studied them in class, and they know how they're grown because they've nurtured them in raised beds out back.The 105-student school is part of the National Farm to School Network, aimed at getting healthier meals into school cafeterias, teaching kids about agriculture and nutrition and supporting local farmers.
About 40 states have farm-to-school programs, but Vermont is a leader in incorporating all three missions into its programs.
"Vermont has really taken it on in quite the most holistic way and not just in a couple of school districts, but statewide," said Anupama Joshi, director of the Farm to School program, based at the Center for Food and Justice at Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Vermont might be a step ahead of other states because a nonprofit partnership called Vermont FEED already had been working to get local foods into schools.
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First lady Michelle Obama's new campaign against childhood obesity, dubbed "Let's Move," puts improvements to school food at the top of the agenda. Some 31 million children participate in federal school meal programs, Obama noted in announcing her initiative last week, "and what we don't want is a situation where parents are taking all the right steps at home -- and then their kids undo all that work with salty, fatty food in the school cafeteria," she explained. "So let's move to get healthier food into our nation's schools."Last month I had a chance to see up close what all the school food fuss was about when I spent a week in the kitchen of my 10-year-old daughter's public school, H.D. Cooke Elementary, in Northwest D.C. Chartwells, the company contracted by the city to provide meals to the District's schools, had switched in the fall from serving warm-up meals prepackaged in a factory to food it called "fresh cooked," and I couldn't wait to chronicle in my food blog how my daughter's school meals were being prepared from scratch.
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107K PDF. Much more on the citizen's successful lawsuit vs. the Seattle Public Schools here.
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At tonight's listening session several people talked about the structural deficit problem: the fact that due to the state funding formula, we are looking at a deficit that grows by a million dollars each year for as far as the projections go. As Craig mentioned, our revenues increase by about 2% a year (less than inflation) while our expenses go up by more than 4% per year. This is the real problem that makes the issues brought up today look like child's play. Several people asked us to consider the long term, a sentiment I couldn't agree with more. Others asked us to consider an operating referendum to avoid cuts. I agree that given the current situation we will need to consider this as we move forward. But an operating referendum alone can't solve this problem - the deficit is not a one time or short term issue.A while ago someone asked for my long term plan for solving the structural deficit. I've given this a lot of thought, and I have to say there is no magic bullet for this, I haven't heard anyone on the board or administration articulate any specific ideas that get us out of this situation. What we need more than anything is else is good ideas.
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Gayle Worland, via a kind reader's email:
The Madison School District is facing a $30 million budget hole for 2010-11, a dilemma that could force school board members this spring to order massive cuts in programs, dramatically raise property taxes, or impose a combination of both.I'm not sure where the $360 million number came from. Board member Ed Hughes mentioned a $432,764,707 2010-2011 budget number. The 2009-2010 budget, according to a an October, 2009 District document was $418,415,780. The last "Citizen's budget" number was $339,685,844 in 2007-2008 and $333,101,865 in 2006-2007.District officials will unveil a list of possible cuts -- which could include layoffs -- next month, with public hearings to follow.
"This is a big number," School Board President Arlene Silveira said. "So we have to look at how we do business, we have to look at efficiencies, we have to look at our overall budget, and we are going to have to make hard decisions. We are in a horrible situation right now, and we do have to look at all options."
Even with the maximum hike in school property taxes -- $28.6 million, or a jump of $312.50 for the owner of a $250,000 Madison home -- the district would have to close a $1.2 million budget gap, thanks in part to a 15 percent drop in state aid it had to swallow in 2009-10 and expects again for 2010-11.
The district, with a current budget of about $360 million, expects to receive $43.7 million from the state for 2010-11, which would be the lowest sum in 13 years, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, and down from a high of $60.7 million in 2008-09. The district is receiving $51.5 million from the state for the current school year.
The budget numbers remind me of current Madison School Board member Ed Hughes' very useful 2005 quote:
This points up one of the frustrating aspects of trying to follow school issues in Madison: the recurring feeling that a quoted speaker - and it can be someone from the administration, or MTI, or the occasional school board member - believes that the audience for an assertion is composed entirely of idiots.Related: Madison School District & Madison Teachers Union Reach Tentative Agreement: 3.93% Increase Year 1, 3.99% Year 2; Base Rate $33,242 Year 1, $33,575 Year 2: Requires 50% MTI 4K Members and will "Review the content and frequency of report cards" and "Budget comments in a vacuum?"
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via a TJ Mertz email [PDF Flyer]:
What: Public Forum featuring all candidates for Madison Board of Education.
When: Sunday February 21, 2010; 1:30 to 3:30 PM.
Where: JC Wright Middle School, 1717 Fish Hatchery Rd. Madison, WI.
Contact: Thomas J. Mertz, tjmertz@sbcglobal.net; (608) 255-4550On Sunday, February 21, voters in the Madison Metropolitan School District will have their first opportunity to hear and question the School Board candidates on the ballot in the April 6 election. Unopposed incumbents Beth Moss and Maya Cole will begin with short statements on their service and why they are seeking re-election. Next the candidates for Seat 4, James Howard and Tom Farley, will answer questions from Progressive Dane and the audience. Madison District 12 Alder and member of the Board of Education
- Common Council Liaison Committee Satya Rhodes-Conway will serve as the moderator.
Progressive Dane is hosting this event as a public service to increase awareness of this important election."The seven people on the School Board are responsible for the education of about 24,000 students and an annual budget of roughly $400 million." explained Progressive Dane Co-Chair and Education Task Force Chair Thomas J. Mertz. "We want people to know what is going on, choose their candidate wisely and get
involved.Candidates Tom Farley and James Howard welcome this opportunity to communicate with the voters. Farley expects a substantive discussion; he is "looking forward to participating in the Progressive Dane forum. It will certainly be our most in-depth public discussion of the issues - and most likely the liveliest and most enjoyable one too."
Howard expressed his appreciation for "this opportunity to talk to the voters about my record of service with public schools and my unique perspective that I will add to the Board of Education" and is also ready to discuss "how to maintain and strengthen Madison schools."
Incumbents Cole and Moss are also pleased to take part. Cole said she is "happy to have this opportunity to meet with members of our community to discuss the work of the Board, to listen to their concerns and to share the opportunities we are embracing to make our district better for all children. Moss also appreciates the chance to share her thoughts on "the good work that is going on in the schools and some of the challenges we face."
Progressive Dane is a progressive political party in Dane County, Wisconsin. Progressive Dane is working to make Dane County a better place for everyone (no exceptions!). Progressive Dane helps community members organize around issues that are important to them and also works on the grassroots level to elect progressive political candidates.
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Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
t almost didn't happen.And Madison should be grateful that it did.
Two enthusiastic candidates are seeking an empty seat on the Madison School Board this spring.
James Howard, an economist and father of city school children, lists "high expectations" as a top priority.
Tom Farley, director of a nonprofit foundation and father of Madison school children, touts President Barack Obama's call for innovation.
It's the only competitive race for three seats because incumbents Maya Cole and Beth Moss are unopposed.
That leaves Howard's and Farley's campaigns to shine a needed spotlight on the many challenges and opportunities facing city schools.
Both men hope to replace Johnny Winston Jr., who announced last year he would not seek a third term.
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Susan Troller, via a Chris Murphy email:
When teachers Bryan Grau and Debora Gil R. Casado pitched an idea in 2002 to start a charter school in Madison that would teach classes in both English and Spanish, they ran into resistance from school administrators and their own union. Grau and his cohorts were asked to come up with a detailed budget for their proposal, but he says they got little help with that complex task. He recalls one meeting in particular with Roger Price, the district's director of financial services.Related: the now dead proposed Madison Studio Charter and Badger Rock Middle School."We asked for general help. He said he would provide answers to our specific questions. We asked where to begin and again he said he would answer our specific questions. That's the way it went."
Ruth Robarts, who was on the Madison School Board at the time, confirms that there was strong resistance from officials under the former administration to the creation of Nuestro Mundo, which finally got the green light and is now a successful program that is being replicated in schools around the district.
"First they would explain how the existing programs offered through the district were already doing a better job than this proposal, and then they would show how the proposal could never work," says Robarts. "There seemed to be a defensiveness towards these innovative ideas, as if they meant the district programs were somehow lacking."
The Madison School District "has historically been one of the most hostile environments in the state for charter schools, especially under Superintendent Rainwater," adds John Gee, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of Charter Schools.
Madison continues to lag other Districts in terms of innovative opportunities, such as Verona's new Chinese Mandarin immersion charter school.
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It's easy to miss the school tucked into the corner of a strip mall at N. 25th St. and W. North Ave. and its sister building a few miles away, an airy gray metal and brick structure that doesn't have a sign yet.The most noticeable school of the three may be at the south end of a nonprofit building on N. King Drive, and that's because a large banner outside proclaims the high school's name.
But within these unassuming spaces, HOPE Christian Schools are quietly expanding and changing, figuring out the best way to make sure every child - from kindergarten through 12th grade - is on the path to college.
The schools are without frills because energy and resources at this point are better spent on the elements more closely tied to student success: strong teachers who want to stay year to year, innovative and empowered administrators, testing tools that provide day-to-day and week-to-week feedback about how fast kids are progressing and which ones need more attention.
"We're still focusing on what our model looks like," said Andrew Neumann, president of HOPE Christian Schools.
Neumann also is president of the umbrella nonprofit Educational Enterprises, which plans to establish schools nationwide that help populations of disadvantaged, minority children get to college. The schools in Milwaukee are a testing ground; this year, Educational Enterprises opened a HOPE-inspired college prep charter elementary school in Phoenix.
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Precious Holt, a 12th grader with dangly earrings and a SpongeBob pillow, climbs on the yellow school bus and promptly falls asleep for the hour-plus ride to Sandhills Community College.Once again, the MMSD and State of WI are going in the wrong direction regarding education. Much more on "Credit for non-MMSD courses.When the bus arrives, she checks in with a guidance counselor and heads off to a day of college classes, blending with older classmates until 4 p.m., when she and the other seniors from SandHoke Early College High School gather for the ride home.
There is a payoff for the long bus rides: The 48 SandHoke seniors are in a fast-track program that allows them to earn their high-school diploma and up to two years of college credit in five years -- completely free.
Until recently, most programs like this were aimed at affluent, overachieving students -- a way to keep them challenged and give them a head start on college work. But the goal is quite different at SandHoke, which enrolls only students whose parents do not have college degrees.
Here, and at North Carolina's other 70 early-college schools, the goal is to keep at-risk students in school by eliminating the divide between high school and college.
"We don't want the kids who will do well if you drop them in Timbuktu," said Lakisha Rice, the principal. "We want the ones who need our kind of small setting."
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Influencing practice and policy in science education is what drives ASU's Julie Luft and has led to her distinguished service to K-12 science teacher education and renowned research contributions to the field. She considers her recent call from Congress to testify about the status and future of science education to be among her most notable achievements.Luft delivered her first-time testimony before the House Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee at the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Education Hearings that took place Feb. 3-4. She was joined by Craig Strang, associate director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at University of California-Berkeley.
The purpose of the hearing was to inform Congressional subcommittee members about the status and future direction of STEM education in the K-12 sector. STEM education is considered vital to maintaining the United States' leadership in the rapidly advancing world of science and technology. In her testimony, Luft emphasized the importance of inquiry in teacher education and professional development, and the need for more federal funding to support science organizations involved in research and development. She also stressed the unintended consequences of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, which has limited the amount of inquiry-based instruction in K-12 science classrooms.
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Judge Julie Spector's decision [69K PDF], via Martha McLaren:
THIS MATTER having come on for hearing, and the Court having considered the pleadings, administrative record, and argument in this matter, the Court hereby enters the following Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order:Melissa Westbrook has more.FINDINGS OF FACT
1. On May 6, 2009, in a 4-3 vote, the Seattle School District Board of Directors chose the Discovering Series as the District's high school basic math materials.a. A recommendation from the District's Selection Committee;
b. A January, 2009 report from the Washington State Office of Public Instruction ranking High School math textbooks, listing a series by the Holt Company as number one, and the Discovering Series as number two;
c. A March 11, 2009, report from the Washington State Board of Education finding that the Discovering Series was "mathematically unsound";
d. An April 8, 2009 School Board Action Report authored by the Superintendent;
e. The May 6, 2009 recommendation of the OSPI recommending only the Holt Series, and not recommending the Discovering Series;
f. WASL scores showing an achievement gap between racial groups;
g. WASL scores from an experiment with a different inquiry-based math text at Cleveland and Garfield High Schools, showing that W ASL scores overall declined using the inquiry-based math texts, and dropped significantly for English Language Learners, including a 0% pass rate at one high school;
h. The National Math Achievement Panel (NMAP) Report;
1. Citizen comments and expert reports criticizing the effectiveness of inquiry-based math and the Discovering Series;
J. Parent reports of difficulty teaching their children using the Discovering Series and inquiry-based math;
k. Other evidence in the Administrative Record;
I. One Board member also considered the ability of her own child to learn math using the Discovering Series.
3. The court finds that the Discovering Series IS an inquiry-based math program.
4. The court finds, based upon a review of the entire administrative record, that there IS insufficient evidence for any reasonable Board member to approve the selection of the Discovering Series.CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
I. The court has jurisdiction under RCW 28A.645.010 to evaluate the Board's decision for whether it is arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law;2. The Board's selection of the Discovering Series was arbitrary;
3. The Board's selection of the Discovering Series was capricious;
4. This court has the authority to remand the Board's decision for further review;
5. Any Conclusion of Law which is more appropriately characterized as a
Finding of Fact is adopted as such, and any Finding of Fact more appropriately
characterized as a Conclusion of Law is adopted as such.ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
The decision of the Board to adopt the Discovering Series is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.Dated this 4th day of February, 2010.
Seattle Math Group Press Release:
Judge Julie Spector today announced her finding of "arbitrary and capricious" in the Seattle School Board's May 6 vote to adopt the Discovering Math series of high school texts despite insufficient evidence of the series' effectiveness.Judge Spector's decision states, "The court finds, based upon a review of the entire administrative record, that there is insufficient evidence for any reasonable Board member to approve the selection of the Discovering series."
Plaintiffs DaZanne Porter, an African American and mother of a 9th-grade student in Seattle Public Schools, Martha McLaren, retired Seattle math teacher and grandparent of a Seattle Public Schools fifth grader, and Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington, had filed their appeal of the Board's controversial decision on June 5th, 2009. The hearing was held on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
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I enjoyed meeting and talking with Ellie Schatz recently. Listen to the conversation via this 17MB mp3 audio file CTRL-Click to download or read the transcript. Parent and activist Schatz founded WCATY and is, most recently author of "Grandma Says it's Good to Be Smart".
I enjoyed visiting with Ellie and found the conversation quite illuminating. Here's a useful segment from the 37 minute interview:
Jim: What's the best, most effective education model these days? Obviously, there are traditional schools. There are virtual schools. There are chartered schools. There are magnets. And then there's the complete open-enrollment thing. Milwaukee has it, where the kids can go wherever they want, public or private, and the taxes follow.Thanks to Rick Kiley for arranging this conversation.Ellie: [32:52] I think there's no one best model from the standpoint of those models that you just named. [32:59] What is important within any one of those models is that a key player in making that education available to your child believes that no matter how good the curriculum, no matter how good the model, the children they are about to serve are different, that children are not alike.
[33:30] And that they will have to make differences in the curriculum and in the way the learning takes place for different children.
[33:45] And I have experienced that myself. I've served on the boards of several private schools here in the city, and I have given that message: "This may be an excellent curriculum, and I believe it's an excellent curriculum. But that's not enough."
[34:05] You cannot just sit this curriculum down in front of every child in the classroom and say, "We're going to turn the pages at the same time, and we're going to write the answers in the same way." It does not work that way. You must believe in individually paced education.
[34:24] And that's why I say the WCATY model cannot change. If it's going to accomplish what I set out for WCATY to do, it must be accelerated from the nature of most of the curriculum that exists out there for kids today.
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IN this time of job insecurity, the question may have occurred to you: Should you consider part-time teaching as a way to improve your finances and expand your career opportunities?Becoming a teacher can be rigorous and time-consuming, but at the college level, part-time teaching is a realistic option for some professionals. Postsecondary schools are often willing to be flexible about academic credentials in return for real-world expertise.
The need for part-time professors, known as adjuncts, is high right now. Education is one of the few areas of the economy that has been expanding, partly because so many of the unemployed are returning to school.
You may not want to pursue teaching part time, however, if your motivation is mainly financial. The pay for adjunct professors is usually low, and the work can be challenging. Still, the nonmonetary rewards that come with teaching can be substantial.
Often, people need a minimum of a master's degree to work as adjunct professors, whether at two- or four-year colleges. But with the equivalent skills and expertise, even someone with only a bachelor's degree might be hired, said Claire Van Ummersen, vice president for the Center for Effective Leadership at the American Council on Education.
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Alliance for Excellent Education:
Few people realize the impact that high school dropouts have on a community's economic, social, and civic health.Business owners and residents--in particular, those without school-aged children--may not be aware that they have much at stake in the success of their local high schools.
Indeed, everyone--from car dealers and realtors to bank managers and local business owners--benefits when more students graduate from high school.
Nationally, more than seven thousand students become dropouts every school day. That adds up to almost 1.3 million students annually who will not graduate from high school with their peers as scheduled. In addition to the moral imperative to provide every student with an equal opportunity to pursue the American dream, there is also an economic argument for helping more students graduate from high school.
To better understand the various economic benefits that a particular community could expect if it were to reduce its number of high school dropouts, the Alliance for Excellent Education (the Alliance), with the generous support of State Farm®, analyzed the local economies of the nation's fifty largest cities and their surrounding areas. Using a
sophisticated economic model developed by Economic Modeling Specialists Inc., an Idaho-based economics firm specializing in socioeconomic impact tools, the Alliance calculated economic projections tailored to each of these metro regions.
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I am one of the three plaintiffs in the math textbook appeal. I am also the white grandmother of an SPS fifth grader, and a retired SPS math teacher.Mr. Westneat grants that the textbooks we are opposing may be "lousy," but he faults us for citing their disproportionate effect on ethnic, racial, and other minorities. He states that we can't prove this claim. I disagree, and West Seattle Dan has posted voluminous statistics in response to the column. They support our claim that inquiry-based texts, which have now accrued a sizable track record, are generally associated with declining achievement among most students and with a widening achievement gap between middle class whites and minorities.
We've brought race and ethnicity (as well as economic status) into this appeal because there is ample evidence that it is a factor. True, this is not the 80's, and true, in my 10 years of experience teaching in Seattle Schools, I found no evidence that people of color are less capable than whites of being outstanding learners. However, in my 30+ years as a parent and grandparent of SPS students and my years as a teacher, I've developed deep, broad, awareness of the ways that centuries of societally mandated racism play out in our classrooms, even in this era of Barack Obama's presidency.
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Martha McLaren, DaZanne Porter, and Cliff Mass:
Today Cliff Mass and I, (DaZanne Porter had to be at a training in Yakima) accompanied by Dan Dempsey and Jim W, had our hearing in Judge Julie Spector's King County Superior Courtroom; the event was everything we hoped for, and more. Judge Spector asked excellent questions and said that she hopes to announce a decision by Friday, February 12th.Associated Press:The hearing started on time at 8:30 AM with several members of the Press Corps present, including KIRO TV, KPLU radio, Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times, and at least 3 others. I know the number because, at the end, Cliff, our attorney, Keith Scully, and I were interviewed; there were five microphones and three cameras pointed towards us at one point.
The hearing was brief; we were done by 9:15. Keith began by presenting our case very clearly and eloquently. Our two main lines of reasoning are, 1) that the vote to adopt Discovering was arbitrary and capricious because of the board's failure to take notice of a plethora of testimony, data, and other information which raised red flags about the efficacy of the Discovering series, and 2) the vote violated the equal education rights of the minority groups who have been shown, through WASL scores, to be disadvantaged by inquiry based instruction.
Realistically, both of these arguments are difficult to prove: "arbitrary and capricious" is historically a very, very difficult proof, and while Keith's civil rights argument was quite compelling, there is no legal precedent for applying the law to this situation.
The School District's attorney, Shannon McMinimee, did her best, saying that the board followed correct procedure, the content of the books is not relevant to the appeal, the books do not represent inquiry-based learning but a "balanced" approach, textbooks are merely tools, etc., etc. She even denigrated the WASL - a new angle in this case. In rebuttal, Keith was terrific, we all agreed. He quoted the introduction of the three texts, which made it crystal clear that these books are about "exploration." I'm blanking on other details of his rebuttal, but it was crisp and effective. Keith was extremely effective, IMHO. Hopefully, Dan, James, and Cliff can recall more details of the rebuttal.
A lawsuit challenging the Seattle School District's math curriculum went to trial Monday in King County Superior Court.Cliff Mass:A group of parents and teachers say the "Discovering Math" series adopted last year does a poor job, especially with minority students who are seeing an achievement gap widen.
A spokeswoman for the Seattle School District, Teresa Wippel, says it has no comment on pending litigation.
KOMO-TV reports the district has already spent $1.2 million on Discovering Math books and teacher training.
On Tuesday, January 26th, at 8:30 AM, King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector will consider an appeal by a group of Seattle residents (including yours truly) regarding the selection by Seattle Public Schools of the Discovering Math series in their high schools. Although this issue is coming to a head in Seattle it influences all of you in profound ways.In this appeal we provide clear evidence that the Discovery Math approach worsens the achievement gap between minority/disadvantaged students and their peers. We show that the Board and District failed to consider key evidence and voluminous testimony, and acted arbitrarily and capriciously by choosing a teaching method that was demonstrated to produce a stagnant or increasing achievement gap. We request that the Seattle Schools rescind their decision and re-open the textbook consideration for high school.
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As his title hints, Louis Menand has written a business book. This is good, since the crisis in American higher education that the Harvard professor of English addresses is a business crisis. The crisis resembles the more celebrated one in the US medical system. At its best, US education, like US healthcare, is of a quality that no system in the world can match. However, the two industries have developed similar problems in limiting costs and keeping access open. Both industries have thus become a source of worry for public-spirited citizens and a punchbag for political opportunists.Clusty Search: Louis Menand - "The Marketplace of Ideas".Menand lowers the temperature of this discussion. He neither celebrates nor bemoans the excesses of political correctness - the replacement of Keats by Toni Morrison, or of Thucydides by queer theory. Instead, in four interlocking essays, he examines how university hiring and credentialing systems and an organisational structure based on scholarly disciplines have failed to respond to economic and social change. Menand draws his idea of what an American university education can be from the history of what it has been. This approach illuminates, as polemics cannot, two grave present-day problems: the loss of consensus on what to teach undergraduates and the lack of intellectual diversity among the US professoriate.
Much of today's system, Menand shows, can be traced to Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard for four decades after 1869. Faced with competition from pre-professional schools, Eliot had the "revolutionary idea" of strictly separating liberal arts education from professional education (law, medicine, etc), and making the former a prerequisite for the latter. Requiring a lawyer to spend four years reading, say, Molière before he can study for the bar has no logic. Such a system would have made it impossible for Abraham Lincoln to enter public life. Funny, too, that the idea of limiting the commanding heights of the professions to young men of relative leisure arose just as the US was filling up with penurious immigrants. Menand grants that the system was a "devil's bargain".
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Beth Moss (running for re-election unopposed) 311K PDF.
James Howard (running against Tom Farley) 432K PDF.
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39MB mp3 audio. I recorded this from Monday evening's video stream. Unfortunately, the sound level was quite low. Notes and links on the 2010 State of the Madison School District here.
566K State of the District PDF.
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Here is an interesting op-ed piece by a tenured professor of biology at Piedmont College, Robert H. Wainberg. He is alarmed because he has been told by former students who are now teachers that some schools no longer hold Honors Day to recognize the accomplishments of above average and exemplary students so they don't hurt the feelings of kids who don't earn awards.Ah, yes. One size fits all education uber alles.This piece will appear in the paper on the education page Monday. Enjoy.
By Robert H.Wainberg:
I have been a professor of Biology and Biochemistry at a regional college for over two decades. Sadly, I have noticed a continual deterioration in the performance of my students during this time. In part I have attributed it to the poor study habits of the last few generations (X, XX and now XXX) who have relied too heavily on technology in lieu of thinking for themselves.In fact, the basics are no longer taught in our schools because they are considered to be "too hard," not because they are archaic or antiquated. For example, students are no longer required to learn the multiplication or division tables since they direct access to calculators in their phones.
Handwriting script and calligraphy are now in danger of extinction since computers use printed letters. A report I recently read disturbingly admitted that many of our standardized tests used for college admission or various professional schools (MCAT, LSAT and GRE) have to manipulate their normal bell-shaped curves to obtain the higher averages of decadtudenes ago.
What we fail to realize is that the concept of "survival of the fittest" still applies even within the realm of technology. There will always be those who are more "adapted" to the full potential of its use while others will be stalled at the level of downloading music or playing games.
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Parents wishing to send their children to a different school district next year will be able to participate in the open enrollment program the first three weeks of February.Learn more about full and part time Wisconsin open enrollment here.From Feb. 1 through Feb. 19 parents can apply for their children to attend a public school other than the one in which they live. Last school year, more than 28,000 students participated.
Participation in the program has grown each year since it began in 1998 when just 2,500 were enrolled.
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588K PDF, Dan Nerad, Superintendent:
Dear Members of Our Community, The mission of the Madison Metropolitan School District is as follows:This report will be presented at Monday evening's Madison School Board meeting.Our mission is to cultivate the potential in every student to thrive as a global citizen by inspiring a love of learning and civic engagement, by challenging and supporting every student to achieve academic excellence, and by embracing the full richness and diversity of our community.A year ago, a group of community and school staff members committed time to develop a revised Strategic Plan for the school district. As part of this, our mission statement was revised. This plan was approved by the Board of Education in September 2009 and will be reviewed and updated annually. For the foreseeable future, the plan will serve as our road map to know if we are making a difference relative to important student learning outcomes and to the future of our community. To make the most difference, we must continue to partner with you, our community. We are indeed very fortunate to be able to educate our children in a very supportive, caring community.As a school district, our highest priority must be on our work related to teaching and learning. For our students and the community's children to become proficient learners and caring and contributing members of society, we must remain steadfast in this commitment.
Related to our mission, we have also identified the following belief statements as a district:
Purpose of this report
- We believe that excellent public education is necessary for ensuring a democratic society.
- Webelieveintheabilitiesofeveryindividualinourcommunityandthevalueof their life experiences.
- We believe in an inclusive community in which all have the right to contribute.
- Webelievewehaveacollectiveresponsibilitytocreateandsustainasafe environment that is respectful, engaging, vibrant and culturally responsive.
- Webelievethateveryindividualcanlearnandwillgrowasalearner.
- We believe in continuous improvement in formed by critical evaluation and reflection.
- We believe that resources are critical to education and we are responsible for their equitable and effective use.
- Webelieveinculturallyrelevanteducationthatprovidestheknowledgeandskills to meet the global challenges and opportunities of the 21st Century.
The purpose of this State of the District Report is to provide important information about our District to our community and to share future priorities.
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Tom Farley Jr., the brother of the late comedian Chris Farley, is emerging as perhaps the oddest candidate for local public office since Will Sandstrom.First there was the confusion he caused in announcing on Twitter last September that he was running for lieutenant governor as a Republican. He later backtracked, saying he was merely considering the idea, a claim undercut by the words he'd used: "I'm in." (His announcement of candidacy has apparently been unTwittered.)
Farley later announced his candidacy for Madison school board; he's running for an open seat against James Howard, an economist with the Forest Products Laboratory. Commenting on the Advocating on Madison Public Schools (AMPS) blog, Farley sought to distance himself from the notion that he is a Republican merely because he announced his plans to run for office as one.
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The State Board of Education voted on Tuesday to support Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca's campaign to sharply reduce the number of school districts in Vermont.The board avoided setting a specific number of school districts. But it made it clear that it backs the idea of reducing the present 290 local school districts to a much smaller number of larger, regional districts.
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channel3000, via a kind reader:
A new Mandarin Chinese immersion charter school will open this fall in Verona.Smart and timely. Much more, here.The Verona school board voted 4-3 on Monday night to approve the school, making it the first of its kind in the state.
The school will be called the Verona Area International School. It will have two halftime teachers, one who teaches only in English and the other who teaches only in Mandarin. Math, science and some social-science classes would be taught in the Chinese language. Students will spend half the day learning in English and half in Mandarin Chinese.
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Jacob Gershman & Barbara Martinez:
New York, home of the nation's largest school district, is on the verge of rejecting key components of the White House's education effort amid a state fight over charter schools.The Democratic-led legislature, with heavy backing from teachers' unions, is behind a law that critics, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, say will curb the growth of charter schools.
Tuesday is the deadline for states to submit initial bids for a slice of the $4.35 billion that is up for grabs under the Obama administration's "Race to the Top" competition, which is intended to coax policy concessions such as opening charter schools and getting approval of merit-pay systems through stubborn legislatures.
Late Monday, New York Governor David A. Paterson and lawmakers were negotiating a compromise to salvage the state's application for the first phase of the contest. Although it is seen as unlikely that Albany leaders will strike a compromise by the deadline, it is expected that New York will submit a bid either way.
The maximum amount that New York could win is $700 million and it is unclear if program's financial lure will be enough to forge a breakthrough.
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A number of folks have asked why, like 2009, there are two uncontested seats in this spring's Madison School Board election. Incumbents Maya Cole and Beth Moss are running unopposed while the open seat, vacated by the retiring Johnny Winston, Jr. is now contested: Tom Farley (TJ Mertz and Robert Godfrey have posted on Farley's travails, along with Isthmus) after some nomination signature issues and an internal fracas over the School District lawyer's role in the race, faces James Howard [website].
I think we've seen a drop on the ongoing, very small amount of school board activism because:
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Smart and timely. The Verona School Board will vote on the proposed Chinese immersion charter school Monday evening, 1/18/2010 - via a kind reader.
Documents:
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Wisconsin State Journal Editorial, via a kind reader's email:
Bold plans for a new kind of middle school in Madison deserve encouragement and strong consideration.The proposed Badger Rock Middle School on the South Side would run year-round with green-themed lessons in hands-on gardens and orchards.
The unusual school would still teach core subjects such as English and math. But about 120 students would learn amid a working farm, local business and neighborhood sustainability center.
Money is tight in this difficult economy. And the Madison School Board just committed to launching an expensive 4-year-old kindergarten program in 2011.
But organizers say Badger Rock wouldn't cost the district additional dollars because private donors will pay for the school facility.
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via a kind reader's email:
A State of the District presentation will be made by Superintendent
Daniel Nerad to the community at a Board of Education meeting on Monday, January 25 at 5:30 p.m. in the library of Wright Middle School, 1717 Fish Hatchery Rd. The presentation will be the meeting's sole agenda item.All community members are welcome to attend.
The presentation will provide an overview of important information and data regarding the Madison School District - including student achievement - and future areas of focus.
The visually-supported talk will be followed by a short period for questions from those in attendance.
The speech and Q&A period will be televised live on MMSD-TV Cable Channels 96/993 and streaming live on the web at www.mmsd.tv. It will
also be available for replay the following day at the same web site.For more information, contact:
Ken Syke, 663-1903 or ksyke@madison.k12.wi.us , or
Joe Quick, 663-1902 or jquick@madison.k12.wi.usKen Syke
Public Information
Madison School District
voice 608 663 1903; cell 608 575 6682; fax 608 204 0342
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Massachusetts enjoys a history as an educational leader dating to the early days of our country. The 1993 Education Reform Act positioned Massachusetts at the forefront of school reform and produced gains in student learning that are the envy of every other state. Now, the Obama administration's Race to the Top program gives Massachusetts another chance to lead, this time by fully integrating public charter schools into the fabric of the commonwealth's education system.Charter schools are public schools open to all students. They're accountable for their performance and overseen by the state, which has closed down lower performing charters even when these schools outperformed nearby traditional public schools. But unlike traditional public schools, charters have autonomy and flexibility. For example, they can reward their best teachers and fire low performers. This autonomy--not the red herring of funding--is why charter schools are so contentious.
Across the country the experience with charter schools is mixed. Charter schooling is producing amazing schools, many among the best in America. At the same time, the openness of the charter sector is also creating some quality problems. Charter quality varies state by state and owes a great deal to different state polices.
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Much has been written about how two education reform bills signed into law last week might affect California's chances of qualifying for federal Race to the Top funds.As important as that funding is, the new laws' significance goes much deeper. It signals that the balance of power in education is shifting away from teachers unions and toward parents, where it belongs.
The "parent trigger," a controversial element of the legislation, is the best evidence of this turning point.
The concept was developed by the grass-roots group Parent Revolution in the Los Angeles Unified School District. If a majority of parents in a failing school petitions for an overhaul, the district must do something -- replace administrators, convert to a charter school or make other major reforms.
By law, tenured California teachers can convert their school to a charter if a majority of them vote for it, and that has happened dozens of times. But teachers unions and other groups opposed giving parents the same right. One group called it the "lynch mob" provision -- an odd choice of words, given that it would empower parents primarily in minority communities where failing schools abound.
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The greatest revolution in education in the United States today is taking place in Los Angeles. It is the mandate of the Los Angeles Unified School District School Board to convert almost a third of its schools either to charter schools, the public schools of choice that are the one shining light in an otherwise dysfunctional system, or other alternatives such as magnet schools. The change is not only a mighty one for the state's largest school district, but in time it could double the number of public schools of choice in California.What is remarkable is not just the magnitude of this earth-shaking change, but the complete shift of the paradigm about how we think about public education. The driving force behind this revolution is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is not only a Democrat but also a former organizer for the United Teachers of Los Angeles, Los Angeles teachers' union. Villaraigosa took his nontraditional stand because, as he noted, LAUSD was racked with violence and plagued with a dropout rate of 50 percent, and showed no signs of improving.
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via a Susan Hobart email:
USE THE ORDER FORM ATTACHED TO ORDER YOUR COPY OF ROOM 2'S PUBLICATION, A IS FOR AVOCADO. ALL PROCEEDS WILL GO TOWARD BUYING A COMPUTER AND BOOKS FOR ALL STUDENTS AT THE BIBI JANN SCHOOL IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA! DUE TO LOTS OF INTEREST, WE HAVE EXTENDED OUR DEADLINE THROUGH JANUARY! CHECK IT OUT BELOW TO SEE ONLINE COPY OF THE BOOK! IF YOU HAVE ALREADY PLACED YOUR ORDER, HERE IS A SNEAK PEAK OF THE BOOK! THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT! SUSIE HOBART, LINDSAY NORRISH AND THE WRITERS OF ROOM 2, LAKE VIEW SCHOOL.
Susan J Hobart
Teacher, Grades 4/5
Lake View Elementary School
1802 Tennyson Lane
Madison, Wisconsin 53704 USA
608.204.4061
shobart@madison.k12.wi.us
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Semaj Arrington hadn't missed a day of school in almost four years at Tenor High School, a small charter school downtown. It was a pretty remarkable record, given his background, which was, um, not out of a textbook for school success.Then one morning last spring, he didn't show up at school. The principal, Jodi Weber, called his house. Arrington said he'd hurt his ankle and couldn't walk. He couldn't catch the bus to school.
Excused absence, right? Wrong. Mark Schneider, the dean of students, drove across town to Arrington's house, helped him to the car, and brought him to school.
"They have ways of making you be more professional, just have your head on right," says Arrington, 19, now working on becoming an electrician at Milwaukee Area Technical College.
In 2005, I wrote a story about what I called the Marcia Spector school district, a set of small elementary schools and high schools under the umbrella of Seeds of Health, a nonprofit organization headed by the smart, entrepreneurial and forceful Spector.
There were about 900 students in the schools, all of them funded with public dollars but operating outside the traditional public school system. Each of the schools had high energy, a distinctive and well-executed program, and a record that made them valuable parts of the local school scene.
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When diners arrive at the Food for Thought hunger awareness banquet Friday at Madison Country Day School, they will be assigned a certain income level that will determine their meal.Those in the lowest income group will be served rice on a banana leaf and at the other end of the spectrum, diners will be able to choose food from a table loaded with choices.
The idea of the hunger awareness event, which starts at 5 p.m. at the school at 5606 River Road on the edge of Waunakee, is to encourage the local community to help address global hunger.
"It's not supposed to be a depressing event," junior Fabian Fernandez said. "It's supposed to be eye opening."
After a discussion about global hunger issues, which will include talk about how those with enough food could be giving some to those who don't, the diners will be allowed to share their food. "The goal is to have people (assigned different income levels) eating near each other (to) help people see the difference," said freshman Imani Lewis-Norelle.
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The question of what it means to be a parent has never been simple. But three recent cases highlight just how complicated things can get--and how inconsistent the courts have been in weighing genetic parenthood against the deals struck by would-be parents (gay and straight) with their partners.Case 1: Sean Hollingsworth and Donald Robinson Hollingsworth are legally married in California and are registered as civil union partners in New Jersey. The two husbands arranged for Donald's sister, Angelia Robinson, to serve as a gestational surrogate carrying embryos produced using sperm from Sean Hollingsworth and donor eggs. In October 2006, Ms. Robinson bore twin girls whom she turned over to their two fathers. In March 2007, Ms. Robinson sued for custody alleging that she had been coerced into being a surrogate. A New Jersey court ruled last week that Ms. Robinson, who has no genetic tie to the twins, is their legal mother and can sue for primary custody later this year.
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OU ARE A specialist in your field, you can see the opportunities before you, but there's little or nothing that you can do. If this place sounds vaguely familiar, it is where Dr Deirdre MacIntyre found herself almost a decade ago.She wasn't a solo traveller, either. A colleague and close friend, Dr Moya O'Brien, had also reached that bus stop. The trick was to recognise when it was time to jump off.
"We had trained in psychology together, she was my bridesmaid, I was her birth partner and we had worked together in what was the Eastern Health Board before it became the Eastern Regional Health Authority ," MacIntyre recalls. "We both had families with small kids, and very heavy clinical caseloads at work.
"I loved my career in child guidance, I loved my clinical work, but both of us felt that our impact was limited within the health board structure," MacIntyre recalls.
At this point, she had nearly 20 years' experience as a clinical psychologist and was principal in charge of the ERHA's child and adolescent psychology services. She had been involved in establishing community-based psychology services for children and their families.
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Since Friday is the day for lists on The Sheet, here is one showing the 10 most important education policy issues for 2010, as determined by the non-profit American Association of State Colleges and Universities. I have shortened the analysis; for a fuller one, click here.1) Fiscal Crises Facing States
The biggest force behind much of the policy action that will occur in 2010 is the quarter-trillion-dollar collective deficit that has devastated states' budgets in the past 24 months. Public colleges and universities throughout most of the country are slicing and dicing budgets because state governments have lowered--dramatically in some cases--public funding. This has been most obvious in California, where tuition increases are the highest ever and where enrollment caps have kept ten of thousands of students out of classrooms.
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I have similar concerns about "meaningful" implementation of the fine arts task force recommendations. The task force presented its recommendations to the School Board in October 2008, which were based in large part on input from more than 1,000 respondents to a survey. It was another 7 months before administration recommendations were ready for the School Board, and its been another 6 months since then without any communication to the community or staff about: a) brief summary of what the School Board approved (which could have been as simple as posting the cover letter), b) what's underway, etc. Anything at a Board meeting can be tracked down on the website, but that's not what I'm talking about. There are plenty of electronic media that allow for efficient, appropriate communication to many people in the district and in the community, allowing for on-going communication and engagement. Some of the current issues might be mitigated, so further delays do not occur. Also, there already is a blog in the arts area that is rarely used.
Afterall, one of our School Board members, Lucy Mathiak, has a full-time job (in addition to being a school board member) as well as having a lot of other life stuff on her plate and she's developed a blog. It wouldn't be appropriate for administrators to comment as she does if they are wearing their administrator hats, but concise, factual information would be helpful. I mentioned this to the Superintendent when I met with him in November. He said he thought this was a good idea and ought to take place - haven't seen it yet; hope to soon, though.
In the meantime, I'm concerned about the implementation of one of the most important aspects of the task force's recommendations - multi-year educational and financial strategic plan for the arts, which members felt needed to be undertaken after the School Board's approval and in parallel with implementation of other efforts. Why was this so important to the task force? Members felt to sustain arts education in this economic environment, such an effort was critical.
From the task force's perspective, a successful effort in this area would involve the community and would not be a solo district effort. As a former member and co-chair of the task force, I've heard nothing about this. I am well aware of the tight staffing and resources, but there are multiple ways to approach this. Also, in my meetings with administrative staff over the summer that included my co-chair, Anne Katz, we all agreed this was not appropriate for Teaching and Learning whose work and professional experience is in the area of curriculum. Certainly, curriculum is an important piece, but is not the entire, long-term big picture for arts education. Also, there is no need to wait on specific curriculum plans before moving forward with the longer-term effort. They are very, very different and all the curriculum work won't mean much if the bigger picture effort is not undertaken in a timely manner. When the task force began it's work, this was a critical issue. It's even more critical now.
Does anyone have information about what's underway, meaningful opportunities for community and teacher engagement (vs. the typical opportunities for drive by input - if you don't comment as we drive by, you must not care or tacitly approve of what's being done is how I've heard the Teaching and Learning approach described to me and I partially experienced personally). I so hope not, because there are many knowledgable teaching professionals.
I know the topic of this thread was talented and gifted, but there are many similar "non-content" issues between the two topics. I'm hoping to address my experiences and my perspectives on arts education issues in the district in separate posts in the near future.
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Wisconsin School Board power may change, due to legislation under consideration at the Capitol.Three uncontested candidates will run for three-year terms on the Madison school board in April.
Incumbents Beth Moss and Maya Cole are running for school board Seats 3 and 5, respectively. James Howard is running for Seat 4, currently held by Johnny Winston, Jr., who announced in November that he would not seek a third term.
Thomas Farley, director of the nonprofit Chris Farley Foundation and an expected candidate for Seat 4, filed two of the three necessary documents to get his name on the ballot, said Adam Gallagher, deputy clerk for the City Clerk's office. However, candidates also must file a minimum of 100 signatures of electors who reside in the Madison school district, and only 94 of signatures gathered by Farley by Tuesday's 5 p.m. deadline met that criteria, Gallagher said.
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Paul Krawzak & Melissa Bristow:
When it comes to education, Americans may disagree on most of the details, but they do agree on one point: Today's system is in need of an overhaul. Despite huge hikes in federal, state and local spending on schools in recent decades, policymakers, education advocates and experts, parents, employers and educators concur: The nation's children need better preparation for 21st century life and careers.Whatever the system's good points and whatever its faults, there is strong agreement on the need to revamp for a new decade and radically changing job markets. With unemployment at 10%, many jobs go unfilled because of a shortage of skilled workers. Higher education costs more than too many people can afford and keeps rising much faster than inflation. And too many youngsters are left behind by a system that can't keep up with changing needs.
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If you're gearing up for a job search now as an undergraduate or returning student, there are several bright spots where new jobs and promising career paths are expected to emerge in the next few years.Technology, health care and education will continue to be hot job sectors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' outlook for job growth between 2008 and 2018. But those and other fields will yield new opportunities, and even some tried-and-true fields will bring some new jobs that will combine a variety of skill sets.
The degrees employers say they'll most look for include finance, engineering and computer science, says Andrea Koncz, employment-information manager at the National Association of Colleges and Employers. But to land the jobs that will see some of the most growth, job seekers will need to branch out and pick up secondary skills or combine hard science study with softer skills, career experts say, which many students already are doing. "Students are positioned well for future employment, particularly in specialized fields," Ms. Koncz says.
Career experts say the key to securing jobs in growing fields will be coupling an in-demand degree with expertise in emerging trends. For example, communications pros will have to master social media and the analytics that come with it; nursing students will have to learn about risk management and electronic records; and techies will need to keep up with the latest in Web marketing, user-experience design and other Web-related skills.
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John Wood's epiphany, almost to his own embarrassment, took place in a Nepalese monastery. As he describes it in his book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, the then high-flying computer executive plucked up the courage to leave corporate life and start an educational charity over a brass bowl of piping hot yak-butter tea surrounded by 30 chanting monks. "Oh, no, this is going to sound like a terrible cliché," he wrote. "Western guy walks into monastery and changes the course of his life."In truth, Wood's life had begun to change several months before. Aged 35, on a trekking holiday to Nepal, he had been appalled at the near-absence of books in the mountain schools. That, plus a growing disenchantment with his life as a corporate warrior-cum-slave, persuaded him to return to Nepal the following year with thousands of books. Books for Nepal, as Room to Read was called before its rapid international expansion forced a change of name, started out small. But as soon as Wood had broken from Microsoft, he began to apply the lessons he had learnt in business to his fledgling charity.
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They're not quite gambling halls or casinos, but public schools might have to get a Games of Chance License from the state if they want to continue some of their fundraisers.According to a new proposal, which will be voted on later this month, schools cannot hold raffles, such as 50-50s or Chinese auctions, unless they have the license from the state Racing and Wagering Board, which also involves getting an ID number and filling out numerous forms.
The changes, updated yesterday, followed an earlier proposal that banned raffles all together. The policy, along with parents' concerns, was outlined in an Advance story on Monday.
City officials said the policy was originally written by the Department of Education's legal department, but once they realized the impact it would have on PTAs, raffles were approved once again.
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Thirteen-year-old Kayla Savage was failing math. Like many of her classmates in middle school, she hated the subject. Stuck in a large seventh-grade class with a teacher who had little time to offer individual help, Kayla was lost among rational numbers and polynomials.Silicon Valley Education Foundation.Her frustration led to a phobia of math, an all-too-common affliction that often starts in middle school and threatens to derail students' future math studies in high school and chances for college.
Kayla is like thousands of students across America who struggle with math. The struggle in California is borne out by this grim U.S. Education Department statistic: Students in California rank 40th in eighth-grade math, a critical year in math learning that sets the path for math success in high school and beyond.
In Santa Clara County, only about 39 percent of eighth-graders meet the California standard for Algebra I proficiency. One study showed that less than one-third of eighth-graders have the skills or interest to pursue a math or science career. Yet these careers are the drivers of our future.
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"The research around early reading intervention illuminates the complex decision making required to meet individual student literacy needs. There seems to be no one right answer, no quick fix for success. While recent research brings up questions as to the cost/benefit of Reading Recovery, what other supports and options are available? One thing is certain, alternative interventions must be in place prior to removing current systems." Summary, "Reading Recovery: A Synthesis of Research, Data Analysis and Recommendations," Madison Metropolitan School District Report to the Board of Education, December, 2009.
How well are we teaching our children to read?
The "Annual Measurable Objectives" under No Child Left Behind for Wisconsin call for all students to achieve reading levels of proficient or better under the WKCE by the 2013-14 school year. Benchmarks toward that goal are phased in over time. The current intermediate goal (ending this school year) is 74%. (Put another way, the percentage of students who are below proficient should not exceed 26%.) The goals move up to 80.5% in 2010-11, 87% in 2011-12, and 93.5% in 2012-13.
71.7% of MMSD 3rd graders scored at or above the proficient level on last year's (November 2008) WKCE reading assessment (this and the rest of the WKCE data cited here are from the DPI web site). This did not quite meet the 74% Annual Measurable Objective. We should be concerned that achievement levels are going down even as achievement targets are going up:
The Annual Measurable Objectives also apply to demographic subgroups, including economically disadvantaged students. Economically disadvantaged students—whose futures are almost wholly dependent on the ability of their schools to teach them to read—and their achievement levels deserve particular attention.
How well are we teaching our children from low-income families to read?
Can we continue to explain/excuse/blame poverty rates for this failure?
What should we do to acknowledge and address this crisis?
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Abdalla Mursal moved his family from Atlanta to southeastern Minnesota a decade ago to raise his four children in an area with good schools and low crime.I took a cab some time ago with a Somali Driver in the Western United States. The driver's cell phone featured a 612 area code - surprising outside of Minneapolis. I asked about this and heard a remarkable story of his entire family leaving Somali as refugees and, finally, in the early 1990's receiving asylum in the United States. His large family settled in Mineapolis for more than a decade. We had a fascinating discussion about culture, academics, particularly rigor and assimilation."This city is a very peaceful city and everybody who lives here likes it," Mursal said of Rochester. "I like this city."
But in recent months, Mursal and other Somali parents have discovered that their children's schools aren't so tranquil, as Somali youngsters have been in fights with white and African American students.
On Oct. 14, another student teased Mursal's son, Abdirahman, a high school junior, and hit him with a baseball bat at school.
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The children walking along the dusty road, each with a thick stack of textbooks under their arm, are probably an hour away from school. For miles around, there is no sign of anything much: a scattering of stilted houses in the yellowing paddy fields, some buffalo trudging through a road-side ditch, a bridge over the trickle of a river.In western Nepal, as in much of the country, indeed as in many rural areas in the developing world, schools are a luxury, not a right. In these parts, a 90-minute walk to school is an unremarkable fact of life. Among the children making this daily pilgrimage are girls sponsored by Room to Read, an educational charity that the Financial Times is supporting in this year's seasonal appeal.
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My former Post colleague Tracy Thompson has two daughters in a Washington area school district. I promised not to say which one. It doesn't matter, because the issue she raises involves all high-tech schools, of which we have many.Related Infinite Campus and the Madison School District. Read the Middle School Report Card Report, which includes information on the District's use of Infinite Campus.People aren't using the new Web features designed to help families. Is it because parents like me are technophobes? Not entirely. The reluctant participants who concern Thompson are teachers.
Both of Thompson's kids have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. They have trouble getting their work done. Her school district, like several in the area, has Web sites on which parents can see their children's assignments. That way, they cannot be fooled by sly evasions when they ask their children, sitting in front of the TV, whether they have any homework.
Thompson was delighted to discover the Web homework schedules when her older daughter was a sixth-grader. Disappointment followed, she said, when "I found out only about half of her teachers used it. Some teachers were weeks behind in updating the info. My older daughter is off to high school next year and has matured amazingly over the past three years, so I don't have to worry that much about her stuff anymore. But now my younger daughter is in third grade, and I am in my second year of trying to get her teachers to use the Web."
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Talk-show superstar extraordinaire Oprah Winfrey has made a very generous donation to an inner-city school in Atlanta, Georgia. The $1.5M donation isn't the first time that Oprah Winfrey has contributed to this school.In December 2008, Oprah gave The Ron Clark Academy $365,000.00 to be used toward their operating costs. The private middle school's founder Ron Clark has made several appearances on Oprah's wildly popular talk show. Ron Clark is also the author of "The Essential 55," a book about life lessons that adults should teach to children.
Plans for the generous donation include the construction of a theater, a cafeteria, and a gym.
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Let me tell you about my recent trip to Sacramento. It is a story about why we need a revolution.Earlier this month, Senate leaders introduced a "parent trigger" into California's "Race to the Top" education reform legislation.
Under the policy, parents at a systemically failing school could circulate a petition calling for change. If 51% of the parents signed it, the school would be converted to a charter school or reconstituted by the school district, with a new staff and new ways of operating. The concept recognized a truth that school officials often discount: Parents are in the best position to make decisions about what's right for their kids.
Last week, the parent trigger legislation moved to the Assembly Education Committee, chaired by Assemblywoman Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica). Thousands of parents sent letters, made calls, staged protests and showed up to testify before her committee about the importance of parents taking back power over our schools.
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Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform PDF Report
Over the past year alone, the public debt of the United States rose sharply from 41 to 53 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Under reasonable assumptions, the debt is projected to grow steadily, reaching 85 percent of GDP by 2018, 100 percent by 2022, and 200 percent in 2038.Wisconsin ranks 10th amongst the States in State-Local debt service. Exploding debt levels mean that it is highly unlikely school districts will see significant new revenues. Like many organizations, they must change and spend precious dollars where most needed and automate elsewhere (virtual learning tools are a natural, as this post demonstrates).However, before the debt reached such high levels, the United States would almost certainly experience a debt- driven crisis--something previously viewed as almost unfathomable in the world's largest economy. The crisis could unfold gradually or it could happen suddenly, but with great costs either way. The tipping point is impossible to predict, but the United States is already hearing con- cerns about its fiscal management from some of its largest creditors, and the country is uncomfortably vulnerable to shifts in confidence around the world.
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During the years Salman Khan spent scrutinizing financials for hedge funds, he rationalized the profit-obsessed work by telling himself he would one day quit and use his market winnings to open a free school.www.khanacademy.org/.It began with long-distance tutoring in late 2004. He agreed to help his niece Nadia, then a seventh-grader struggling with unit conversion, by providing math lessons over Yahoo's interactive notepad, Doodle, and the phone.
Nephews and family friends soon followed. But scheduling conflicts and repeated lectures prompted him to post instructional videos on YouTube that his proliferating pupils could watch when they had the time.
They did - and before long, so did thousands of others. Today, the Mountain View resident's 800-plus videos are viewed about 35,000 times a day, forming a virtual classroom that dwarfs any brick and mortar school he might have imagined. By using the reach of the Internet, he's helped bring education to the information-hungry around the world who can't afford private tutors or Kaplan prep courses.
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via a kind reader's email, who notes that Verona's video archives include very helpful topic based navigation!
At the most recent meeting on Dec. 7, the school board heard a final presentation from New Century School's site council. Developments with New Century's charter renewal are reaching a critical point, since we need approval from the school board by early January to participate in kindergarten recruitment. New Century is one of Wisconsin's oldest charter schools (established in May 1995), and our school community is fighting for the charter's continued existence. It's been a challenging journey.Click "video" for the December 7, 2009 meeting and look for "D", the New Century Presentation. Interestingly, "E" is a presentation on a proposed Chinese immersion charter school.
Unfortunately, Madison lacks significant charter activity, something which, in my view, would be very beneficial to the community, students and parents.
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Wisconsin First Lady Jessica Doyle, via email:
Warm wishes this winter season!
Thank you for your continued participation in the Read On Wisconsin! book club. We had a fantastic semester traveling to classrooms across Wisconsin and inviting numerous classes and authors to the Executive Residence for Reading Days.
Throughout the fall, we spoke to elementary, middle, and high school students about the importance of reading and suggesting the excellent books chosen by the Literacy Advisory Committee. Three Cups of Tea: The Young Reader's Edition by Greg Mortenson has been one of our most popular choices and has connected so many students and staff with community service. (You can learn more at: www.penniesforpeace.org.)
We have held very successful Reading Days at the Residence. In November, we welcomed three authors: Rachna Gilmore (Group of One), Sylviane Diouf (Bintou's Braids), and James Rumford (Silent Music). Each of these authors shared their enthusiasm for writing and answered many student questions about their international experiences.
Our next Reading Day will be: Thursday, January 21, 2010 from 9:00 - 2:30. At our January Reading Day, we will welcome John Coy, the author of our high school selection, Box Out. This book shares a courageous story of a high school basketball player who speaks up against an unconstitutional act occurring at his school. Box Out reaches all students. We are seeking five middle or high school classes for this Reading Day.
Please e-mail Ashley Huibregtse at ashley.huibregtse@wisconsin.gov or call 608-575-5608 to reserve your middle or high school group a spot in the schedule. Each class will be scheduled for one hour. Please share your time preference when you call or e-mail. Remember we offer bus reimbursement up to $100 to help with transportation costs if needed.
E-mail or call today! This will be an exciting Reading Day to start 2010! All the best for a happy holiday season, and Read On!
Sincerely,
Jessica and Ashley
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ducation reform advocates have been cheered by the election of Chris Christie as New Jersey's next governor. A key plank of his education plan is creating more high-quality public charter schools -- a goal shared with the administration of President Obama.
Since the first charter school law was passed in 1991, the movement has enjoyed bipartisan support at the federal and state levels. Now, in part because of the emphasis on charters in the administration's "Race to the Top" competition, we're seeing a firestorm of renewed interest in many states.As Carlos Lejnieks, chairman of the a, rightly says, we need to move charters "from mediocre to good; from good to great; and from great to growth." The good news is that New Jersey has assets to build from and is already doing some things right.
From Ryan Hill and Steve Adubato in Newark to Gloria Bonilla-Santiago in Camden, some of the nation's leading charter leaders are in New Jersey. In terms of policy, there is no statewide "cap" on the number of charter schools that can be created; the New Jersey Department of Education has created a reasonably rigorous process for approving new charters while adding greater numbers of new schools in recent years; and the statewide public school-finance reforms enacted in 2008 helped establish a more level playing field for charters that had suffered huge disadvantages under the previous funding program.
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It would seem to hold all the appeal of listening to someone read the dictionary aloud.But hundreds of people will pack into a room on the UW-Madison campus Saturday to attend a presentation on the properties of carbon dioxide, liquid nitrogen and zirconium.
In short, the choice activity in Madison on Saturday is a chemistry lecture.
If it sounds like a snooze, then you don't know Bassam Shakhashiri.
This is the 40th time the UW-Madison professor has held his annual Christmas show extravaganza, otherwise known as "Once upon a Christmas cheery, in the lab of Shakhashiri."
With a flair for showmanship, Shakhashiri is like a magician who wows audiences by using science, rather than sleight of hand or illusions. Beakers erupt with material, solutions turn psychedelic colors, chemicals explode thunderously - all to an audience oohing and ahhing as if they were watching Harry Houdini.
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In her last job in the Air Force, Tammie Langley gave prospective pilots and navigators an introduction to aeronautics. Four years later, Ms. Langley is in a different sort of classroom, teaching sixth graders in North Carolina everything from reading to math.The settings may be radically different, but Ms. Langley said the transition from teaching 22-year-olds to teaching 11- or 12-year-olds had been fairly seamless. "Either way, you still have to kind of wipe their noses a bit and kick them in the behind every now and then," said Ms. Langley, who is in her second year at Kannapolis Intermediate School, about 25 miles north of Charlotte.
Ms. Langley, 36, became a schoolteacher in large part because of Troops to Teachers, a federal program that, over 15 years, has helped about 12,000 former service members transition into second careers in the classroom. Now, a bipartisan group in Congress is hoping to expand the program to allow more veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to sign up, while also increasing the number of places in which they could find employment.
Not all of the veterans who enter the classroom with the help of Troops to Teachers, some of whom are up to a generation older than teachers starting right out of college, share Ms. Langley's background in formal instruction. But the program's supporters and participants say that military service in general provides the sort of discipline and life experiences that translate well to teaching.
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THEIR company names were conspicuously absent from their nametags, but that is how these hedge fund managers and analysts -- members of a field known for secrecy -- preferred it. They filled the party space at the W Hotel on Lexington Avenue in late October, mostly men in their 30s. Balancing drinks on easels adorned with students' colorful drawings, they juggled PDA's and business cards, before sitting down to poker tables to raise money for New York City charter schools.Working the room, the evening's hosts, John Petry and Joel Greenblatt, who are partners in the hedge fund Gotham Capital, had an agenda: to identify new candidates to join their Success Charter Network, a cause they embrace with all the fervor of social reformers.
"He's already in," Mr. Petry said as he passed John Sabat, who manages a hedge fund for one of the industry's big stars. (Like Voldemort in the Harry Potter novels, no one in the group would name him aloud.)
"I wasn't hard to turn," said Mr. Sabat, 36, whom Mr. Petry drafted last year to be a member of the board of Harlem Success Academy 4, on East 120th Street, the latest in its network of school in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods. Boards agree to donate or raise $1.3 million to subsidize their school for the first three years. "You can't talk to Petry without taking about charters," Mr. Sabat added. "You get the reli
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Michelle Lukacs grew up in Mequon and worked as a teacher in Milwaukee. Then she was a teacher and guidance counselor in Jefferson. She got a school principal's license through a program at Edgewood College in Madison.She moved back to Milwaukee and decided to open a school as part of the publicly funded private school voucher program. She called it Atlas Preparatory Academy because she liked the image of Atlas holding the whole world up and because it was the name of a refrigeration company her husband owns.
On the first day of classes in September 2001, Atlas had 23 students in leased space in an old school building at 2911 S. 32nd St.
This September, Atlas had 814 students, a growth of 3,439% over eight years. It now uses three buildings on the south side and has grown, grade by grade, to be a full kindergarten through 12th-grade program.
Atlas' growth is explosive, even within the continually growing, nationally significant voucher program. Voucher enrollment over the same period has roughly doubled from 10,882 in September 2001 to 21,062 this fall.
The Atlas story underscores an interesting trend: The number of voucher schools in recent years has leveled off, and this year, fell significantly. But the total number of students using vouchers to attend private schools in the city has gone up, and a few schools have become particular powerhouses, at least when it comes to enrollment.
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For me, the greatest national security crisis in the United States is the crisis in education. We are turning out new generations of Americans who are whizzes at video games and may be capable of tweeting 24 hours a day but are nowhere near ready to cope with the great challenges of the 21st century.An American kid drops out of high school at an average rate of one every 26 seconds. In some large urban districts, only half of the students ever graduate. Of the kids who manage to get through high school, only about a third are ready to move on to a four-year college.
It's no secret that American youngsters are doing poorly in school at a time when intellectual achievement in an increasingly globalized world is more important than ever. International tests have shown American kids to be falling well behind their peers in many other industrialized countries, and that will only get worse if radical education reforms on a large scale are not put in place soon.
Consider the demographics. The ethnic groups with the worst outcomes in school are African-Americans and Hispanics. The achievement gaps between these groups and their white and Asian-American peers are already large in kindergarten and only grow as the school years pass. These are the youngsters least ready right now to travel the 21st-century road to a successful life.
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In the category of "it makes you wonder," the student newspaper at Montgomery Blair High School reports that bathrooms on the second and third floors are now being locked during lunch.Why? The school has a security shortage and couldn't figure out a better way to deal with it.
The story, in silverchips.online says that the Alex Bae, president of the Student Government Association met with Principal Darryl Williams on Monday, and that the principal said he hopes the situation can be fixed soon.
Apparently, the story says, the bathrooms were closed during lunch because students abuse their bathroom privileges. Acts of vandalism occur during lunch and kids hide out in the bathroom to avoid going to class.
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All over the world, in poor and rich countries alike, families take their children out of school in order to contribute to the livelihood of the family. They're not opposed to education, but the family needs the extra hands that the child can provide in order to make ends meet. There are many educational innovations that are aimed at improving the ability of the child, once educated, to earn a decent income. But nobody has focused on the issue of replacing or improving the family's income while they send their kids to school.By contrast, the innovations that have been developed by the Uganda Rural Development and Training program and employed at the URDT Girls' School are special in that they increase the family income, not years later, but while the child is still in school. On average, the incomes of families whose children are enrolled at the URDT Girls School increase by 20% while their daughters are still in school.
Think about that for a minute. What that does is eliminate the need to have the girls drop out of school in order to contribute to the family's income. Imagine the implications for the rest of the world if all families benefited by keeping their children in school rather than by having them drop out to go to work.
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Few girls who play sports in suburban Philadelphia would recognize Robert H. Landau, but many coaches and athletic directors know that spotting him in the bleachers could spell trouble.With a sharp tongue, a refusal to compromise and a well-honed sense of injustice, Landau is that familiar breed of community activist with a knack for pushing public officials over the edge. His specialty is girls' sports, and his targets are usually wealthy public schools from the Main Line suburbs that pride themselves on being progressive and fair in offering a rich array of opportunities.
No slight to girls is too small for Landau to take on. His victories range from the momentous to the less obvious, like forcing his daughters' school district to provide more athletic choices, pressuring leagues to showcase their title games and getting a school mascot to perform at their games.
Landau's complaint against Haverford High School -- over issues like publicity for and scheduling of boys' and girls' basketball games -- has upset even those who would otherwise support him.
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Five mornings a week, Bruce Kravets, 66, puts on a coat and tie, straps on his helmet and bikes to work at Palms Middle School on L.A.'s Westside, where he teaches math. For free.Last June, after 42 years of teaching, Kravets retired. He'd put so much money into his retirement fund over the decades, his monthly compensation if he stepped down would be greater than his regular pay. But that didn't mean he was ready to abandon teaching. His plan was to stay on and teach for no salary, because he couldn't think of anything more fun or rewarding than teaching algebra, geometry, logic and stage craft.
A no-brainer, right? Kravets is, by all accounts, a truly gifted teacher, and in a district with a budget crisis, here was a guy who said, "Keep your money, I'll do it gratis."
Ahhh, but this is LAUSD, and for months after he announced his plan, it was looking as if Kravets would be told thanks, but no thanks. At one point over the summer, I was told by a Los Angeles Unified administrator that Palms would lose funding if Kravets taught class, because the daily attendance of his students wouldn't be counted if he was an unpaid teacher.
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New York City joined a national trend in 1998 when it put the police in charge of school security. The consensus is that public schools are now safe. But juvenile justice advocates across the country are rightly worried about policies under which children are sometimes arrested and criminalized for behavior that once was dealt with by principals or guidance counselors working with a student's parents.Children who are singled out for arrest and suspension are at greater risk of dropping out and becoming permanently entangled with the criminal justice system. It is especially troubling that these children tend to be disproportionately black and Hispanic, and often have emotional problems or learning disabilities.
School officials in several cities have identified overpolicing as a problem in itself. The New York City Council has taken a first cut at the problem by drafting a bill, the Student Safety Act, that would bring badly needed accountability and transparency to the issue.
The draft bill would require police and education officials to file regular reports that would show how suspensions and other sanctions affect minority children, children with disabilities and other vulnerable groups. Detailed reports from the Police Department would show which students were arrested or issued summonses and why, so that lawmakers could get a sense of where overpolicing might be a problem.
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It was during the 1999 Maghi festival, whose revelries grip western Nepal in mid-January each year, that Asha Tharu's parents sold her. Asha, who was then five years old, fetched $40. In return for the money, Asha was sent to work for a year as a bonded labourer at the house of her new owner in Gularia, a town near her village of Khairapur."I had to get up very early and I had to clean the pots, clean the rooms and wash the clothes," recalls Asha, now a bright 15-year-old. "I worked all day and I didn't get enough sleep."
I have come along jolting, unmade roads from Nepalgunj in western Nepal to meet Asha at her sister-in-law's hut, a rather beautiful dwelling of unbaked mustard-yellow bricks, more African in appearance than Asian. In the main living area are two large, exquisitely fashioned mud urns built into the walls for storing rice. In the unfurnished room where the family sleeps, Asha sits on the dirt floor and tells me about her new life. She says she is happy in school and that, on the weekends, she works in a brick factory, earning $1.30 for an eight-hour shift. That is enough to buy rice and to help her elder sister pay for school.
More than anything, Asha remembers the petty slights she endured during her eight years of servitude, which ended last year when her "master" agreed to release her. "They would give me scraps. I used to feel very hurt by that, receiving the left-overs of guests or the elder family," she says, glancing occasionally at the dusty ground outside the mud hut where she now lives. "Sometimes I'd get rotten food, or half-stomach food, not enough to stop my hunger," she says. "They would hit me or shout at me if I dared complain."
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David Pilling & Lionel Barber:
From a distance it sounds like the chanting of monks. Only as one approaches the building, set in the lush fields of a school playground, does it become apparent who is making the sound: dozens of girls quietly reading books.Sat on rows of wooden chairs laid out in the library, they mouth the words as they trace a finger slowly along the text, breaking off only to admire the colourful pictures. Though each child is reading a different story, their words mingle to form a gentle hum, lending an almost sacred air to the bright little room.
In Laos, a school library is indeed sacred. Books are rare in the isolated villages where four-fifths of the landlocked nation's 7m people eke out the slenderest of livings. The communist government has been slow in implementing its theoretical commitment to free education. Literacy rates have risen, though many people who have learnt to read soon forget because they lack reading materials. According to Room to Read, the charity that helped build and stock this library and hundreds of others like it, still only 60 per cent of women and 77 per cent of men can read and write.
Many schools, often ramshackle thatched structures with leaking roofs, cannot offer a full range of tuition. Sometimes teachers instruct two or three years of classes simultaneously - if they have not ditched their class to earn supplementary income elsewhere. Student dropout rates are high, especially for girls, who typically quit at around 13. Many parents would prefer a helping hand at home or in the paddy fields.
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How can we be sure that the students are learning the curriculum? If students who are working below grade level do not get any intervention, then they will not be ready and able to succeed with the grade level curriculum. There will be no vertical alignment for them. They will continue to just get passed along and they won't do any better. Where are the interventions needed to make curricular alignment successful? You will be told that the District is working on them, but they are NOT in place. Without them, Curricular Alignment is doomed. Note that we have always needed these interventions. Needing these interventions is nothing new, yet we have not been able to reliably provide them. What has changed that assures us that we will be able to reliably do what we have never been able to do before? There will be references to the MAP testing to identify the under-performing students. Okay, good. But how can we be assured that the identified students will get the necessary services?There are some interesting accountability comments to this post.
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Whitney Tilson, via email:
A final reminder for my school reform webinar, which will be from 5:00-6:30pm tomorrow (Tuesday). To join, go to: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/345183977 and enter meeting ID: 345-183-977. If you wish to use your phone for the audio, the call-in number is 215-383-1003 and the access code is 345-183-977.
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Omar Masis doesn't want to get a teaching license just for himself. He also wants to do it for the preschoolers he sees every day at Blair Elementary School in Waukesha.For two years now, he has been leading a class full of youngsters through lessons that focus on building their vocabularies and improving motor skills. But, with a background in agricultural engineering instead of education, he has been doing so on an emergency teaching permit sustained by six credits of education classes a year.
Now he's ready to make the leap to become a credentialed teacher.
"There's something in me that tells me I need a formal education so I can help these kids and improve my teaching style," said Masis, a native of Nicaragua who also has worked as a teacher's aide in Waukesha. "I can do better."
Before, Masis might have had to go elsewhere to fulfill his new dream.
But a recent decision by the Milwaukee Teacher Education Center, one of the largest certification programs in the state for college graduates who want to become teachers, means he can stay in Waukesha.
After more than a dozen years of working to place teachers in hard-to-fill classrooms in Milwaukee Public Schools, MTEC has opened its program to work with other public school districts.
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Better Letters was created to improve handwriting. It was inspired by the instructional handwriting font work of UK handwriting specialist Christopher Jarman. The app provides instructional lectures, both audio and written, along with practice fonts providing choices of writing style, guidelines, and directional arrows.; via a Kate Gladstone email, who notes:With Better Letters, your iPhone or iPod Touch becomes a personal handwriting trainer.
Research shows that the fastest, clearest handwriters join some letters, not all of them: making the easiest joins and skipping the rest. Also, the fastest and clearest writers tend to use the simplest letter shapes, avoiding the complex and accident-prone letter formations of conventional cursive.
In fact, the earliest published handwriting books (half a millennium ago) taught a semi-joined style of this type - called "Italic" in reference to the style's origins in Renaissance Italy - well before today's more complicated cursive came along.
Better Letters is a multi-featured suite of handwriting instruction/improvement resources, developed by -- of all places -- a medical software company, Deep Pocket Series, which describes this app as a "personal handwriting trainer." (In addition to MDs, the company is also marketing this app to teachers, administrators, teens, and parents of elementary/middle school children.)In addition to MDs, the company is also marketing this app to teachers, administrators, teens, and parents of elementary/middle school children
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From a distance it sounds like the chanting of monks. Only as one approaches the building, set in the lush fields of a school playground, does it become apparent who is making the sound: dozens of girls quietly reading books.Sat on rows of wooden chairs laid out in the library, they mouth the words as they trace a finger slowly along the text, breaking off only to admire the colourful pictures. Though each child is reading a different story, their words mingle to form a gentle hum, lending an almost sacred air to the bright little room.
In Laos, a school library is indeed sacred. Books are rare in the isolated villages where four-fifths of the landlocked nation's 7m people eke out the slenderest of livings. The communist government has been slow in implementing its theoretical commitment to free education. Literacy rates have risen, though many people who have learnt to read soon forget because they lack reading materials. According to Room to Read, the charity that helped build and stock this library and hundreds of others like it, still only 60 per cent of women and 77 per cent of men can read and write.
Many schools, often ramshackle thatched structures with leaking roofs, cannot offer a full range of tuition. Sometimes teachers instruct two or three years of classes simultaneously - if they have not ditched their class to earn supplementary income elsewhere. Student dropout rates are high, especially for girls, who typically quit at around 13. Many parents would prefer a helping hand at home or in the paddy fields.
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A lot of phrases come to mind when you think about Michigan these days, but leader in international education probably isn't at the top of the list.A new report, released during International Education Week, says the University of Michigan and Michigan State University are among the national leaders for educational exchange.
The Institute of International Education report, "Open Doors 2009," listed the University of Michigan as sixth in the nation in the number of international students attending the university in 2008-09. U-M had 5,790 foreign students. The University of Southern California led with 7,482. MSU was 10th with 4,757 foreign students.
The state is ranked eighth in the nation with 23,617 foreign students studying at our colleges and universities, an increase of 3.3 percent. Joining U-M and MSU as leading host campuses are Wayne State, Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan universities.
The foreign students spent about $592.4 million in Michigan on tuition and living expenses in 2008-09 -- a half-billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at.Overall, 671,616 international students attended U.S. colleges, up 8 percent from a year ago. The foreign students mainly chose business and engineering courses and California and New York City were their top destinations.
Most of the foreign students come from India followed by China, South Korea, Canada and Japan. But in Michigan, Chinese students make up 18 percent of the foreign students followed by India at 16.5 percent; South Korea, 12.5 percent; Canada, 12 percent; and Taiwan, 3.9 percent.
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More Idaho high school students should go to college.IBCEE press release.They need more rigorous math and science instruction.
And the state needs to find more highly qualified teachers -- those who have degrees in the subjects they are teaching.
Those are among several recommendations expected to be unveiled Wednesday by a group of Idaho business leaders, parents and educators as a way for Idaho to provide a high-quality, cost-effective education.
The group, called the Education Alliance of Idaho, was formed after Gov. Butch Otter challenged business leaders in 2007 to look for ways to improve education in Idaho. Otter will introduce the alliance and the report at a news conference Wednesday morning.
The four broad goals and 17 recommendations are aimed at improving Idaho's educational quality as compared to the rest of the country, said Guy Hurlbutt, Alliance chairman.
A proposal that high school students graduate with up to 30 college credits goes back to plans offered by state schools Superintendent Tom Luna since he took office in 2007 to increase availability of college credits in high schools as a way to help kids get a leg up on higher education and save some money.
Demanding more rigor in high school math and science dates back to high school reform pushed by the State Board of Education earlier this decade. Then, the board succeeded in adding an additional year of math and science to high school graduation credits, beginning with the class of 2013.
Nor is the alliance's work the first shot at reform in Idaho public schools.
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Madison School District Talented & Gifted Plan Presentation 11/17/2009 from SIS.
Click to listen or CTRL-Click to download this 32mb mp3 audio file. Much more on the Madison School District's new talented & gifted plan.Thanks to Jeff Henriques and Laurie Frost for recording this event.
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via a Katy Venskus email:
Through out the fall of 2009 Democrats for Education Reform will bring to Milwaukee national education leaders with a proven record of reform in urban districts. Our speakers will offer new perspectives and experience with what works and what does not in a challenging urban district.We are pleased to invite you to the second installment in this series featuring one of the most powerful national voices on education reform:
CEO and Co-Founder: New Leaders for New Schools
As CEO and Co-founder of New Leaders for New Schools, Jon works with the NLNS team and community to accomplish their mission- driving high levels of learning and achievement for every child by attracting, preparing, and supporting the next generation of outstanding principals for our nation's urban schools. From September 2008 to June 2009, Jon served as an advisor to Barack Obama's Presidential campaign, a member of the Presidential Transition Team, and a Senior Advisor to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Jon also served as Special Assistant to Secretary of Education Richard Riley, President Clinton's White House Associate Director for Educational Policy, and Senior Advisor on Education to Vice President Gore. He developed national educational policies on teacher and principal quality, after-school programs, district reform, charter schools, and preschools.
When: Tuesday December 1, 2009
Where: United Community Center
1028 South 9th Street
Milwaukee, WI [Map]
Time: 5:30pm-7:00pm (Hors d'oeuvres and cash bar)
RSVP to:
Katy Venskus 414.801.2036
DFERWisconsin@gmail.com
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Former Gates Foundation education director Tom Vander Ark is behind one charter school's application to open in New York City next year.For years, Vander Ark shaped the educational giving for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, overseeing grants the organization gave to cities that agreed to build small high schools. Now a partner at an education public affairs firm in California, Vander Ark has supported such causes as lifting New York State's charter cap and bringing more and better technology into classrooms.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Education confirmed that Vander Ark is behind the application for Bedford Preparatory Charter School, a small high school school that, if approved, would open in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn next school year.
An overview of Bedford Prep describes the school as being modeled on NYC iSchool, a small, selective high school that opened in Tribeca last fall as the first school in the city's NYC21C initiative. Since then, the Department of Education has opened eight more schools based on the iSchool model.
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The parents of exceptionally bright students in Madison schools waited 18 years for a plan to raise the academic bar for their children. But now, they're really getting impatient.Approved by the Madison school board in August, the district's new three-year plan for talented and gifted ("TAG") students already is raising questions from parents about focus and speed. The district's TAG staff, they note, consists of only 8.5 positions in a district of 24,622 students - and three of those positions are vacant.
"Change of a large system takes time," said Chris Gomez Schmidt, the mother of three young children who serves on the district's advisory committee for talented and gifted students. "But I think there's a lot of families within the system who are frustrated when they see that their students' needs are not being met. I think that families don't feel like they have a lot of time to wait."
The district's talented and gifted plan, which replaces a 1991 document, will be spelled out for the public Tuesday night in a community forum from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Hamilton Middle School, 4801 Waukesha St. The forum is meant to make the reforms understandable and "transparent" to the public, said Lisa Wachtel, executive director for teaching and learning for the district.
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The School Board meeting for votes on both the new SAP boundaries and the levies is this Wednesday, the 18th at 6 p.m. You can sign up to speak starting tomorrow at 8 am by:calling 252-0040 or e-mailing boardagenda@seattleschools.org
Here's we are, almost to zero hour. I don't want to disappoint anyone but I'm not sure I believe any amendments will come forward. I think only a broad-based one like the "soft" boundaries one (allowing anyone within a block of a school to have access even if it isn't their attendance area school) or the "one-time" option (which would allow anyone within, say, 3 blocks of a non-attendance area school to make the one-time choice to commit to that school). Those would not require moving boundaries. But I think the Board will say they just can't at this point. (And that's why I do not like staff saying, "Oh yes, the Board can do anything up until the vote.")
Please let us know if you attended Director Carr or De Bell's community meeting yesterday. I heard from someone who attended Director Carr's that there were a couple of issues. One, that when parents pressed about amendments, Sherry said it was too late because of staff issues. Two, that many parents were pressing for changes based on personal issues for their children. However, this person did end with this:
"Either way, we'll work to make our kids' school the best it can be."
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via a Johnny Winston, Jr. email:
Dear Friends:This message is to inform you that I will not be seeking re-election for a third term on the Madison School Board, Seat #4.
For six years, it has been my honor to serve our community as an elected member of the Madison Board of Education. Thank you for your confidence in electing me in 2004 and 2007.
During my tenure on the board, I had the pleasure of serving as the President, Vice President, Treasurer and Clerk. I also served on many committees including Long Range Planning, Partnerships, Finance and Operations and currently Student Achievement and Performance Monitoring. Serving in these roles and on these committees gave me a well rounded outlook on the district and helped shape a collective vision that assisted me in my decision making.
In addition to serving within the capacities of the school board, I was able to reach out to our community and listen to their views. With your help, we were able to build a new school to alleviate overcrowding, develop strong partnerships and complete many district maintenance projects. Lastly, being elected to the school board afforded me the opportunity to listen to parents, students and community members and assist them in identifying an appropriate district staff member or service that would help meet their needs.
Despite less than desirable financial constraints, I believe the MMSD's future is brighter because of the development of a 4 year old kindergarten program, implementation of the district's new strategic plan and school board members that work in collaboration with each other, the superintendent, the district staff, and its stakeholders. I thank all of my school board colleagues both current and former, for their knowledge, skills and their service.
Although, I leave the Madison School Board, I will continue to be actively involved in our community as a member of organizations such as the 100 Black Men of Madison's Backpacks for Success event, Sable Flames, Inc. Scholarship Committee and other community groups that help make Madison a better place to live for everyone. I am also the proud parent of a current kindergartener so I will continue to be a proud supporter of the Madison Metropolitan School District and public education for many years to come.
Again, thank you for giving me the honor of serving our community.
Johnny Winston, Jr.
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via a kind reader's email:
Purchase your tickets in advance online to ease congestion at the box office on show nights. Tickets will also be available at the box office while they last..($10/adult, $5/student)
Ticket Website:https://tix.seatyourself.biz/webstore/webstore.html?domain=mwhs&event.Director Holly Walker and Stage Manager Catherine Althaus have created a fantastic production. Immortalized on stage and screen by Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, this classic tells the story of Annie Sullivan and her student, blind and mute Helen Keller. The Miracle Worker dramatizes the volatile relationship between the lonely teacher and her charge. Helen, trapped in her secret world, is violent, spoiled and almost subhuman--and treated as such by her family. Only Annie realizes that there is a mind and spirit waiting to be rescued from the dark tortured silence. Following scenes of intense physical and emotional dynamism, Annie's success with Helen finally comes with the utterance of a single word: "water".
The Cast: David Aeschlimann (doctor), Eleana Bastian (Aunt Ev), Andrea DeVriendt (Little Annie), Kevin Erdman (Keller), Sam Gee (Jimmie), Emma Geer (Helen), Denzel Irby (Percy), Simon Henriques (Anagnos), Sarah Maslin(Annie), James Romney (James), Sasha Sigel (Kate), Bayaan Thomas (Viney), and Claire Wegert(Martha); plus Sam Barrows, Khadijah Bishop, Allison Burdick-Evenson, Heather Chun, Sophia Connelly, Molly Czech, Ryan Eykholt, Ellen Ferencek, Henry Fuguitt, Maddie Gibson, Erendira Giron-Cruz, Maddie Hoeppner, Emily Hou, Janie Killips, Elena Livorni, Marianne Oeygard, Frankie Pobar-Lay, Ari Pollack, Kaivahn Sarkaratpour, and Laura Young.
The Crew Heads: Sound: Bryna Godar, Sasha Sigel, Sam Factor, David Aeschlimann Lighting: Catherine Althaus, Zander Steichen Stage: Laura Young, Lindsey Conklin Costumes: Heather Chun, Leah Garner Administrative: Charmaine Branch, Nina Pressman, Thalia Skaleris Props: Jenny Apfelbach, Jamie Kolden Makeup: Margie Ostby
Cookies, Candy, Water and Fan-Grams will be for sale! Proceeds go to Friends of Madison West High Drama.
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[and the wordless picture books have been a big hit, too!!...Will Fitzhugh]
"The staff cobbled together an approach that incorporates methods and materials used with younger children, such as art projects and wordless picture books, into high-school-level instruction. The idea is to use engaging activities and easy-to-access materials as door-openers to more complex subject matter.
The result is a high school that 'looks more like an elementary school,' Mr. Ledbetter said, because teachers find that letting students sketch, cut out, or fold their ideas seems to work well."
Catherine Gewertz:
The sheep's-brain dissections are going rather well. Scalpels in hand, high school students are slicing away at the preserved organs and buzzing about what they find. It's obvious that this lesson has riveted their interest. What's not so obvious is that it has been as much about literacy as about science.In preparing for her class in human anatomy and physiology to perform the dissections, Karen Stewart had the students read articles on the brain's structure and use computer-presentation software to share what they learned. She used "guided notetaking" strategies, explicitly teaching the teenagers how to read the materials and take notes on key scientific concepts. She reinforced those ideas with more articles chosen to grab their interest, such as one on how chocolate affects the brain.
The class also watched and discussed a recent episode of the hit television show "Grey's Anatomy," about a patient with an injury to one side of the brain. The students' work is graded not just on their grasp of the science, but also on the quality of their research and writing about it.
Ms. Stewart isn't the only teacher who weaves literacy instruction into classes here at Buckhorn High School. It pops up on every corridor. A teacher of Spanish shows his students a self-portrait of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and asks what cues it conveys about her culture. A physical education teacher brings his class to the school library to study body mass. And a mathematics teacher burrows into the Latin roots of that discipline's vocabulary to help students see their related meanings, and uses "concept maps"--visual depictions of ideas--to help them grasp an idea's steps or parts.
Literacy is shot through everything at this 1,350-student Alabama school in a former cotton field 10 miles south of the Tennessee state line. It's been an obsession for a decade, ever since school leaders tested their students and found that one-third of the entering freshmen were reading at or below the 7th grade level, many at the 4th or 5th grade level.
"Those numbers completely changed my professional life," said Sarah Fanning, who oversees curriculum and instruction at Buckhorn High. "I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. Each of those numbers had a face, and that face went to bed with me at night."
'Relentless From the Beginning'
The Buckhorn staff immersed itself in figuring out how to improve student learning by boosting literacy skills in all subjects, something few high schools do now, and even fewer were doing then. That work has made the school a national model. Hosting visitors and making presentations--including at a White House conference in 2006--have become routine parts of its staff members' schedules.
Adolescent-literacy work such as that at Buckhorn High is taking on a rising profile nationally, as educators search for ways to improve student achievement. Increasingly, scholars urge teachers to abandon the "inoculation" model of literacy, which holds that K-3 students "learn to read," and older students "read to learn." Older students are in dire need of sophisticated reading and writing instruction tailored to each discipline, those scholars say, and without it, they risk being unable to access more-complex material. The Carnegie Corporation of New York recently released a report urging that adolescent literacy become a national priority. ("Literacy Woes Put in Focus," Sept. 23, 2009.)
Selected literacy resources at Buckhorn High School:
Professional Reading
Reading Reminders, Jim Burke
Deeper Reading, Kelly Gallagher
Content Area Reading, Richard R. Vacca and Jo Anne L. Vacca
I Read It, But I Don't Get It, Cris Tovani
Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Cris TovaniWordless Picture Books
Anno's Journey, Mitsumasa Anno
Free Fall, David Wiesner
Tuesday, David Wiesner
Freight Train, Donald Crews
Zoom, Istvan BanyaiContent-Area Picture Books and Graphic Novels
Chester Comix series, Bentley Boyd
Just Plain Fancy, Patricia Polacco
Harlem, Walter Dean Myers
The Greedy Triangle, Marilyn BurnsHigh-Interest, Easy-to-Understand Books for Adolescents
A Child Called "It," Dave Pelzer
Hole in My Life, Jack Gantos
Crank, Ellen Hopkins
Burned, Ellen Hopkins
The "Twilight Saga" collection, Stephenie Meyer
The "Soundings" and "Currents" series, Orca Publishing
The Bluford High series, Townsend PressSource: Buckhorn High School
"We've seen a lot of focus on early literacy, but more recently people are saying, 'Wait a minute, what about kids in the upper grades?'" said Karen Wood, who focuses on adolescent literacy as a professor of literacy education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte."The days are passing by rather rapidly of middle and high school teachers' being able to say, 'Either you get the content or you don't.' I think we are starting to see a greater acceptance of the need for this," Ms. Wood said. "And it has to be a whole-school responsibility, not just something that's put off on teachers."
Sherrill W. Parris is the assistant state superintendent of education who oversees the 11-year-old Alabama Reading Initiative. Buckhorn High, she says, was on the leading edge of the state's adolescent-literacy work by enlisting in the project in its second year, 1999. It was one of the few high schools to do so.
"They have been relentless from the beginning," she said.
In Search of Expertise
When Buckhorn joined the reading initiative, its teachers and top administrators attended the state's two-week summer workshop, and were inspired by its vision of literacy instruction across the content areas. But they quickly saw they would have little guidance in putting the vision into action.
"We called the state department of education and said, 'Can you recommend some good books or programs?' and they said, 'No, but if you find some, call us,'" recalled Tommy Ledbetter, who has been Buckhorn's principal for 28 years.
Ms. Fanning said the state paid for a reading coach that first year, but Buckhorn "didn't know enough then to know how to use her."
The state program's fluctuating funding and focus, and a shortage of expertise in guiding middle and high schools, have meant that adolescent literacy has not received the consistent support in Alabama that originators of the initiative would have liked, Ms. Parris said.
On its own, Buckhorn's staff scoured the field for expertise. Gradually, they assembled a list of authors such as Kelly Gallagher and Cris Tovani, whose theories and strategies seemed to click, and who became their shining stars. ("Kelly Gallagher is our Brad Pitt," quipped Buckhorn English teacher Tracy Wilson.)
Higher Scores
Buckhorn High School has exceeded county and state averages on Alabama's 10th grade writing test. SOURCE: Alabama Department of Education
The staff cobbled together an approach that incorporates methods and materials used with younger children, such as art projects and wordless picture books, into high-school-level instruction. The idea is to use engaging activities and easy-to-access materials as door-openers to more complex subject matter.
The result is a high school that "looks more like an elementary school," Mr. Ledbetter said, because teachers find that letting students sketch, cut out, or fold their ideas seems to work well.
Colorful student work lines the school's walls and dangles from its ceilings. In one poster, a math student drew a picture of himself next to a streetlamp, and described his reasoning in deciding how to calculate its height. He included the calculation and the answer.
On a "word wall" in an English classroom, a student didn't simply write the definition of the word "ostracize." To show its meaning, he insisted that his teacher hang it several inches away from the wall, as if it had been rejected by the other words.
That teacher, Donna Taylor, said she was a skeptic when school leaders began emphasizing visual and artistic depictions of ideas a decade ago.
"It seemed kind of elementary," said Ms. Taylor, who's been teaching for 17 years. "I thought, hey, I'm a high school teacher--we need to be preparing [students] for college, doing serious, deep work, one step away from a bachelor's degree. But once I saw how this visual stuff helps the kids learn, I was on board."
Avoiding 'Assumicide'
Will Culpepper is just such a student. "It's hard for me to understand something when I write it down or read it, but if I do a picture or hands-on stuff with it, I can get it better," said the 16-year-old junior.
Teachers use a variety of strategies to build comprehension. Recognizing that many students are intimidated by vast gray stretches on textbook pages, English teacher Tracy Wilson uses shorter articles or excerpts to teach the same content. That builds students' knowledge and confidence to tackle the full versions, she says.
Taking a cue from math teachers, she uses "talk-alouds," stopping frequently as the class reads a fiction passage to discuss what is happening. Instead of only writing definitions of vocabulary words, her students often make "foldables," colorful projects with sections that open to show a word's meaning, context, origin, and use.
Math teacher Carrie Bates asks students to explain their problem-solving reasoning, in class and in homework. When a student struggles, she finds that simple picture books, like The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns, can work wonders to get a concept across. Then she can build more-complex understanding onto that.
Buckhorn teachers try to avoid committing what Kelly Gallagher calls "assumicide": assuming students have the skills to access the content. They explicitly teach those skills.
Ms. Wilson walks her students through ways to get clues about meaning from context, helping them deduce from the sentence "the phlox is blooming in the garden," for instance, that phlox is a flower.
Career and technical education teacher Connie Mask helps her students get the most from their textbooks, acquainting them with the table of contents and the index, and explaining the significance of photographs and captions. "This was stuff I just thought students knew how to do," she said.
Each week, the teachers work on specific literacy strategies. One week, it's using graphic organizers or Venn diagrams to help students understand content. Another week, it's building students' retelling and summarizing skills or practicing guided-reading techniques.
A good chunk of teachers' weekly professional development focuses on such strategies as well. And in an ongoing "book group," they tackle tomes by literacy experts. Teachers also spend a lot of time scrutinizing data from state and school tests to see how their instruction needs adjusting.
Social studies teacher Jenny Barrett says she didn't used to think her job description included teaching literacy skills. But now she sees that she has to help her students learn how to spot places in the textbook to mark with Post-its, understand the common roots of words like "oligarchy" and "monarchy," and draw pictures of ideas when that helps them understand. She also has learned strategies like breaking text into "chunks" to help students parse the meanings.
Librarian's Key Role
School librarian Wendy Stephens has played a key role in Buckhorn's literacy work, revamping the library's holdings in support of both students and teachers. She helped Ms. Barrett expand the list of materials she uses, such as picture books and comic books, for instance, and works closely with her on a project in which students research aspects of Thomas L. Friedman's The World Is Flat, such as globalization or outsourcing, and make videos about them.
Ms. Stephens has built up collections that typically are popular with boys, such as manga, or Japanese cartoon, magazines, books by Edgar Allan Poe, and a series of books by Dave Pelzer recounting his abuse as a child. For girls, she makes sure to stock the "Twilight Saga" by Stephenie Meyer, and works by Maya Angelou and Ellen Hopkins.
She added wordless picture books, which many teachers use to help students construct storylines in various subjects, and content-area comic books.
Expanding the library's pop fiction collection required a shift in attitude, Ms. Stephens said.
"I had to put aside my own bias," she said recently in the school's large, airy library. "Sure, I thought everyone should be reading Hemingway. But I just want to increase their fluency."
It seems to be working. The number of books checked out of the library has soared from fewer than 200 a month when Ms. Stephens took over in 2003 to more than 1,600. About a dozen students come in early for a book group, and she has set up computer-based videoconferences for students with favorite authors.
Measuring the impact of the literacy work at Buckhorn High isn't easy, since the school no longer uses the standardized test it used in 1998. It does outpace the 19,000-student Madison County district and the state in the proportion of students who score proficient on the reading portion of the state graduation exam, but only by a small margin. (Ninety-eight to 100 percent of Buckhorn's students have been passing in recent years; statewide, the percentage is in the mid- to high 90s.)
The school's proficiency scores on the state's 10th grade writing test are significantly better than district or state averages.
Ms. Fanning points in particular to the fact that one-quarter or more of Buckhorn's freshmen enter as "struggling readers"--two or more grade levels behind--but nearly every student passes the graduation exam by 12th grade.
"We think we are really making a difference here," she said.
Coverage of pathways to college and careers is underwritten in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Vol. 29, Issue 10, Pages 20-23
"Teach by Example"
Will Fitzhugh [founder]
Consortium for Varsity Academics® [2007]
The Concord Review [1987]
Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes [1995]
National Writing Board [1998]
TCR Institute [2002]
730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24
Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776-3371 USA
978-443-0022; 800-331-5007
www.tcr.org; fitzhugh@tcr.org
Varsity Academics®
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via a kind readers email - The Milwaukee Drum:
TMD has obtained an internal memo sent from Sen. Taylor (1.5MB PDF) to other state representatives (dated 11/5/09 7:35 pm) seeking their co-sponsorship for the MPS Takeover legislation. This memo not only asks for co-sponsorship, but it provides specific details of the upcoming (draft) legislation. This is what the public has been waiting for... details!A reader mentioned that the governance changes may apply to other Wisconsin Districts, perhaps rendering local boards as simple wallflowers....Beloved, one thing you will continue to read from me is the mantra follow the money. This entire reform gets down to one thing, money... more specifically, Race To The Top federal grants. State governors must apply for the grant and that is where this all begins with Doyle. Did you know that 50% of any grant received must be given to local educational agencies (LEAs), including public charter schools identified as LEAs under State law? I guess you won't see many preachers in Milwaukee opposing this Takeover since their schools stand to benefit financially. Where did Doyle have that press conference in Milwaukee last week?
Let me back this thing up for you quickly. Some of you still are wondering what gives? Jump down the worm hole with me again just for a second... President Obama and Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) aka the Stimulus Package (2/17/09). Inside this legislation is approximately $4.3 billion set aside for states that implement education reform targeted to increase student achievement, closing achievement gaps, improving graduation rates and preparation for success in college/careers. Follow the money family...
More to come, I'm sure.
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Background
President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will visit Madison's Wright Middle School Wednesday, November 4, 2009, purportedly to give an education speech. The visit may also be related to the 2010 Wisconsin Governor's race. The Democrat party currently (as of 11/1/2009) has no major announced candidate. Wednesday's event may include a formal candidacy announcement by Milwaukee Mayor, and former gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett. UPDATE: Alexander Russo writes that the visit is indeed about Barrett and possible legislation to give the Milwaukee Mayor control of the schools.Possible Participants:
Wright Principal Nancy Evans will surely attend. Former Principal Ed Holmes may attend as well. Holmes, currently Principal at West High has presided over a number of controversial iniatives, including the "Small Learning Community" implementation and several curriculum reduction initiatives (more here).Madison's Charter IntransigenceI'm certain that a number of local politicians will not miss the opportunity to be seen with the President. Retiring Democrat Governor Jim Doyle, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Tony Evers, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk (Falk has run for Governor and Attorney General in the past) and Madison School Superintendent Dan Nerad are likely to be part of the event. Senator Russ Feingold's seat is on the fall, 2010 ballot so I would not be surprised to see him at Wright Middle School as well.
Madison, still, has only two charter schools for its 24,295 students: Wright and Nuestro Mundo.Wright & Neustro Mundo BackgroundWright resulted from the "Madison Middle School 2000" initiative. The District website has some background on Wright's beginnings, but, as if on queue with respect to Charter schools, most of the links are broken (for comparison, here is a link to Houston's Charter School Page). Local biotech behemoth Promega offered free land for Madison Middle School 2000 [PDF version of the District's Promega Partnership webpage]. Unfortunately, this was turned down by the District, which built the current South Side Madison facility several years ago (some School Board members argued that the District needed to fulfill a community promise to build a school in the present location). Promega's kind offer was taken up by Eagle School. [2001 Draft Wright Charter 60K PDF]
About the Madison Public SchoolsWright Middle School Searches:Bing / Clusty / Google / Google News / YahooMadison Middle School 2000 Searches:Bing / Clusty / Google / Google News / Yahoo
"Nuestro Mundo, Inc. is a non-profit organization that was established in response to the commitment of its founders to provide educational, cultural and social opportunities for Madison's ever-expanding Latino community." The dual immersion school lives because the community and several School Board members overcame District Administration opposition. Former Madison School Board member Ruth Robarts commented in 2005:The Madison Board of Education rarely rejects the recommendations of Superintendent Rainwater. I recall only two times that we have explicitly rejected his views. One was the vote to authorize Nuestro Mundo Community School as a charter school. The other was when we gave the go-ahead for a new Wexford Ridge Community Center on the campus of Memorial High School.
Here's how things happen when the superintendent opposes the Board's proposed action.Nuestro Mundo:The local school District Administration (and Teacher's Union) intransigence on charter schools is illustrated by the death of two recent community charter initiatives: The Studio School and a proposed Nuestro Mundo Middle School.Bing / Clusty / Google / Google News / Yahoo
Those interested in a quick look at the state of Madison's public schools should review Superintendent Dan Nerad's proposed District performance measures. This document presents a wide variety of metrics on the District's current performance, from advanced course "participation" to the percentage of students earning a "C" in all courses and suspension rates, among others.Education Hot Topics
Finally, I hope President Obama mentions a number of Education Secretary Arne Duncan's recent hot topics, including:Wisconsin State Test Score Comparisons: Madison Middle Schools:This wonderful opportunity for Wright's students will, perhaps be most interesting for the ramifications it may have on the adults in attendance. Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman recent Rotary speech alluded to school district's conflicting emphasis on "adult employment" vs education.
- Lift caps on charter schools.
- End mediocre School of Education teacher training [The University of Wisconsin School of Education Grade Distribution Reports can be found here.]
- Trace test scores to Education Schools
WKCE Madison Middle School Comparison: Wright / Cherokee / Hamilton / Jefferson / O'Keefe / Sennett / Sherman / Spring Harbor / Whitehorse
About Madison:UPDATE: How Do Students at Wright Compare to Their Peers at Other MMSD Middle Schools?
- City of Madison Demographics
- Madison Police Calls - reported by the MPD
Wisconsin teachers couldn't be fired over test scores.- Should the President and his entourage have time for a meal, I recommend Himal Chuli, Campus Biryani or Curry in the Box
- Local Media Sites
Posted by Jim Zellmer at 1:05 PM | Comments (1) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom:
Kennedy worked closely with President Bush on the flawed and deeply unpopular No Child Left Behind Act. Like a packaged-goods company with a tainted product, the Obama administration has left that name behind and now calls its program the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, LBJ's original title in 1965. But the accountability-and-standards movement Kennedy and Bush launched is essential, and Obama has moved much faster than expected to advance it. He and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are showing some Chicago muscle and giving states a "choice" right out of The Untouchables: lift your caps on the number of innovative charter schools allowed and your prohibitions on holding teachers accountable for whether kids learn--or lose a chance for some of Obama's $5 billion "Race to the Top" money. Massachusetts recently lifted its charter cap and nearly a dozen other states are scampering to comply. Now that's hardball we can believe in.This issue cleaves the Democratic Party. On one side are Obama and the reformers, who point out that we now have a good idea of what works: KIPP and other "no excuses" charter models boast 80 percent graduation rates in America's roughest neighborhoods, nearly twice the norm. On the other side are the teachers' unions and their incrementalist enablers in the political class. They talk a good game about education but make up phony excuses for opposing real reform and accountability.
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AND what was the Minotaur? The ten-year-olds scribble their answer onto tiny whiteboards and hold them up for the teacher to see. Once each has got a nod, they repeat together: "half-man, half-bull."By the time these fifth-graders at the BASIS school in Scottsdale, Arizona, reach 8th grade they will have the option of taking Advanced Placement (AP) exams, standardised nationally to test high-school students at college level. By the 9th grade, they must do so. As a result, says Michael Block, the school's co-founder, our students are "two years ahead of Arizona and California schools and one year ahead of the east coast."
But that, he emphasises, is not the yardstick he and his wife Olga use. Instead, their two BASIS schools, one in Tucson and this one in suburban Phoenix, explicitly compete with the best schools in the world--South Korea's in maths, say, or Finland's in classics.
They had the idea after Olga Block came to Arizona from her native Czech Republic, looked for a school for her daughter and was horrified by the mediocrity and low expectations at American public schools. So they decided to "establish a world-standard school in the desert," says Mr Block. They started the Tucson campus in 1998 and added the Scottsdale one recently.
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How will tonight's property tax increase vote play out on April 6, 2010? Three Madison School Board seats will be on the ballot that day. The seats are currently occupied by:
 |  |  | |
| Beth Moss | Johnny Winston | Maya Cole | |
| Terms | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Regular Board Meetings > 2007 election | 28 | 28 | 28 |
| Absent | 4 (14%) | 3 (10.7%) | 3 (10.7%) |
| Interviews: | 2007 Video | 2004 Video (Election info) | 2007 Video |
What issues might be on voters minds in five months?:
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To promote greater knowledge and understanding of dyslexia and related learning disabilities, The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) designated the month of October as National Dyslexia Awareness Month. "Awareness is key with learning disabilities because if identified early enough, their impacts can be minimized through intervention and effective teaching."Julie Gocey:In order to increase awareness of dyslexia, Wisconsin Literacy posted two videos on its website created by Sun Prairie Cable Access. You will need Quicktime installed on your computer to view the video files. Download it for free here: www.apple.com/quicktime/download.
Living and Learning with Dyslexia: Hope and Possibilities
(Time 36:59)
Dr. Julie Gocey leads a panel discussion on dyslexia with Cheryl Ward (Wisconsin Branch of the International Dyslexia Association), Layla Coleman (Wisconsin Literacy, Inc.), Pam Heyde (Dyslexia Reading Therapist) and Margery Katz (Dyslexia Reading Therapist). The program covers a variety of topics including science-based, multisensory instruction for kids and adults; obstacles for identifying individuals with dyslexia; and lack of training of teachers. A college student with dyslexia shares strategies for academic success.
Educators, parents and health professionals must work together to improve literacy for ALL students in Wisconsin. It is well known that early literacy is one of the most powerful predictors of school success, gainful employment and many measures of health.via a Margery Katz email.For that reason, the sincerest expression of child advocacy is to ensure that ALL students in Wisconsin have the opportunity to become proficient readers. In my experience as a pediatrician, co-founder of the Learning Difference Network, and as a parent, current policies and practices do not routinely provide the 10 percent to 17 percent of our students who have some degree of dyslexia with adequate opportunities for literacy.
Dyslexia is a language-based learning problem, or disability if severe. The impact that this neurobiological, highly heritable condition has on learning to read, write and spell cannot be underestimated.Dyslexia is the best understood and most studied of all learning difficulties. There is clear evidence that the brains of dyslexic readers function differently than the brains of typical readers. But the good news is this: Reading instruction from highly skilled teachers or tutors who use evidence-based techniques can change how the brain processes print and nearly ALL students can become proficient readers.
Early intervention is critical to successful outcomes, but there is a disconnect between research and practice on many levels.
Current obstacles include myths about dyslexia, lack of early identification and a need for educators to be given training in the science of reading and multi-sensory, systematic, language-based instruction. This is critical for students with dyslexia, but can be beneficial to all learners. For those of us who are able to pay for private testing and instruction for our children, the outcomes can be phenomenal. Unfortunately, where poverty and its associated ills make daily life a struggle, this expert instruction is not routinely available.
Families who ask school personnel about dyslexia are often referred to a physician, who in turn sends them back to school for this educational problem. Educational testing is often denied coverage from insurance companies, though the implications for health and wellness are clear. Unfortunately, parents may be left without useful information from anyone, and appropriate treatment - excellent reading instruction - is further delayed.
October is Dyslexia Awareness Month. On Thursday, Oct. 22, there will be a noon rally in the Capitol rotunda to raise awareness about the need to improve reading instruction for students with dyslexia and for all struggling readers in Wisconsin.State Rep. Keith Ripp, R-Lodi, is introducing bills this week to help identify and help children with dyslexia. One bill calls for screening for specific skills to find kids with a high chance of struggling to learn to read. The other bill aims to improve teacher training to deal with reading problems.
There is too much evidence describing the science of reading, dyslexia and the costs of illiteracy to continue without change. Parents who suspect dyslexia must not be dissuaded from advocating for their children; keep searching until you find help that works.
Health professionals must seek the latest information on this common condition in order to support families and evaluate for related conditions. Educators must seek out training to understand this brain-based condition that requires educational care. The information is solid. We must work together to give ALL our kids the opportunity to read and succeed.Dr. Julie Gocey is a pediatrician and a clinical assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and also a co-founder of the Learning Difference Network
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An effort has been launched in the state Capitol to give the state schools superintendent broader authority to turn around struggling schools and position Wisconsin to better compete for millions of dollars in federal education grants.Prior to any expansion of the Wisconsin DPI's powers, I'd like to see them implement a usable and rigorous assessment system to replace the oft-criticized WKCE.Little fanfare has accompanied potential legislative changes that would allow the superintendent of public instruction to order curriculum and personnel changes in chronically failing schools. It didn't even make the news release for Gov. Jim Doyle's three-city announcement on Monday of educational changes he is seeking to help Wisconsin qualify for some of the $4.35 billion in Race to the Top funds from the U.S. Department of Education.
State Sen. John Lehman (D-Racine), chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said the idea of giving the state superintendent "super-duper powers" has attracted support from legislators and educational interest groups since it first surfaced earlier this month.
"There's getting to be general agreement around these interventions," he said.
Perhaps, this is simply politics chasing new federal tax dollars....
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Two of the five seats on the Yakima School District Board of Directors are up for grabs this election.Of the four candidates vying for those spots, three have served -- or are serving -- on the school board. Two are incumbents. Two are retired. One taught in the district for 30 years. Another taught in the district for just over eight.
All of them identify several key issues -- making tough budget decisions, implementing the new Measurements of Student Progress and High School Proficiency exams, and coordinating upcoming construction projects, specifically replacing Eisenhower High School, modernizing Davis High School and renovating six other schools.
The construction will be paid for through a 20-year, $114 million bond measure approved by taxpayers in May.
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To hear his enemies talk, you might think Paul Offit is the most hated man in America. A pediatrician in Philadelphia, he is the coinventor of a rotavirus vaccine that could save tens of thousands of lives every year. Yet environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slams Offit as a "biostitute" who whores for the pharmaceutical industry. Actor Jim Carrey calls him a profiteer and distills the doctor's attitude toward childhood vaccination down to this chilling mantra: "Grab 'em and stab 'em." Recently, Carrey and his girlfriend, Jenny McCarthy, went on CNN's Larry King Live and singled out Offit's vaccine, RotaTeq, as one of many unnecessary vaccines, all administered, they said, for just one reason: "Greed."Thousands of people revile Offit publicly at rallies, on Web sites, and in books. Type pauloffit.com into your browser and you'll find not Offit's official site but an anti-Offit screed "dedicated to exposing the truth about the vaccine industry's most well-paid spokesperson." Go to Wikipedia to read his bio and, as often as not, someone will have tampered with the page. The section on Offit's education was once altered to say that he'd studied on a pig farm in Toad Suck, Arkansas. (He's a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine).
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A FEW weeks after I visited Fenger Academy, on Chicago's far south side, television cameras swarmed the school. The incident at Fenger was so alarming that the White House dispatched two cabinet secretaries to quell anxiety. I came for happier reasons. The Fenger was still in the heady first days of school, exciting not only because every new year brings new opportunities, but because this year seemed particularly ripe with them.Fenger is closer to Indiana's belching mills than to downtown Chicago. It has struggled for decades. From 2006 to 2008 less than 3% of students met Illinois's pathetic standards of achievement. But this meagre record had one good outcome: Fenger's district chose it as a "turnaround" school.
AFPWhen I arrive in the main office, students are still milling about, a few parents with them, looking for registration or wondering where to pick up their new uniforms--black polo shirts with the school insignia on the breast. Don Fraynd, the turnaround officer, is waiting for me. He is a youngish man whose e-mail signature is punctuated by a proud "PhD". After a quick tour we sit in the principal's anteroom. He tells me that reformers have showered Fenger with programmes, to no avail.
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One of my favorite events of the year is the annual Principal for a Day event organized by the Foundation for Madison's Public Schools and sponsored by CUNA. For one thing, it's an opportunity for me to use phrases like, "Hey, hey, no running in the halls!" and, "sure, it's funny until somebody loses an eye."The southwest part of Madison, including Toki Middle School has had its share of challenges over the past few years.This year I chose to be the shadow principal at Toki Middle School. It's no secret that Toki is at the center of a neighborhood that has been in the news in recent years in part because of some changing demographics. Those changes are apparent at the school where kids eligible for free and reduced lunches have increased from about a third to about half of the school population in just a few years.
But what I saw on a typical day where most of the kids didn't know or care much who I was (just like a normal day around City Hall) was a school where a lot of learning was taking place. I visited Rhonda Chalone's Student Leadership class, Vern Laufenberg's Technology Class and Scott Mullee's Science Class. I also spent some time with Principal Nicole Schaefer and her staff. What I witnessed was dedicated teachers and engaged students in a friendly and orderly atmosphere. And the diversity that is there is a big advantage, setting those kids up for success in a world that is, if anything, even more diverse than the student body at Toki.
Every school has some challenges, but anyone that doesn't think Madison schools are doing a great job teaching our kids, should spend a day in one.
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"Pick your head up, buddy," Tom Dunn said to Darius Nash, who had fallen asleep during the morning's reading drills. "Sabrieon, sit down, buddy," he called to a wandering boy. "Focus."Mr. Dunn's classroom is less than three miles from his old law office, where he struggled to keep death row prisoners from the executioner's needle. This summer, after serving hundreds of death row clients for 20 grinding, stressful years, he traded the courthouse for Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.
The turmoil of middle school turns many teachers away, said the school's principal, Danielle S. Battle. Students' bodies and minds are changing, and disparities in learning abilities are playing out.
"A lot of people will say, 'I'll do anything but middle school,' " she said.
But this is precisely where Mr. Dunn chose to be, having seen too many people at the end of lives gone wrong, and wanting to keep these students from ending up like his former clients. He quotes Frederick Douglass: "It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."
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via a kind reader's email:
Tuesday, November 17
6:00 - 7:30 p.m. (this is the correct time)
Hamilton Middle School LMC
4801 Waukesha Street
Madison, WiThe Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Talented and Gifted Division will host a community forum on November 17, 2009, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Superintendent Dan Nerad and Director of Teaching and Learning Lisa Wachtel will be in attendance.
The focus of the forum will be to provide the Madison community with an overview of the recently Board of Education approved Talented and Gifted Education Plan, followed by an opportunity for discussion.
Link to new MMSD TAG Plan: http://tagweb.madison.k12.wi.us/
More information from MUAE: http://madisonunited.org/TAGplan.html
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Wisconsin State Journal Editorial, via a kind reader:
Charter schools have no bigger fan than President Barack Obama.I am in favor of a diffused governance model here. I think improvement is more likely via smaller organizations (charters, magnets, whatever). The failed Madison Studio School initiative illustrates the challenges that lie ahead.The federal government gave Wisconsin $86 million on Thursday to help launch and sustain more charter schools across the state.
State schools chief Tony Evers said $5 million will go to two dozen school districts this year, with the rest of the money distributed over five years.
Madison, to no surprise, wasn't on Thursday's winner list. And don't expect any of the $86 million for planning and implementing new strategies for public education to be heading Madison's way.
That's because the Madison School Board continues to resist Obama's call for more charter schools. The latest evidence is the School Board's refusal to even mention the words "charter school" in its strategic action plans.
In sharp contrast, Obama can hardly say a word about public education without touting charters as key to sparking innovation and engaging disadvantaged students.
Obama visited a New Orleans charter school Thursday (and raised money that evening in San Francisco at a $34K per couple dinner) and is preparing to shower billions on states to experiment with new educational strategies. But states that limit charter growth will not be eligible for the money.
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Meet us here on October 21, 2009, for the first Wolfram|Alpha Homework Day. This groundbreaking, live interactive web event brings together students and educators from across the country to solve your toughest assignments and explore the power of using Wolfram|Alpha for school, college, and beyond.A few links:
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Community activists said the recent murder of a Fenger High School honor student exposes a problem many teens face every day: safe passage to and from school."I wonder how many more teens will be murdered while coming home from school," said Leonardo D. Gilbert, a Local School Council member in the Roseland community. "All this kid was trying to do was go home and it cost him his life. If we are going to save our children from violence we must make sure children have a safe way home from school."
According to Chicago police, Derrion Albert, 16, was murdered after school on Sept. 24 while waiting for a bus to go home."He was not in a gang but in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Michael Shields, a retired Chicago police officer who now works as director of security for Chicago Public Schools.
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These comments are excerpted from a Sept. 16 panel discussion on education and workforce preparation at Santa Clara University. The event, Projections 2010: Leadership California, was hosted by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman made similar, structural points during a recent Madison Rotary club talk.Moderator, Marshall Kilduff, Chronicle editorial writer: With a lot of bad news in education, including test scores, declining financial support, what would you do?
Mayor Gavin Newsom: I'll tell you what we've done in San Francisco. I believe not just in public-private partnerships. I believe in public-public partnerships. ... The City and County of San Francisco does not run its school district ... but, nonetheless, we've taken some responsibility to addressing the needs of our public-school kids by building a partnership. ... We focus on universal preschool. We've created a framework, a partnership, that guarantees the opportunity of a four-year college education for every single sixth-grader. It's those partnerships that I'm arguing for.
Aart J. De Geus, CEO, Synopsys: If I look at it as if I were the CEO of education of California, I would look at a company (in terms of), "What are the resources? What are the results? And what is the management system?" I'd say, "Well, let's look at the CEO of the educational system." There is no CEO of the educational system. I know there are commissioners, and whatever they're called, but, to be a CEO, you need to have both responsibility and power.
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Over on Salon.com last week, senior editor Andrew O'Hehir posted the first in what will be a series of essays about home-schooling his 5-year-old twins with his wife, Leslie. It is long, but insightful and informative, filled both with the whys and the hows of this choice.What struck me most about the piece, though, was not its practical bent, but its philosophical notes, where O'Hehir describes the reactions of strangers when he mentions home schooling to them -- the judgment, spoken or not, particularly from other parents. He writes:
After various tense conversations with friends, family members and strangers, Leslie and I have concluded that earnest, heartfelt discussion of exactly how we're approaching our kids' education and why we're doing it is a bad idea. For reasons I can about halfway understand, other parents often seem to feel attacked by our eccentric choices. I guess this is what it's like to be a vegan, or a Mennonite convert. I can certainly remember having a weirdly defensive response ("You know, I hardly ever eat red meat"), one where I reacted to someone else's comment about themselves as if it were really all about me.
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The federal Department of Education sketched out a new nationwide competition on Tuesday under which some 2,700 school districts and nonprofit groups are expected to compete for pieces of a $650 million innovation fund.The department already has the 50 states vying for chunks of a $5.4 billion education improvement fund that it calls Race to the Top; the innovation fund is a separate competition.
Federal officials said the Investing in Innovation Fund would be distributed in three categories. Small development grants of up to $5 million will support new, unproven ideas that seem worth exploring, they said. Validation grants of up to $30 million will support existing programs that have shown evidence that they can work. Scale-up grants of up to $50 million will go to programs that have developed a strong track record for improving student achievement, the officials said.
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Community leaders and parents outside Fenger are in disbelief that they are not at the breakfast table with Arne Duncan and Eric Holder.Material for the Daily Show.Attorney General Holder and Secretary of Education Duncan are in town to speak, ostensibly, with the community about youth violence -- a blight on Chicago neighborhoods so vividly brought to national attention by the videotaped beating of Derrion Albert.
"They are meeting about us without us," said Phillip Jackson of the Black Star Project, a Chicago-based educational reform organization.
Duncan and Holder's meeting at the Four Seasons also includes Mayor Daley, Pastor Michael Pfleger, CEO of Chicago Public Schools Ron Huberman, and Police Superintendent Jody Weis.
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Green Dot's founder, who led the turnaround of the toughest school in Los Angeles, discusses his ideas on how to fix a failing system.This might be the moment for Green Dot founder Steve Barr.
The Obama administration has set a goal of turning around 5,000 failing schools in the next five years, supported by an expected $3 billion in stimulus funds and $2 billion in the 2009 and 2010 budgets. Known in education circles and beyond as an aggressive agent of change, Barr has been in talks with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan about how to boost failing schools and whether Green Dot's methods can serve as a blueprint for fixing schools across the country.
It was these same failing schools that inspired Barr to start Green Dot. Having known hard times in his youth, including some time as a foster child, Barr was drawn to improving schools for disenfranchised youth.
After working in politics for many years (and cofounding Rock the Vote), he began researching the push to wire all schools with technology. He saw a map that used green dots to represent schools with the necessary infrastructure to be wired and red dots for schools that lacked that foundation. Barr had the vision that every school should be a green dot, and thus began his crusade.
Green Dot consists of 19 small charter high schools in Los Angeles -- several of which were formerly part of Watts's infamous Locke High School, which Green Dot, in an unprecedented coup, broke down into smaller schools. In addition, Green Dot New York finished its first year last June.
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It was 1984 when a handful of San Francisco parents embarked on a controversial education experiment to open the first Chinese immersion public school program in the nation.The idea was to immerse the students in Cantonese from the first day of school, teaching them math, science and other subjects in Chinese and gradually increasing English skills along the way. Success would mean that by the time the children finished elementary school, they would be grade-level literate in both languages.
The pioneering venture, which operates at West Portal Elementary's kindergarten through fifth grades, was launched as U.S.-China relations were just warming. Today, it has become one of the school district's shining stars, gaining steady popularity among families and setting an example for similar programs in San Francisco and across the country.
This year, there were 34 spots for incoming kindergarteners and 446 families trying to get one in the first round of applications, according to district officials.
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Joyce Stallfort Davis leaves $440,011 for scholarships at Blair International Baccalaureate School. Officials don't remember her but learn she worked at the school in the 1960s.The mystery began in July when an attorney called Blair International Baccalaureate School and told it to be on the lookout for a large check. Two weeks ago, officials at the Pasadena magnet school opened a letter that contained a bequest of $440,011 from a woman named Joyce Stallfort Davis, who died last year at age 81.
Officials were thrilled, but there was one problem: No one knew who Davis was.
"I've worked at Blair for 34 years and had never heard of her," said Dianne Moore, secretary of student services and counseling at Blair.
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We say we are buying a house. But for most of us parents, the house is not the whole story. It is the local public school we are investing in, and sometimes it can be a very daunting financial and personal decision.In the early 1990s, when my journalist wife was making what seemed to me big bucks as a television producer, we could afford to live in Scarsdale, N.Y. That village's public schools cost us about as much in real estate taxes as the tuition at the private schools our kids had attended in Pasadena, Calif. Fortunately, we got what we paid for in Scarsdale. That is not always the case.
How do parents evaluate the schools their children may attend and escape the heartbreak of buying a great house that turns out to be in the attendance zone of a flawed school? Here are 10 ways to make the right choice, in descending importance. Feel free to re-prioritize them based on your personal tendencies:
1. Go with your gut. This sounds unscientific, but I don't care. After you have analyzed all the data and had the conversations outlined below, you still have to make a decision. Consider how you react emotionally to a school. Consult your viscera. If you're not feeling it, don't send your kids there. They will sense you have doubts at a time when they need to believe that this is the place for them.
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The Route Out of Minnesota's Fiscal Crisis: "We Can Change 'the Way We Do Things'"Much more on Ted Kolderie here.A response limited to cutting-and-taxing would destroy Minnesota. To offset the disadvantages of our cold, remote location we sell a quality state at a high but reasonable price. This is a fragile balance. We could easily lose what attracts people to come here and to stay. And the fight would poison our politics; tear the state apart.
We do a pretty good job upgrading our physical infrastructure. And we do think about productivity in the private economy. But we lack a program for productivity in the public sector.
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Minority kids try to enter a school. Angry adults scream at them and try to block their path.Little Rock, 1957?
Try New York City, 2009.
That was the shocking scene last week at a Harlem building shared by a traditional public school, PS 123, and a charter school, Harlem Success Academy 2.
Charter schools are public schools -- but they're mostly free of burdensome union rules. And they regularly outperform traditional schools, which is why parents are desperate to get their kids into charters.
And why it was ironic to see protesters (mostly teachers-union members) handing out flyers decrying the supposedly "separate and unequal" system that charters create.
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Via an Ingrid Beamsley email:
On November 6th, 2009, the Wisconsin Charter Schools Association is hosting the second Annual Charter School Awards Gala. Once again, it will be at the famous Turner Hall in Milwaukee. This year it will be even bigger and better than last year. Of course, there will be great food and drink and a wonderful band. However, this year we're kicking it up a notch with a red carpet, interviews, and photographs, all to introduce our brand new Charter Schools short film.This event is about more than getting together and having fun (as important as that is). It is the event to honor not only the excellence of the award nominees and winners?but of the whole charter school community.
Charter schools provide a choice in education for Wisconsin's families and help Wisconsin's public school system improve the quality of education for all students with innovative curriculums.
Go to www.wicharterschools.org to secure your spot.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email or phone Ingrid Beamsley at ibeamsley@wicharterschools.org or 608-261-1120. www.wicharterschools.org
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f you have school-age children, you may have noticed their handwriting is terrible. They may communicate incessantly via written word--they can text with their heads in a paper bag--but put a pen in their hands and they can barely write a sentence in decent cursive. It's not going to be easy to decipher one either, if they think cursive might as well be cuneiform.My daughter is in the eighth grade, and I realized several years ago that her rudimentary block-letter printing was actually never going to improve because handwriting had been chopped from the school curriculum. Children today learn basic printing in first and second grade, then get cursory instruction in cursive in the third grade--my daughter was given a cursive workbook and told to figure it out herself. She dutifully filled in every page, but she never understood how these looping letters were supposed to become her handwriting, so they never did.
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via email:
Does your business employ high school students or individuals with a high school diploma?This is a good idea.On Thursday, October 8, from 9:00 AM until 2:30 PM, West High School will host a job and career fair with a focus on employment opportunities during and after high school. West High is looking for employers who provide job and career opportunities for students in high school and individuals with a high school diploma.
This job fair is intended to provide both students and staff information about job and career opportunities for individuals with a high school diploma. Additionally, as a result of attending this job fair, students may obtain employment, arrange internships, set up job shadowing experiences, or network with potential employers.
For a $35.00 entry fee per business, West High will provide tables and chairs, a steady stream of 50 to 75 high school students per hour, a break room, volunteers to provide breaks and to assist with set up and take down, and a sit down meal and snacks provided by their culinary arts students.
For more information and a registration form, contact Jonathan Davis, transition teacher, at (608) 516-9512 or by e-mail at jidavis@madison.k12.wi.us
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The mathematics committee of the junior high schools of Madison has been meeting regularly for four rears with one intention in mind -- to improve the mathematics program of the junior high school. After experimenting with three programs in the 7th grade, the Seeing Through Mathematics series, Books 1 and 2, were recommended for adoption and approved in May of 1963.Related: The recent Madison School District Math Task Force.The committee continued its leadership role in implementing the new program and began evaluation of the 9th grade textbooks available. The committee recommended the adoption of Seeing Through Mathematics, Book 3, published by Scott, Foresman and Company, and Algebra: Its Element and Structure, Book 1, published by Webster Division, McGraw-Hill Book Company, and the Board of Education adopted them on May 3, 1965.
A number of objections to the Seeing Through Mathematics textbooks were made by various University of Wisconsin professors. Dr. R. C. Buck, chairman of the University of Wisconsin Mathematics Department strongly criticized the series. A public objection to the adoption was made at the Board of Education meeting by Dr. Richard Askey of the University Mathematics Department. Later, a formal petition of protest against the adoption of Seeing Through Mathematics, Book 3, was sent to committee members. [related: 2006 Open Letter from 35 UW-Madison Math Professors about the Madison School District's Math Coordinator position]
The sincerity of the eminently qualified professional mathematicians under Dr. Buck's chairmanship was recognized by both the administration and the committee as calling for reconsideration of the committee's decisions over the past three years relative to the choice of Seeing Through Mathematics 1, 2 and 3.
Conversely, the support of the Scott, Foresman and. Company mathematics program and its instruction philosophy, as evidenced by numerous adoptions throughout the country and the pilot studies carried out in the Madison Public Schoolsvindicated that equitable treatment of those holding diametric viewpoints should be given. It was decided that the interests of the students to be taught would be best served through a hearing of both sides before reconsideration.
A special meeting of the Junior High School. Mathematics committee was held on June 10, 1965.
Meeting 1. Presentations were made by Dr. R. C. Buck, Dr. Richard Askey, and Dr. Walter Rudin of the University of Wisconsin Mathematics Department, and Dr. J. B. Rosen, chairman-elect of the University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Department.
The presentations emphasized the speakers' major criticism of the Seeing Through Mathematics series -- "that these books completely distort the ideas and spirit of modern mathematics, and do not give students a good preparation for future mathematics courses. Examples were used to show that from the speakers' points of view the emphasis in Seeing Through Mathematics is wrong. They indicated they felt the language overly pedantic, and the mathematics of the textbooks was described as pseudo-mathematics. However, it was pointed out that the choice of topics was good the content was acceptable (except for individual instances), and the treatment was consistent. A question and answer session tollowed the presentations.
..........
After careful consideration of all points of view, the committee unanimously recommended:
- that the University of Wisconsin Mathematics and Education Departments be invited to participate with our Curriculum Department in developing end carrying out a program to evaluate the effectiveness of the Seeing Through Mathematics series and, if possible, other "modern" mathematics series in Madison and other school districts in Wisconsin;
- that the committee reaffirm its decision to recommend the use of Seeing Through Mathematics, Book 3, and Algebra: Its Elements and structure, Book 1, in grade nine with Seeing Through Mathematics, Book 1 and 2 in grades seven and eight, and that the Department of Curriculum Developnent of the Madison Public Schools continue its study, its evaluation, and its revision of the mathematics curriculum; and
- that en in-service program be requested for all junior high school mathematics teachers. (Details to follow in a later bulletin).
Britannica on deja vu.
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Former Madison Alder Brenda Konkel summarized the meeting:
The Madison School District shared their data with the group and they decided when their next two meetings would be. Compton made some interesting/borderline comments and they have an interesting discussion about race and how housing patterns affect the schools. There was a powerpoint presentation with lots of information, without a handout, so I tried to capture it the best I could.A few interesting notes:GETTING STARTED
The meeting was moved from the Mayor's office to Room 260 across the street. The meeting started 5 minutes late with Brian Munson, Marj Passman, Mark Clear, Judy Compton, Dave Porterfield, Brian Solomon and Marsha Rummel were the quorum. Judy Olson absent, but joined them later. City staff of Bill Clingan, Mark Olinger, Ray Harmon and Helen Dietzler. Kurt Keifer from the School District was here to present. (Bill Clingan is a former Madison School Board member. He was defeated a few years ago by Lawrie Kobza.
Clear asks if this reflects white flight, or if this just reflects the communities changing demographics. He wants to know how much is in and out migration. Kiefer says they look more at private and parochial school attendance as portion of Dane County and MMSD. Our enrollment hasn't changed as a percentage. There has been an increased activity in open enrollment - and those numbers have gone up from 200 to 400 kids in the last 8 - 10 years. He says the bigger factor is that they manage their enrollment to their capacities in the private and parochial schools. Even with virtual schools, not much changes. The bigger factor is the housing transition in Metropolitan area. Prime development is happening in other districtsFascinating. I wonder how all of this, particularly the high school "small learning community initiatives" fit with the District's strategic plan and recently passed Talented and Gifted initiative?
......
Kiefer says smaller learning communities is what they are striving for in high schools. Kiefer says the smaller learning initiative - there is a correlation in decrease in drop out rate with the program. Compton asks about minority and Caucasian level in free lunch. She would like to see that.
.......Kiefer says that Midvale population is not going up despite the fact that they have the highest proportion of single detached units in Midvale - they are small houses and affordable, but also highest proportion of kids going to private and parochial schools. He says it was because of access because to parochial schools are located there. Kiefer says they think the area is changing, that the Hilldale area has been an attractor for families as well as Sequoya Commons. Family and school friendly areas and he tells the city to "Keep doing that". He is hopeful that Hill Farms changes will be good as well.
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Bill Cosby had heard about the tough-as-nails, uncompromising man tackling fraud and improving education throughout the Detroit's public schools, and wanted to help.So the 72-year-old actor, comedian and activist decided to loan the district his celebrity as Detroit tries to hold off plummeting enrollment amid a fiscal crisis that a few weeks ago spurred suggestions of a possible bankruptcy.
"All around the United States of America - in the cities and the counties - our public education is suffering and has been suffering. Cuts, cuts, cuts," Cosby told reporters Tuesday as he began a day that would take him from shooting commercials to visiting homes in a far northwest Detroit neighborhood.
He has joined "I'm In," emergency financial manager Robert Bobb's $500,000 campaign to stop the flow of students leaving the district - and maybe persuade parents who have sent their children elsewhere to give Detroit another shot.
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The third time proved to be a charm for Adam Croglia of Amherst, a senior political science major at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva.After visiting Vietnam as a tourist twice before with his family--for a month in 2006 and again in 2007 -- Croglia went again for 11 weeks this summer as an intern with the Institute of International Education, an organization in Ho Chi Minh City promoting cultural exchange. Croglia, who returned home earlier this month, said his latest trip was very rewarding and culturally enriching.
"Vietnam is a rapidly developing country with a remarkable desire to globalize," said Croglia, who traveled through a grant funded by his college. "Living there opened my eyes in a way I couldn't get from visiting."
In Ho Chi Minh City, Croglia advised and educated Vietnamese students interested in pursuing an education at American colleges and universities.
"I had the opportunity to reach many Vietnamese students," he said. "Through my presentations both in Ho Chi Minh City and around the country, I think I presented to a total of about 1,500 people."
Croglia, 20, gave presentations throughout the country on resumes, personal statements and relationship building. The 2006 St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute graduate said the students were very receptive and intrigued by American culture and education.
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It's not a total coincidence that, on the day after the Los Angeles Unified school board passed the first major reform to turn around its lowest-performing campuses, the Obama administration announced that it would target billions of federal dollars to districts that reconfigured their persistently failing schools.From the start, board Vice President Yolie Flores Aguilar said her reform initiative was inspired by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan's "Race to the Top" campaign, which will funnel stimulus money to troubled schools that commit to transforming their operations. Passed by the board Tuesday, Flores Aguilar's resolution allows district and outside groups to submit competing proposals for operating 50 new schools, as well as up to 200 schools that have failed to meet federal improvement goals for several years.
The signs of a new era were visible at L.A. Unified headquarters even before the vote. Thousands of parents representing both sides crowded into the building and filled the streets outside, a level of involvement too rarely seen in debates over local schools. And though the usual amount of posturing took place on the dais, there was a greater openness among board members about the role of labor unions in reform attempts.
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There were several public appearances [4.1MB mp3 audio] Monday evening related to the Madison School District's Talented & Gifted plan. TJ Mertz, Kris Gomez-Schmidt, Janet Mertz (not related) and Shari Galitzer spoke during the public appearance segment of the meeting. Their comments begin at 3:13 into this mp3 audio file.
The School Board and Administration's discussion can be heard via this 6MB mp3 audio file. The previous week's discussion can be heard here. Madison United for Academic Excellence posted a number of useful links on this initiative here.
Finally, the recent Private/Parochial, Open Enrollment Leave, Open Enrollment Enter, Home Based Parent Surveys provides a useful background for the interested reader.
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On a normal day, oil and water just don't mix.Public schools and teachers' unions don't say nice things about those who support school vouchers, sending kids to private schools with public money. Most of the time, such folks just don't get along.
But Wednesday wasn't a normal day.
In a move that experts are calling nearly unprecedented, the Hillsborough County schools and teachers' union have joined forces with a nonprofit Florida voucher group to help train private school teachers.
Step Up for Students -- which runs the state's tax credit voucher program -- plans to spend at least $100,000 on classes for teachers who serve its scholarship students, among the county's most economically disadvantaged children. The school district and union will provide space in the jointly developed Center for Technology and Education.
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"I SET up a Fantasy Football competition between some of my toughest pupils," one young man explains. "They get goal-keeping points for good attendance, and defence points for behaving well. Good punctuation and spelling translate into their midfield performance, and coming up with good ideas, into attack." Around the room, pens scribble furiously. "Pupil X hated me," a woman tells the group; she describes how she changed that with weekly phone calls to his parents and postcards praising his (intermittent) good behaviour. More notes are made.This is the Teach First summer institute: six weeks in Canterbury, a southern cathedral city, at the end of which nearly 500 new university graduates will teach full-time, for £15,000 ($24,500) a year, in some of England's toughest schools. The 360 who started the programme last year are here too, handing on to the raw recruits their tips for coping with bad behaviour and keeping lessons fresh, and demonstrating to their tutors what they have learned. In another year, those old hands will be qualified teachers, trained on the job and in tutorials and summer schools.
Recruiting the right kind of teachers has been difficult in England for some time, and though recession has brought temporary relief, the task is getting bigger as those hired to teach the baby boom near retirement. Head teachers, worn down by constant official policy changes and an avalanche of paperwork, are retiring early. A study in 2007 by McKinsey, a consultancy, concluded that countries whose students perform well tend to recruit teachers from the top of the class. But a recent report by Politeia, a think-tank, found that the bar for getting into teacher training in England is, by international standards, unusually low. Trainee teachers can resit basic literacy and numeracy tests as often as they like--and 13% need at least three goes at the latter. Around 1,200 each year graduated with the lowest class of degree, a third.
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Believing in the Power of Young People:
Breakthrough Cincinnati is a four year, tuition free academic enrichment program that offers both summer and school year programs for under-served Cincinnati public middle school students. Breakthrough students apply in the fifth grade (sixth and seventh graders are welcome to apply, but spots are limited) and attend through the summer preceding their 9th grade year.School Year Program
Starting in the fall of 2009, Breakthrough Cincinnati will be offering twice a week tutoring, homework help and academic enrichment lessons for all students who participated in the Summer Academic Session. Breakthrough Cincinnati is actively recruiting talented high school and college students to serve as teachers in this program. Please click on the link on the left-hand side of this page for more information on the school year program, including teacher application forms.
In addition, Breakthrough Cincinnati will be hosting a High School information Night and a Reunion Party in the fall. Information on these events will be mailed home and posted on the News and Events section of this web-site as it becomes available.
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Will Fitzhugh, The Concord Review
30 July 2009
Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie:
He stuck in his thumb, and pulled out a plum
And said, "What a good boy am I!"
I publish history research papers by secondary students from around the world, and from time to time I get a paper submitted which includes quite a bit more opinion than historical research.
The other day I got a call from a prospective teenage author saying he had noticed on my website that most of the papers seemed to be history rather than opinion, and was it alright for him to submit a paper with his opinions?
I said that opinions were fine, if they were preceded and supported by a good deal of historical research for the paper, and that seemed to satisfy him. I don't know if he will send in his paper or not, but I feel sure that like so many of our teenagers, he has received a good deal of support from his teachers for expressing his opinions, whether very well-informed or not.
From John Dewey forward, many Progressive educators seem to want our students to "step away from those school books, and no one gets hurt," as long as they go out and get involved in the community and come back to express themselves with plenty of opinions on all the major social issues of the world today.
This sort of know-nothing policy-making was much encouraged in the 1960s in the United States, among the American Red Guards at least. In China, there was more emphasis on direct action to destroy the "Four Olds" and beat up and kill doctors, professors, teachers, and anyone else with an education. Mao had already done their theorizing for them and all they had to do was the violence.
Over here, however, from the Port Huron Statement to many other Youth Manifestos, it was considered important for college students evading the draft to announce their views on society at some length. Many years after the fact, it is interesting to note, as Diana West wrote about their philosophical posturing in The Death of the Grown-Up:
"What was it all about? New Left leader Todd Gitlin found such questions perplexing as far back as the mid-1960s, when he was asked 'to write a statement of purpose for a New Republic series called 'Thoughts of Young Radicals.' In his 1978 memoir, The Sixties, Gitlin wrote: 'I agonized for weeks about what it was, in fact, I wanted.' This is a startling admission. Shouldn't he have thought about all this before? He continued: "The movement's all-purpose answer to 'What do you want?' and 'How do you intend to get it?' was: 'Build the movement.' By contrast, much of the counterculture's appeal was its earthy answer: 'We want to live like this, voila!'"
For those of the Paleo New Left who indulged in these essentially thoughtless protests, the Sixties are over, but for many students now in our social studies classrooms, their teachers still seem to want them to Stand Up on the Soapbox and be Counted, to voice their opinions on all sorts of matters about which they know almost nothing.
I have published research papers by high school students who have objected to eugenics, racism, China's actions in Tibet, gender discrimination, and more. But I believe in each case such opinions came at the end of a fairly serious history research paper full of information and history the student author had taken the trouble to learn.
When I get teenage papers advising Secretary Clinton on how to deal with North Korea, or Timothy Geitner and Ben Bernanke on how to help the U.S. economy correct itself, or telling the President what to do about energy, if these papers substitute opinion for research into these exceedingly complex and difficult problems, I tend not to publish them.
My preference is for students to "step away from that soapbox and no one gets hurt," that is, to encourage them, in their teen years, to read as many nonfiction books as they can, to learn how little they understand about the problems of the past and present, and to defer their pronouncements on easy solutions to them until they really know what they are talking about and have learned at least something about the mysterious workings of unintended consequences, just for a start.
Since 1987, I have published more than 860 exemplary history research papers by secondary students from 36 countries (see www.tcr.org for examples), and I admire them for their work, but the ones I like best have had some well-earned modesty to go along with their serious scholarship.
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"How can I help to get these kids a Lapdesk?" - I get this question all the time from my friends and classmates. And I want to have a good answer. An actionable, simple answer such as: "Go to our website, choose a school from the database and buy a Lapdesk for them."So how can our company make this happen? One of my main goals this summer is to launch an online initiative and to develop a plan for scaling it up - creating a home for individual donors who will become "Lapdesk friends".
While our current website www.lapdesk.co.za is functional and rich in information, I want to take it to the next level: to turn it into a dynamic communications platform connecting Lapdesk's partners, sponsors and beneficiaries. I want to enable individuals to donate Lapdesks to a school of their choice and to track our progress - all online.
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In between summertime activities, recent Oregon High School graduate Erik VanderSanden is focusing on winter as he helps redesign a device that makes cross country skiing accessible to the disabled.VanderSanden spent his senior year assisting in the design and redesign of parts and items for Isthmus Engineering and Manufacturing of Madison through the Dane County Youth Apprenticeship Program.
In Dane County, nearly 130 students have participated this school year and into the summer, said Diane Kraus, school to career coordinator for the Dane County consortium of 16 school districts. The county program offers 11 program areas and the most popular right now are health care, information technology, automotive and biotechnology, said Kraus, adding that her program is always looking for more businesses that want to participate.
One of the items VanderSanden worked on for his apprenticeship is a device that allows people to sit while skiing. VanderSanden is now being retained as needed to finish up a prototype, which will be used by Isthmus to manufacture 100 more. The unit was originally designed by UW-Madison mechanical engineering students under professor Jay Martin through the Center for Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology, which is also known as UW-CREATe.
"I tried to optimize what they had already done ... and take it a step further than what they had time for in their class," said VanderSanden said.
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Madison Board of Education President Arlene Silveira, via email:
TO: MMSD Strategic Planning CommitteeMuch more on the Strategic Planning Process here.Good afternoon,
I am writing to provide you with a Board update on the MMSD strategic plan. Before getting into details, I again want to thank you for all of the time and effort you put into development of the plan. It is appreciated.
On July 21, the Board of Education held our second meeting to review the strategic planning document that you, our community-based strategic planning committee, submitted. The Board unanimously approved the following components of the new strategic plan. The mission, beliefs and parameters were approved with no changes to the plan you submitted. Some language in the strategic objectives was modified for clarity and completeness.
We have not yet approved any of the action plans.
- Mission (see below)
- Beliefs (http://drupal.madison.k12.wi.us/files/strategic%20plan%20complete%20doc%20REV%20june%209.pdf Page 4)
- Parameters (http://drupal.madison.k12.wi.us/files/strategic%20plan%20complete%20doc%20REV%20june%209.pdfPage 4)
- Strategic Objectives (see below)
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Related: Janet Mertz on Teaching Hiring criteria.
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At 50, Paula Lopez Crespin doesn't fit the Teach for America demographic of high-achieving college senior. The program rarely draws adults eligible for AARP membership. In fact, just 2 percent of recruits are over 30.But what Ms. Crespin lacks in youth, she makes up for in optimism, idealism and what those in Teach for America call "relentless pursuit of results." Ms. Crespin beat out tens of thousands of applicants to get where she is: fresh off her first year teaching math and science at Cole Arts and Science Academy in a gang-riddled section of Denver.
Many friends thought she was crazy to give up a career in banking for a $32,000 pay cut teaching in an urban elementary school. But the real insanity, Ms. Crespin insists, would have been remaining in a job she "just couldn't stomach anymore," and surrendering a dream of doing "something meaningful with my life."
These days, crazy never looked so normal. Teaching has always been a top choice for a second career. Of the 60,000 new teachers hired last year, more than half came from another line of work, according to the National Center for Education Information. Most bypassed traditional teacher education (for career changers, a two-year master's degree) for fast-track programs like Teach for America. But unemployment, actual or feared, is now causing professionals who dismissed teaching early on to think better of its security, flexibility (summers off, the chance to be home with children) and pension. Four of Ms. Crespin's colleagues at Cole are career changers, ages 46 to 54, including a former information technology executive and a psychologist.
Teach for America, the teacher-training program that has evolved into a Peace Corps alternative for a generation bred on public service, is highly competitive and becoming more so: this year, a record 35,178 applied -- a 42 percent increase over 2008 -- to fill 4,100 slots. Eleven percent of all new Ivy League graduates applied.
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Yet try to find any mention of charter schools in the Madison School District's new strategic plan and you'll feel like you're reading a "Where's Waldo?" book. You almost need a magnifying lens to find the one fleeting reference in the entire 85-page document. And the words "charter school" are completely absent from the strategic plan's lengthy and important calls for action.I agree. I believe that diffused governance, in other words a substantive move away from the current top down, largely "one size fits all" governance model within the Madison public schools is essential.It's more evidence that much of liberal Madison clings to an outdated phobia of charter schools. And that attitude needs to change.
Nearly 10 percent of Wisconsin's public schools are charters. That ranks Wisconsin among the top five states. Yet Madison is below the national average of 5 percent.
Charter schools are public schools free from many regulations to try new things. Parents also tend to have more say.
Yet charters are held accountable for achievement and can easily be shut down by sponsoring districts if they don't produce results within a handful of years.
One well-known Madison charter school is Nuestro Mundo, meaning "Our World" in Spanish. It immerses kindergartners, no matter their native language, in Spanish. English is slowly added until, by fifth grade, all students are bilingual. My daughter attends Nuestro Mundo.
It was a battle to get this charter school approved. But Nuestro Mundo's popularity and success have led the district to replicate its dual-language curriculum at a second school without a charter.
The School Board has shot down at least two charter school proposals in recent years, including one for a "Studio School" emphasizing arts and technology.
Madison School Board President Arlene Silveira told me Friday she supports adding charter schools to the district's action plans in at least two places: under a call for more "innovative school structures," and as part of a similar goal seeking heightened attention to "diverse learning styles."
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The Madison School Board discussed the proposed Strategic Plan [PDF] last evening. Listen to this discussion via this 85MB mp3 audio file. Much more on the proposed Strategic Plan here. Some recent written questions from the Board to the Administration can be found here.
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Education Gadfly via a kind reader's email:
What drew you to working in the education field and what path did you take to end up where you are now?I was in college during the LA riots of 1992, and seeing how quickly our society could pull apart at the seams really made me want to focus on addressing the underlying inequalities that produce such fragile ties in the first place. I was doing a lot of work with Habitat for Humanity in inner city Boston at the time, and that in turn led me to focus my undergrad studies on affordable housing and the politics of exclusionary zoning in the suburbs of Boston. After a diversion to grad school overseas, I landed back in New Haven, Connecticut for a stint of couch-surfing with friends while I finished up a doctoral dissertation on the impact of government funding on non-profit housing providers. I then took all that book learning and put it to the test by signing on to the management team that was charged with turning around the New Haven Housing Authority from the brink of receivership. It just so happened that one of those friends whose couch I'd been staying on was Dacia Toll, the founder of the Achievement First network of charter schools--and so I got a unique perspective on the incredible power of these schools to transform their students' lives because so many of her kids were coming right out of the very same housing developments that I was managing. Rewarding as it was to help the housing authority's residents reclaim their communities from years of neglect, once I began to appreciate how powerful schools could be in turning the cycle of poverty on its head, I was hooked.
And so about five years ago I was fortunate to connect with ConnCAN's founding Board Chair, Jon Sackler. Together with an array of business, community and higher education leaders we founded ConnCAN on the premise that we need more than pockets of excellence to close Connecticut's worst-in-the-nation achievement gap. We need statewide policies that allow educational innovations like Teach for America or Dacia's schools to spread far and wide. And those policies will never be enacted unless we create the political will for them by building a movement of education reformers. We've been at it ever since, from the early days when it was just me and my dog working out of my house to today, when we've got a fantastic team of ten, and we're well on our way to building a powerful, statewide movement for education reform.
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Kim Davidson lives in Bonita, Calif., a San Diego suburb hit hard by tumbling property values. Earlier this year, she made the best of a bad situation and appealed her tax assessment. The county reduced her annual tax bill by more than $1,000 to $3,500."I did the whole thing online and walked [my application] down to the mailbox, and a month and a half later, I learned I saved all that money," says Ms. Davidson, a 44-year-old account manager for a business consulting firm, who purchased the home last year. "It was incredible."
Tens of thousands of homeowners across the country are trying to wring something positive from an epic real-estate crash. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland, hit hard by rising unemployment and foreclosures, nearly 23,000 property owners applied for property-tax reductions this year, up from an annual average of 1,700. Appeals in California's Sacramento County soared to 12,000 in 2008 from a typical rate of 1,800 a year earlier.
The number of property owners seeking a tax reduction in Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, soared to 6,000 this year from about 1,000 annually in recent years. About three-quarters of those who filed appeals succeeded in having their valuations lowered, most by 30% to 40%, county officials say. The county already had reduced valuations across the board for the vast majority of its residential property owners, says Michele Shafe, assistant director of the Clark County Assessor's office. She said staffers had to work overtime and Saturdays to keep up with demand for reassessments.
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via a TJ Mertz and Jackie Woodruff email: July 15, 2009
The school referendum approved overwhelmingly by Madison Metropolitan School District voters in November 2008 was based on a "Partnership Plan" that promised to maintain educational quality, initiate a community-wide strategic planning process, and mitigate the impact on property tax-payers in a variety of ways.
While the school district remains committed to the principles of this Partnership Plan, with the uncertain economy many things have changed since November. Most significantly, the recently enacted state budget has left MMSD facing what now looks like a $9 million reduction in state aid as well as requiring an almost $3 million reduction in expenditures for the 2009-10 school year.
As the MMSD Board of Education seeks ways to address the shortfalls created by the state budget, Community and Schools Together (CAST) believes it is important that the community recognize that this problem was created by state officials, not local decisions. The reductions in revenues and in funding for targeted programs (via categorical aids) will impact every district in the state. Madison is one of about 100 districts that have had their general state aid cut by 15%, but almost all districts are experiencing significant reductions in state support and will be contemplating higher than anticipated property tax increases.
These cuts come after 16 years of inadequate funding, annual cuts in most districts as well as reductions of the state's portion of education costs in recent years. This recent state budget moves us further away from the sustainable, equitable and adequate educational investments that are needed to keep Madison and Wisconsin strong and competitive.
It is also important that the community understand that the tax and revenue projections in the Partnership Plan and those used in the preliminary district budget passed in May were good projections made in good faith based on the best available information. That preliminary budget strengthened education and held property tax mil rate increase to 1¢ (far below the 11¢ increase anticipated prior to the referendum).
In the coming months the Board of Education must find ways to meet the shortfalls created by the state budget. There are no good choices.
These choices involve some combination re-budgeting and re-allocating, potential new cuts, use of the district's recently growing fund balance, temporarily employing targeted stimulus monies, or increasing the local tax levy. CAST urges the Board to retain their commitment to quality education and community involvement. We also ask the community to take advantage of opportunities to let all our state and local elected officials know that Madison values education.
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Community and Schools Together (CAST) is a grass roots organization dedicated to securing sustainable, adequate and equitable public education investments in Madison and Wisconsin.
(Contact) CAST Co-Chairs:
Thomas J. Mertz - 608-255-1542, Carol Carstensen - 608-255-8441, Troy Dassler -- 608-241-5183
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The right and wrong ways to get more poor youngsters into the world's great universitiesLOTS of rich people and crummy state schools, especially in the big cities where well-off folk tend to live: these common features of America and Britain help explain the prominence in both countries of an elite tier of private schools. Mostly old, some with fat endowments, places like Eton, Harrow and Phillips Exeter have done extraordinarily well. Fees at independent schools have doubled in real terms over the past 25 years and waiting lists have lengthened. Even in the recession, they are proving surprisingly resilient (see article). A few parents are pulling out, but most are soldiering on and plenty more are clamouring to get their children in.
Row, row together
All sorts of class-based conspiracy theories exist to explain the success of such institutions, but the main reason why they thrive in a more meritocratic world is something much more pragmatic: their ability to get people into elite universities. For Britain and America also have the world's best universities. Look at any of the global rankings and not only do the Ivy League and Oxbridge monopolise the top of the tree, British and (especially) American colleges dominate most of the leading 100 places. This summer graduates will struggle to find jobs, so a degree from a world-famous name like Berkeley or the London School of Economics will be even more valuable than usual. The main asset of the private schools is their reputation for getting children into those good universities.
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BBC:
The Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found adult obesity rates rose in 23 of the 50 states, but fell in none.
In addition, the percentage of obese and overweight children is at or above 30% in 30 states.The report warns widespread obesity is fuelling rates of chronic disease, and is responsible for a large, and growing chunk of domestic healthcare costs.
Obesity is linked to a range of health problems, including heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.
Dr Jeff Levi, TFAH executive director, said: "Our health care costs have grown along with our waist lines. "The obesity epidemic is a big contributor to the skyrocketing health care costs in the US.
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Transitioning from full-time student to working professional is challenging enough, but in this turbulent job market, what's a student to do? Our experts have help
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Charles J. Sykes, Dumbing Down Our Kids
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995, pp. 245-247
Ironically, "outcomes" were first raised to prominence by leaders of the conservative educational reform movement of the 1980s. Championed by Chester E. Finn, Jr. among others, reformers argued that the obsession with inputs (dollars spent, books bought, staff hired) focused on the wrong end of the educational pipeline. Reformers insisted that schools could be made more effective and accountable by shifting emphasis to outcomes (what children actually learned). Finn's emphasis on outcomes was designed explicitly to make schools more accountable by creating specific and verifiable educational objectives in subjects like math, science, history, geography, and English. In retrospect, the intellectual debate over accountability was won by the conservatives. Indeed, conservatives were so successful in advancing their case that the term "outcomes" has become a virtually irresistible tool for academic reform.The irony is that, in practice, the educational philosophies known as Outcome Based Education have little if anything in common with those original goals. To the contrary, OBE--with its hostility to competition, traditional measures of progress, and to academic disciplines in general--can more accurately be described as part of a counterreformation, a reaction against those attempts to make schools more accountable and effective. The OBE being sold to schools represents, in effect, a semantic hijacking.
"The conservative education reform of the 1980s wanted to focus on outcomes (i.e. knowledge gained) instead of inputs (i.e. dollars spent)," notes former Education Secretary William Bennett. "The aim was to ensure greater accountability. What the education establishment has done is to appropriate the term but change the intent." [emphasis added] Central to this semantic hijacking is OBE's shift of outcomes from cognitive knowledge to goals centering on values, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings. As an example of a rigorous cognitive outcome (the sort the original reformers had in mind), Bennett cites the Advanced Placement Examinations, which give students credit for courses based on their knowledge and proficiency in a subject area, rather than on their accumulated "seat-time" in a classroom.
In contrast, OBE programs are less interested in whether students know the origins of the Civil War or the author of The Tempest than whether students have met such outcomes as "establishing priorities to balance multiple life roles" (a goal in Pennsylvania) or "positive self-concept" (a goal in Kentucky). Where the original reformers aimed at accountability, OBE makes it difficult if not impossible to objectively measure and compare educational progress. In large part, this is because instead of clearly stated, verifiable outcomes, OBE goals are often diffuse, fuzzy, and ill-defined--loaded with educationist jargon like "holistic learning," "whole-child development," and "interpersonal competencies."
Where original reformers emphasized schools that work, OBE is experimental. Despite the enthusiasm of educationists and policymakers for OBE, researchers from the University of Minnesota concluded that "research documenting its effects is fairly rare." At the state level, it was difficult to find any documentation of whether OBE worked or not and the information that was available was largely subjective. Professor Jean King of the University of Minnesota's College of Education describes support for the implementation of OBE as being "almost like a religion--that you believe in this and if you believe in it hard enough, it will be true." And finally, where the original reformers saw an emphasis on outcomes as a way to return to educational basics, OBE has become, in Bennett's words, "a Trojan Horse for social engineering, an elementary and secondary school version of the kind of 'politically correct' thinking that has infected our colleges and universities."
=============
"Teach by Example"
Will Fitzhugh [founder]
Consortium for Varsity Academics® [2007]
The Concord Review [1987]
Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes [1995]
National Writing Board [1998]
TCR Institute [2002]
730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24
Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 USA
978-443-0022; 800-331-5007
www.tcr.org; fitzhugh@tcr.org
Varsity Academics®
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via email a kind reader's email:
[LFB Paper 812]Governor/Joint Finance: Provide that a person who is a citizen of another country is exempt from nonresident tuition if that person meets all of the following requirements: (a) the person graduated from a Wisconsin high school or received a high school graduation equivalency declaration from this state; (b) the person was continuously present in this state for at least three years following the first day of attending a Wisconsin high school or immediately preceding the receipt of a declaration of equivalency of high school graduation; and (c) the person enrolls in a UW System institution and provides the institution with an affidavit that the person has filed or will file an application for a permanent resident visa with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as soon as the person is eligible to do so. Specify that this provision would first apply to persons who enroll for the semester or session following the bill's effective date.
Please make the call!
Please call your legislators today.To locate your legislators online, visit:
http://www.legis.wisconsin.gov/w3asp/waml/waml.aspx
You can also call the legislative hotline at 1-800-362-9472Thank you for your participation to pass the tuition bill
Sincerely
Rafael Gomez
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They are in their 20s, well-educated, ambitious and eager to improve the public schools in Milwaukee.Welcome, Teach for America members. You have your work cut out for you.
On Friday, the group's inaugural Milwaukee class completed its first week of training in the program, which recruits high-achieving, recent college graduates to teach in high poverty, low-income schools. The 38 "corps members," committed to a two-year stint, met at Marquette University.
The group met teachers who already are part of MPS. They learned about the city's politics, community and educational system. And they worked on essential skills: classroom management; lesson planning; how to control but also empower; how to apologize when they make mistakes.
"Nobody is absolutely going to be the perfect teacher," Garret Bucks, the executive director for TFA in Milwaukee, told a room full of well-dressed and well-spoken young adults, all with pens at the ready.
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This is a lucky thing for the Ventura County Public Libraries -- because among Mr. Bradbury's passions, none burn quite as hot as his lifelong enthusiasm for halls of books. His most famous novel, "Fahrenheit 451," which concerns book burning, was written on a pay typewriter in the basement of the University of California, Los Angeles, library; his novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes" contains a seminal library scene.Mr. Bradbury frequently speaks at libraries across the state, and on Saturday he will make his way here for a benefit for the H. P. Wright Library, which like many others in the state's public system is in danger of shutting its doors because of budget cuts.
"Libraries raised me," Mr. Bradbury said. "I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years."
Property tax dollars, which provide most of the financing for libraries in Ventura County, have fallen precipitously, putting the library system roughly $650,000 in the hole. Almost half of that amount is attributed to the H. P. Wright Library, which serves roughly two-thirds of this coastal city about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
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My father and I were waiting in the director's office for our tour to begin. With a recent haircut, he looked almost dapper despite the two hearing aids.I admired the way he'd put together a life since my mother died. He had good friends, played cards several nights a week, faithfully attended services at his synagogue, shopped and cooked for himself. With prescriptions to keep his cholesterol and blood sugar in line, he was relatively healthy.
Yet how long could we be this fortunate? He was 83 then. Sooner or later, my sister and I knew, he'd need more help.
Nobody wants to have to face such questions. Yet we want to do the best we can for the people who did the best they could for us. Maybe this assisted-living place was where Dad would want to be, when the time came.
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Your guide to understanding education in Illinois [PDF Bingo Cards], via a kind reader's email, referring to the Madison School District's proposed Strategic Plan:
You and a friend can now pass the time at a progressivist education seminar with these handy EDUCRAT BINGO cards. Decide your game beforehand, such as simple five-in-a-row for a "brown bag" lunch, all the way to a coverall for an in-service. Cover a square when you hear the matching catch-phrase. Good luck!
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Marie Goodloe-Johnson (Superintendent of Seattle Schools):
AT Seattle Public Schools, our primary goal is to provide an education that prepares each student to graduate from high school ready for college, careers and life.Elliot Ransom, a National Merit scholar from Ballard High School, plans to study engineering; Kenny Setiao dropped out of Cleveland High School, but returned to receive a scholarship to South Seattle Community College; and Nicole Davis won the prestigious National Merit Scholarship. The graduation of these and thousands of other students from Seattle Public Schools is a critical measure of our success as educators.
If college-ready graduation for all students is the goal, how do we get there? First, we have to admit that what we have been doing is not working for all students. Today, almost four in 10 students in Seattle don't graduate on time. In today's world, the benefits of postsecondary education have never been greater.
Second, we must recognize that getting ready for college starts long before students enter ninth grade. When students meet critical milestones -- entering kindergarten ready to learn, reading at grade level in third grade, taking algebra in eighth grade, and passing the WASL in 10th grade -- they are more likely to make it to graduation day. Our strategic plan [636K PDF], called Excellence for All, is our guide to reach this goal.
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Via a kind reader's email:
Culturally Relevant/Cultural Relevance 40The free Adobe Reader includes a text search field. Simply open the proposed document (773K PDF) and start searching.Standards 24
Content 21
Measure (including measurement) 28
DPI 2
TAG 17
Special Education 8
ELL 2 (it comes up 45 times, but the other 43 were things like ZELLmer)
inclusion 0
differentiation 0
science 2
mathematics 0
literacy 4
reading 7 (of these, three were in the appendix with the existing 'plan')
African American 7
Hmong 1 (and not in any of the action plans)
Latino or Latina 0
Hispanic 0
Spanish speaking or Spanish speakers 0
Anyone see a problem here?????
The Proposed Strategic Plan, along with some comments, can be viewed here.
Interested readers might have a look at this Fall, 2005 Forum on Poverty organized by Rafael Gomez (audio/video). Former Madison School Board member Ray Allen participated. Ray mentioned that his daughter was repeatedly offered free breakfasts, even though she was fed at home prior to being dropped off at school. The event is worth checking out.
I had an opportunity to have lunch with Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad last summer. Prior to that meeting, I asked a number of teachers and principals what I should pass along. One of the comments I received is particularly relevant to Madison's proposed Strategic Plan:
Notes and links on Madison's Strategic Planning Process.I know these are general, but they are each so glaringly needy of our attention and problem solving efforts.
- Curriculum: greater rigor
- Discipline: a higher bar, much higher bar, consistent expectations district wide, a willingness to wrestle with the negative impact of poverty on the habits of mind of our students and favor pragmatic over ideological solutions
- Teacher inservice: at present these are insultingly infantile
- Leadership: attract smart principals that are more entrepreneurial and less bureaucratic, mindful of the superintendent's "inner circle" and their closeness to or distance from the front lines (the classrooms)
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bright lime-green T-shirts, groups of parents, students and teachers of the 16 elementary schools in Woodbridge Township and residents in the surrounding areas volunteered their time over the weekend to be part of making the routes to their individual schools safer.Top and above: Teacher Beth Heagen, from Woodbine Avenue Elementary School No. 23 in Avenel, leads Bhavika Shah and her children Hetri, 8, a third-grader, and Ishika, 6, a firstgrader, as they travel through the streets that they and other students walk each day to get to school, looking for unsafe conditions as well as positive ones.
Dr. Wansoo Im, president of Vertices LLC, a GIS consulting firm, and a professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, led the group of a dozen or so people at Woodbine Avenue Elementary School No. 23 in Avenel to kick off the Discovering Safe Routes to School event, which was a walkability assessment, on May 30.Each person was given a pedometer and took a map of the route, a survey and a digital camera to take photographs of what each one felt needed improvement, such as implementation of sidewalks, dangerous street crossings and overgrown shrubbery, and also what the participants felt worked well in the area.
"This event is an outgrowth of the walk we took with former Olympic racewalker [Mark Fenton] last year," said Mayor John E. McCormac. "Our job as public officials is to keep the kids safe. What is safe to us might not be what is safe to an 8-year-old kid. The kids walk these routes every day."
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From a recent post on the Madison United for Academic Excellence (MUAE) listserve:
There is an effort under way to rewrite the Wisconsin math state standards. Comments from the public are invited until this coming Monday (June 15).
Some math professors at UW-Madison believe the draft could use some improvement and encourage folks to review the standards and submit comments via a survey all of which can found at: http://dpi.wi.gov/cal/standards-revisions.html
Another website with standards that can be used for comparison is: http://www.achieve.org/node/479 Achieve is one of the organizations that are involved in drafting the
national standards-to-be. The governor has agreed to enroll in the group of States that will align the standards of the state with the national standards the Obama administration is pushing for.
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When states and counties cut their budgets, school districts usually lose funding. And of course, that's happening across the country right now. I'm sure there's plenty of screaming at school board and PTA meetings, but some schools and communities are focusing their energy in a different way. They're raising the money themselves.Case in point: Coralwood School in Decatur, Georgia. Coralwood is a cool school for several reasons. It's the only public school in Georgia dedicated to special needs children 3-6 years old. The kids with special needs learn in classrooms together with other children.
Plus, Coralwood has its own foundation with a Director of Development whose full-time job is to raise money for the school from the community. That's pretty unusual. Most schools or districts rely on parent volunteers to do fundraising. Even the most dedicated parents don't have time to do the job properly.
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Madison Metropolitan School District, via an Ann Wilson email.
Attached to this e-mail is the Proposed Strategic Plan and a cover memorandum to the Board of Education. We invite all of you to the June 15 Special Board of Education meeting at 6:00 p.m. The Plan, along with a way to respond, is on the district's website (www.mmsd.org) on the home page, under Hot Topics. This is the direct link:Dan Nerad's memorandum to the Madison School Board [PDF] and the most recent revision of the Strategic Plan [PDF].http://drupal.madison.k12.wi.us/node/2246
Thanks to all of you for your hard work and willingness to participate.
Much more on the Madison School District's Strategic Planning Process here.
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Madison School District Superintendent Dan Nerad via email:
Dr. Mertz-Thank you for sharing your thoughts regarding this critical issue in our middle schools. We will continue to follow the conversation and legislative process regarding hiring Teach for America and Math for America candidates. We have similar concerns to those laid out by UW Professors Hewson and Knuth (http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/forum/451220). In particular they stated, "Although subject-matter knowledge is essential to good teaching, the knowledge required for teaching is significantly different from that used by math and science professionals." This may mean that this will not be a cost effective or efficient solution to a more complex problem than many believe it to be. These candidates very well may need the same professional learning opportunities that we are working with the UW to create for our current staff. The leading researchers on this topic are Ball, Bass and Hill from the University of Michigan. More information on their work can be found at (http://sitemaker.umich.edu/lmt/home). We are committed to improving the experience our students have in our mathematics class and will strive to hire the most qualified teachers and continue to strengthen our existing staff.
Dan Nerad
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After channeling their complaints about school lunch into an effort to make a real difference, students at Onalaska High School are enjoying healthier, better tasting choices--not to mention some national attention for the improvements they've made.In 2007-08, Amy Yin, then a junior at Onalaska and the student representative to the local school board, was hearing grumbling from students about the elimination of favorite food choices. According to the Onalaska Holmen Courier-Life, it was Principal Peter Woerpel who first planted the idea of starting a Student Nutrition Advisory Committee. Yin, a high-achieving Presidential Scholar semifinalist who got a perfect score on the ACT exam, ran with the concept, and it took off. The committee was a devoted group--meeting multiple hours every week, including on weekends.
Although some of the lost favorites didn't return--the chocolate chip muffins, for example, no longer met nutrition standards--the students were able to make an important impact. As they learned more about nutrition and the school lunch program, they were able to work with the school to provide choices that were both healthier and more appealing to the student body. These days, Onalaska High School serves fresh fruit instead of just canned, and offers a salad bar that became especially popular after the addition of ingredients in three different colors. Lunch participation and consumption in general is up, too.
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News from The Concord Review:
We are looking for the best history research papers we can find by secondary students from anywhere in the English-speaking world. Papers may be on any historical topic, ancient or modern, domestic or foreign, and should be 4,000-6,000 words or more [one of our Emerson Prize winners this year had 15,292 words on the Soviet-Afghan War by Colin Rhys Hill of Atlanta, Georgia...see our website], and with Chicago-style (Turabian) endnotes and bibliography. Authors should send a printed copy to the address below, and may include a Macintosh disk with the paper in Microsoft Word.fitzhugh@tcr.orgWe have published 857 exemplary history papers by high school students from 44 states and 35 other countries since 1987. There is a submission form on our website and 60 examples of papers we have published. The submission fee is $40, to The Concord Review, and the author receives the next four issues of the journal. We publish about 7% of the papers we receive.
John Silber of Boston University wrote that: "The Concord Review is one of the most imaginative, creative, and supportive initiatives in public education. It is a wonderful incentive to high school students to take scholarship and writing seriously." Denis Doyle wrote that: "One of the most remarkable publications in American education sails proudly on though it is virtually unsung and almost unnoticed except among a small coterie of cognoscenti: The Concord Review. It is time once again to sing its praises and bring it to the attention of the larger audience it so richly deserves."
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Good afternoon. We'd like to invite you to Memorial High tomorrow afternoon for a discussion hosted by our Equity Team. Professor Adam Gamoran, Interim Dean of the UW School of Education, will be presenting paper titled Tracking and Inequality: New Directions for Research and Practice. His article is attached. We will begin at 4:15pm and should end around:15pm, and we'll meet in the Wisconsin Neighborhood Center, which is in the Southwest corner of the building. Please park on the Mineral Point Rd. side of the building, and enter through the doors closest to Gammon Rd. There will signs to direct you from there. Have a good week, and we hope to see you tomorrow afternoon...Jay
Jay Affeldt
James Madison Memorial High School
Professional Development School Coordinator
Project REAL SLC Grant Coordinator
201 South Gammon Road
Madison, WI 53717
jaffeldt@madison.k12.wi.us
608-442-2203 fax
608-663-6182 office
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Before the first lunch period begins at Oconomowoc High School, students sidle up to see what chef Brian Shoemake is cooking."Chicken pasta broccoli bowl," Shoemake says in answer to an inquiry. "I'll get you to eat your broccoli."
Well, maybe not that student. But in the 15 minutes that ensue, Shoemake manages to fill the bowls of at least 60 others with steaming rotini, strips of chicken breast, their choice of Alfredo sauce and, yes, freshly cooked broccoli spears.
The addition of Shoemake to the lunch lineup this school year is part of a larger effort at the school.
Like a number of schools throughout the state, Oconomowoc High School is trying to tackle that seemingly intractable barrier in the fight to improve childhood nutrition: the school lunch.
"Student tastes have changed so much in the last 10 years," said Brenda Klamert, director of child nutrition services for the Oconomowoc Area School District. "They're looking for healthy foods."
Schools have been slow to meet the demand.
Sure, many have added salad bars. But most lunches remain high in saturated fat and cholesterol and low in fiber- and nutrient-rich food, according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The Washington-based group advocates a more vegetarian approach.
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Dear Superintendent Nerad and members of the Board of Education:Ed Hughes comments over at Madison United for Academic Excellence:
To address as quickly as possible the MMSD's need for more middle school teachers with outstanding content knowledge of mathematics, we, the undersigned, urge you to consider filling any vacancies that occur in the District's middle schools for the coming academic year with applicants who majored in the mathematical sciences or related fields (e.g., statistics, computer science, physics) in college, but may be currently deficient in teaching pedagogy. You might advertise nationally in appropriate places that applications from such candidates would be welcome. In recent years, many outstanding graduates with such backgrounds went into the computing, consulting, and financial industries. However, in the current economic climate, such jobs are much less available, especially to new college graduates. Thus, jobs in the teaching profession may be viewed much more favorably now by folks trained in the mathematical sciences despite the significantly lower salary. One indication of this is the fact that applications to Teach for America were up 42% this year. Teach for America had to reject over 30,000 applicants this spring, including hundreds of graduates from UW-Madison, due to the limited numbers they can train and place. Undoubtedly, some of these applicants were math majors who would be happy to live in Madison. Math for America, a similar program that only accepts people who majored in the mathematical sciences, likely also had to turn away large numbers of outstanding applicants. Possibly, the MMSD could contact Teach for America and Math for America inquiring whether there might be a mechanism by which your advertisement for middle school math teachers could be forwarded to some of the best of their rejects. As these programs do, the MMSD could provide these new hires with a crash course in teaching pedagogy over the summer before they commence work in the fall. They could be hired conditionally subject to completing all of the requirements for state teacher certification within 2 years and a commitment to teach in the MMSD for at least 3-5 years.
While the District's proposal to provide additional content knowledge to dozens of its current middle school teachers of mathematics might gradually improve the delivery of mathematics to the District's students, it would take numerous years to implement, involve considerable additional expense, and may still not totally solve the long-term need for math-qualified teachers, especially in view of the continuing wave of retirements. The coincidence of baby boomer retirements with the current severe economic recession provides a rare opportunity to fill our middle schools now with outstanding mathematics teachers for decades to come, doing so at much lower cost to the District since one would be hiring new, B.A.-level teachers rather than retraining experienced, M.A.-level ones. Thus, we urge you to act on this proposal within the next few weeks, in possible.
Sincerely,
It is interesting to note that state law provides that "A school board that employs a person who holds a professional teaching permit shall ensure that no regularly licensed teacher is removed from his or her position as a result of the employment of persons holding permits."
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Here's a quiz: Which of the following rejected more than 30,000 of the nation's top college seniors this month and put hundreds more on a waitlist? a) Harvard Law School; b) Goldman Sachs; or c) Teach for America.
If you've spent time on university campuses lately, you probably know the answer. Teach for America -- the privately funded program that sends college grads into America's poorest school districts for two years -- received 35,000 applications this year, up 42% from 2008. More than 11% of Ivy League seniors applied, including 35% of African-American seniors at Harvard. Teach for America has been gaining applicants since it was founded in 1990, but its popularity has exploded this year amid a tight job market.
So poor urban and rural school districts must be rejoicing, right? Hardly. Union and bureaucratic opposition is so strong that Teach for America is allotted a mere 3,800 teaching slots nationwide, or a little more than one in 10 of this year's applicants. Districts place a cap on the number of Teach for America teachers they will accept, typically between 10% and 30% of new hires. In the Washington area, that number is about 25% to 30%, but in Chicago, former home of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, it is an embarrassing 10%.
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Faced with one of the most challenging fund-raising environments anyone can remember, colleges and universities are appealing to donors to help meet the swelling demand for financial aid.
Using such demand "as a fund-raising tool totally makes sense in this environment," said Richard J. Krasney, a wealth manager and philanthropy adviser. "More than ever, people want to know that their money is being used to address current needs."
Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., has increased its financial aid budget for the coming school year by 7.5 percent, to $21.5 million, a point its fund-raisers are making to donors.
"The incoming student body for the fall of 2009 will have higher financial needs than in the past," said Clay Ballantine, Hampshire's chief advancement officer. "I tell donors these are excellent students and we want to take financial concerns out of their decision-making process, and we're looking to you to provide a gift that will help us do that."
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Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad will help pay for a New York-based arts program that benefits poor and minority students -- and he said Friday that he and other donors would provide similar funding here if the Los Angeles school district can better manage its own arts programs, especially the new downtown arts high school.The Broad Foundation has pledged to contribute $425,000 so the Juilliard School can allow dozens of public school students to receive up to four years of free musical training. Broad said he decided to make the gift after reading a newspaper article about the program canceling auditions in a tight budget year.
"It really moved me," Broad said. "I was saddened they were going to cut out these minority kids."
But Broad also made a point about problem-plagued Central L.A. Area High School No. 9, the high-concept arts specialty school that is scheduled to open in the fall even though it still lacks an executive director, a permanent principal, a staff and an arts curriculum.
"It's clear that if you have a quality arts high school, especially one that is educating kids from minority communities, there will be philanthropic funds forthcoming, as evidenced from our willingness to give money to Juilliard," Broad said.
Such funding will be crucial for the new campus, he said, adding that it will cost more to run than other public high schools. "It will need some philanthropic support, not only from us but from others," he said.
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Mathiak said the district needs to restructure how it approaches school funding.
"We will not cut something for another," Mathiak said. "We need to change the way we use resources and find other ways to manage them without hurting people. We have to make things more efficient."
The candidates agreed that schools need to reach out to parents of minorities and form more community partnerships with businesses and groups.
Silveira said schools need to cultivate trust, understand what works for parents and how to make them comfortable. She cited south-side Franklin Elementary, which has parent engagement groups, as a positive example that other schools should emulate.
"It's very important to remember there isn't one model, we have to develop trust and understanding between schools and parents," Silveira said.
One area where Gors and Silveira differed greatly was on the need for continuity in leadership.
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Education Secretary Arne Duncan says big city mayors should take control of their school systems.Fascinating: Duncan is a former Chicago Public Schools CEO. His governance point is well worth discussin.
Duncan said Tuesday that there's too much turnover among superintendents in cities where the mayor is not in charge of the schools. He says strong leadership is needed to carry out reform in big cities, where children are struggling the most.
Currently, mayors control the public schools in only a few cities while most others are run by school boards. Duncan told the U.S. Conference of Mayors that if the number doesn't rise, he will have failed as secretary.
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Advancing Wisconsin is leafletting (and profiling voters with handheld devices) for Wisconsin DPI Candidate Tony Evers (opposed by Ruth Fernandez) (watch a recent debate), Supreme Court Candidate Shirley Abrahamson (opposed by Randy Koschnick) and Dane County Incumbent Executive Kathleen Falk (opposed by Nancy Mistele).
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The U.S. Library of Congress audio archives are becoming even more accessible now that the recordings are being added to Apple's iTunes Store. The move is part of an effort to bring some 15.3 million digital recordings to the public in an easy to access manner.
Matt Raymond, the Library of Congress director of communications, said "Our broad strategy is to 'fish where the fish are,' and to use the sites that give our content added value -- in the case of iTunes, ubiquity, portability, etc."
So far, there are about 39 podcasts available, and more files are on the way, according to Macworld. The Library of Congress is also adding its video library to YouTube.
"These services are a place to start learning, but our agreements are not exclusive, so other services are certainly possible in the future," said Michelle Springer, Library Web Service Division digital initiatives project manager.
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Races for the Madison School Board, once among the most intense of local electoral competitions, have been a lot quieter in recent years. The more cooperative and functional character of the board, combined with a more responsive approach to community concerns, is confirmed by the fact that many voters are unaware that there is even a contest for one of the two seats that will be filled April 7.Watch or listen to a recent conversation with Arlene here.While Seat 2 incumbent Lucy Mathiak, a serious and engaged board member, is unopposed, School Board President Arlene Silveira faces Donald Gors for Seat 1.
We're glad that Gors, a parent and business owner, is making the race. It is good to have the competition. But even as he launched his run, Gors admitted, "I don't really know anything about the people on the board or where they stand."
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Most solicitations don't begin with the words "don't give," but that's the approach being used this year by the private Oakwood School in a clever, celebrity-packed appeal timed to its annual fundraising drive.In the 3 1/2-minute video, Danny DeVito, Jason Alexander, Steve Carell and other Hollywood stars voice such sentiments as "The economy is in the toilet, so don't give" and "You'd be stupid to give" before getting to the real point: "Unless you care about your children and their future," and "Unless you care about families who had a hard year and need some help with tuition."
Created by parent volunteers, the video is an example of the inventive methods private schools are using this spring to generate giving at a time when traditional benefactors may be hard-pressed themselves.
Oakwood's "Don't Give" campaign was a precursor to its major fundraiser, a star-studded event Saturday at The Lot in West Hollywood, featuring comedy, music and an auction. The video was meant to be an internal communication but was distributed on YouTube, said James Astman, Oakwood's head of school.
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West High School students will have a grand new entrance to come through next fall. But to help finance it, organizers are looking down the street and across the country -- to alumni.Later this month, about 20,000 West High graduates will find in their mailboxes a donation plea for "The Ash Street Project," a $400,000, front yard reconfiguration of a building that many consider a Near West Side landmark. Designed by Madison landscape architect Ken Saiki, a West High alum, the new entry will have a symmetrical, formal staircase, decorative walkway and performance area.
Referendum funds and grants will cover $250,000 to replace the school's crumbling steps and make the new entry comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. But it's up to West to raise another $150,000 to fund Saiki's design, a vision approved by a community committee, said Principal Ed Holmes.
"Technically the district money is enough to take down what we have and put it back the way it is," Holmes said. "It's time for a renovation, kind of a starting over. The Ash Street entrance is really the symbol and the image of West High School that people have had over the generations."
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Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 20, 2009 in Education News and Students:
An upstate New York high school student could teach a course in character to the bonus babies of AIG. Nicole Heise of Ithaca High School was one of The Concord Review's six winners of The Concord Review's Emerson Prize awards for excellence this year. But as EdWeek's Kathleen Kennedy Manzo tells the story, she sent back her prize, a check for $800, with this note:"Teach by Example""As you well know, for high school-aged scholars, a forum of this caliber and the incentives it creates for academic excellence are rare. I also know that keeping The Concord Review active requires resources. So, please allow me to put my Emerson award money to the best possible use I can imagine by donating it to The Concord Review so that another young scholar can experience the thrill of seeing his or her work published."
The Concord Review publishes research papers by high school scholars. It's a one-of-a-kind venue for its impressive young authors. Manzo notes TCR "has won praise from renowned historians, lawmakers, and educators, yet has failed to ever draw sufficient funding...It operates on a shoestring, as Founder and Publisher Will Fitzhugh reminds me often. Fitzhugh, who has struggled for years to keep the operation afloat, challenges students to do rigorous scholarly work and to delve deeply into history. His success at inspiring great academic work is juxtaposed against his failure to get anyone with money to take notice."
Young Ms. Heise noticed. Anyone else?
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Joe Quick:
Dear MMSD Advocate,Every two years, state government adopts a biennial budget that funds nearly every program in state government. Gov. Jim Doyle's budget mostly protects K-12, but many K-12 programs were cut by 1%. Due to the floundering national/state economy millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds for Wisconsin are being used to provide a one-time boost to state funding for schools over the next two years.
Short-term, there are some important items in the budget that will help MMSD; but long-term, little is being done to end the annual ritual of either going to referendum or determining what programs and services for students must be cut to balance the local budget.
In the two-year legislative cycle, April in odd years is probably the most important time to contact your legislator to advocate for school programs. Whether it's SAGE, the K-3 class size reduction program funded by the state, or funding for students in special education -- the biennial budget provides the resources.
If you want to advocate to protect school programs/services, please come to the State Budget Forum on April 1st (see attached flier [54K PDF]) to learn about the issues, receive information to help you with that advocacy and find out what is being done to bring about comprehensive school funding reform.
Please forward this information to others who might be interested. Hope to see you April 1st,
Joe Quick
Legislative Liaison/Communication Specialist
Madison Schools
608 663-1902
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via Laurel Cavalluzzo:
WHAT: Board of Education Candidate Forum
with Arlene Silveira Lucy Mathiak Donald GorsWHEN: April 4, 2009 10-noon
WHERE: Lakeview Public Library
2845 N Sherman Ave. [Map]
Madison, WI 53704 (608) 246-4547
Open to the publicLearn more about candidate's positions on issues important to our schools and our communities.
SPONSERED BY:
Lakewood Gardens Neighborhood Committee
WI Charter School Assn
Nuestro Mundo, Inc.
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Click above to watch, or CTRL-click to download this mpeg4 or mp3 audio file. You'll need Quicktime to view the video file.
Madison School Board President Arlene Silveira is up for re-election on April 7, 2009. Arlene graciously agreed to record this video conversation recently. We discussed her sense of where the Madison School District is in terms of:
Arlene's opponent on April 7, 2009 is Donald Gors. The Wisconsin State Journal recently posted a few notes on each candidate here.
I emailed Arlene, Donald Gors and Lucy Mathiak (who is running unopposed) regarding this video conversation. I hope to meet Lucy at some point over the next few weeks. I have not heard from Donald Gors.
Arlene and Lucy were first elected in April, 2006. There are many links along with video interviews of both here.
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Education Week "Curriculum Matters"
Kathleen Kennedy Manzo 17 March 2009:
It is difficult to figure why some education ventures attract impressive financial and political support, while others flounder despite their value to the field. For years, I've written about The Concord Review and the really amazing history research papers it publishes from high school authors/scholars.The Review has won praise from renowned historians, lawmakers, and educators, yet has failed to ever draw sufficient funding. The range of topics is as impressive as the volume of work by high school students: In 77 issues, the 846 published papers have covered topics from Joan of Arc to women's suffrage, from surgery during the Civil War to the history of laser technology. (The papers average more than 7,000 words, and all have been vetted for accuracy and quality. Many of the students do these research papers for the experience and knowledge they gain, not for school credit.)
But here's the kicker: It operates on a shoestring, as Founder and Publisher Will Fitzhugh reminds me often. Fitzhugh, who has struggled for years to keep the operation afloat, challenges students to do rigorous scholarly work and to delve deeply into history. His success at inspiring great academic work is juxtaposed against his failure to get anyone with money to take notice.
Well, if the grown-ups in the world have failed to recognize and reward the Review for its 22 years of contributions, the students themselves have not.
Fitzhugh has shared many of the letters he receives from students whose work has been published in The Concord Review over the years. Yesterday, he shared with me one of the most memorable of those letters, which arrived recently at his Sudbury, Massachusetts, office.
Nicole Heise won one of the Review's Emerson Prize awards for excellence this year. The senior at Ithaca High School in Upstate New York sent the check back, with this note:
"As you well know, for high school-aged scholars, a forum of this caliber and the incentives it creates for academic excellence are rare. I also know that keeping The Concord Review active requires resources. So, please allow me to put my Emerson award money to the best possible use I can imagine by donating it to The Concord Review so that another young scholar can experience the thrill of seeing his or her work published."
The prize was no pittance either. Each of the winners received $800, thanks to a $5,000 donation from Douglas B. Reeves, CEO of the Leadership and Learning Foundation in Salem, Massachusetts. Reeves, and a couple dozen member schools, are all that help Fitzhugh continue publishing. Now the student-scholars themselves are starting to pool their pennies.I keep wondering just what will it take for the Review to get the kind of attention, and support, it deserves? Maybe some of the Wall Street executives can follow Heise's lead and put some of those huge "retention awards" they've received--some at taxpayer expense--into this worthy cause, or at least donate it back to the U.S. Treasury.
Here's a complete list of the winners of the 2009 Emerson Prize, several of whom are now studying at some of the nation's top universities:
2009 Paul Armstrong, of Richard Montgomery High School, in Rockville, Maryland. (Fall 2007 issue: paper on the historical relationship between Poland and Lithuania)2009 Pamela Ban, of Thomas Worthington High School, in Worthington, Ohio, (Summer 2008 issue: paper on the stages of Chinese economic reform)
2009 Nicole Heise, of Ithaca High School in Ithaca, New York. (Winter 2007 issue: essay on the Tu Quoque defense at Nuremberg and after)
2009 Benjamin Loffredo, of the Fieldston School in the Bronx, New York. (Winter 2007 issue; paper on the Philippine War)
2009 Colin Sellers Harris, of Sidwell Friends School, in Washington, D.C. (Fall 2007 issue: essay on the United Arab Republic)
2009 Elize S. Zevitz, of the Prairie School, in Racine, Wisconsin. (Spring 2008 issue: paper on the Northern and Southern reactions to Uncle Tom's Cabin).
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When Trevor Patzer was growing up in Ketchum, Idaho, he received an unusual offer from family friend Ric Ohrstrom: get admitted to New Hampshire's prestigious St. Paul's School, and Mr. Ohrstrom would foot the entire bill for his schooling there.Mr. Patzer was accepted and graduated three years later. He says the experience of someone offering to pay for his high-school education had a profound effect on him, and the gift was always in the back of his mind, even as he moved to college and into the work world.
After graduating from Brown University, Mr. Patzer, now 35, headed off to Andersen Consulting to be a systems integration consultant. "It was that or investment banking," he says. But it didn't take him long to realize that there was more to life than "coding someone else's computers," he says. "I knew it wasn't the best fit for me. I'm a people person." Still, he kept plugging away in consulting for two more years.
During one of his vacations in 1998, he decided to visit Nepal and see "the biggest mountain in the world." While there, Mr. Patzer had another life-changing experience and it had little to do with the majestic awe of Mount Everest. His tour guide for the trip was Usha Acharya, an author and the wife of Nepal's former ambassador to the United Nations. While they took in various historic sites together, she talked to Mr. Patzer about the plight of poor children in Nepal. He decided on the spot that he wanted to fund the education of a Nepalese child, in the same spirit Mr. Ohrstrom had funded his education. When Mr. Patzer asked Ms. Acharya if she knew of such a child, she spoke of a young girl who could benefit from his philanthropy.
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Debra Gwartney was trying to escape a failed marriage when she moved from Tucson, Ariz., to Eugene, Ore., in the early '90s with her four daughters in tow. What the newly single mother didn't foresee was that, as she fled from her past to a different city and job, her relationship with her girls would be forever transformed, too. Enraged by the divorce and the move, her two oldest daughters, Amanda and Stephanie, soon ran away, seeking adventure on the streets and shelter in abandoned buildings with other teenagers like them.In "Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love," Gwartney relives the private desperation and shame of being a mother whose teenage daughters disappear for days at a time, only dropping in occasionally when no one else is home to stock up on supplies, leaving empty beer cans, fetid clothes, empty cigarette boxes and puddles of brilliant Manic Panic hair dye behind. As the girls' absences stretch to weeks and months, Gwartney recalls her frantic searches for them, first in Eugene and then in San Francisco. Along the way, she delves into her own culpability in the family dynamic that drove them away.
A former correspondent for the Oregonian and Newsweek, Gwartney wrote about her relationship with her eldest daughter, Amanda, in Salon back in 1998. Debra, Amanda and Stephanie also appeared together on "This American Life" in March 2002, in an episode tellingly titled "Didn't Ask to Be Born."
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The video below aired a couple of weeks ago, but it's a pretty good look at the drinking age debate, with lots of camera time for Amethyst Initiative founder John McCardell.(Note: If video isn't working below, you can watch it here.)
One quibble: At one point in the segment, Lesley Stahl suggests that the "conundrum" for policymakers is that raising the drinking age has reduced alcohol-related traffic fatalities, but may be contributing to fatalities associated with underage binge drinking.
But there may not be a conundrum at all. When I interviewed McCardell for the February issue of Reason, he explained why the argument that raising the drinking age is responsible for the 20-year drop in highway deaths doesn't hold water:
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Wisconsin State Journal Editorial, via a kind reader's email:
Madison needs to get past its outdated phobia of charter schools.Charter schools are not a threat to public schools here or anywhere else in Wisconsin. They are an exciting addition and asset to public schools -- a potential source of innovation, higher student achievement and millions in federal grants.
And when charter schools do succeed at something new, their formula for success can be replicated at traditional schools to help all students.
That's what's starting to happen in Madison with the success of a dual-language charter elementary school called Nuestro Mundo. Yet too many district officials, board members and the teachers union still view charters with needless suspicion.
Madison's skeptics should listen to President Barack Obama, who touts charter schools as key to engaging disadvantaged students who don't respond well to traditional school settings and curriculums. Obama has promised to dou
