On October 31, the Human Resources Committee of the Madison Board of Education reviewed a memo from Juan Jose Lopez, the chair of the committee. According to the memo, the Board developed goals for the 2005-06 evaluation of the superintendent during its recent closed sessions to evaluate his performance between 2002 and now.
If so, I believe that the Board violated the requirements of the Wisconsin Open Meetings law in those sessions. The Open Meetings law permits the Board to meet in closed sessions to consider “performance evaluation data”. That is, the Board may discuss how the superintendent’s performance measures up under the performance standards. The law does not permit the Board to develop the standards for future evaluations behind closed doors. That’s why the October 10 meeting was scheduled as an open meeting. The Board must hold its discussion of future standards for this evaluation in public.
The memo also refers to a still secret document, “the Superintendent’s evaluation”, and recommends that the next evaluation of Superintendent Art Rainwater focus on four categories. Did the Board evaluate the superintendent in just four categories? We can’t say, because the sessions were closed. Were there other ideas about where improvement is needed? We can’t say, because the sessions were closed. Is this memo an accurate summary of Board discussions? We can’t say, because the sessions were closed.
The next step is another Human Resource Committee meeting. Board members are encouraged to submit recommendations for the next evaluation before this meeting.
The memo follows:

Continue reading Board of Education’s 2005-06 evaluation of superintendent: next steps →

On October 17, the Legislative Committee of the Madison School Board voted unanimously to recommend that the district join the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES) The organization is a diverse, statewide coalition working for comprehensive school-funding reform.
Partners in the coalition believe in the following core principles that serve as “membership criteria” and the rationale for a school-finance reform proposal based on the Adequacy model, the Wisconsin Adequacy
Plan.

Continue reading MMSD Legislative Committee Recommends Joining Statewide Coalition →

To some Colorado residents, Referendum C is the best chance to spare the state’s schools from deep budget cuts. To others, the ballot measure—which will go before voters Nov. 1—represents a steep tax increase and gives lawmakers too much power over how state revenues are spent.
Referendum C is a proposed five-year suspension of Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR. TABOR is a voter-approved 1992 constitutional amendment that imposed a formula-driven cap on state spending and required the state and local jurisdictions, including school districts, to give back to taxpayers any revenues in excess of the cap.
“It is by far and away the most restrictive tax and spending limitation in the country,” said Wade Buchanan, the president of the Bell Policy Center, a think tank in Denver. “It really is a measure that gives fiscal decisionmaking powers almost exclusively to the voters.”
From “Colorado Referendum Targets Revenue Cap: Easing restrictions would free up more tax dollars for schools and colleges”, by Linda Jacobson in Education Week, October 19, 2005.

Continue reading Colorado Referendum Targets Revenue Cap →

No one appreciates Mary Gulbrandsen’s contributions to the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) more than her boss, superintendent Art Rainwater. When we included Gulbrandsen in Madison Magazine’s 2004 People You Should Know list, Rainwater was the first to let us know we’d made an inspired choice. As MMSD chief of staff for the last two years, Gulbrandsen’s influence on all aspects of Madison’s K-12 schools is undeniable. From long-range planning to finance and operations to performance and achievement, district administration minutes suggest Gulbrandsen has spent the last two years in meetings. But seeing her in action on some of the most difficult issues, like the school environment for kids and families of color, proves what a skilled administrator she’s become. Add on top of all that her striking warmth and good sense, and Gulbrandsen seems a perfect fit for her behind-the-scenes position of power.

From “Power Influence & Anonymity: The Seven Women Power Brokers You Need to Know” by Robert Chappell, Neil Heinen and Brennan Nardi
Madison Magazine, November 2005

A recent editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal claims that the Madison school board rejected Superintendent Art Rainwater’s “painstaking” analysis of known problems with local bus companies when it granted long-term contracts to transport our students to locally owned companies. According to the editorial, the administration informed the Board about safety and reliability problems with some of the companies, but—safety and reliability be damned— the Board rushed ahead. The administration, having taken its stand, then meekly agreed to commit the districts to contracts likely to fail our students and their families.
Time for a fact check. I was there for the administration’s presentation, for the votes on the contracts and for recent Board discussions about the problems that have developed with one of the local companies, Mr. Mom’s.
This is my eyewitness report.

Continue reading Eyewitness Report: School Board Decisions on Bus Contracts →

From Education Week, October 12, 2005
By Christina A. Samuels
A new provision of federal law taking effect this school year allows, and in some cases requires, school districts to focus some of their federal special education money on reducing the enrollment of minority students in such programs.
The provision, contained in the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, requires some districts to spend as much as 15 percent of that federal aid on what are called “early intervening” services, which are meant to bolster the achievement of students before they are officially referred for special education.

Continue reading Minority Overrepresentation in Special Ed. Targeted →

A gift of nearly $3 million is being used to boost teacher training at the UW-Madison in a special, reading program.
But that program, Reading Recovery, has critics, who say it’s not worth the necessary investment.
Training at a new UW-Madison Reading Recovery Center will involve videotaping teachers, as they instruct young children, in a one-on-one process between student and teacher that costs more than group programs.
Student progress with Reading Recovery in the Madison School District and across the country has been questioned.

Continue reading UW Center Established To Promote Reading Recovery →

FITCHBURG – A demolition crew on Monday began tearing down a fire-ruined apartment building at 2001 Post Road in the Ridgewood Country Club Apartments complex.
Though the work was the first visible activity in the 52-acre, 832 apartment subdivision since Madison developers E.J. Plesko & Associates bought the troubled property this summer, a spokesman said taking down the structure “is not a precursor to other actions” being planned there.
By Cliff Miller
Correspondent for The Capital Times
October 18, 2005

Continue reading Ridgewood building razed →

For the first time since 2002, the Madison School Board has produced a performance evaluation of Superintendent Art Rainwater. It’s a small step in the right direction. However, it’s important to understand how the evaluation fails to meet the requirements of the district’s employment contract with the superintendent.
The contract requires the Board to set specific, measurable goals for the superintendent by the first day of each school year. That did not happen.

Continue reading Superintendent’s Evaluation: What’s Missing? →

Madison Board of Education President Carol Carstensen released this Report on Evaluation of the Superintendent earlier today. (PDF), or click below to read the release.

Continue reading Superintendent Evaluation: Board President’s News Release →

As reported in The Capital Times, I recently questioned Superintendent Art Rainwater about the process that the district used to determine that Mr. Mom’s bus company was qualified to bid for contracts to transport our students in the years from 2005-06 through 2010-11. The process is known as the “pre-qualification evaluation”.
In a memo today, Assistant Superintendent for Business Services Roger Price told the Board of Education that the pre-qualification evaluation for companies who wanted to bid on these six year transportation contracts was conducted in December of 2004. The process resulted in qualifying five companies to bid for the contracts. Mr. Price noted that “all vendors had some vehicles fail inspection” on the most recent inspections by the State Patrol.
His materials show very different failure rates for the companies.
Riteway: .5% failure rate (19 vehicles passed, 1 failed)
Badger Bus: 13% failure rate (13 vehicles passed, 2 failed)
First Student: 19% failure rate (21 vehicles passed, 5 failed)
Durham: 26% failure rate (23 passed, 8 failed)
Mr. Mom’s: 75% failure rate (2 passed, 8 failed)
When the Board of Education voted on the contracts, it did not receive this information.

On Monday, September 12, the Madison Board of Education will vote on proposed revisions to the district’s Equity Resource Policy. The revisions gut the current policy and replace it with an already existing formula for allocating staff to schools based on socioeconomic factors. The meeting is a Special Board meeting called by President Carol Carstensen. At the meeting administrators will recommend this change and the full Board will vote on the recommendation. Not much notice to the public, not much opportunity to hear public opinion and analysis, no analysis by any Board committee. Only very savvy people who closely watch the Board agendas will know that this vote is coming.

What’s at stake?

Continue reading Madison School Board Votes on Equity Policy On September 12: what’s at stake? what’s the rush? →

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

Continue reading Gorman Drops Ridgewood Plans →

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has made good on his nearly 5-month-old threat to sue the U.S. Department of Education over the No Child Left Behind Act, making his state the first to take its objections about the law to the federal courts.
Filed Aug. 22 in U.S. District Court in Hartford, the state’s complaint in Connecticut v. Spellings argues that federal funding to the state for the No Child Left Behind law falls far short of what is needed to meet the law’s testing and accountability requirements. The suit contends the failure to fully fund the law violates a provision in the nearly 4-year-old education statute itself that says states will not be required “to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this act.”
From Education Week, August 22, 2005
By Jeff Archer

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

The Dallas School Board has approved a policy that will require some school administrators to learn Spanish. The new policy, approved by a 5-4 vote on Aug. 25, now requires that all elementary school principals who work in schools in which at least half of the students are English-language learners, or formerly carried that designation, must learn the native language of those students.
From Education Week, August 26, 2005
By Mary Ann Zehr

Continue reading Dallas Schools Require Some Principals To Learn Spanish →

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

Continue reading Rep. Black: Democrat to Offer Constitutional Amendment to Limit Governor’s Veto Power →

Since 1999, the Madison School Board has had a written employment contract with Superintendent Art Rainwater. It contains a job evaluation process that is fair to the superintendent and that requires the Board to perform its most important function, setting clear goals for the district.
Before the first day of each school year, the Board must set performance goals that are “measurable to the extent possible”. By July 30 of the next year, the Board must meet with the superintendent, review his progress toward meeting the performance goals, review his self-evaluation, and review confidential evaluations by other administrators in the district.
If the Board followed the contract, the superintendent and the public would know what’s expected of the most powerful employee in terms of “improvement in programs, projects and activities to be undertaken” during the upcoming year.
According to the MMSD Human Resources department, the last time the Board evaluated the superintendent was in 2002. It did not follow all of the requirements of the contract in that evaluation.
The first day of the school year is September 1. The Board has not set measurable performance goals for the superintendent for 2005-06, although it has had two discussions on the subject.
When the evaluation does occur, I suggest that we all compare the provisions of the contract with the evaluation. If the Board does not set measurable performance goals for the superintendent in 2005-06, it will again fail in its duty under the contract.It will again fail to inform the public about its priorities for our children and fail to hold the superintendent accoutable under the priorities.

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

No doubt that the Madison Schools would benefit from revenues that might come through increased advertising, as recently proposed by Johnny Winston Jr., chair of the Board of Education’s Finance and Operations Committee.
On the other hand, increasing advertising to our students is undesirable for many reasons. Schools should not treat students as consumers, but as learners. Our students already live in an environment saturated with encouragements to consume. In addition, many of the advertisers with strong incentives to advertise to young people sell food products that are not in the kids’ best interest.
My hope is that the Finance and Operations Committee will consider limiting any expansion of advertising opportunities to ads that target adults, not students.
Below is my proposal to this committee.

Continue reading Why not target school ads at adults, not students? →

In a recent letter to the editor of Isthmus, KJ Jakobson asks “whether the new joint district-union task force for investigating health insurance costs be a truly collaborative effort to solve a very costly problem? Or will it instead end up being a collusion to maintain the status quo?”
Here is the full text of the letter, published on August 10, 2005, and her challenge to the Madison School Board.

Continue reading Collaboration or collusion: What should the public expect from MMSD-MTI Task Force on Health Insurance Costs? →

In recent months the major food companies have been trying hard to
convince Americans that they feel the pain of our expanding waistlines,
especially when it comes to kids. Kraft announced it would no longer
market Oreos to younger children, McDonald’s promoted itself as a salad
producer and Coca-Cola said it won’t advertise to kids under 12. But
behind the scenes it’s hardball as usual, with the junk food giants
pushing the Bush Administration to defend their interests. The recent
conflict over what America eats, and the way the government promotes
food, is a disturbing example of how in Bush’s America corporate
interests trump public health, public opinion and plain old common sense.
The latest salvo in the war on added sugar and fat came July 14- 15,
when the Federal Trade Commission held hearings on childhood obesity and
food marketing.
by Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor
The Nation, August 29, 2005

Continue reading Junk Food Nation: Who’s to Blame for Childhood Obesity? →

Thanks to Christina Daglas for her coverage of the Madison School Board’s “cautious” approach to increasing advertising in the schools. If there is serious business interest in more advertising, the Board must consider the possibilities and the public deserves advance notice that we may increase ads.
I am not, however, concerned “about businesses that, in (my) opinion, fail to advance positive messages in their advertisements, such as fast food companies”, as the article states.
I said that I will not support more advertising of products that undermine our curriculum. I gave Coca-Cola ads as an example because I believe that ads for soft drinks undermine the messages of our health curriculum. The Board should not increase advertising for products whose consumption contributes to demonstrated increases in childhood obesity, diabetes and heart disease. We are already a venue for too many of these ads and products.

As chair of the MMSD School Board’s Legislative Committee for 2005-06, I post information about state and federal laws and legislative issues related to the Madison Schools on this blog under Hot Topics , Madison School Board Legislative Committee blog.
In June I asked MMSD staff for the committee, Joe Quick, for his ideas on future directions for the committee. My questions and his answers are available under as well as news reports and background materials.

Continue reading Planning for MMSD Legislative Committee for 2005-06 →

Newly elected Madison School Board member Lawrie Kobza was wise to move to use $240,000 in money made available by insurance savings to revive Lincoln Elementary School’s Open Classroom Program and to restore “specials” – music, art and gym classes at the elementary schools – to their regular sizes. And the board majority was right to back her move to maintain broadly accepted standards of quality in the city’s public schools.

Continue reading Capital Times Editorial: Board backs school quality →

Johnny Winston Jr., chair of the Finance and Operations Committee of the Madison School Board, kicked off a new discussion of the possible role of business ads to raise money for our schools at the June 13 meeting of his committee. Committee member Lawrie Kobza asked the administration to bring back information about what other districts are doing beyond the advertisements in yearbooks, school newspapers and the like. Good ideas, both.
However, why stop there? Maybe there are products looking for School Board member endorsements.

Continue reading What’s the Future for Ads in the Madison Schools? →

In the aftermath of the votes on the May 24th Madison School referenda, it is critical that the Madison School Board not rush to vote on layoffs of teachers and other staff. Currently, the Board is scheduled to vote on layoffs at noon on Thursday, May 26. This deadline for layoff votes is self-imposed by the district and Madison Teachers Inc (MTI). State law sets a later deadline. The district and the union could change the May 26 date by mutual agreement. In 2003 the vote on layoffs following a referendum for the operating budget was scheduled for June 4.

Continue reading Madison Board of Education Should Not Rush to Vote on Layoffs →

In her recent letter to the Wisconsin State Journal Chris Kolar, co-president of the Leopold Elementary School Parent Faculty Organization, criticizes me for my “early departure” from a Madison School Board meeting on April 25. She states that I “walked out of the board of education meeting at about the time Leopold was to be discussed”.
Please consider the facts that Ms. Kolar did not include in her letter.

Continue reading The Rest of the Story →

On Monday, April 25, the Madison School Board will hold a special session to vote on a plan that affects hundreds of west side families and six to eight elementary schools in the event that the May 24 referendum to build a second school on the Leopold site fails.
Options before the Board do not mention the drastic changes taking place in the Ridgewood apartment complex that is near Leopold Elementary School and home to many current Leopold students and their families. While it appears increasingly likely that the large low income community near Leopold will be displaced by changes in ownership of the apartment complex, the Board will be voting on plans that do not take this factor into account. Instead, at the insistence of Board member Carol Carstensen, the Board seems poised to lock into

Continue reading Drastic Changes at Ridgewood Apartments Don’t Factor into School Board Plans for Leopold School →

TO: Madison School Board Members
FROM: School District Employee
RE: MMSD Budget Concerns/Questions
As a Madison taxpayer, parent, and employee of MMSD, I have a unique perspective on the workings of this school district. I also feel a great responsibility to write my concerns. The Board should address:
� How can food service/custodial/secretarial personnel be cut/surplused at the same time that more administrators are added and given substantial raises?

Continue reading MMSD Employee on Budget for 2005-06 →

I believe that our community strongly supports high quality schools. I know that the state and federal governments do not provide sufficient funding for the programs that we want. I am willing to pay higher property taxes to make up the difference when necessary. However, before I commit to higher taxes, I must have a high level of confidence in the decisions that put the matter on the ballot. I think that you do also.
Today I ask that you think about the qualities that you want in school board members as you prepare to vote on the May referendums, especially the referendum for the operating budget.

Continue reading Think about the School Board that you want, Vote on April 5 →

On March 28, the Madison School Board will vote to place three referendums on the ballot in a special election on May 24. The total bill for the referendums will be $85.1M if the operating budget referendum is for three years, as proposed by Finance Chair Carol Carstensen.

Continue reading Cost of 3 MMSD Referendums: $85.1M →

In January of 2005 Superintendent Art Rainwater told the Madison Board of Education that two administrative positions would be eliminated for 2005-06. He would cut the positions of Risk Manager and Data Manager when the incumbents retired at the end of 2004-05.
Imagine my surprise on March 14, when the superintendent cut half of the position of Risk Manager for a second time.

Continue reading No Point in Cutting MMSD Administrators, They Just Grow Back →

On Monday, February 21, the Long Range Planning Committee of the Madison School Board will hear the administration�s explanation of five options for reducing overcrowding at Leopold School and providing seats for students from new housing developments on the west and southwest side of the district. Last Monday, after I asked the administration to withdraw options that it will not recommend, a set of nine options dropped to five. Of the remaining five options, the administration recommends only two choices. Option A (3A2 PDF) depends on passage of a referendum to build a second school building on the Leopold grounds. Option B (3D1 PDF) assumes that the referendum fails. Madison Schools Boundary Change web page.
I cannot support Option B, the fallback option in the event that the proposed Leopold referendum fails. There are important but unanswered questions about how the proposed school boundary changes would affect the middle and high schools on the west side. However, more compelling to me is that this option moves 1137 students to new elementary schools, including 516 low income students, and moves them in a way that will excessively disrupt many of the eleven affected schools.

Continue reading Why I Oppose the Administration’s Recommendation for School Boundary Changes if the Leopold School Referendum Fails →

Before February 1 of each year, the Madison School Board must decide whether to renew its administrators’ contracts. If the Board plans to cut administrative positions, it must give the administrators notice that their employment contracts will not be renewed. Otherwise, the contracts automatically renew for one or two years.
Because continued shortfalls in state and federal aid for schools force budget reductions each year, the number of administrators and the total cost of their wages and benefits is a factor in the budget for the next year.
On January 24, 2005 Superintendent Art Rainwater used the following graph and table as evidence of a trend of reductions in the MMSD administrative staff.

Continue reading Madison School Administrators: What is the trend? →

On October 8, 2004, Isthmus newspaper ran a story about how the Madison Schools replaced two not-for-profit after school day care programs with its own “Safe Haven” programs run by the Madison School-Community Recreation department.
Jane Sekulski, a mother whose child was in a displaced program, provides her responses to the article. This letter is a longer version of a letter published in Isthmus on November 11.

Continue reading A Mother’s View on MMSD Expansion’s of Safe Haven →

Recently Governor Doyle directed state agencies to �examine all operations to bring accountability and fiscal responsibility to government�. As a result, the state has reduced the use of cell phones and saved thousands of dollars. The Department of Administration characterized the use of cell phones before this change as �part of the carelessness� that marked state spending under prior administrations.
Dane County and the City of Madison have written procedures that limit the assignment of cell phones to specific categories of employees. For example, the city permits assignment of a cell phone �where it is required that an employee be reachable at all times, or where an employee must be regularly able to make business telephone calls while in the field�.
In contrast, the Madison Metropolitan School District does not have a policy or an administrative procedure to restrict the use of cell phones at MMSD expense. Don�t expect that to change anytime soon, even though the annual cost of employee cell phones has increased 60% since 2001 from $51,225 to $82,259, including the monthly fee for each cell phone.
The majority of the Board does not favor budget targets for the superintendent or controls on how the administration spends the budget. The expanding use of cell phones by MMSD employees is just another example of this bias against fiscal controls.

Continue reading Cell Phones R Us: Avoiding Fiscal Responsibility the Madison School Board Way →

In a recent submission, I discussed three reasons why I believe that the Madison School Board should receive more information about Superintendent Rainwater’s decision to end participation of five elementary schools in the federal “Reading First” program. See “What the Board Should Know Before Rejecting “Reading First” Funding”.
I remain unconvinced that Rainwater’s memo makes the case for declining $2M in federal reading assistance at Hawthorne, Glendale, Orchard Ridge and Lincoln/Midvale schools. In particular, the Board should be concerned about the reading achievement gap at each of these schools between economically disadvantaged children and children who are not economically disadvantaged. The results on the reading test at fourth grade in 2003–part of the Wisconsin Knowledge Concepts Evaluation tests—show these gaps between the economically disadvantaged students scoring “proficient or advanced” and their peers.
Hawthorne: Econ. Disadvantaged = 57%
Not Disadvantaged = 77%
Glendale: Econ. Disadvantaged = 73%
Not Disadvantaged = 82%
Orchard Ridge: Econ Disadvantaged = 55%
Not Disadvantaged = 90%
Lincoln: Econ. Disadvantaged = 66%
Not Disadvantaged = 88%
For District elementary schools combined: Econ. Disadvantaged = 66%
Not Disadvantaged = 88%
However, President Bill Keys has polled the Board members and told me that they all agree that discussion is not necessary. Here is our exchange of e-mails.

Continue reading Madison Board Will Not Discuss Superintendent’s Decision to Quit Federal “Reading First” Program →

According to John Dewey, the public school system “should want for every child what a good and wise parent wants for his child. Anything less is unlovely and undermines democracy”.
I think that this principle must guide the Madison Board of Education in deciding whether to permit Superintendent Rainwater to reject approximately $2M in federal funding for early reading programs at Hawthorne, Glendale, Orchard Ridge and Midvale/Lincoln Schools. Unless the superintendent can demonstrate that all families in these schools can expect better reading achievement from continuing the current reading curriculum than from adopting the curriculum required by the “Reading First” program, we should continue to participate in the program.
For me, key questions were not answered in the October 14, 2004 memo that the Board received from Mr. Rainwater.

Continue reading What the School Board Should Know Before Rejecting “Reading First” Funding →

Several times in recent years, the Madison School Board has considered ways to create a four-year old kindergarten program for all Madison children. The goal of “universal” four-year old kindergarten is to assure that every child enters elementary school ready to learn. In the past, the administration’s proposals involved partnerships with private accredited daycare programs in Madison.
On Monday, October 18, the Performance & Achievement Committee of the Madison School Board will review a report from Superintendent Art Rainwater that recommends against going forward with four-year old kindergarten and rejects a July 2004 proposal from the Madison Area Association of Accredited Early Care and Education Providers.
The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. at Leopold Elementary School, 2602 Post Road. Below is a summary of the Association’s proposal in “question-and-answer” format.

Continue reading Madison�s Accredited Early Educators Propose Solution for Four-Year Old Kindergarten →

According to the National School Board Association, a school district’s Strategic Plan must include “student performance standards that clearly define what students are supposed to know and be able to do at each grade level”. Toward that goal, the Strategic Plan should clearly state the benchmarks for assessing yearly progress in student achievement.
On September 20, the Madison Board of Education revised its Strategic Plan. Conspiciously missing from our Strategic Priorities are benchmarks for most of our priorities.

Continue reading What’s Missing from the “Strategic Plan” for Madison Schools? →

On September 13, the administration for the Madison Metropolitan School District advised the Long Range Planning Committee of the Board of Education that the district needs $27M for maintenance projects between 2005 and 2010.
A referendum would be necessary to raise this amount, because the administration is seeking a total of $46M for maintenance over the five years. The $27M would be in addition to $19M that the Board will spend on maintenance if it continues to earmark $3.8M from each annual operating budget for maintenance.

Continue reading Ready for a $27M Maintenance Referendum? →

On September 13, 2004, The Long Range Planning Committee of the Madison School Board reviewed a recommendation from the MMSD administration that the district spend $46M for school maintenance projects from 2005 through 2010. Because the Board dedicates approximately $3.8M per year for maintenance from the operating budget (%19M over the next five years), the administration’s cost estimates amount to recommending referendum for $27M. In 2004-2005 the district will exhaust the $20M provided by the 1999 maintenance referendum. Some projects, however, remain to be done.
Citizen advisors asked many good questions to clarify the recommendation of the administration. The Committee will not, however, act on the administration’s recommendation in the next few months.

Continue reading Diary of an Advisory Committee: Switch from Maintenance to New Building Issues →

Understanding Superintendent Art Rainwater�s employment contract with the Madison Metropolitan School Board goes a long way toward answering a common question: �Who runs the Madison schools?�
Answer: Superintendent-for-Life Rainwater runs the Madison schools.
In January of 1999 the Board promoted Art Rainwater from Acting Superintendent to Superintendent. Voting for the contract were Carol Carstensen, Calvin Williams, Deborah Lawson, Joanne Elder and Juan Lopez. Ray Allen and I voted no.

Continue reading Who Runs the Madison Schools? →

On August 13, Madison Board President Bill Keys and I agreed to recommend nine citizens plus the two student School Board members to the 2004-05 Advisory Committee to the Long Range Planning Committee.
On August 30, the Board will vote on the nominations:
Hardin Coleman (nominated by Johnny Winston, Jr.)
Dawn Crim (nominated by Johnny Winston, Jr.)
Joan Eggert (nominated by Bill Keys)
Jill Jokela (nominated by Carol Carstensen)
Lucy Mathiak (nominated by Ruth Robarts)
Patrick Mooney (nominated by Bill Clingan)
Jan Sternbach (nominated by Juan Lopez)
Teresa Tellez-Giron (nominated by Juan Lopez) and
Xa Xiong (nominated by Shwaw Vang).
The student members are the students elected to serve on the Board for 2004-05: Oliver Kiefer and Lena Song (alternate).

Continue reading Diary of an Advisory Committee: Madison Board of Education Selects Citizen Advisors →

In the late spring of 2004, I had the idea that inviting a group of citizens to work with the Long Range Planning Committee of the Madison School Board might help the Committee ask better questions of the administration and explore more options during the next year. In 2004-05, the Committee will consider the possibility of another referendum to fund maintenance of the district’s buildings and try to solve overcrowding problems at Leopold Elementary School. It will also develope a 3-5 year long range plan for presentation to the Board by the end of the spring semester
In this log, I will relate our progress toward this goal.

Continue reading Diary of an Advisory Committee: the Long Range Planning Committee of the Madison School Board Reaches Out to Citizens →

This article is a Letter to the Editor submitted to the Wisconsin State Journal.
Thanks for the editorial, ?What?s going on after school?? Questioning the Madison School Board?s rush to replace private, non-profit after school day care providers with tax-supported Safe Haven programs operated through the Madison School Community Recreation program is a public service.
Last year we had 4,437 low-income children in our elementary schools. As a community, we should support all of them with high quality after school care. However, the district must continue to work with community providers to reach this goal. The scope of the problem is far beyond the district?s capacity.

Continue reading Madison Schools Need Strong Community Partners to Provide High Quality After School Care to All Children →

Judy Sekulski is a parent at Midvale-Lincoln School in Madison. In this article she responds to the Madison district administration’s recent public statements about Safe Haven programs.
I am writing in response to Lucy Chaffin’s column on
July 12, 2004, (“Schools Offer Quality Childcare”),
about the Safe Haven after-school programs run by
MSCR. She states that, “The district doesn’t support
separate programs running side-by-side in elementary
schools (as was the case last year at Midvale) because
this results in segregation by income and race.”

Continue reading Parent Responds to MSCR Editorial About Safe Haven Programs →

Every Thursday before the Monday meetings of the Madison School Board, a school district employee driving a district vehicle pulls up at each of the seven homes of the board members to deliver a packet of information for the upcoming meeting. Sometimes the vehicle is a van. Sometimes it’s a diesel truck.

Continue reading Home Delivery for Madison School Board – Your Tax Dollars at Work →