This is an important moment in the history of education in the state of Iowa.
Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Iowa Education Director Jason Glass and an array of educational experts offered a set of challenges to educators at the two-day Education Summit in Des Moines.
The message was simple: Things need to change if Iowa is to regain its status as one of the strongest educational systems in the nation.
Although the statistics about Iowa students’ performances on the National Assessment of Educational Progress can be used to support diverse narratives about how students are performing compared with their peers across the nation, international comparisons tell an unambiguous story: American schools will need to do better if the United States is going to produce a globally competitive work force for the 21st century.
Category Archives: Events
Best thing to happen to Wisconsin schools? Repealing of collective bargaining
Wisconsin Senator Glenn Grothman:
The repeal of much of Wisconsin’s collective-bargaining law with regard to many of Wisconsin’s public employees has not been adequately explained. This repeal will do more to improve the quality and lower the cost of Wisconsin government than anything else we’ve done. There are approximately 275,000 government employees in the state of Wisconsin. About 72,000 work for the state, 38,000 for cities and villages, 48,000 for counties, 10,500 (full time equivalent) for technical colleges, and 105,229 for schools. Only half of state employees are unionized, but almost all school employees are.
As you can see, the biggest impact will be on Wisconsin’s schools. Since my office has received the most complaints from school teachers, let’s look at how collective bargaining affects both the cost and quality of our schools.
Under current law, virtually all conditions of employment have to be spelled out in a collectively bargained agreement. Consequently, it is very difficult to remove underperforming school teachers. It may take years of documentation and thousands of dollars in attorney fees to fire a bad teacher. Is it right that two or three classes of second-graders must endure a bad teacher while waiting for documentation to be collected? Just as damaging is the inability to motivate or change the mediocre teacher who isn’t bad enough to fire. Good superintendents are stymied when they try to improve a teacher who is doing just enough to get by.
Controversy @ The Madison School Board over Discipline Policy: “Featuring the Administration as Sisyphus” (Now with Video!)
Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:
As is becoming increasingly common these days however, mine turned out to be a minority view. Other Board members took turns identifying parts of the revision that they did not like, raising some concerns that they had previously expressed and some that were new. The general tenor of the comments was that the current format of the Code was fine but that Code should be stricter and that more violations should lead to mandatory recommendations for expulsion.
About an hour into the meeting, I expressed some frustration with the proceedings (since I’m just figuring this stuff out, this video starts with eight seconds of black) :
Eventually Board members settled on deep-sixing the Work Group’s proposal but adopting some (but not all) of the substantive changes reflected in the revision. For example, the aggravated theft offense was added. The change to the unintentional use of force against a staff member violation was adopted (a very good move, btw), but the change to the possession and distribution of drugs or alcohol violation was not (I think). Another change boosted the potential consequences imposed for non-physical acts of bullying or harassment.
Also on our agenda Monday night was the creation of a new Board Ad Hoc Committee on Student Discipline, Conduct and Intervention, to be chaired by Lucy Mathiak. Some Board members suggested that the revisions recommended by the Work Group and rejected by the Board might be re-considered by the members of this committee in some fashion.
I found the Board’s rejection of the proposed revisions and ad hoc amending of the existing Code an unfortunate turn of events and criticized what I described as our legislating on the fly right before the vote:
If dogs became kings And the Pope chewed gum
The so-called Save Our Schools march scheduled for this weekend is getting a fair amount of traffic on my twitter feed, so I clicked on a link that brought me to this list of “Guiding Principles” from the events organizers. And all I could think was:
….and a pony!
To put it more directly: This is not an agenda for accomplishing anything. It’s just a wish list. Half of it is a wishlist of things the organizers don’t want (performance-based pay, school closures). Half of it is a wishlist for things someone might want, without any clear theory of how to operationalize them or what that might actually look like in practice in the real world. (I, too, would like to see “Well-rounded education that develops every student’s intellectual, creative, and physical potential”-but in the absence of clear prescriptions and mechanisms about how to make that a reality, well, you might as well wish for a pony, too.) The really weird thing is that a lot of the “wishlist” items aren’t even outcomes for educators or students, but process items, like “Educator and civic community leadership in drafting new ESEA legislation.” I don’t know how you’d intend to operationalize that or what the desired ends would be!
Iowa’s Education Summit
Iowa school reform legislation doesn’t need consensus as much as it needs follow-through and buy-in from the top.
Teachers need to be evaluated by their peers and paid according to how well they perform in the classroom and on the test.
Principals need more training, and school districts need to be more selective in whom they hire for a building’s top job. Tenure has to be earned, not once, but several times during an educator’s career.
Those were just a few of the opinions aired at the Iowa Education Summit during the first day of the two-day Iowa Education Summit that brought teachers, principals, business leaders, college professors, politicians, nonprofit representatives and the nation’s top educational authority, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, to Des Moines. The summit is expected to be the catalyst for a wide-reaching education reform package Gov. Terry Branstad will introduce next legislative session.
Indiana private schools open their doors
They’re out to show private colleges can be affordable.
Weighing the costs of education (iStockPhoto)
KAI RYSSDAL: Here’s something to interrupt the relaxing summer of a lot of high schoolers out there. It’s usually fall of senior year or so that the college search begins in earnest. But really, why wait?
This week, all 31 private colleges in the state of Indiana are opening their doors to prospective students. A lot of states, in fact, now have some kind of private college week.
From the Marketplace Education Desk at WYPR in Baltimore, Amy Scott explains it’s all about perceptions.
Top teacher: An Honor for Worcester South High’s Joseph Nystrom
If you are passing through the halls of South High Community School in Worcester, you can always catch Joseph N. Nystrom as he high-fives students, cracks a joke and picks up crumpled pieces of paper in the hallway.
A teacher at South High for about 10 years, Mr. Nystrom is well-known for actions that grab students’ attention in an effort to focus them on learning and achievement. He started out as a substitute teacher and ended up making it his career.
He is the recent recipient of the All American Teacher of the Year Award, in the Massachusetts math division. He is one of 23 U.S. teachers honored by the National Math and Science Initiative. The awards recognize outstanding math, science and English teachers in NMSI’s Advanced Placement training and incentive program.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: GE Healthcare to move X-ray team from Waukesha to China
GE Healthcare, based in Waukesha, announced Monday that it was moving its X-ray business to Beijing, China.
Anne LeGrand, vice president and general manager of X-ray for GE Healthcare, told Bloomberg news that “a handful” of top managers would move to Beijing. She said there would not be any job cuts.
The move of the unit to China will help “make the business more nimble and responsive while continuing to strengthen our local focus and grow our global footprint,” she said.
General Electric Co. said it is moving its X-ray business headquarters to China to accelerate sales in the country’s fast-growing health-care market, the latest sign of China’s growing importance to the giant U.S. conglomerate.
The X-ray unit will be the company’s first business to be based in China.
The business has already begun the move–which includes the unit’s chief executive and three other members of its executive team–and expects to complete the process by year end, said Anne LeGrand, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare Global X-Ray. The senior leadership team’s move to Beijing is aimed in part at helping develop more medical equipment specifically for the Chinese market, Ms. LeGrand told a news briefing Monday.
GE said it doesn’t expect the move to result in any job losses in the U.S., where the unit has been based in Waukesha, Wis. The Wisconsin X-ray division has 120 employees. The company also said it is too early to say how many employees it will hire for the unit’s new Beijing headquarters.
CNN Feature on US History in Schools 7.26.2011 @ 8:00a.m. EST
I understand that CNN plans to broadcast a feature on U.S. History in the schools at 8am EST on Tuesday, July 26, 2011.
This will include interviews with some of the high school authors whose history research papers were published by The Concord Review in recent issues.
“Teach by Example”
Will Fitzhugh [founder]
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
fitzhugh@tcr.org; www.tcr.org
Varsity Academics® www.tcr.org/blog
Why I’m Marching Forward (It’s The Only Direction)
You’ve got to be wondering what a teacher like me is doing marching against the “reform” trends. For those of you unfamiliar with my background, I graduated with a degree in Computer Science from Syracuse University. A year later, after 6-8 months of unemployment and a stint as a data entry person at an educational database firm, I went into the NYC Teaching Fellows program, an offshoot of Michelle Rhee’s New Teacher Project. On the surface, I’m a perfect candidate to follow the corporatist thinking about education, and should be easily molded into the dominant thinking from elites who ostensibly believe they’re going into education for the common good. All it takes is the right amount of fear, the right amount of frustration, the right amount of ignorance, and the right amount of failure to tip people into the hands of those who wish to rotate our profession backwards.
Fortunately for me, I lucked out. And if you’re reading this, I’m thinking the same goes for you.
Anti-PowerPoint revolutionaries unite
Last week I saw two women getting into a cab outside an office in central London. Both were in high heels and smart suits and were struggling with a flip chart, its pages flapping in the wind. The quaint sight of the large pad on aluminium legs filled me with longing for the days when people giving presentations wrote things down with felt pens on big sheets of paper.
I might have forgotten this scene, were it not for the fact that the very next day I was sent an invitation to join a brand new political party in Switzerland, the Anti PowerPoint party. “Finally do something!” its slogan says.
Actually I’ve been quietly doing something for years: I’ve been declining to learn how to use the ubiquitous piece of software. As a presenter, I’m a PowerPoint virgin, though as an audience member I’ve been gang raped by PowerPoint slides more times than I can count.
When Teachers Cheat–And Then Blame the Test
Only two years ago, Atlanta Public Schools were the toast of the educational establishment. Scores on standardized tests had been rising–skyrocketing, in some cases–for a decade. In February 2009, schools chief Beverly Hall was feted as national superintendent of the year.
Two months later, dozens of Ms. Hall’s teachers and principals engaged in the annual ritual required to produce such success: They cheated on the state standardized test.
The difference between 2009 and previous years of cheating (dating back at least as far as 2006, and perhaps 2001) was that reporters at my newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, questioned the schools’ remarkable scores on Georgia’s Criterion-Referenced Competency Test. Those articles prompted an investigation by then-Gov. Sonny Perdue, and this month the devastating final report arrived. It uncovered cheating by adults in 44 schools, covering 1,508 classes–almost all of them serving low-income, minority students.
School District Competition & Budgets
A typical school district’s reaction to tight budgets is to cut, cut, cut. While cutting education waste can sharpen focus, cutting into innovation leaves your district extremely vulnerable to competition. School districts are no longer just competing against the local private school; rather they are competing with education over the net and the global market place as well. Now more than ever we need contenders.
With the right trainers, district leaders or contenders can become innovation champions for kids. Here’s four ways you can step into the ring and put on the gloves for the upcoming education fight with the rest of the world.
Complete an Open Education Resource Scan – What are you paying for in your district with educational technology? What outcomes have you realized? Is there an open free alternative? Can this resource be shared among multiple users for multiple purposes? Example: Are you paying for a learning management system and creating your own content? Or, are you using a free engine and wrapping it around content not just for instruction but for professional development as well.
Unanimous Support for New Charter and Innovation Schools in Denver Public Schools
On June 30th, the Denver Public School Board voted unanimously on nine separate proposals for new charter and innovation schools. That’s right, the DPS Board that is notorious for its contentious 4-3 split on nearly every major policy (turnarounds, innovation schools and charters) voted 7-0 in favor of these promising new schools. Here’s hoping that this is a sign of the Board’s commitment to putting kids first with our new reform minded mayor-elect, Michael Hancock.
The new charter schools, which will be located in all quadrants of the city, include: an all-boys K-12 charter modeled after a school in New Orleans and backed by former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, two additional West Denver Prep middle school campuses and a new West Denver Prep high school, a new KIPP elementary school, two new Denver School of Science and Technology campuses, a K-5 performance school being started by a current DPS principal and district educators, and a new preschool-8 charter school started by a Get Smart Schools fellow.
More Race to Top Winners Push Back Promises
The list of delays states are encountering in implementing their Race to the Top plans keeps getting longer.
Every state but Georgia has now amended its Race to the Top plan in some way, usually to push back a timeline or scale back an initiative. In all, the dozen winners from the $4 billion competition have changed their plans, so far, 25 times, according to the list of amendments approved by the U.S. Department of Education. Remember, the winners were chosen based, at least in part, on their promises in those plans.
The changes includes a 32-page amendment with dozens of changes to New York’s plan, including one of the first amendments I’ve seen that doesn’t just push back a timeline, but eliminates a small piece of the state’s plan. That particular amendment eliminates a $10 million program to provide competitive grants for charter school facilities in New York, and redistributes the money across a few other programs, including a general “school innovation fund.” This may–or may not–be a big deal, but it’s at least worth noting.
Low marks all round: Atlanta’s school system has cheated its pupils. Now it must clean up the mess
AT ITS heart–as in so many scandals–lay a simple thing: the friction of rubber on paper. Too many wrong answers were erased, too many right ones inserted. Questions about dramatic improvements in standardised-test scores taken by children in Atlanta’s public schools (APS) were first raised a decade ago. They were thoroughly answered last week when Governor Nathan Deal released a report that found cheating throughout Atlanta’s school system, not by pupils but by teachers, with the superintendent and her administration either encouraging it or turning a blind eye.
Cheating occurred in 44 of the 56 Atlanta elementary and middle schools examined, and with the collusion of at least 178 teachers, including 38 principals. (And the report cautions that “there were far more educators involved in cheating, and other improper conduct, than we were able to establish sufficiently to identify by name in this report”). Answer-sheets in some classrooms found wrong-to-right erasures on test sheets that had standard deviations 20 to 50 times above the state norm. According to Gregory Cizek, who analysed test scores for the special report, the chance of this occurring without deliberate intervention is roughly the same as that of the Georgia Dome, a 70,000-seat football stadium, being filled to capacity with spectators who all happened to be over seven feet tall.
School District Admits ‘Big Mistake’ Over ‘Get Rid of (Michigan Governor) Snyder’ Phone Alert
A public school district in Michigan has used its phone alert system to point voters toward the recall effort against Gov. Rick Snyder. In early June, shortly after the Snyder recall reached the petition-gathering phase, the alert system for Lawrence Public Schools sent out the following robocall to residents of the district:
“This is a message from the Lawrence Public Schools (inaudible) alert system. This is an informational item and not directly associated with the school. Concerned parents interested in cuts to education . . . we’re here to inform you that there is information about the problem. Also, be advised that there is a petition to recall Governor Snyder. If you want, stop by Chuck Moden’s house right by the school June 7th/8th between 3:30 and 4:00 pm. Thank you. Goodbye.”
Atlanta Cheating Scandal Unveiled By Reporters
Joe Resmovits, via a Richard Askey email:
Three years ago, Heather Vogell, an investigative reporter at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, sat down with a data analyst to crunch some numbers.
She had just received the latest crop of scores for the CRCT, a state standardized test. Curiously, Vogell noted, several schools statewide had changed in status between the spring 2008 administration of the test and the summer retest in 2008, going from not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress rates, a calculation set by federal legislation that determines the fates of individual schools, to meeting the measure.
“We saw there were a lot more schools that met AYP than we had expected. It was a larger shift,” Vogell told The Huffington Post.
Like any intrepid reporter, she had some questions. “We were poking around. We saw some schools that had very hard to believe gains, just looking with the naked eye,” she said.
Wisconsin Governor Walker, education leaders seek new school evaluation system System would replace federally imposed system viewed as a failure
A system for providing clear, plentiful and sophisticated information for judging the quality of almost every school in Wisconsin, replacing a system that leaves a lot desired on all of those fronts – that is the goal of an eye-catching collaboration that includes Gov. Scott Walker, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers, and leaders of eight statewide education organizations.
Walker and Evers said Friday that they will seek approval from the U.S. Department of Education to allow the new school accountability system to replace the decade-old, federally imposed one they labeled as broken.
They want at least a first version of the new system to be ready by spring, and to apply it to outcomes for schools in the 2011-’12 school year.
The new accountability program would include every school that accepts publicly funded students, which means that private schools taking part in the state-funded voucher program would, for the first time, be subject to the same rules as public schools for making a wealth of data available to the public. Charter schools and virtual schools would also participate.
Opposition brewing to stronger teacher evaluations
A year ago, everyone from President Obama’s education point man Arne Duncan to then Rochester schools Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard talked about the need for greater teacher accountability. Even the leaders of teachers unions were talking about the importance of holding teachers and principals accountable through more rigorous evaluations.
So much can change in 365 days.
Last week, the New York State United Teachers union sued the State Education Department over teacher evaluations. The union says that the Board of Regents overreached its authority and violated state law by approving stronger regulations for evaluations than the law required.
The regulations allow school districts to double the weight given to state tests, permitting the use of test results to count for up to 40 percent of a teacher’s evaluation. The law allows student test results to count for 20 percent of a teacher’s evaluation.
Seattle teacher discusses the challenges teachers face
Written by an experienced elementary school teacher, Seattle
Dear Laurie Rogers:
Thanks for writing your book. One of the things that you discuss in your compelling discourse is the low standards that our colleges have had in the subject matter (as opposed to teaching theory, sociology, and psychology) for those who have a desire to become teachers in our public schools.
For the past twenty-two years, I have diligently taught 4th and 5th grade students. For the first eighteen years, I taught math according to the classical mode that you describe in your book. As the reforms took hold, and we were monitored ever more closely, I was forced into using Everyday Math according to a pacing guide set by the district. As you have rightly observed, it is a program that emphasizes coverage and not mastery.
For much of the year, I had 34 students. Of these 34 students, seven had Special Education IEPs and were to be served according to a pull-in model which never quite materialized. I did have a special ed. instructional assistant for 50 minutes a day until she was pulled to serve in a more “needy” classroom. One of my students was mentally retarded and never once scored about the first percentile on the MAP test. Another student started the year almost totally blind and had a personal assistant for two hours out of the day to teach her Braille. Two were removed from their homes by CPS and placed under foster care: one for neglect and the other for domestic violence. Three students were absent for more than 30 days each. I could go on, but I think that you get the picture.
MATC pay raises to be bigger than officials anticipated
Madison Area Technical College owes its full-time faculty and staff raises of 3.6 percent this year after the cost-of-living index soared.
The expense means the college will need to pay its employees about $1 million more than expected, straining the college’s budget, which is already beleaguered by a 30 percent cut in state aid and a cap on the tax levy.
Under union contracts negotiated in late March, raises for full-time faculty and support staff are tied to cost-of-living increases, based on the Consumer Price Index.
At the time, college administrators estimated the Consumer Price Index would rise by 1.4 percent. But instead, it increased 3.6 percent over the last 12 months, according to numbers that came out June 15.
Atlanta School Cheating
Heather Vogell, Alan Judd and Bill Rankin
State investigators have uncovered a decade of systemic cheating in the Atlanta Public Schools and conclude that Superintendent Beverly Hall knew or should have known about it, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.
In a report that Gov. Nathan Deal planned to release today, the investigators name nearly 180 educators, including more than three dozen principals, as participants in cheating on state curriculum tests, officials said over the weekend. The investigators obtained scores of confessions.
The findings suggest the national accolades that Hall and the school system have collected — and the much-vaunted academic progress for which she claimed credit — were based on falsehoods. Raising test scores apparently became a higher priority than conducting the district’s business in an ethical manner.
Details are beginning to tumble out from a 428-page report by state investigators on alleged cheating in Atlanta Public Schools.
On Tuesday, Gov. Nathan Deal released only a two-page summary of the report showing organized, systemic cheating in Atlantic Public Schools by scores of educators, including 38 principals.
Deal says “there will be consequences” for educators who cheated and has forwarded the findings to three district attorneys as well as state and city education officials.
GWEN IFILL: Now, an exhaustive new report reveals nearly 200 educators cheated to boost student test scores in Atlanta, a problem that has surfaced in school districts across the country.
The Georgia investigation commissioned by Gov. Nathan Deal found, results were altered on state curriculum tests by district administrators, principals and teachers for as long as a decade. Educators literally erased and corrected students’ mistakes to make sure schools met state-imposed testing standards. And it found evidence of cheating in 44 of the 56 schools examined for the 2009 school year.
Seattle & Teach for America
A couple of key actions have to happen this week for Teach for America to come to Seattle Schools.
One is at the Board meeting on Wednesday night. There is a state entity called the Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) that grants educational entities the right to create conditional certificate programs. They require School Board approval has to happen prior to “applying for a conditional certficiate for a teacher candidate. Therefore, Board action is required to hire any TFA candidate if any are selected for hire by a school-based hiring team.”
The second action that needs to happen is on Thursday, at the PESB meeting where the UW’s College of Education will present their proposal for their teaching certificate program for TFA recruits (and only TFA recruits; no one else can apply to this program).
If you would like to let the PESB know what you think of the plan, e-mail them at pesb@k12.wa.us before Thursday.
Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Evers emerges as fierce advocate of schools in face of massive cuts, privatization efforts
About a dozen members of a bipartisan, mostly volunteer organization called Common Ground file into Superintendent Tony Evers’ utilitarian conference room in downtown Milwaukee. The group is exploring how to help Milwaukee’s beleaguered schools, and it has scheduled a meeting with the head of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction as part of its research.
Tall, thin and gray haired, Evers has a boyish smile and a welcoming manner. He’s now in a white shirt and tie, sans the suit coat he wore to an earlier meeting with suburban school officials in Pewaukee.
Common Ground, a nonpartisan coalition that includes churches, nonprofits and labor unions, has come to Evers’ office today looking for advice on how best to direct its considerable resources toward helping Milwaukee students, whose performance in both traditional public schools and in taxpayer-funded voucher schools ranks at the bottom of major American cities.
After initial pleasantries and introductions are exchanged, Keisha Krumm, lead organizer for Common Ground, asks Evers a question. “At this stage we’re still researching what issue we will be focusing on. But we do want to know what you can do. What’s your power and influence?”
How does Wisconsin compare to other states and the world? Learn more at www.wisconsin2.org.
Teaching and Learning in the Midst of the Wisconsin Uprising
It all started when my daughter, also a Madison teacher, called me. “You have to get down to the union office. We need to call people to go to the rally at the Capitol.” I told her I hadn’t heard about the rally. “It’s on Facebook,” she responded impatiently. “That’s how they did it in Egypt.”
That Sunday rally in Capitol Square was just the first step in the massive protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s infamous “budget repair bill.” The Madison teachers’ union declared a “work action” and that Wednesday, instead of going to school, we marched into the Capitol building, filling every nook and cranny. The excitement mounted day by day that week, as teachers from throughout the state were joined by students, parents, union and nonunion workers in the occupation and demonstrations.
Madison teachers stayed out for four days. It was four exhilarating days, four confusing days, four stressful and exhausting days.
When we returned to school the following week, I debated how to handle the days off. We had received a three- page email from our principal warning us to “remain politically neutral” as noted in the school board policy relating to controversial issues. We were to watch not only our words, but also our “tone and body language.” If students wanted to talk about the rallies, we were to respond: “We are back in school to learn now.”
School Braces for Hard Truth
In a ceremony this week, Harlem Day Charter School celebrated its 13 fifth-graders who are moving on to middle school. They represent roughly one-third of the class.
The other two-thirds will have to repeat fifth grade.
That hard truth is one of many that the teachers, students and parents of Harlem Day have been confronting in recent months as the school prepares to become the city’s first attempt at a takeover of a failing charter school.
Only five of 32 teachers will be returning in September. About 100 of all 247 students in the elementary school are being held back. And administrators are having tough conversations with parents about the true state of their children’s academic progress. Parents are being told that students, who for years were passed from grade to grade, lack basic skills.
At Harlem Day, no students were held back last year, despite recent state tests that showed only 20% of students were on grade level in English and 25% were in math.
Justice approves bill allowing school boards to be removed en masse
Nancy Badertscher and Kristina Torres:
The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday approved a new law that gives Gov. Nathan Deal the power to suspend the entire Atlanta school board for jeopardizing the city district’s accreditation.
With that consent, state school board members will hold a hearing that involves the local nine-member board no later than July 31. They will then make a recommendation to the governor.
Deal does not have to follow the state board’s recommendation. But if he suspends local members, Deal will make interim appointments and ousted board members will be allowed to appeal for reinstatement.
“I’m pleased,” said House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, who helped write the bill that gave Deal such extraordinary power over the board’s future. “Now we can focus on the best needs of the 48,000 children in Atlanta Public Schools.”
Detroit Public Schools’ Roberts faces public at forum on school budget
In less than 10 minutes, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts tonight reviewed an 11-page summary of the district’s $1.2-billion budget for next school year that projects cutting $200 million from the deficit and reducing all wages by 10%.
Roberts’ first public hearing on the budget since taking over in May as the state appointee in charge of DPS began tonight at 6 p.m.
The budget projects that the $327-million deficit will be reduced to $127 million as DPS sells $200 million in bonds, he said.
“We treasure your input, we’re going to take it to heart,” Roberts said to the audience.
Wisconsin Read to Lead Meeting 5-31-2011 – Live Tweet Stream
Wisconsin’s “Read to Lead” Task Force convened for its second meeting last month to address teacher training and reading interventions. Here’s an excellent debrief (via School Information System) from Wisconsin Reading Coalition on the discussion. And here are my notes from the gallery:
Race to the Top Promises Delayed
After months of work across the state to define multiple measures of student growth, the Delaware Department of Education has asked the United States DOE for, and – word is – will receive, permission to delay implementation of our DPAS II teacher evaluation system, which will impact the roll-out of numerous other Race to the Top reforms.
The revised DPAS II evaluation system would have identified teachers as “highly-effective,” “effective,” “needs improvement,” or “ineffective,” ultimately impacting eligibility for various initiatives. Below are programs and policies that will be affected by delaying DPAS II implementation:
Verona tutor wins teaching award
eading tutor Pam Heyde of Verona has won an “Unsung Hero” award from the International Dyslexia Association for her work helping children to read.
The local reading instructor works outside of school with children who are struggling to learn to read. She was nominated for the national award by Chris Morton, a parent whose son, Will, is one of Heyde’s success stories.
I interviewed the Morton family last year as part of an article about an effort to pass legislation requiring schools to identify struggling readers earlier in their school careers and to require teachers to learn more about the different ways children learn to read.
Arkansas takes control of Pulaski County schools
Arkansas Education Department Director Tom Kimbrell (above) met reporters this afternoon to talk about the state’s decision to take over two school districts today — Helena-West Helena and the Pulaski County Special School District.
Most of the questions from Little Rock reporters were about Pulaski County, the state’s second-largest district with more than 17,000 students. In the brief YouTube clip below, Kimbrell responds to my question about whether the reorganization period is seen as a time to talk about reconfiguring the three public school districts in Pulaski County. Many Jacksonville residents have wanted to secede from the doughnut shaped district. Others have talked about combinations with Little Rock and North Little Rock to create, for example, two districts on either side of the Arkansas River. In short, said Kimbrell, yes, it should be discussed.
Other high points:
- No one factor precipitated the Pulaski takeover. Kimbrell said he certainly gave great weight to wishes of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee, which recommended the option. But he also referred obliquely to ousted Superintendent Charles Hopson’s seeming statements that he didn’t intend to be guided by Board wishes in some spending decisions. The “tone at the top” is vital, he said, in answer to a question about why the state decided to both oust Hopson and dissolve the school board.
- Hopson’s contract is now null, Kimbrell said. The state has no obligation to pay him.
Rotary Club Speech: Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men: Innovative Solution & First All-Male Public Charter School in Wisconsin
Join us next week,
Wednesday, June 22, at the Alliant Energy Center’s Exhibition Hall as we welcome fellow Rotarian Kaleem Caire to the podium for a presentation on the features of the Madison Preparatory Academy, its timeline for implementation and a status report on where it is in the school development and approval process.
Attendees will learn why and how the Urban League hopes to lead a renaissance in K-12 education in Greater Madison, tying its charter school effort to local school improvement
initiatives, economic development projects and advancements and innovations in higher education and workforce development in Greater Madison.
Judge Jolts Little Rock Ruling Cuts Money Meant to Desegregate Schools in City at Center of 1957 Fight
A federal judge has halted longtime state payments intended to help integrate three Arkansas school districts, including Little Rock, site of one of the most bitter desegregation fights in U.S. history.
U.S. District Court Judge Brian S. Miller, who oversees the districts’ federally ordered desegregation efforts, found the payments were “proving to be an impediment to true desegregation” by rewarding school systems that don’t meet their long-standing commitments.
Judge Miller’s recent rulings triggered protests by the school districts. But some lawmakers and state officials hailed the decision to shut off the payments, which totaled roughly $1 billion over the past two decades.
Lawyers for Little Rock and the other districts said the loss of as much as $70 million for the year that begins in August would cause budgetary chaos. The state payments amount to about 10% of the Little Rock budget and about 9% for each of the other two districts. The parties have until Friday to seek a stay of the order.
Learning from California: Improving Efficiency of Classroom Time and Instruction
Center on Reinventing Public Education via a Deb Britt email:
John Danner, CEO and Founder of Rocketship Education, presented the Rocketship charter elementary school model and argued that hybrid schools are better for both students and teachers. Rocketship Education currently operates two open enrollment schools and serves a primarily low-income student population. The organization, which aims to have clusters in 50 cities over the next 15 years, works to eliminate the achievement gap by ensuring its low-income students are proficient and college-bound when they graduate from elementary school.
Shantanu Sinha, President and COO of the Khan Academy, described how their online academy began when the founder created math instruction videos to tutor his cousins. In just seven months, the Khan Academy has grown to serve over 2 million unique users per month with close to 60 million lessons delivered. With a mission “to deliver a world-class education to anyone anywhere,” the Academy is utilized mainly by students at home as a supplement to their regular school instruction. Increasingly, though, Khan lessons are used in public schools to provide self-paced exercises and assessments to students, so as to avoid gaps in learning.
Presentations and ensuing discussion with local leaders pointed to two core components of innovative education that Washington State can learn from: efficient use of teacher time and skill as well as individualized instruction. Each builds on the lessons which Joel Rose, founder of School of One, emphasized at the launch of the Washington Education Innovation Forum.
CyberPatriot: High School Cyber Defense Competition
CyberPatriot is the National High School Cyber Defense Competition created by the Air Force Association (AFA) to excite, educate, and motivate the next generation of cyber defenders and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates our nation needs.
Madison Teachers, Inc. head: Time to get ‘down and dirty’
“They’re ready,” Matthews said afterward, “to do whatever it takes.”
After 43 years as executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., Matthews is in the spotlight again after encouraging a four-day sick-out that closed school in February. The action allowed teachers to attend protests at the Capitol over Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to curb collective bargaining by public employees. The matter remains in the courts, but it prompted a hasty contract negotiation between the district and union.
Teachers aren’t happy about some of the changes, and Matthews is preparing for a street fight.
“It’s going to get down and dirty,” Matthews said, alluding to the possibility of more job actions, such as “working the contract” – meaning teachers wouldn’t work outside required hours – if the School Board doesn’t back off changes in the contract. “You can’t continually put people down and do things to control them and hurt them and not have them react.”
Moreover, the latest battle over collective bargaining has taken on more personal significance for Matthews, whose life’s work has been negotiating contracts.
Much more on John Matthews, here. Madison Teachers, Inc. website and Twitter feed.
What does the future hold for education in Wisconsin?
Mr. Educational Landscape Watcher here, with his jaw hanging open while he thinks about a few questions that boil down to this: What next?
In January, Gov. Scott Walker told a convention of school board members and administrators from around Wisconsin that he was going to give them new tools to deal with their financial issues. Naïve me – I thought he meant bigger hammers and saws.
It turned out Walker was thinking along the lines of those machines that can strip-mine most of China in a week.
Goodness gracious, look at where things stand less than five months later, with more earth moving and drama ahead. Every public school in Wisconsin will be different in important ways because of what has happened in Madison. The private school enrollment in the Milwaukee and Racine areas will get a boost, maybe a large one. The decisions many people make on schooling for their kids are likely to be changed by what has happened in Madison. And then there’s the future of Milwaukee Public Schools (he said with a shudder).
As the Legislature’s budget committee wraps up its work, let’s venture thoughts on a few questions:
High Tech MCAT Cheating
Two B.C. men are facing criminal charges for allegedly attempting a high-tech scam to cheat on a medical school entrance exam using secret cameras, wireless transmitters and three tutors, who at first did not realize they were being duped.
According to documents filed in provincial court in Richmond, B.C., Josiah Miguel Ruben and Houman Rezazadeh-Azar are each facing six charges including theft, unauthorized use of a computer, using a device to obtain unauthorized service and theft of data.
Police allege that on Jan. 29, Rezazadeh-Azar sat down in a room at the University of Victoria to write the Medical College Admissions Test, or MCAT, run by the Association of Medical Colleges.
Police allege he used a pinhole camera and wireless technology to transmit images of the questions on a computer screen back to his co-conspirator, Ruben, at the University of British Columbia.
Aspen Institute Highlights Teacher Union and School District Collaboration
oday the Aspen Institute examined the historic partnership in Pittsburgh between the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT) and Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) through release of a research paper and at a panel discussion.
Panel moderator and executive director of the Aspen Institute Education & Society Program Ross Wiener underlined that an adversarial relationship between management and labor is not inevitable if both sides are committed to maximizing student outcomes by providing the best-equipped, most effective teachers.
The partnership between PPS and the PFT is a powerful example of what’s possible when districts and unions honestly confront the issues, and when leaders on both sides are willing to change. “Pittsburgh’s pursuit of an ambitious reform agenda through cooperative efforts offers a powerful counterpoint to the current focus on union-district discord,” said Wiener. “While collaboration can’t substitute for a substantive improvement agenda, there’s every reason to believe we’ll make more progress when people are working together. Genuine collaboration will look different in every context, but there are important lessons in Pittsburgh’s journey.”
Hosted by the Aspen Institute Education & Society Program, the panel discussion was based upon release of its newest report: “Forging a New Partnership: The Story of Teacher Union and School District Collaboration in Pittsburgh.” The report, authored by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette staff writer Sean Hamill, provides an in-depth look at the breakthrough collaboration that took place in Pittsburgh over the past five years. The report also highlights important principles applicable to other districts across the US.
Newspaper’s lawsuit seeks sick notes for Madison school teachers during protest
The Madison School District failed to follow state law when it denied the Wisconsin State Journal access to more than 1,000 sick notes submitted by teachers who didn’t show up for work in February, according to a lawsuit filed by the newspaper Thursday.
The lawsuit, filed in Dane County District Court, asks the court to force the district to release the notes under the state’s open records law, which requires government agencies to release public documents in most circumstances.
The lawsuit says the sick notes are public records because the public has a special interest in knowing how governments discipline employees, who are ultimately responsible to the public.
“We can’t know if things were dealt with appropriately if we can’t see the underlying documents on which decisions were made,” said April Rockstead Barker, the newspaper’s lawyer.
Dylan Pauly, a School District lawyer, declined comment until she had a chance to review the lawsuit.
STEM: Changemakers Competition due 8/3/2011
Carnegie Corporation of New York:
Solving the world’s most pressing challenges will require innovations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (also called STEM). From climate change to fiscal meltdowns, renewable energy to eradicating diseases, from food security to global and local health, the STEM disciplines are at the very center of our quest to improve our lives and the condition of our world.
If we are to bring new ideas to long-standing problems and new talent to emerging opportunities, we need to educate all of our young people to higher levels of understanding in the STEM fields. Despite the heroic efforts of our nation’s best teachers and principals, our schools are ill-equipped to do that: According to international comparisons, U.S. students ranked below 22 countries in science and below 30 countries in math. And yet our communities are filled with many of the world’s most talented professionals in these fields. They work in hospitals, universities, and museums; biotech, engineering, and architecture firms; graphic-design and urban-planning studios; hedge funds, banks, and computer-software, gaming, and pharmaceutical companies. They just rarely directly impact our public schools.
RSS Local Schools Waunakee speller advances to national bee’s semifinals
Waunakee’s Parker Dietry will get his chance to spell on national television Thursday as one of 41 spellers who advanced Wednesday to the semifinal round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Parker correctly spelled “fennec” in Round 2 and “dossier” in Round 3. The points he earned for spelling those words correctly combined with his score on Tuesday’s written test propelled him to the next round.
“It’s going to be really cool to be on ESPN,” Dietry said Wednesday from the competition in Washington, D.C.
Madison School District Final Audit Report: Gifted and Talented Standard
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction:
On September 20,2010, eight residents of the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) filed a complaint (numerous others were listed as supporting the complaint) alleging the school district was not in compliance with the Gifted and Talented (G/T) standard, Wis. Stat. sec. 121.02(1)(t), that requires that each school board shall “provide access to an appropriate program for pupils identified as gifted and talented.” Based upon this complaint, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (department) initiated an audit pursuant to Wis. Admin Code sec. PI 8.02. The purpose ofthe audit was to determine whether the school district is in compliance with Wis. Stat. sees. 121.02(1)(t) and 118.35, and Wis. Admin. Code
sec. PI 8.01(2)(t)2. The investigation focused on three core content areas: English/language arts; science; and social studies; in particular at the 9th and 1oth grade levels, per the letter of complaint.
The department informed the school district of the audit on October 13, 2010, and requested information and documentation for key components of the G/T plan. The school district provided a written response and materials on November 29, 2010 and supplemental materials on December 21 , 2010.
On January 25 and 26, 2011, a team of four department representatives conducted an on-site audit which began with a meeting that included the school board president, the district administrator, the deputy superintendent, the secondary assistant superintendent, the executive director of curriculum and assessment, the interim Talented and Gifted (TAG) administrator, an elementary TAG resource teacher, a secondary TAG resource teacher, and legal counsel. After this meeting, the team visited East, West, LaFollette, and Memorial High Schools. At each of these sites, the team conducted interviews with the building principal, school counselors, teachers, and students. At the end ofeach ofthe two days the department team met with parents.
Controversial DeForest, WI School Administrator Raises
The pressure is off of district administrators and the school board here in Sun Prairie, because of the shocking cajones of the DeForest Board of Education and DeForest Area School District Administrators.
While we’re getting worked up –and justifiably so— about our own district administration on the cusp of getting 1.6% increases in the midst of tight times, the DeForest Administration Team —with the support of the Board of Education– awarded themselves titannic raises under the guise of “Dane County Market Equity” adjustments. The raises are retroactive to January 1, 2011. For appearances sake–you just KNOW they’ll spin this in budget documents— their salaries are being frozen for 2011-12. Geeeee whiz! With those increases, they should be frozen permanently.
More than 1,700 sign up for Madison schools’ new 4K program
More than 1,700 students are signed up for Madison’s new 4-year-old kindergarten program next fall — many more than the district anticipated.
The district initially projected enrollment at 1,500 students, but so far has enrolled 1,730 students and counting. Parents can enroll their students in the free program at any time.
The higher number is a good thing and likely resulted from an extensive amount of community outreach, according to Deputy Superintendent Sue Abplanalp.
Wisconsin Governor’s Read to Lead Task Force 5/31/2011 Meeting
via a kind reader’s email:
Notice of Commission Meeting
Governor’s Read to Lead Task Force
Governor Scott Walker, Chair
Superintendent Tony Evers, Vice-Chair
Members: Mara Brown, Kathy Champeau, Steve Dykstra, Michele Erikson, Representative Jason Fields, Marcia Henry, Representative Steve Kestell, Rachel Lander, Senator Luther Olsen, Tony Pedriana, Linda Pils, and Mary Read.
Guests: Professors from UW colleges of education
Tuesday, May 31, 2011 1:00pm
Office of the Governor, Governor’s Conference Room 115 East State Capitol Madison, WI 53702
Welcome and opening remarks by Governor Walker and Superintendent Evers.
Introductions from task force members and guest members representing UW colleges of education.
A discussion of teacher training and professional development including current practices and ways to improve.
Short break.
A discussion of reading interventions including current practices and ways to improve.
A discussion of future topics and future meeting dates.
Adjournment.
Governor Scott Walker
Chair
Individuals needing assistance, pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, should contact the Governor’s office at (608) 266-1212, 24 hours before this meeting to make necessary arrangements.
University of Wisconsin Institutions to Receive Talented & Gifted Grants
Modifies the gifted and talented education grant program to allow all UW institutions to receive grants.
Wisconsin Joint Committee On Finance website.
I wonder what this means?
Some states and regions offer extensive higher education opportunities to high school students.
Madison West High School Sexual Assault
via a kind reader’s email:
Please read attached letter with information about an assault at West High today. (The body of the letter is below, for anyone unable to open the attachment.)
Dear Students, Parents/Legal Guardians:
We want to make you aware of an alleged serious sexual assault that happened at West High School on Monday, May 16. A female student reported being forcibly sexually assaulted in a stairwell by a student acquaintance. The female student first contacted the Fitchburg Police Department which then notified the school.
West High School administrators and our education resource officer are working with Fitchburg Police on the investigation. An individual has been arrested for 2nd degree sexual assault and has been taken into custody.
As we continually evaluate our safety and security procedures at West High, this incident requires staff and students to be extra vigilant in all areas of the school. West High staff will work with the district’s security coordinator and Building Services staff to examine access to all hallways, corridors, stairwells and elevators. Lighting, security cameras and building supervision are being reviewed and if changes are needed, they will be made.
This incident is deeply disturbing to us. We want to assure you that the staff at West High School will do all they can to make certain the school is safe. We are also prepared to help any student and family needing assistance as a result of this incident. They should contact any administrative staff at West HS.
If you wish to discuss safety at West High in greater detail, please contact the Superintendent.
Districts asked to name teachers who used sick time during protests
School districts across the state are being asked to release the names of teachers who called in sick during protests in February at the Capitol, a move that led to closures for a day or more in many districts.
It’s unclear how many of the state’s 424 districts received requests, but several conservative groups have made public records requests for teacher names. Most districts have released them.
But the Madison School District denied several requests, saying the release could risk the safety of teachers and students, and disrupt morale and the learning environment in schools.
And the s, the state’s largest teachers union, used a similar argument in asking a La Crosse County judge to quash the release of teacher names in the La Crosse and Holmen districts.
The judge recently blocked the release of names in Holmen and may rule soon on the La Crosse case.
Behind Grass-Roots School Advocacy, Bill Gates
Sam Dillon, via a kind reader’s email:
A handful of outspoken teachers helped persuade state lawmakers this spring to eliminate seniority-based layoff policies. They testified before the legislature, wrote briefing papers and published an op-ed article in The Indianapolis Star.
They described themselves simply as local teachers who favored school reform — one sympathetic state representative, Mary Ann Sullivan, said, “They seemed like genuine, real people versus the teachers’ union lobbyists.” They were, but they were also recruits in a national organization, Teach Plus, financed significantly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
For years, Bill Gates focused his education philanthropy on overhauling large schools and opening small ones. His new strategy is more ambitious: overhauling the nation’s education policies. To that end, the foundation is financing educators to pose alternatives to union orthodoxies on issues like the seniority system and the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers.
The Gates Foundation has funded many initiatives, including the controversial “small learning community” program.
Madison School District Literacy Program; 2011-12 Proposed Budget Hearing Remarks
We urge the Board of Education to approve and implement the initiatives and budget proposed for the school-wide literacy program [Public Appearance Remarks]. It is deplorable that heretofore there has been no systematic plan to address the reading and writing shortcomings of the District. These shortcomings are the most fundamental causative factor contributing to the poor achievement performance of our students. The proposed design of systemic changes to the curriculum, instructional strategies, engagement of teachers, support staff, students and parents/other adults and the realignment of financial and other resources will result in measurable student growth. Board adoption of the $650,000.00 2011-12 budget considerations is an absolute necessity of the very highest priority.
Our thanks and compliments to the Board and the administration for undertaking the assessment of literacy in the District. However, the Board must take a greatly increased leadership role in demanding the vigorous evaluation and assessment all programs, services and personnel throughout the District. There must be demonstrable commitment and evidence of the systematic implementation of the strategic objective of the five-year District Strategic Plan to address the woefully inadequate and insufficient data upon which to make decisions about curriculum, instruction and performance of students and staff.
The Board must not give any support for an increase in property taxes in finalizing the 2011-12 budget. Nor, is there any justification for using any amount of “under-levy carry-over” if such authorization should be re-instated by the state. There is no evidence to support an increase in taxes. We must be able to prioritize the expenditure of revenues available within the limits established. The Board has already demonstrated it cannot effectively manage its allocations to areas of highest need to strengthen the impact on curriculum, instruction and performance affecting student learning. Until and unless the Board can demonstrate a higher and more effective level of leadership with its decisions and priorities it cannot be trusted with more money that will only get the same results.
We support an increase in allocations for maintenance and electrical infrastructure up-grades conditional upon 1) re-allocation of existing funds to these areas; 2) clear and enumerated priorities, established in advance, for maintenance projects that are specifically related to safety issues; and 3) electrical infrastructure up-grades specifically related to priorities established for improvements and expansion of technology as identified in the Technology Plan for use in student learning, instruction, business services and communications with the public.
The Board must not give approval to the proposed amendment for providing staff with year-end bonuses. This is absolutely the wrong message, for the wrong reasons at the wrong time. It cannot be justified in ‘rewarding’ those staff who wrongfully abdicated their responsibilities in the classroom to the students; by insulting those staff who did attempt to fulfill their responsibilities; as well as insulting the parents and students harmed by those detrimental actions. It would be far better to allocate the ‘savings funds’ to resources actively and directly impacting student learning. The Board must make a commitment to providing leadership toward academic improvements and to creating a working culture of mutual trust and collaboration with employees and taxpayers.
For further information contact: Don Severson, donleader@aol.com 577-0851
How to destroy a school system
There is something horribly fascinating about watching Wisconsin Republicans discuss their plans for our state’s school system.
First, they swing the bloody ax:
- The biggest budget cuts to our public schools in state history, nearly $900 million. Kerchunk.
- A bill to create a statewide system of charter schools whose authorizing board is appointed by Scott Walker and the Fitzgeralds, and which will funnel resources out of local schools and into cheapo online academies. Kerchunk.
- Lifting income caps on private-school vouchers so taxpayers foot the bill to send middle- and upper-income families’ kids to private school. Kerchunk.
- Then comes the really sick part. They candy-coat all this with banal statements about “reforms” that will “empower” parents and students and improve education.
Last week, Walker went to Washington, D.C., to give a speech to school-choice advocates at the American Federation for Children. He started off by reading a Dr. Seuss book, and talking about how “every kid deserves to have a great education.”
Related: Problems in Wisconsin Reading NAEP Scores Task Force and Wisconsin needs two big goals.
Portland school bond: Hard-earned lessons in Portland’s bond nail-biter
Portland isn’t the kind of city to have nail-biting elections over school taxes. Levies “coast to victory” in the news headlines here. A special income tax will “pass easily by wide margins,” even during an economic downturn.
Bonds pass, too — until this week, when Portland voters narrowly rejected a $548 million capital bond and upended conventional wisdom about their loyalties and limits. This man-bites-dog result provides some invaluable lessons for the district and its campaign team as they regroup for the next bond effort.
Starting with this lesson: Never take voters for granted. Listen to what they’re saying now — not what they’ve said in the past.
Crowdsourcing Education Innovation, For Cash
One of the largest educational publishers in the world is offering cash prizes to the winners of a crowdsourced learning product innovation competition.
One of the world’s largest educational publishers is turning to crowdsourcing for their next great product idea. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s (HMH) initiative–the HMH Global Education Challenge–is an Intel Science Fair-style competition for educators that is giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just one important caveat: HMH retains rights to the ideas.
The competition will be the first major attempt to develop for-market pedagogical materials via crowdsourcing. Participants will upload brief descriptions of their potential projects and then are able to view, comment, and vote on other proposals. A panel of judges, including former Education Secretary Bill Bennett and Bob Wise, the former governor of West Virginia, will decide on the winners from a pool of the 20 top-voted entries in September.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is offering a $100,000 grand prize for the winning entrant and a $25,000 second-place prize. Another $125,000 worth of prizes, including iPads, netbooks, and textbook donations, will be distributed to contestants and the schools of their choice.
Minnesota charter schools get 1-year extension on new rules
Charter schools in Minnesota are getting a one-year reprieve from a deadline that threatened to close dozens of schools.
Those schools’ sponsors were facing a summer deadline to continue sponsoring schools under a new system created two years ago. Schools without a sponsor, or authorizer, by this July would have had to close.
Gov. Mark Dayton signed legislation into law Wednesday that extends that deadline until next summer.
Eugene Piccolo with the Minnesota Association of Charter Schools said the deadline worried many schools.
School board member Ed Hughes wants to give some docked pay back to Madison teachers (Proposal Withdrawn Later in the Day)
Hughes is making the proposal [56K PDF Ed Hughes Amendment] as an amendment to the district’s budget.
Funding would come from the $1.3 million windfall the district will get from docking the pay of 1,769 teachers who were absent without an excuse on one or more days between Feb. 16-18 and 21.
The district closed school during those four days because of the high number of staff members who called in sick to attend protests over Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed changes to public sector collective bargaining.
“Under the circumstances it seemed to me the school district shouldn’t necessarily profit from that, because the teachers agreed to make up the time in a way that took away planning time for them,” said Hughes, who is considering a run for school board president when new officers are elected Monday.
Hughes is also proposing increasing the district’s proposed property tax levy for next year by about $2 million to pay for maintenance and technology projects and any costs associated with the district’s implementation of a state-imposed talented-and-gifted education plan.
“It seems goofy that we give away $1 million and then raise property taxes [50K PDF Ed Hughes Amendment],” board member Lucy Mathiak said.
If a school board member in Madison gets his way, the district would used money it saved when teachers forced schools to shut down during the budget debate to award end of the year bonuses to teachers.
WTMJ partner station WIBA Radio in Madison says that teachers in Madison would receive $200 gift cards as year-end bonuses.
“Whenever we can, we need to show some kind of tangible appreciation for the extremely hard work our teachers and staff do,” said Ed Hughes, a member of the Madison school board.
“They’ve had a particularly tough year as you know, given that they kind of became political footballs in the legislature. We’re ending up slashing their take home pay by a substantial amount, pretty much because we have to.”
Additional links:
- David Blaska adds quotes from Mr. Hughes, here.
- School board member withdraws controversial gift card proposal.
- Don Severson talks with Vicki McKenna on the proposal (35mb .mp3)
- What’s behind the teacher gift card proposal? by Susan Troller
- TJ Mertz summarizes today’s brief Madison School District budget meeting.
Related: 5/26/2005 MTI & The Madison School Board by Ed Hughes.
Steering Capital: Optimizing Financial Support for Innovation in Public Education
Public education has reached a moment of rare consensus: something must be done about the sorry state of our public schools, particularly in urban and low-income areas, and that the solution must deliver better results at scale – and without significant additional resources. Other fields like medicine and communications have embraced innovation – a new approach that achieves a better result – as the best means to this end. But education innovation has not yet lived up to its promise. In this paper, education entrepreneur Kim Smith and innovation writer Julie Petersen chart a path forward for how the public, private and nonprofit sectors can work together to advance education innovation by steering capital toward products, services and approaches that improve educators’ productivity and students’ learning outcomes.
Today, the educational ecosystem is not set up to support meaningful and widespread innovation. The policy and investment context that defines the flow of capital in education can either encourage or inhibit this innovation, and today it does much more of the latter than the former. Public policies and regulations favor compliance over excellence, rarely allow state or district buyers to choose flexibly between a range of high-quality product or service options, inhibit the flow of information that would allow buyers to anticipate or measure performance improvements, and offering few meaningful incentives for these buyers to adopt better products and services. The philanthropic capital market similarly provides few mechanisms for rewarding dramatically improved outcomes (including little funding for the scale-up of successful organizations), instead favoring small doses of funding across many organizations. Private investors shy away from fueling education innovation, intimidated by policies that restrict the work of for-profit providers in education, frequent policy volatility at the local level, market domination by a few large publishers that feel little pressure from competition or from their customers to really innovate, and a slow, relationship-based sales cycle that rarely measures or rewards quality.
Seattle’s Ingraham parents 1, Seattle Schools 0
Parents, teachers and students have been in shock since the Seattle School District’s interim Superintendent decided to fire a popular principal for little reason, they thought. They fought. They won.
This afternoon Superintendent Susan Enfield reversed her decision about dismissing Ingraham Principal Martin Floe, and sent the high school’s staff this letter:When I was appointed Interim Superintendent, it was with the clear charge to strengthen opportunities for all students to learn. You asked me to bring high levels of transparency and accountability to this effort. The decision I made last Tuesday about the leadership of Ingraham High School Principal Martin Floe reflects my efforts to realize these commitments.
However, I also know that a good leader listens. After extensive conversations with Ingraham High School staff and the community, I have decided to renew Mr. Floe’s contact for the 2011-12 school year, under the condition that he continue on a plan of improvement, which I, along with his Executive Director, will monitor throughout the year.
Madison schools ‘don’t want to wait’ for a crisis
Responding to an increase in violence, drugs and gang activity in and around schools, the Madison School District is considering a broad effort to improve building security, including the use of drug-sniffing dogs in high schools next year.
The district also is proposing to lock the main entrances of middle school buildings during the day. Other recommendations include redesigning main entrances at West and Memorial high schools and adding surveillance cameras to all elementary and middle schools, district security coordinator Luis Yudice said.
“We are not doing this because we believe we have severe problems in our schools (or) because we experienced a tragedy in our schools,” Yudice said. “We don’t want to wait until there’s a crisis. We want to get ahead of the game.”
School choice advocates spend freely on politics, WEAC Spending
A rural legislator who received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from out-of-state school choice advocates took flak back home for supporting expansion of a Milwaukee voucher program when his own school district is struggling financially.
According to a story in the Sauk Prairie Eagle last week, an aide to Rep. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, had to use a gavel to bring order back to a budget listening session at Sauk Prairie Memorial Hospital on May 6.
Marklein, a freshman Republican legislator, was asked if campaign contributions were influencing his support for two pieces of recent school choice legislation which provide public tax dollars for families to spend in private schools in Milwaukee. This, at the same time that the River Valley School District, which Marklein represents, has been forced to cut programs and staff and is facing more cuts in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget.
Related: WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators by Steven Walters:
How much do election-year firewalls cost to build? For the state’s largest teachers union, $1.57 million.
That’s how much the Wisconsin Education Association Council said last week it will spend trying to make sure four Democratic state senators are re-elected – enough, WEAC hopes, to keep a Democratic majority in the 33-member state body.
Although there are 15 Democratic candidates running for the state Senate, and 80 Democrats running for the state Assembly, the latest WEAC report shows that the teachers union is placing what amounts to an “all in” bet on saving just four Democratic senators who are finishing their first terms.
Wisconsin Teachers Union Tops Lobbying Expenditures in 2009, more than Double #2
Madison East High assistant coach arrested for alleged sexual relationship with 16-year-old
A Madison East High School assistant girls basketball coach was arrested Friday for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old female student.
A search warrant filed Monday in Dane County Circuit Court — seeking a DNA sample from Jason L. Hairston, 29 — states that the girl and Hairston began a relationship shortly after winter break, which ended Jan. 3.
Hairston remained in the Dane County Jail on Monday, where he is tentatively charged with sexual assault of a student by staff.
According to the search warrant, the girl told police that she knew Hairston through her involvement with the team. She said they had sex at a number of locations, including his home and her home, several motels, a parking lot on the North Side and the garage of a North Side home.
Letter to East High School Parents, via a kind reader’s email.
Fairfax teacher Sean Lanigan still suffering from false molestation allegations
Sean Lanigan’s nightmare began in January 2010, when the principal at Centre Ridge Elementary School pulled him out of the physical education class he was teaching and quietly walked him into an interrogation with two Fairfax County police detectives.
He had no warning that a 12-year-old girl at the Centreville school had accused him of groping and molesting her in the gym.
The girl, angry at Lanigan about something else entirely, had made the whole thing up. But her accusations launched a soul-sapping rollercoaster ride that still hasn’t ended.
“Emotionally, a part of me has died inside,” Lanigan said in a recent interview. “I’m physically and mentally exhausted all the time, how the whole process has been dragged out to this date. It certainly has affected the quality of life for me and my family at home.”
Madison Edgewood High closed after student’s death; school also deals with unrelated security issue
Edgewood High School closed Monday as students and parents grieved the unexpected death of a student Sunday, and school officials and police dealt with what they said was an unrelated security concern.
The death occurred the same day school officials met with parents to discuss concerns related to graffiti found in a bathroom Friday, according to emails Edgewood High School President Judd Schemmel sent to parents over the weekend.
“We don’t have any reason to believe the two are connected,” Madison Police Capt. Joe Balles said Monday, referring to the death and the security issue.
School officials did not tell parents that they decided to close school until late Sunday after learning of the student’s death, according to emails sent to parents.
Wisconsin Voucher expansion is threat to public education
here’s a train coming, folks. And, unlike the proposed Madison-to-Milwaukee rail, this train really is high-speed.
If we’re not paying attention, it could end up crippling public education in Wisconsin.
Gov. Scott Walker had already included in his 2011-13 budget proposal a plan to change the Milwaukee school voucher program, which allows low-income students to attend private schools on the taxpayers’ dime.
It would eliminate the enrollment caps; expand it to include schools in all of Milwaukee County, not just the city; and phase out income limits, opening the program to middle- and high-income families.
The Assembly last week passed a separate bill that eliminated the caps and the Milwaukee-only school requirement.
NYC Charter School Stalls in Court
The Upper West Side could lose its first charter school before it even opens.
A judge has slapped the Department of Education with a temporary restraining order that halted the start of renovations necessary on the school building on 84th Street where Upper West Success Academy Charter School plans to open in August.
The city downplayed the restraining order.
“While we do not believe the stay was warranted, it is not unusual for judges to preserve the status quo for a short period of time while they consider the legal issues before them,” said Chlarens Orsland, assistant corporation counsel for the New York City law department.
The school, founded by former City Council member Eva Moskowitz, has been the subject of heated opposition since the DOE announced it would be allowed to take root in the old Brandeis High School building, where there are now five small high schools.
Free Science, One Paper at a Time
On Father’s Day three years ago, biologist Jonathan Eisen decided he’d like to republish all his father’s papers. His father, Howard Eisen, a biologist and a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, had published 40-some-odd papers by the time that he died by suicide at age 45. That had been in Febuary 1987, while Jonathan, a sophomore at college, was on the verge of discovering his own love of biology. At the time, virtually all scientific papers were just on paper. Now, of course, everything happens online, and Jonathan, who in addition to researching and teaching also serves as an editor for the open-access, online-only journal PLoS Biology, knows this well. So three years ago, Jonathan decided to reclaim his father’s papers from print limbo and make them freely available online. He wanted to make them part of the scientific record. He also wanted, he says, “to leave a more positive presence” — to ensure his father had a public legacy first and foremost as a scientist.
Commencement Cash Cow
For years many colleges and universities have been paying speaker fees — some quite substantial — to celebrities, prominent academics and other well-known personalities to deliver commencement addresses or to give speeches during the academic year on campus and at student meetings.
It has been one of the best kept secrets of academic life, until the newspapers recently reported that Rutgers University had invited Toni Morrison, Nobel laureate in literature, to deliver this year’s commencement address for $30,000. It was then reported that Rutgers students had upped the ante by inviting Snooki, of “Jersey Shore” fame, to the campus to talk about partying and having fun for the tidy sum of $32,000.
That Snooki should command more money than Morrison was somewhat surprising, but even more shocking was the willingness of Rutgers to spend a large amount of money on a commencement speech at a time when the university has experienced financial difficulties, cancelled pay raises and last June froze the salaries of 13,000 employees.
Teachers, MTI head should offer apologies
The April 28 State Journal editorial urged punishment of sick note scammers (some teachers and doctors during the recent protests), and included a column by Chris Rickert titled “Don’t cry for teachers who choose early retirement.” Many taxpayers in Madison and Wisconsin would say “amen.”
It’s ironic and hypocritical that a national radio ad expresses support for Teacher Appreciation Week and touts teachers so soon after over 1,700 Madison teachers didn’t show up for work — 84 of them turning in fraudulent sick notes. The teachers used students as pawns at protest marches and contributed to protester damage at our Capitol.
In the minds of many property taxpayers and even some students, teachers have lost much respect and trust. This could be reversed if teachers and their arrogant union boss John Matthews would express in a public statement regret for their selfish and illegal actions.
Would improved TAG program hurt other Madison School District Programs?
Just when you thought the Madison School District had enough on its plate — perennially tight budgets, teachers incensed at Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting, minority achievement gaps — it’s under a gun of a different sort:
Get your program for talented and gifted, or TAG, students in order, the state told the district in March, after a group of parents complained their kids were not being sufficiently challenged in the classroom.
I am dubious of efforts to devote additional time and money to students who already have the advantage of being smart — and often white and upper-middle class — and who have similarly situated parents adept at lobbying school officials.
Money, time and effort generally not being unlimited commodities in public school districts, the question over what is to be done about Madison’s TAG program strikes me as one of priorities.
Improving TAG offerings would seem to require an equal reduction in something else. And maybe that something else is more important to more students.
Not that it’s likely anyone on the School Board would ever acknowledge any trade-offs.
It’s a “false dichotomy,” said School Board member Ed Hughes, and “not an either/or situation.” Can the district be all things to all people? I asked. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”
Much more on the Talented & Gifted Wisconsin DPI complaint, here.
John Matthews rips MTI contract concessions to the Madison School District
A dispute has developed between Madison teachers and the school district over changes to contracts secured during quickie negotiations in March. John Matthews, executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., is upset about what he calls an “unfair and unreasonable” process.
“The bargaining didn’t have to [involve] so much animosity,” says Matthews. “If they wanted to make revisions, all they had to do is talk with us and we could have worked through something that would be acceptable to both sides. But they didn’t bother to talk about it. You don’t buy good will this way.”
Elsewhere, in an interview with the Wisconsin State Journal, Matthews referred darkly to “the ill will of the board of education and superintendent” toward his members, as shown in these contract talks.
But school board members and district administrators take a different view, saying Matthews and his staff were at the bargaining table and agreed to all changes made to the contracts during an all-night negotiation that ended March 12; MTI members ratified the deal the next day. School Board President Maya Cole suggests that Matthews now has “buyer’s remorse.”
Chicago Urban Prep charter school seniors get into Ivy League schools
Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, via a kind reader’s email:
Urban Prep Academy will mark another first this year — the city’s all-male, all-African-American charter high school will be sending its first students to an Ivy League school in the fall.
Urban Prep Academy will mark another first this year — the city’s all-male, all-African-American charter high school will be sending its first students to an Ivy League school in the fall.
Seniors Matthew Williams and Julius Claybron have been accepted into Cornell University. Williams also has been accepted into Dartmouth College and wait-listed at Harvard and Yale, school officials said.
The students and 102 others in the Class of 2011 announced the colleges they will attend at a ceremony Wednesday at U.S. Cellular Field. They put on baseball caps for their college picks, which included Morehouse, Oberlin, Grinnell and the University of Michigan.
Much more on Chicago’s Urban Prep Academy and the proposed Madison Prep IB Charter school here.
SPECIAL NEEDS SCHOLARSHIPS: Myths and Facts about Wisconsin’s AB 110
Disability Rights Wisconsin (78K PDF), via a kind reader’s email:
Special interests in Washington DC have hired expensive lobbyists who also represent large corporate interests including, General Motors and Proctor & Gamble to try to pull the wool over the eyes ofparents ofchildren with disabilities. They allege that their interest is, “To advocate for parental options in education that empowers low and middle-income families to make choices in where they send their children to school.” (1) These high powered special interests have never approached Disability Rights Wisconsin or any other major Wisconsin disability group to learn from those of us who have been advocating for Wisconsin children with disabilities for over 30 years, to find out what really needs improvement Wisconsin’s special education system. Instead, they have set up a Facebook site which fails to tell the whole truth about the bill they promote.
This fact sheet tells the whole truth about AB 110 and its effort to dismantle special education as we know it and subsidize middle and upper income families who want to send their kids to private school ai taxpayer expense.
Myth# l-AB 110 allows parents the option to choose any other school they want their child to attend if they are unsatisfied with the special education being provided in their public school.
Fact-AB 110 has no requirement in it that forces any school to accept a child who has a special needs voucher.
Myth# 2-Since only children with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) can receive a special needs scholarship, private schools who accept them must provide them with special education and implement the child’s IEP.
Facts-AB 110 makes no requirement that private schools which accept a special needs scholarship provide any special education or implement any IEP. In fact, AB II 0 does not even require that private schools which accept special needs scholarships have a single special education teacher or therapist on their staff!
Related: Wisconsin Public Hearing on Special Needs Scholarship.
Christie Picks Newark Schools Chief
Lisa Fleisher & Barbara Martinez:
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has selected Cami Anderson, a top New York City schools official, to lead the state-run Newark Public School system, according to several people with knowledge of the selection.
Ms. Anderson, 39 years old, will attempt to reform the largest and one of the most troubled public school systems in the state, a district that is the focal point for Mr. Christie’s education policy. Newark has about 38,000 students, and only half of them graduate from high school in four years.
Whose school is it anyway? Under proposal, taxpayers could pay for experimental charter schools
Kaleem Caire has spent much of the last year making a passionate, personal and controversial pitch for a publicly funded male-only charter school called Madison Preparatory that would operate independently of the Madison Metropolitan School District. It aims to serve primarily minority boys in grades six through 12 and their families.
Caire, a Madison native and the president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison, has mustered a great deal of community support by highlighting the struggles of and grim statistics surrounding black and Hispanic young boys and men in Dane County, and through telling his own powerful story of underachievement in Madison’s public schools.
“I learned about racism and lower expectations for minority kids when I arrived the first day at Cherokee Middle School, and all the black boys and a few other minorities sat at tables in the back. I was assigned to remedial math, and even when I showed the teacher I already knew how to do those worksheets, that’s where I was stuck,” Caire says.
With its emphasis on discipline, family involvement, preppy-looking uniforms and a non-negotiable stance on being a union-free school, Caire’s proposal for the boys-only middle and high school has won hundreds of enthusiastic supporters, including a number of prominent conservatives who, surprisingly, don’t seem particularly troubled by the school’s price tag.
Some might argue that certain programs within “traditional” public schools are experimental, such as Connected Math and Small Learning Communities among others.
NEA Affiliates in California and Wisconsin Approach Lean Years Differently.
Falling enrollment, budget cuts and layoff have led to corresponding declines in membership for most National Education Association state affiliates. Without compensatory action, fewer members mean less dues revenue – a situation these unions have not had to face in recent memory.
As the numbers show quite clearly, even lean times do not mean NEA’s affiliates will become destitute. There is an awful lot of cash flowing through union headquarters around the country. But union officers and representatives are quick to find ways to spend it, particularly on their own employees. Adjusting budgets downwards is not their strong suit.
NEA itself had to revise its budget to account for membership loss and a smaller-than-planned increase in dues. It also froze the pay of its executive officers for the 2011-12 school year.
Two NEA state affiliates – California and Wisconsin – have different troubles to face in different political environments, so we shouldn’t be surprised that they are applying different measures to their fiscal problems.
The California Teachers Association sets its dues level by a formula that involves the average teacher salary over the last three years. With layoffs occurring almost exclusively at the bottom of the salary scale, it actually has the effect of driving up the state’s average teacher salary, and thus the dues level. With fewer members, CTA will raise its dues $8 next fall, to $647. This will mitigate the money lost, but not cover it entirely.
……
WEAC announced the cancellation of its fall convention, citing the uncertainty of whether it will be allowed to bargain the time off for its members. However, holding these events each year is also a budgetary drain, one that other NEA state affiliates have been forced to face.
Despite the serious state of financial affairs, WEAC is allocating up to $2 million for lobbying, legal action and internal communications in order to turn the political tide. It has, and will continue to receive, monetary and manpower assistance from NEA and other affiliates, including California.
These early signs indicate that the likely outcome of the collective bargaining battles in statehouses across the country is financially weaker teachers’ unions – but only relatively. Overall, there may be fewer members and fewer staffers. The unions may require special assessments or higher dues increases just to restore former revenues. But $1.5 billion annually is still an awful lot of money. We may see it applied in concentrated form on the unions’ existential issues, not diffused among feel-good projects.
DFER and the Ultra-Conservative Money Behind the Voucher Movement
If you’ve been wondering what’s behind the recent resurgence of voucher bills in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida, Wisconsin and other states, researcher Rachel Tabachnick has done a remarkable job following the money — some of which leads back to Democrats for Education Reform, a group familiar to those who follow school choice debates here in New York. According to her recent two-part series (which can be read here and here), much of the money and support for the voucher movement has come from groups linked to Betsy DeVos,
a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party; daughter of the late Edgar Prince and Elsa Prince-Broekhuizen; sister of Blackwater-founder Erik Prince; and wife of Dick DeVos (son of Richard and Helen DeVos). The Devos side of the family fortune comes from Amway/Alticor, the controversial, multi-tiered home products business. A Center for Public Integrity Report showed that the DeVos family and business interests were the fifth largest contributors in the 2003 -2004 election cycle, with 100% of the donations going to Republicans. Dick and Betsy DeVos have been credited with helping to finance the Citizens United case which allows Super PACs to raise unlimited funds and conceal the donors, meaning that we will no longer know who provides the millions of dollars for the big media campaigns, or reveal the information that I have in this article on the Pennsylvania campaign. The Prince and Devos families have also funded the Family Research Council, Focus on Family, and the ministries of the late D. James Kennedy, all warriors against separation of church and state.
State investigation finds problems with Madison talented and gifted program
The Madison School District is under added pressure to improve how it identifies and educates talented and gifted students after state officials found its program does not comply with state law.
In revealing shortcomings in the district’s offerings for talented and gifted (TAG) students, the Department of Public Instruction challenges the approach some schools, particularly West High School, have used in which all students learn together.
“The district is going to have to face (the question): ‘How do they reconcile their policy of inclusion with honors classes?’?” said Carole Trone, director of the Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth at UW-Madison. “If parents see the other districts are challenging their students more, they might send their students there.”
Developing a comprehensive system to identify TAG students — including testing and staff training — can be expensive, Trone said. Moreover, districts that don’t identify students from all socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds open themselves up to discrimination lawsuits, she said.
Superintendent Dan Nerad said it’s unclear how much such a revamped program will cost.
Much more on the talented & gifted complaint, here.
Teachers Bring Science to Life, Sponsored by Rayovac
Science & Technology Institute, via a kind reader’s email:
Do you know a teacher who brings learning to life? Whether you’re a student, parent, teacher or school administrator, you can nominate your K-6 teacher for a chance to win an all-expense paid trip to Science in the Rockies, Steve Spangler’s three-day hands-on science teacher training in Denver.
Good golly, our schools desperately need new leadership
Laurie Rogers, via email:
When our school administrators speak to the public, we often hear one or more of the following:
- Blaming of others – Typical targets include teachers, parents, students, poverty, and a (fake) lack of money.
- Deceitful presentation of student outcomes – They’ll speak glowingly of some stray statistic that supposedly shows them in a slightly more positive light, but which also depends on the public not knowing the entire truth of it.
- Astonishing ignorance or accidental honesty. Sometimes the truth comes out of them – in shocking or comical ways.
- Requests for more money, on the heels of low student achievement. As pass rates go down, the expense per student continues to increase.
- New policy that will serve their ulterior purpose, but which will make life more difficult for students, parents and teachers.
And so it went, at two recent gatherings for Spokane Public Schools. Teachers were blamed. Administrators praised themselves. The superintendent’s comments caused a stir. And the school board voted to increase class sizes and cut 90 teachers.
…….
Increased expense for unproved programs
Taxpayers pay for scads of district and community programs devoted to reducing dropout rates and increasing on-time graduation rates. As district expenditures skyrocket, parents are still staring at students’ low pass rates, high dropout rates, high rates of college remediation, and low levels of basic skills.
Dr. Stowell praised the district for obtaining a multi-million-dollar grant for Rogers High School, which suffers from particularly low graduation rates. (Please note the illogic of awarding grants to failing programs because they are failing. Failure thus results in more money.) Dr. Stowell said the grant will pay for longer school days, extra teacher pay, a homework center, and – you knew it was coming – a pilot evaluation for teachers.
Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year
Katy Smith of Winona won Minnesota Teacher of the Year honors Sunday, the first time the 47-year-old award has been bestowed on a teacher who specializes in Early Childhood Family Education.
Smith, 51, a native of the Twin Cities’ western suburbs, has taught in the Winona school district since 1993 and works out of Goodview School. She has long specialized in Early Childhood Family Education, a program available in almost all Minnesota public school districts. The state is a leader nationally in the field, authorities say.
The program is based on the idea that the family provides a child’s first and most significant learning environment and parents are a child’s first and most important teachers, according to the Minnesota Department of Education’s website.
Parents and children from infancy to pre-kindergarten together attend childhood-family education classes.
School Choice and Urban Diversity: Many more middle-class parents would live in big cities if they could pick the schools their kids attend.
With several new GOP governors taking power, shock if not awe pervades the Midwest, particularly among those of us who are Democratic urban dwellers. Perhaps the wave of corporate tax breaks, service cuts to the needy, and transfer of school aid from poor to wealthy districts will be undone with the next swing of the political pendulum. Yet there is one GOP budget provision in Wisconsin that I hope survives.
For 20 years there’s been debate about parental school choice, but only a few places actually have it. Milwaukee has had choice since 1991. At first it was very limited–no religious schools, the program restricted to families with very low incomes, and a cap on total enrollment of 1,000. But parents are now able to choose religious schools, the income limit has been raised to 175% of the federal poverty line ($39,113), and the cap has increased to 22,500 students.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has proposed allowing any Milwaukee parent, regardless of income, to enroll their children in private and parochial schools. This will address two problems with the current choice program. One, the cap on total enrollment has forced parents onto waiting lists and into lotteries. Two, the income limit has the effect of isolating low-income students from other more affluent students.
Other jurisdictions, including Florida, Arizona and Cleveland, have choice programs. In Washington, D.C., choice was implemented under President George W. Bush and frozen under President Barack Obama. But Florida’s program requires a public school to fail, with failure measured by the state, not by parents. And all choice programs have limitations that undermine the desire of parents to have their children attend a school in which they have confidence. Yet if you think about it, America already has a school choice program in large metro areas. It’s a system that segregates the poor from the rich and works against Americans who want to live in cities. Here’s how it works.
Clusty Search: John Norquist.
Macau private teachers demand more pay
Hundreds of private school teachers marched in Macau yesterday to demand the same wages paid by the city’s handful of government schools.
They formed just part of Macau’s May Day protest. Other marchers included construction workers upset at the hiring of illegal workers because of the property boom.
Around 2,000 protesters took part in what has become an annual show of social discontent in the past few years. The 3,000 patacas cash handout announced by Macau Chief Executive Dr Fernando Chui Sai-on last month appeared to have little bearing on their complaints.
The protest yesterday marked the first time teachers took part as an organised group. There were about 500 and included students marching in support. Most complained about the wage differences between private and government schools – some 40 per cent less, teachers’ leader Choi Leong said.
Corporations to give Minneapolis Public Schools $13.8 million
Four major Minnesota-based corporations announced Monday they will give nearly $14 million to Minneapolis Public Schools.
Target, Cargill, Medtronic and General Mills have pledged to spend the money over the next three years to fund academic and personnel development programs.
Nearly half of the $13.8 million will be donated by Target. Target Foundation President Laysha Ward said the company will focus its contributions on early literacy programs.
“When a recent study at the Annie Casey Foundation shows that one in six students who do not read proficiently by the third grade do not graduate from high school on time, a rate four times greater when compared to proficient readers, we’re compelled to do more,” Ward said.
Ed Secretary encourages educators to challenge the status quo
The U.S. Secretary of Education said Friday he was impressed with Nebraska’s P-16 initiative — a coalition of state education, business and government leaders — and a sense of cohesion and commitment to education.
“To see all these leaders from across the state come together to really challenge the status quo and drive the state to new heights actually is extraordinarily encouraging to me,” said Arne Duncan, who met Friday with state and local education leaders at the governor’s mansion.
In a short news conference after a closed-door meeting with education leaders, Duncan touched on the No Child Left Behind law and the cost of college education. He said the Obama administration will invest in community colleges and in early education.
“At the end of the day, my goal and (the) president’s goal is to again lead the world in college graduates,” he said.
Wisconsin Public Hearing on Special Needs Scholarship
Brian Pleva Government Affairs Associate: American Federation for Children-Wisconsin, via a kind reader’s email:
Does contain the info you need?Good afternoon!
I am writing to you because you recently expressed an interest in the bipartisan Wisconsin Special Needs Scholarship Act (Assembly Bill 110).
As you may know, the bill would allow parents to enroll their special needs children in the public or private school of their choice with the education dollars following the child to the new school. The bill, introduced by Representatives Michelle Litjens, Jason Fields & Evan Wynn, and Senators Leah Vukmir & Terry Moulton, has impressive momentum:
-AB 110 has attracted Republican, Democrat, and Independent cosponsors
-32 members of the Assembly have signed on to AB 110, which is over one-third of that house’s current membership
-5 members of the Assembly Committee on Education have signed-on to AB 110, which is almost half of the 11-member committee
Fortunately, Assembly Education Committee Chair Rep. Steve Kestell decided today to schedule a Public Hearing on the Special Needs Scholarship Act for 10:00 am, next Tuesday, May 3rd.
This opportunity can pave the way toward making Special Needs Scholarships in Wisconsin a reality. It is crucial that as many affected families and school leaders as possible attend this public hearing and tell committee members, in their own words, what these scholarships would mean to them.
Please respond to this email and confirm whether you would be able to advocate for this legislation at the public hearing.
One parent wrote on our Facebook page, “It’s so important! Why doesn’t EVERYBODY get that???!!” It may be difficult to comprehend, but there are powerful, special interest groups that don’t get it and will be working to defeat this bipartisan legislation.
While an impressive list of parents who wish to testify is growing, we know that opponents of education reform are always represented at these hearings. Therefore, please forward this email to friends, family, and colleagues who you think will be supportive. The momentum is encouraging, but we must keep it up!
If you have any questions about the bill or public hearing, please feel free to contact me, and check out our website: http://www.specialneedsscholarshipswi.org/.
Thank you!
Brian Pleva
Government Affairs Associate
American Federation for Children-Wisconsin
(608) 279-9484
Assembly
PUBLIC HEARING
Committee on Education
The committee will hold a public hearing on the following items at the time specified below:
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
10:00 AM
417 North (GAR Hall)
State Capitol
Assembly Bill 110
Relating to: creating the Special Needs Scholarship Program for disabled pupils, granting rule-making authority, and making an appropriation.
By Representatives Litjens, Fields, Wynn, Knudson, Nass, Pridemore, Thiesfeldt, Vos, Kleefisch, LeMahieu, Nygren, Strachota, Bernier, Bies, Brooks, Endsley, Farrow, Honadel, Jacque, Knilans, Kooyenga, Kramer, Krug, Kuglitsch, T. Larson, Mursau, Petryk, Rivard, Severson, Spanbauer, Tiffany and Ziegelbauer; cosponsored by Senators Vukmir, Moulton, Galloway and Darling.
An Executive Session may be held on AB 71 at the conclusion of the public hearing.
Representative Steve Kestell
Chair
Wisconsin Special Needs Scholarship Assembly Bill 110 Summary (PDF).
What Computer Game Design can Teach us for Lesson Design
One of the core features of computer games besides the graphics, sounds and story is something you don’t notice immediately. Some games do not do it very well but some became famous for it: Game Artificial Intelligence.
From the humble beginnings in games like Pacman to the great successes we know today like the Halo series, Game AI showed generations of kids that a computer can be pretty smart and sometimes even mean. Some of the better computer games adapt to the way the player reacts and then find new ways to compete. The aim is of course to keep the player interested in the game and engaged in the sense to make it just as difficult to challenge the player’s skills but on the other hand not to make it too frustrating or impossible to win.
Another part of good game design is that the controls are self explanatory and most gamers won’t be bothered with reading a manual before starting the game. If something is boring and thus means the player understood a strategy or principle of the game there needs to be a way to skip it and move on.
Tennessee House Republicans clear way to end collective bargaining for teachers
House Republican leaders have backed away from an earlier stand that teachers be allowed to continue collective bargaining on base salaries and benefits, clearing the way for total repeal of bargaining between teachers and school boards.
The Tennessee Education Association, which represents 52,000 of the state’s 65,000 public classroom teachers, plans to continue lobbying House members before Tuesday’s key committee vote in hopes of a last-ditch compromise. But TEA spokesman Jerry Winters said teacher morale “is horrible” and warned that if the negotiations law is repealed, “we’re going to make sure that they go before these school boards and wear them out on some of these issues.”
The Senate will likely approve the repeal bill Monday, after deferring its planned vote Thursday to give members time to review another new amendment by the bill’s sponsor. Minutes later, House Speaker Beth Harwell endorsed the Senate version, which she said resulted from talks with House Republican leaders.
Indiana Governor signs teacher quality bill, part of sweeping education reforms
Governor Mitch Daniels signed Senate Enrolled Act 1 Saturday, a key measure in his comprehensive education reform package that changes the way teachers are evaluated and paid.
According to the governor’s office, for the first time in Indiana, teacher effectiveness will be part of decisions for hiring, salary and promotions.
“Among all the things we can do to make more successful the children of this state, nothing comes close to a better teacher. We are so glad that Indiana has leaped to the forefront by saying to people of all backgrounds and all walks of life, ‘come and teach,'” Daniels said, surrounded by Hoosier teachers from such organizations as Stand for Children, Students First and Teach for America.
Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, was the author of the bill; Rep. Robert Behning, R-Indianapolis was the sponsor.
Among provisions, the measure:
Seattle Schools confirms grade tampering at Ingraham
Grade tampering suspected at three Seattle high schools has been confirmed only at Ingraham High School, according to Seattle Public Schools.
It’s the only school “that we’ve been able to verify that a grade has been changed so far,” spokeswoman Teresa Wippel said.
Earlier in the week, a school-district official said it was possible there had been grade tampering at Ballard and Chief Sealth high schools, too.
New Jersey Gov. Christie calls NJEA a ‘political thuggery operation’ in speech at Harvard
Gov. Chris Christie took his fight with the state’s largest teacher’s union to Harvard on Friday, repeating his claims that the New Jersey Education Association is the source of most education problems and calling them a “political thuggery operation.”
The governor also acknowledged he has thought about the tough rhetoric he uses when describing the union, but said he would only stop if he is convinced the NJEA is willing to help change “the failed system.”
Speaking to about 250 students and professors at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Christie said his battle with the NJEA “is the only fight worth having,” drawing applause.
“They’re there to protect the lowest performers, to protect a system of post-production compensation,” Christie said of the union. “For you to believe that’s for the kids, you have to believe that a child will learn better under the warm comforting knowledge that a teacher pays nothing for their health benefits.”
Conservatives may see Harvard as the heart of liberal darkness, but on Friday it gave a warm, even enthusiastic reception to Gov. Chris Christie and his ideas on education overhaul.
Speaking to almost 200 students and staff members at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the New Jersey governor drew rounds of applause with his talk of sharply limiting teacher tenure, rigorously evaluating teachers and administrators, curbing the power of teachers’ unions and pledging to appoint more-conservative justices to the State Supreme Court.
Mr. Christie’s first ovation came when he said, “The reason I’m engaging in this battle with the teachers’ union is because it’s the only fight worth having.”
he ground he covered would be familiar to anyone who has watched the town hall-style forums in New Jersey that have made Mr. Christie a YouTube star. There, at least a few detractors usually show up to question him, and his policies and pugnacious statements can make even some supporters uncomfortable.
But here, during Mr. Christie’s 40-minute opening talk and a question-and-answer session of the same length, the response was less equivocal.
UW-Milwaukee holds its 12 charter schools accountable and is getting promising results
The doorbell wasn’t working when Bob Kattman visited a school recently. Kattman sent the principal an email afterward saying that he expected that wouldn’t be the case the next time he arrived.
Kattman isn’t particularly meddlesome or picky – in fact, his reputation is the opposite. But he has expectations for what he wants to see in a school. An orderly, functioning atmosphere where things like doorbells work is part of the recipe.
Other critical ingredients: strong school leadership, a united and energized staff, a clear academic program (although what the program is can vary widely), a focus on achievement, skillful use of data, an effective character education program for students and a climate in which everyone from the principal to the students is continuously asks how to do things better.
The success overall of the dozen schools in Milwaukee that Kattman oversees as head of the charter school office at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is one of the most important and promising developments on the education scene in Milwaukee and perhaps well beyond.
Indiana OKs broadest private school voucher system in US, as governor mulls White House bid
Indiana will create the nation’s broadest private school voucher system and enact other sweeping education changes, making the state a showcase of conservative ideas just as Gov. Mitch Daniels nears an announcement on whether he will make a 2012 presidential run.
The Republican-controlled state legislature handed Daniels a huge victory Wednesday when the House voted 55-43 to give final approval to a bill creating the voucher program that would allow even middle-class families to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools.
The pressure’s on for Texas, California teams at Academic Decathlon
For weeks leading up to the national Academic Decathlon, two teams — from California and Texas — have been sizing each other up from afar, rekindling a rivalry nearly as old as the competition itself.
Each team has something to prove: Granada Hills Charter High School wants to maintain California’s winning streak for the ninth consecutive year; Dobie High School, on the outskirts of Houston, wants to show that Texas, dormant as a frontrunner since 2000, is ready to be a contender again.
On Friday, Dobie upped the ante when it narrowly beat Granada Hills in the Super Quiz, the only public portion of the intense, two-day competition. (They’ll find out who won overall here Saturday.)
The pressure has been on since the recent state-level competitions, when Dobie won in Texas with a score only 300 points lower than Granada Hills’ winning score in California. In a competition where good teams score more than 50,000 points, that kind of margin is akin to, according to one description, a football game with a score of 20 to 20.4.
Seattle Schools Students Steal Teacher Passwords, Alter Grades
We just received a tip that Seattle Public School students are using high-tech to steal teacher passwords, hack systems, and alter grades. I am waiting for SPS to confirm this.
According to an email sent by the district’s Chief Informational Officer Jim Ratchford at 11:15 a.m. today to SPS employees, including Interim Superintendent Susan Enfield, Department of Technology Services has determined that network log-in credentials “are being stolen and used to inappropriately access district systems.”
The email, whose subject line reads “Unauthorized Access Warning,” says that the incident “appears to have been going on for the last few weeks, possibly longer.” “At this point, we are aware of this happening at these schools: Ballard, Ingraham, and Sealth. However, all schools and teachers are at risk,” Ratchford says in his email.
Two-thirds of Madison teachers joined protests, district says
Two-thirds of Madison teachers participated in at least one day of a coordinated four-day absence in February to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to curb collective bargaining, according to information released by the school district Friday.
According to the district, 1,769 out of 2,655 teachers took time off during the four days without a legitimate excuse. The records also show 84 teachers submitted fraudulent sick notes; 38 received suspensions for failing to rescind the notes by April 15, a deadline set by the district.
The exact number of teachers who caused school to shut down on Feb. 16-18 and 21 was unknown until now. The numbers “validate our decision to close our schools,” Superintendent Dan Nerad said in a statement.
“We realize the challenges that our students’ families experienced as a result of these school closings,” Nerad said. “So we appreciate that we have been able to return since then to normal school schedules and that students have returned to advancing their learning through the work of our excellent staff members.”
Madison Teachers Inc. Executive Director John Matthews acknowledged Feb. 15 that the union was encouraging members to call in sick to attend protests at the Capitol. It was the union’s first coordinated work stoppage since 1,900 out of 2,300 teachers called in sick to protest contract negotiations in September 1997.
On Friday, Matthews emphasized that teachers accepted the consequences of their actions by agreeing to docked pay for the days missed. He called the suspension letters “a badge of honor for standing up for workplace justice.”
Raymund Paredes: $10,000 Degrees “Entirely Feasible”
At a board meeting of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on Wednesday, Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes said that $10,000 bachelor’s degrees — books included — as proposed by Gov. Rick Perry are “entirely feasible.”
He hopes to have concrete proposals and coursework in place to meet the challenge before the start of the next legislative session in 2013.
A repeated theme in the board’s discussion about the governor’s cost-cutting proposal was that they were not seeking to replace existing degrees or artificially push the costs of those down, but were rather seeking to provide alternative options for low-income students. “We’re not talking about every field,” Paredes said. “We’re not talking about every baccalaureate degree. We’re not talking about every student.”
Michigan Gov. Snyder targets teacher performance in sweeping plan
Gov. Rick Snyder said today he wants to retool Michigan’s school system so it demands and rewards performance in terms of student achievement.
He detailed changes to merit pay and the teacher tenure system; approval for more charter schools; a new state office devoted to early childhood education; tough anti-bullying measures; a greater emphasis on online education; and a more flexible system in which state funding would follow students wherever they go, rather than being assigned to a particular school district.
Further, the governor announced as many as 23 financially distressed school districts could be placed under emergency managers who have beefed-up powers to scrap collective bargaining agreements under controversial legislation he recently signed into law.
Snyder also expanded “Schools of Choice” plans and said residents of a local district will have the first opportunity to enroll there, but schools will no longer be able to refuse out-of-district students. And he called for consolidation and competitive bidding of school district business and administrative functions.
“Transparency Central” National Review of Education Schools
The National Council on Teacher Qualty:
Higher education institutions, whether they are private or public, have an obligation to be transparent about the design and operations of their teacher preparation programs. After all, these institutions have all been publicly approved to prepare public school teachers.
Here at Transparency Central, you can keep track of whether colleges and universities are living up to their obligation to be open. Just click on a state to learn more about the transparency of individual institutions there.
NCTQ is asking institutions to provide documents that describe the fundamental aspects of their teacher preparation programs: the subject matter teachers are supposed to know, the real-world classroom practice they are supposed to get, the outcomes that they achieve once they enter the classroom. Taken together, the evidence we gathering will answer a key question: Are individual programs setting high expectations for what new teachers should know and be able to do for their students?
A number of institutions have let us know that they do not intend to cooperate with our review, some even before we formally asked them for documents. As a result, we have begun to make open records requests using state “sunshine” (or “freedom of information act”) laws.
We’ll be regularly updating our progress, so come back soon to learn more about our efforts to bring transparency to teacher prep.
Related:
- Georgia, Wisconsin Education Schools Back Out of NCTQ Review
- Teacher colleges balk at being rated Wisconsin schools say quality survey from national nonprofit and magazine won’t be fair
- When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?