Tea Leaves, Budgets and Governance



Maureen Rickman raised some pertinent points in her recent post regarding MMSD budgeting. Observing some of the discussions over the past few months, I found it interesting that when a school board member asked about business services items, teaching and learning (should we really be spending money developing curriculum and “frameworks” in this day and age, never mind the fact that we live in the internet era, the UW and MATC are next door, and that many teachers choose the best tools for their students, regardless of local dogma?) or other items not on the proposed reduction in increased spending list, they never got very far. In one case, the response was (paraphrasing) “if you do that, it will come out of salary savings” which translates to a reduction in the district’s equity.
If that is the answer, what can a board member do, in the absence of 3 more votes? Or, if the votes are there, and the Administration does not execute, what happens? What is the recourse? Navigating these challenges is not a simple task.
We’ll soon have new leadership in some MMSD departments along with an eventual new Superintendent (props to the board member(s) who recognize this reality and route around the outages). The department changes may be the biggest news of all, particularly, given the timing – before a new super is hired – which is very important, in my view. Laurie Frost looks beyond the “fog”. It’s interesting that in so many facets of life, one has to step back and try to look beyond the immediate rhetoric.
There are no shortage of challenging K-12 issues at hand. Many on this site have argued (for years) that all budget items should be on the table. I think we’re getting closer to that day. I also hope that we’ll soon see the last of the “same service” or “cost to continue” or “cost plus” budget approach. After all, spending goes up every year ($333M in 2006 / 2007 to $339.6M+ in 2007 / 2008 – maybe more, we’ll see this fall when the “final” budget is adopted).
Related:




Lapham Marquette Statement



There has been bitterness, surprise and resentment over my vote with respect to the Lapham/Marquette consolidation. I would like to let people know why I voted to move the alternative programs to Marquette. I have a mix of emotions several days after the storm and hope you find it helpful to understand the process from my perspective.
I made this decision in the most thoughtful and respectful manner possible. Unfortunately, the process of getting to this vote is more complicated than the moment in time when the board makes a single vote. I hope those of you most affected by this can see how this transpired.
In the past three weeks, Beth Moss and I, as newly elected members of the Board of Education, have met with the staff of MMSD to get up to speed with our current programs. This process takes many, many hours. We have also spoken with teachers, visited schools, gone to public forums, taken calls, studied data, looked at programs with a critical eye and visited with many constituents.

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An open letter to the School Board of Madison Metropolitan Schools



It’s about time that this community approached the budget process with the honesty and integrity that we homeowners are required to do. For the past several years, the Superintendent and his associates have made a projected budget by increasing all categories of the budget by a certain percentage (about 5%) whether costs in that area are going up or not. (This is a “cost-plus” approach for those econ majors among you.) Each year, the projected budget comes up short of what is available and the games begin. Cuts are made to beloved programs or high profile student services; the community is upset and the board calls for a referendum or reform of the state funding scheme.
How about budgeting the way I have to? My house, my car, my medical costs and my insurance eat up the majority of the household income. So it is with the district. Teacher’s salaries and benefits use up 85% of the budget and go up 4.7% each year. This is essentially a fixed cost that isn?t going to change much. We can complain about rising medical insurance costs or cut a few teachers from beloved “extras” like Strings, but those actions simply raise the ire of the community. I don?’t like that car costs jump up significantly over the several years that pass between purchases. My partner can complain about the mortgage, but we’re not moving out of the house.
The reality is that the remaining 15% of the budget IS where the cuts need to be made. When the pocket money in our household drops down during lean times, the morning latte and pastry are replaced by home-perked coffee and a 30-cent bagel. When the muffler blew at the same time as the back tire, we replaced them both and began setting aside money for a new car. How can it be that during the “lean years” of state-imposed constraints, we have had a computer program for budgeting written by consultants who over-ran their budget by hundreds of thousands of dollars? How did the Doyle building get re-furbished from floor tile to light fixture with nary a cough at the timing of it? Where did the money come from to install a district-wide phone system that will likely be outpaced by cellular technology within two or three years? How do we manage to come up with the funds to pay non-union electricians for work when our own full-time employees sit idle (and therefore on target for the chopping block)?
How is it that our district has a 20% “better” child to administrator ratio, (195 children/administrator in Madison vs. 242 children/administrator statewide) and yet we’ve only let a handful of positions go unfilled? How did Roger Price manage to OVERSPEND his consultant budget by a million dollars, but in his next breath recommend cutting $300,000 for Strings for little kids?
These kinds of budgetary abuses continue despite their being easily defined differences between “student contact” budgetary items (teachers, books, Strings, etc.) and non-student contact items (computer consultants, budgeting programs, etc.). In those years when things like building maintenance costs didn’t go up, or the need for consultants is not proven, why can’t those non-student contact items be subjected to a freeze?. As a board, I’m sure that your task of managing the “little things” is as difficult for you as it is for me to convince my partner of the virtues of DVD rentals over a night out on the town. But, when the pocket money for the week is frozen at $20, and the credit card is hidden, home-popped corn smells extra good. Perhaps it is time that you send the current budget recommendations back to Mr. Rainwater and Mr. Price with notification that all non-student contact budgetary items will be frozen for the coming year. I’m sure they can work out the details from there.
Thanks for supporting our children first.




Consolidated Madison Golf Team Causes Controversy



Andy Hall and Rob Hernandez:

The Madison School District may have “opened a big door” by authorizing the consolidation of golf teams at its four high schools into two programs as a tiny part of its $7.9 million in budget cuts, a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association official said Tuesday.
The Madison School Board included that measure as it balanced the district’s $339.6 million budget late Monday night because, as in most school districts, costs have grown faster than the state allows the district to raise property taxes.
If the merger of the golf teams gains Big Eight Conference and WIAA approval before a June 1 deadline, Madison Memorial will combine with Madison West, and Madison La Follette will combine with Madison East, beginning with the boys seasons in 2008.
The projected $14,895 savings to the district – all in the form of coaching salaries – was the smallest of the last-minute additions to the district’s budget cuts.




That was ugly



Ugly!
Last night’s budget session can only be described as ugly.
Ugly on so many different levels:

– Art Rainwater bullying Lucy Mathiak for asking questions;
– Moss, Cole, and Winston voting contrary to what they stated on “consolidation” in the campaign;
– Nickle and diming programs while huge chunks of the budget never get even a casual review;
– Board members ignoring parents, staff, and taxpayers on issues like coaches in schools and damned near any other issue on the agenda.

Board members and administrators alike should feel nothing but shame.
Personally, I’m done. I’m going to do my best never to give the MMSD another serious thought.
I’m going to tackle easier issues — global warming, peace between Jews and Arabs, ending the war in Iraq, the end of cheap oil, and other issues where I might actually be able to make a difference.
As the MMSD heads to decay and dysfunction, I just don’t give a damn.




2007 / 2008 Budget Approved: School Board keeps Lindbergh open



Susan Troller:

Board members tussled over dozens of suggestions to try to find money to return various programs and services to the district that had been cut by the administration in an effort to balance the $339.6 million budget.
The administration had originally proposed about $8 million in cuts, including $2 million from special education aimed at helping students with speech or language problems, increased class size at the elementary level and closing Lindbergh Elementary and Black Hawk Middle School, and consolidating Marquette and Lapham.
The board also approved a district proposal to eliminate busing for five Catholic schools in the district, and offer parents a $450 subsidy to transport their children themselves, to save about $230,000. State statutes require that public schools provide transportation for all students in their district. Parents of students at other area private schools take the subsidy in lieu of busing.
Board member Lucy Mathiak and Superintendent Art Rainwater had several testy exchanges as Mathiak grilled administrators on their programs and expenses.
“I’m trying to understand why our district requires so many more people in teaching and learning than other districts,” Mathiak said.
“Our priorities since I’ve been superintendent are highly trained, highly skilled teachers in a small class. After that, we believe in highly trained, highly skilled teachers in front of a large class. We don’t believe in poorly trained teachers in small classes,” Rainwater said sharply as he defended the Madison district’s focus on professional development.
Board members also disagreed on how aggressively to use projected salary savings, an accounting method that predicts how many teachers will leave the district. Any shortfall would have to come out of the district’s equity fund, which some board members feel is dangerously low.

Andy Hall:

In a six-plus-hour meeting punctuated by flaring tempers, the board also found ways to stave off most proposed increases in elementary class sizes by raising fees and increasing projected savings in salaries for the 2007-08 school year.
The board also spared the district’s fifth-grade strings program from elimination.
The moves came as the board balanced the district’s $339.6 million budget by cutting $7.9 million from existing services and programs.
The budget finally was approved just after midnight on a 6-1 vote. Lucy Mathiak was the lone dissenter.
Board members voted 4-3 to consolidate Marquette and Lapham at Lapham, 1045 E. Dayton St., into a kindergarten through fifth-grade school, while rejecting a proposal from Superintendent Art Rainwater to close Lindbergh, 4500 Kennedy Road. Currently, Lapham hosts K-2 students while Marquette hosts grades three through five.
Rainwater also had proposed consolidating Black Hawk Middle School into Sherman and O’Keeffe middle schools, but that proposal wasn’t adopted.
Voting for the consolidation of Marquette and Lapham, to save $522,000, were Lawrie Kobza, Arlene Silveira, Beth Moss and Maya Cole. Opposing the measure were Johnny Winston Jr., Carol Carstensen and Mathiak.

Channel3000.com:

The Madison school board approved the consolidation of Marquette and Lapham elementary schools under next year’s budget. The two schools will combine under Lapham’s roof, reported WISC-TV.
Under the budget, Marquette will be used for alternative education programs.
The school board also approved combining all high school boys golf teams into two and elminated bussing to Wright and Spring Harbor charter schools.
The moves are all a part of cutting the budget by more than $7 million.
Many of those linked to affected schools have loudly spoken out in opposition to the closings, and Monday was no exception. Parents and students put their concerns in writing outside the Doyle Administration Building — children writing in chalk on the ground — hoping to catch the eye of board members before the meeting inside.

Brenda Konkel, TJ Mertz and Paul Soglin have more. Paul mentioned:

“From the debate, the motions and the votes, it seems that all of the rancor over ideological splits in the Madison Metropolitan School Board is irrelevant” given the vote to consolidate Marquette and Lapham schools

I think the current diversity of viewpoints on the Madison School Board is healthy. Rewind the clock three years and imagine how some of these issues might have played out. Would there have been a public discussion? Would the vote have been 6 – 1, or ? One of the reasons the “spending gap” in the MMSD’s $339.6M+ budget was larger this year is due to the Board and Administration’s public recognition of the structural deficit. The MMSD’s “equity” has declined by half over the past 7 years. More from Channel3000.com.




With Edline Online, The Report Card Goes 24/7 and Every Test Is An Open Book



Linton Weeks:

: Edline — and other programs like it, such as SchoolFusion and School Center — provide students, teachers and parents with an online meeting place to discuss day-to-day assignments, tests and grades. But it also enables parents to keep track of a kid’s academic progress — or lack of progress — in a heretofore unthinkably micromanagerial way. Parents can know everything; children have no wiggle room. Gone is the fudge factor, the white lie. A student makes a D on a quiz, a D shows up on Edline. No matter that a student leads a discussion in class or puts forth a cogent point. Or has the possibility to retake the quiz, make up the poor grade or do extra credit work over the weekend.
This swift knowledge of success or failure can drive a wedge into families.

The Madison School District has invested in a new student information system. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, given the recent report card reductions in some schools. More here.




Reports On School Crimes Are Rare



Daniel de Vise:

The recent announcement that Montgomery County school officials were starting work on an annual report of crimes committed by students and other disciplinary incidents underscored a surprising fact: In this era of heightened concern about school safety, few Washington area school systems regularly report such offenses to the public.
The annual School Safety Report, slated for publication in Montgomery starting in the 2008-09 academic year, will place the county almost alone among Maryland and Northern Virginia school systems in reporting detailed school crime statistics to the public, according to education leaders and lawmakers. In much of this region, as in much of the nation, comprehensive reports on weapons, drugs and sex in individual public schools simply don’t exist.
Among the area’s largest school systems, only Fairfax County reports school crime data online, as part of its searchable database of school report cards. One other county, Anne Arundel, publishes a hard-copy student discipline report with annual crime data for individual schools. School systems in Montgomery, Prince George’s, Howard, Loudoun and Prince William counties publish no such document.
“It’s all theoretically available to the public but rather difficult to obtain,” said Montgomery County Council member Phil Andrews (D-Gaithersburg-Rockville), who has pushed for annual school crime reporting.




10 Reasons to Combine Lapham & Marquette



Here are 10 good reasons to put the paired elementary schools, Lapham and Marquette, into one building.

  1. The school would be a K-5 school, like most elementary schools in the District.
  2. Siblings in elementary school would go to school in the same building. They would not be split after 2nd grade.
  3. Students would have the benefit of having teachers from kindergarten through 5th grade in the same building, which should strengthen relationships between students and teachers.
  4. The teaching teams at Lapham and Marquette would be combined for the K-5 school, so strong teaching teams would not be split up.
  5. The combined K-5 school would have approximately 450 students, which is the size of six other MMSD elementary schools, and significantly smaller than two other MMSD elementary schools.
  6. The K-5 school would have full-time, or close to full-time, art, music and physical education teachers.
  7. All students would attend school close to their homes. Lapham and Marquette are only 1.06 miles away from each other.
  8. District schools would continue to exist and be operated in both the Lapham and Marquette neighborhoods.
  9. If the District’s growth projections for the area are too low, there is still plenty of space at neighboring Lowell and Emerson schools for students.
  10. Last but not least, combining the paired schools would save money, and would free up space to house programs currently located in rented space.

In my view, of almost all the budget items the School Board is looking at, this item has the fewest negative impacts on students. It will be a shame if the Board’s concerns about political pressure trump its concerns about what is best for students.




MMSD / MTI Contract Negotiations Begin: Health Care Changes Proposed



Susan Troller:

The district and Madison Teachers Inc. exchanged initial proposals Wednesday to begin negotiations on a new two-year contract that will run through June 30, 2009. The current one expires June 30.
“Frankly, I was shocked and appalled by the school district’s initial proposal because it was replete with take-backs in teachers’ rights as well as the economic offer,” John Matthews, executive director of MTI, said in an interview Thursday.
But Bob Butler, a staff attorney with the Wisconsin Association of School Boards who is part of the district’s bargaining team, said he believed the district’s proposal was fair and flexible.
He said the administration’s proposal on health care provides two new HMO plans that could bring savings to the district and new options to employees, while still providing an option for the more expensive Wisconsin Physicians Service plan for employees who want it.
The district is proposing that teachers accept language that would allow two new HMO insurance plans, provided by Dean Care and Physicians Plus, to be added to the two plans currently offered.
Slightly more than 53 percent of the employees represented by the teachers’ bargaining unit use the less expensive Group Health Cooperative plan, which is a health maintenance organization, or HMO. The district’s costs for the GHC plan for next year are $364.82 per month for singles and $974.08 for families. Employees who opt for the GHC do not pay a percentage of the premium themselves but are responsible for co-pays for drugs that range from $6 to $30.
If about the same number of district employees — 1,224 — use the GHC plan next year, it would cost the district about $11.6 million.
The other option currently available to teachers is provided by Wisconsin Physicians Service. A preferred provider organization plan, it provides health insurance to just under 47 percent of the district’s teacher unit.
A more flexible plan that allows participants to go to different doctors for different medical specialties, the WPS plan next year will cost the district $747.78 per month for singles and $1,961.13 for families. Under the current contract, employees pay 10 percent of the cost of the WPS plan, which this year is $65.65 per month for singles, and $172.18 per month for families.
The cost estimate for the school district’s share of the WPS plan under the current contract would be about $19 million. Employees, who pick up 10 percent of the cost as their share of the premium, would pay another $2 million under the current structure.

It’s important to remember that a majority of the Madison School Board voted several months ago to not arbitrate with MTI over health care costs. Andy Hall has more:

But with the Madison School Board facing a $10.5 million budget shortfall, is the board giving away too much with its promises to retain teachers’ increasingly pricey health insurance and to discard its legal mechanism for limiting teachers’ total compensation increase to 3.8 percent?
Yes, School Board Vice President Lawrie Kobza said Saturday, “I feel very strongly that this was a mistake,” said Kobza, who acknowledged that most board members endorse the agreement with Madison Teachers Inc., the teachers union.
State law allows districts to avoid arbitration by making a so-called qualified economic offer, or QEO, by boosting salaries and benefits a combined 3.8 percenter a year.
“To agree before a negotiation starts that we’re not going to impose the QEO and negotiate health care weakens the district’s position,” Kobza said. She contended the district’s rising health-care costs are harming its ability to raise starting teachers’ salaries enough to remain competitive.
The “voluntary impasse resolution” agreements, which are public records, are used in only a handful of Wisconsin’s 425 school districts, according to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.

Carol Carstensen posted an alt view on Concessions before negotiations. Related: What a sham(e), Sun Prairie Cuts Health Care Costs & Raises Teacher Salaries – using the same Dean Healthcare Plan and “Going to the Mat for WPS“. TJ Mertz says Susan neglected to mention the QEO (note that the a majority of the MMSD school board agreed not to arbitrate over the QEO or health care casts in “Concessions before negotiations”.




Deficit Spending: Declining Madison School District Equity Fund Balance



Fund Balance as Percent of General Fund Expenditures
FY 2000 Thru FY 2006
Source: Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance
FY 00 FY 01 FY 02 FY 03* FY 04 FY 05 FY 06*
K-8 AVERAGE 22.4% 15.7% 20.3% 18.0% 20.2% 20.0% 18.6%
UHS AVERAGE 24.1% 22.3% 23.6% 21.2% 25.8% 25.4% 22.6%
K-12 AVERAGE 15.2% 23.9% 15.1% 13.8% 14.5% 14.7% 13.4%
MMSD ACTUAL 18.9% 16.4% 12.1% 12.2% 7.7% 7.1% 7.1%
MMSD Budget $252M $333M
Equity Fund (M) $48M $24M



Related:

The Administration used a “salary savings” account to “balance” the budget. When such savings did not materialize, the MMSD’s equity (the difference between an organization’s assets and liabilities) declined.



Interestingly, Madison School Board members Beth Moss, Carol Carstensen and Maya Cole have advocated the continued reduction in the District’s equity as a means to help balance the 2007 / 2008 $339M+ budget. Beth proposed budgeting an additional $2.133M in “salary savings” above the planned $1M while Carol sought $2M and Maya asked for an additional $500K. [Board member proposed 2007/2008 budget amendments 540K PDF]



Finally, several years ago, I received an email from a person very concerned about the “dramatic” decline in the MMSD’s “reserves”, which according to this person were, at one time over $50M. I asked for additional data on this matter, but never heard from that person again.

The equity fund’s decline gives the MMSD less wiggle room over time, and means that we, as a community face decisions related to facilities, staffing and services. Hopefully, the MMSD board and administration can start to consider and implement new approaches, including virtual learning tools and expanded collaboration with community assets like the UW, MATC and others. I hope that we can move beyond the annual “same service approach” and begin to think differently. Peter Gascoyne’s 5 year approach to budgeting is a good place to start

“[Ask] what is the best quality of education that can be purchased for our district for $280 million a year. Start with a completely clean slate. Identify your primary goals and values and priorities. Determine how best to achieve those goals to the highest possible level, given a budget that happens to be $40 million smaller than today’s. Consider everything – school-based budgeting, class sizes, after-school sports, everything.”

A definition of “equity”. 2007 / 2008 $339M+ MMSD Citizen’s Budget




MMSD’s Proposed Private School Busing Reductions



Susan Troller:

Catholic school parents and administrators are upset by proposed Madison school district budget cuts that would eliminate the bus service they receive to get their kids to school.
But the school district is hoping to trim nearly $230,000 from its budget by offering more than $162,000 directly to parents to transport their children instead of providing yellow school bus service to five Catholic schools in the Madison district. Busing those students is projected to cost about $392,000 in 2007-08.
State statutes require public school districts to provide transportation for students in private schools as well as public schools, but Madison district officials say it costs them more than 50 percent more per pupil to bus the Catholic school students. Underlying the proposal is the need for the Madison School Board and administrators to find nearly $8 million to cut from next year’s budget to comply with state-imposed revenue caps.
There are 358 students who attend St. Dennis, St. James, Edgewood Campus School, St. Maria Goretti and Queen of Peace schools who would be affected by the policy change.

2006/2007 and 2007/2008 MMSD Citizen’s Budget.
Fascinating issue.




Two protests over school closings



1. Kennedy Heights Community Center with the support of many other individuals and groups is organizing a walk from Kennedy Heights Community Center to Gompers Elementary School to raise awareness about the potential closings of Lindbergh Elementary School and Black Hawk middle school. Neighborhood Schools are a community resource for the children and families in Kennedy Heights and the northside; closing the schools would negatively impact our neighborhood, our community center, and the families that live here. Please come and walk with us to keep northside schools open.
The walk will start at the Kennedy Heights Community Center at 4:00 PM on Monday April 23rd – we will walk together from Kennedy Heights to Gompers Elementary school about 1.3 miles. At Gompers their will be a brief discussion and Popsicles for kids. All are welcome please distribute widely.
PS I know that school board members have a meeting at 5:00 PM, but I hope you can join us
for the beginning of our walk.
2. Join a grassoots rally: “An Hour For Marquette” – On Friday, April 27, from 1:30 – 2:30 come to Marquette and pull your Marquette student from class to protest the proposed consolidation (All concerned parents, students, and other community members are welcome to join in). We will rally at the school. Bring a sign that expresses your feeling about Marquette. We will be working to get press coverage and a visit from the Mayor. If you are interested in attending the rally e-mail Dea Larsen Converse at dealarsen@yahoo.com or Maria Moreno at mcmoreno@tds.net so we can give a head count to the papers.
(Note that this is not a PTG sponsored event)
It’s not over yet! Let’s keep the pressure on!




Merge lobbying & PR to save teaching positions



The MMSD could save one or more teaching positions by combining two positions – public relations and government relations.
The government relations position seems unnecessary given the excellent work of Arlene Silviera and the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools. They have done more in a few short months than the MMSD has ever done to raise awareness about inadequate state funding.
Additionally, most district do not employ a lobbyist, but rely on the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials, Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators, Wisconsin Council for Administrators of Special Services, and other organizations lobbying in the state Capitol
The PR position doesn’t seem necessary because the press seems to want to talk to the superintendent, not the PR guy.
Put the two positions together and the MMSD loses nothing and saves services delivered directly to students.




2007 / 2008 $339M+ MMSD Budget: “School Shuffle is Losing”



Andy Hall:

A controversial plan to close and consolidate schools on Madison’s North and East sides appears dead a week before the Madison School Board’s self- imposed deadline for determining $7.9 million in spending reductions.
Four of the board’s seven members plan to vote against Superintendent Art Rainwater’s proposal to save $1 million by closing tiny Lindbergh Elementary and reshuffling hundreds of other students in elementary and middle schools, according to interviews with all board members.
The plan could be revived, however, if board members fail to find a comparable amount of cost savings elsewhere in the district’s 2007-08 budget.

Related 2007-2008 MMSD Budget (07/08 budget is either $339M or $345M (- I’ve seen both numbers used); up from $333M in 06/07) Posts:




Budget Cuts: The Dog that Didn’t Bark



Can anyone explain why the discussion of ways to meet the gap in next year?s school budget has not included any mention of the cost of teachers? salaries and benefits and how much they are expected to go up next year?
The district has projected a budget deficit for next year of $7.9 million. To arrive at this figure, the district has to make some assumption about the costs of salaries and benefits for next year, which necessarily implies an assumption about how much those costs will increase. There seems to be no information available from the district that explains that assumption.
In last week’s Isthmus, Jason Shepard wrote that salaries and benefits are slated to rise 4.7% next year. That figure comes from a five-year budget projection that is available on the district’s web site. However, I have been told that that figure is not accurate. The district’s contract with MTI for next year has not yet been negotiated (bargaining commences on April 25). I have been told that the district wants to keep its budget assumptions about salaries and benefits confidential for now, in order to avoid adversely affecting its bargaining position. The idea is to preserve the possibility that the district could do better in its bargaining than it is now assuming.
This explanation does not seem compelling to me, for a couple of reasons. First, call me a cynic, but I can’t imagine that the very competent folks at MTI cannot figure out what assumptions the district is utilizing, and so those the district is leaving in the dark include everyone except MTI. Second, once the district has gone through the agony of the current round of budget cuts, it will have very little incentive to try to do better in bargaining than the result that it has already planned for.
It seems to me that the cost of salaries and benefits is the dog that didn’t bark in the current discussion of budget cuts. The amount by which those costs will go up next year has a significant impact on the amount of cuts that will be required.

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Vang Pao Elementary School is as local as most MMSD school names



Making school names local, as suggested by Capital Times editor John Nichols, is a sensible goal. Make school names local The Madison School Board had an open nomination process and it held televised public hearings on the naming of the new west side elementary school. We did so to hear the preferences of local people and their reasons for their choices.
Over several months, we sought and received nominations. While we heard from some people living outside the district, we heard primarily from people from the district.
During these months I came to the conclusion that naming a school after Hmong General Vang Pao would meet important local needs, the need to recognize the sacrifices of the Hmong generation who were US allies during the Vietnam War and to explain the Hmong presence in our community which is a direct result of that alliance.
Having heard from many Hmong speakers during the hearings and from my colleague, Shwaw Vang, about the role that Vang Pao played in their lives, I did not feel that substituting a different Hmong name was an option. I could not imagine telling Shwaw Vang that I had decided that he is a more appropriate hero for the Hmong people in the Madison district. I believe that such an action would have shown great disrespect for the very people that we hope to acknowledge are part of our community and play very positive roles in our community.
The tradition in MMSD—rightly or wrongly—has been to name some schools after national heroes, some after locations, some after people who made significant contributions to the state or the district and some after people who have earned respect locally, even though the honorees were not without controversy. To me, naming the school after General Vang Pao fits in that range.




MMSD High School Redesign Committee Selected



According to a report from a recent East High United meeting, where MMSD Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools Pam Nash did a presentation on the District’s high school redesign plans, the following eleven people have been named to the redesign committee:
Pam Nash — Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools, former principal of Memorial HS. While at Memorial, Ms. Nash oversaw the development and implementation of the “neighborhoods” school restructuring and implementation of the 9th grade core curriculum.
Alan Harris — Principal of East HS, former principal at Black Hawk MS.

Loren Rathert — Interim principal at LaFollette HS, former interim principal at East HS, former MMSD Social Studies Coordinator, and former principal at West HS. While at West, Mr. Rathert oversaw the development and initial implementation of the SLC grant, including the initial implementation of the school restructuring and the 9th and 10th grade core curriculum.
Ed Holmes — Principal at West HS (since fall, 2004), former principal at Wright MS and former assistant principal at West HS. Mr. Holmes has been principal at West during the continued implementation of the SLC grant, school restructuring, and 9th and 10th grade core curriculum.

Bruce Dahmen — Principal at Memorial HS.
Sally Schultz — Principal at Shabazz HS.
Steve Hartley — MMSD Director of Alternative Programs. These include the Transitional Education Program (TEP), the School-Age Parent Program (SAPAR), Operation Fresh Start, the Omega program and many others. Mr. Hartley also oversees the District’s implementation of the state-mandated Youth Options Program (YOP), which requires the District to pay for appropriate educational opportunities for eligible high school juniors and seniors whose needs cannot be met at their own schools. A wide range of students may take advantage of YOP. The District’s YOP implementation and — importantly — policy regarding the giving of high school credit for non-MMSD courses is currently under review and has been discussed on this blog —
https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2006/11/youth_options_p.php
https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2006/09/madison_school_37.php
https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2006/10/latest_madison.php


Lisa Wachtel — Director of MMSD Teaching and Learning Department, former MMSD Science Coordinator. Dr. Wachtel oversees a staff of 30-40 educational professionals across a variety of content areas. Possibly important, when asked by the Superintendent to cut two people from her staff for next year, she chose to eliminate two TAG staff (leaving a TAG staff of only five people for the entire district, if the BOE approves the cut).
L. Alan Phelps — Professor in the U.W. Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (School of Education) and Director of the U.W. Center on Education and Work. He seems to have special interests in special education and intercultural learning. Here are links to two of his recent papers, one entitled “Using Post-School Outcomes Data to Improve Practices and Policies in Restructured Inclusive High Schools” and another entitled “High Schools with Authentic and Inclusive Learning Practices: Selected Features and Findings” —
http://www.ncset.org/publications/viewdesc.asp?id=1096
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/0000000b/80/28/02/91.pdf

M. Bruce King — Faculty Associate in the U.W. Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (School of Education). Dr. King is a longtime West area parent and was hired by the District to serve as the West HS SLC Evaluator. He is the author of the November, 2005, report on West’s English 10 initiative that has been heavily discussed on this blog — https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2005/11/evaluation_of_t.php

Diana Hess — Associate Professor in the U.W. Department of Curriculum and Instruction (School of Education). Dr. Hess’s special area is social studies education, with a particular interest in training teachers to do discussion-based instruction, especially around controversial issues. Here is a link to an article by Dr. Hess entitled “Teaching Students to Discuss Controversial Public Issues” — http://www.indiana.edu/~ssdc/cpidig.htm




More deck-chair shuffling



From the MMSD:

For immediate release
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Six elementary schools to have different principals
Six elementary schools will have different principals next year in a series of transfers and changes within the Madison School District. The principals who are transferring have been at their current schools from four to ten years.
The list of new assignments, by principal, with current school and length of service:
Deborah Hoffman to Lincoln from Franklin (10 yrs.)
Beth Lehman to Hawthorne from Lincoln (6 yrs.)
Catherine McMillan to Franklin from Hawthorne (10 yrs.)
Michael Hertting to Lapham from a leave of absence
Kristi Kloos to Lake View from Lapham (4 yrs.)
Joy Larson to Allis from Marquette (4 yrs.)
Allis Principal Chris Hodge and Gompers Principal Sherrill Wagner will retire this summer, and Lake View Principal Linda Sweeney will take a leave of absence for career exploration. Hertting will come off a similar leave; previously he led Orchard Ridge for five years. Vacancies will be filled within the next few months.
“We believe these assignment changes are good for the students, the staff, the principals and the district,” said Superintendent Art Rainwater. “Last year, we shifted six other elementary principals after stays of similar length.”
Parents at each of the schools were notified yesterday. The changes will take place over the summer in time for the Tuesday, September 4 start of the new school year. Each of the principals will assist her successor in the transition to make it more effective and efficient.

Constant shuffling of principals damages the effectivenss of the MMSD. All the rhetoric about building relationships amounts to nothing but words, when these actions speak louder.
The superintendent named no principal at Marquette. Apparently, he plans to “consolidate” Lapham and Marquette regardless of whether the board votes for it or not.
With the uncertainty and stress about staff cuts and school closings, the changes could not come at a worse time.
Is the superintendent hell-bent on destroying the MMSD?




NYC Restructures School Governance



David Herszenhorn:

The reorganization is a sort of inversion of the city school administration. Instead of the traditional model in which principals work directly for a superintendent, each of the city’s more than 1,400 principals will choose a “school support organization” to work with their schools, and will pay these groups out of the school’s budget.
“Until now many educational decisions were made outside of the schools and classrooms,” Mr. Klein said during a news conference at Education Department headquarters.
Principals will have a menu of choices, at various prices, Mr. Klein said. At the low end, principals will pay $29,500 to join the so-called “empowerment network,” in which they are largely freed from oversight in exchange for agreeing to meet performance targets that include higher test scores.
At the high end, schools can choose to contract with the Success for All Foundation, a private nonprofit company based in Baltimore that offers a “whole school reform” model at a cost of up to $145,215, depending on enrollment. Smaller schools will be able to contract with the Success for All for as little as $44,694.




MMSD Math Review Task Force Introduction and Discussion



The Madison School District’s Math Task Force was introduced to the School Board last night. Watch the video or listen to the mp3 audio.
Background Links:


6th Grade Textbooks: Connected (left) and Singapore Math.
UPDATE: A reader emailed this:

I noticed that there were 10 student books in the 6th grade pile for CMP. That was surprising since there are only 8 in publication. Then I looked at the teacher editions and noticed there were 10 as well. There are two copies of both How Likely is It? and Covering and Surrounding.
The statement, “A quick look at the size of the Connected Math textbooks compared to the equivalent Singapore Math course materials illustrates the publisher and author interests in selling these large volumes irrespective of curriculum quality and rigor (not to mention the much larger potential for errors or the lost trees….)” is following the picture in one of the discussions. Taking a look at the Singapore Math website It appears that in addition to the 2 textbooks pictured and student workbooks pictured, there are Intensive Practice books, Extra Practice Books, and Challenging Word Problems books, as well as other resources. Also, the white book on the bottom of the pile appears to be an answer key. There are also teacher guides for 6A and 6B that are not in the picture.
I’m not suggesting the statement above is false, I would just like to point out that the picture being used is not an accurate comparison. I hope you find this information valuable.




MMSD School Closing Discussion



Susan Troller:

At the heart of the issue is the fact that the East High School attendance area has more elementary schools and schools with smaller populations than the other attendance areas in the district. Of the 10 elementary schools in the East High attendance area, only Hawthorne has more than 300 students.
By contrast, La Follette and Memorial high schools’ attendance areas have seven elementary schools, and the West High School attendance area has eight elementary schools. The populations of these schools average over 400 students.
But hundreds of staunch fans of the East area elementary schools are rallying to the defense of their schools, saying that they are successful hubs of their communities, and that their small size and close-knit students and staff help engage families across all demographics while improving student achievement.
“People living on the east and northeast sides of the city shouldn’t be punished because the schools in this area were built to be small,” parent and longtime school volunteer Jill Jokela said at a gathering last week.




In Obesity Wars, A New Backlash
A Western town pushed school kids to eat right and exercise more. Did it go too far? ‘Mr. Coca, do you think I’m fat?’



Anne Marie Chaker:

Brittany Burns, 12 years old, has always been on the heavy side. Last year in fifth grade, neighborhood kids started picking on her at the bus stop, calling her “fatty” and “chubby wubby.” Then someone else piled on: Brittany’s school.
In a letter dated Oct. 2, 2006, the Campbell County School District No. 1 invited “select students” to take part in a fitness and nutrition program set up for some of the district’s most overweight kids. At 5 feet 2 inches tall and 179 pounds, Brittany qualified.
Receiving the letter was “embarrassing,” Brittany says. Her mother, Mindi Story, a clerk at an Albertsons supermarket, says she seethed “pure anger” because, she argues, her daughter’s weight shouldn’t be the school’s concern: “I send her to school to learn math and reading.”
Spurred by a local doctor and an enthusiastic school board, Gillette has banned soda and second helpings on hot meals. This year, it included students’ body-mass index — a number that measures weight adjusted for height — on report cards, and started recommending students like Brittany for after-school fitness programs. It even offers teachers the chance to earn bonuses based on their fitness.




April Board of Education Progress Report – Johnny Winston, Jr.



The month of April brings showers; however, for the Madison BOE it brings new beginnings, budget challenges and community dialogue.
First, regarding new beginnings, let me congratulate Beth Moss and Maya Cole on their election onto the Madison School Board. They will be replacing the retiring Shwaw Vang and Ruth Robarts. Our community should be proud of Mr. Vang and Ms. Robarts’ years of service. I was also re-elected to a second term and look forward to continued public service in this position.
In addition to new Board members, the Board decided unanimously to name the new school General Vang Pao Elementary.
Second, the Madison School District faces a $7.9 million dollar shortfall, which has the Board discussing school closings and consolidations, increasing elementary class sizes in several schools, increasing class sizes across the district in elementary art, music, gym and REACH, and eliminating the 5th grade strings program. After 14 years of being under the state imposed revenue limits, the budget cuts are now reaching the point of cutting into the foundation of our educational values.
Third, several public hearings on the budget reductions will be held throughout the community including on Tuesday April 17th at La Follette and Thursday April 19th at Memorial. Both hearings are at 6:30 pm. The 2007-08 budget will be finalized in late April or early May.
Fourth, the Board voted down an operating referendum proposal that could have taken place in the summer. However, given our budgetary situation I won’t be surprised to see an operating referendum on the ballot in February 2008.
Fifth, the Board approved a Request For Proposals for consultants to conduct a superintendent search, and decided on health insurance contributions for administrators.
Board Committees
A full month of public hearings and Board workshop agendas kept many committees from meeting since my last report. However, the committees have played an important part in analysis and discussion this year.
Finance and Operations (Lawrie Kobza, Chair) continues its work on the citizen’s budget. Long Range Planning (Carol Carstensen, Chair) held public hearings in the community regarding the proposed closings and consolidations.
Communications (Arlene Silveira, Chair) held a special workshop regarding community advocacy efforts regarding lobbying our state government for additional K-12 funding. Community Partnerships (Lucy Mathiak, Chair) received a presentation regarding the process and procedure the UW Foundation uses to engage people to make contributions.
MMSD News
On Monday March 26th, the MMSD held its annual recognition awards honoring district staff, students and citizens who have made significant contributions to Madison’s outstanding schools. Nine students received the Joe Thomas Community Service Award, five teachers were recognized for their work toward the Kohl Teacher Fellowship, and eleven individuals received the Distinguished Service Award. For more MMSD news click here: http://mmsd.org/today/
Thank you for your interest and support of the MMSD.
Johnny Winston, Jr., President, Madison Board of Education
jwinstonjr@madison.k12.wi.us
Want district information? Go to www.mmsd.org
Write to the entire school board at comments@madison.k12.wi.us.
Sign up for MMSD communications at http://mmsd.org/lists/newuser.cgi
Watch school board meetings and other district programs on MMSD Channel 10 & 19.
Ken Syke
Public Information
Madison School District
voice 663 1903; cell 608 575 6682; fax 608 204 0342




School closings critical in board race



John Nichols:
So how did Cole secure her 3,000-vote majority?
The answer would appear to have a lot to do with threats by school administrators to consolidate and perhaps close schools on the isthmus. A few months before the election, the administration floated the notion that budgets could be balanced by radically altering how Lapham and Marquette elementary schools and O’Keeffe Middle School are organized.




Are Wisconsin taxes too high, or just property and personal income taxes?



As residents scramble to complete their taxes by this year’s deadline, April 17, there are two contrasting messages coming from Wisconsin’s corporate community on the subject of taxes and economic prosperity.
One of those messages dominates political discussion. It’s easy to state, easy to understand, and easy to put on bumper stickers: Cut My Taxes.
Its chief proponent is Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), the Madison-based big-business lobby that for years has focused its legislative agenda on plaintive appeals for a reduced tax burden.
Business boosters disagree, but it’s possible to get to the truth
Jack Norman, in Isthmus, April 4, 2007
Are Wisconsin taxes too high?




“Let’s put the kids first”



Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial:

The new board must not chase away Andrekopoulos. He has worked indefatigably and creatively to transform MPS into an effective system of schools.
We have referred to one board faction as the reform wing and the other as the union wing. Those labels best describe what unites them but not necessarily what divides them. The reform side is not necessarily anti-union, and the union side is not necessarily anti-reform.
Bonds, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, may find board support for his call for a more rigorous curriculum. We backed Bonds but hope he doesn’t take the board down the policy cul-de-sac of renewed busing. It won’t lead to more integration, his stated goal, for lack of white students to go around.




Madison BOE elections 2007: Voters 2, MTI 1



The Isthmus article Blame for the media illustrates a long-obvious truth: John Matthews is Madison’s Mayor Daley, a ward boss of our very own, and he gets very angry when his political control slips.
Matthews wanted to control the selection of Board members for three seats in 2007. Odd-year elections are especially important to Madison Teachers Inc. because odd years are the years in which the 2-year MTI-MMSD contracts are negotiated.
This time Mr. Matthews failed. He couldn’t find a suitable candidate to run against Johnny Winston, Jr., so he labeled and publicly berated him for not being Bill Keys. In Mr. Matthews’ mind that failure left only two seats in play. He won with Beth Moss and lost with Marj Passman.

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Extra effort could garner two diplomas upon graduation



From a story by Shawanna Robinson in the Daily Journal, Park Hills, Missouri:

Farmington High School Senior Jake Goff will graduate from Farmington High School this May with not only his high school diploma, but an Associate of Arts Degree from Mineral Area College as well.
He is the first of what the district hopes will be many students accomplishing such a feat. The Early College Pathway Program recently received a stamp of approval by both the Farmington R-7 Board of Education and the Mineral Area College Trustees.
The Early College Pathway Program is one where the Juniors and Seniors enrolled would finish their senior year with their high school diploma and either a transcripted 42 (credit hours) general education block from Mineral Area College transferable to most Missouri four-year universities or, such as Goff, with a 62 (credit hours) Associate of Arts degree from Mineral Area College. Goff will actually graduate with 64 credit hours this May.




Ruth Robarts: Let’s take school closings off the table, start the planning needed for another referendum



Ruth Robarts, who supports Maya Cole and Rick Thomas for School Board, wrote the following letter to the editor:
I voted no on Carol Carstensen’s proposed three-year referendum for several reasons.
First, a referendum requires careful planning. Two weeks’ notice did not allow the School Board to do the necessary analysis or planning.
Second, the referendum is not part of a strategic long-range plan. The district needs a 10-year strategic plan, and such a plan must address the structural deficit created by state revenue limits. It must also bring businesses, community organizations and the city of Madison into the solution. While referendums for operating dollars will be necessary, without planning they are of limited use.
Third, relief from the state revenue limits is not on the horizon. Gov. Jim Doyle has no proposal for eliminating the revenue limits. Madison’s state representatives recommend that we focus our lobbying efforts on small -cale, stopgap funding issues.
There are some steps that the School Board can take to increase public confidence and pass operating budget referendums in the future.
1. Direct the administration to find the best ways to use the Doyle Building to generate revenue for the district. In 2006, the board defeated this proposal (Kobza and Robarts were the only yes votes.) Using the building as a revenue-generating asset could also move administrators to school buildings and help keep the schools open.
2. Negotiate changes in health insurance coverage for teachers to minimize future costs. Administrators and other unions have recently made such changes without losing quality of health care.
3. Take the closing/consolidation options presented by the Long Range Planning Committee off the table. Look for more focused approaches to saving money, such as moving the Park Street Work and Learn Center into an under-enrolled elementary school as we did in the past when we housed WLC at Allis School.
4. Invite the community to join in a strategic planning process as soon as possible. As long as the state and federal governments shirk their responsibilities and the state over-relies on residential property taxes to pay for essential local services, there will be a gap between the tax funds available and the cost of the high-quality, comprehensive K-12 school system that we want. We need a plan as badly as we need the elimination of the revenue limits and a progressive tax to adequately fund our schools.
Ruth Robarts
member, Madison School Board
Published: April 2, 2007




Ruth Robarts Deserves a Medal



Ruth Robarts’ roller coaster
DOUG ERICKSON 608-252-6149
derickson@madison.com
Ruth Robarts steps down April 23 after 10 years on the Madison School Board, and, no, she’s not expecting a cake from her colleagues.
Although Robarts first ran as a facilitator – “That didn’t work out so well,” she says now with a guffaw – she became known more as a budget hawk and contrarian.
Along the way, she’s been praised as a straight-shooting maverick and criticized as an obstructionist who just likes to carp.
She chose not to seek re- election. Her replacement – Maya Cole or Marjorie Passman – will be elected Tuesday.
Robarts’ legacy differs markedly, depending on who’s talking, but most agree she traveled an interesting route from a team player to an outsider to a can’t-be-ignored-because-the- voters-like-her force.
She finishes her board service less lonely due to the elections in recent years of like- minded colleagues Lawrie Kobza and Lucy Mathiak. But Robarts cautions that in the last decade, it has become more difficult for candidates not endorsed by the teachers union or tied to the board majority to get elected.

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Hasty Vote Wisely Avoided



“If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right,” board member Lucy Mathiak argued for the majority of the board in rejecting longtime board member Carol Carstensen’s push for the referendum.
School Board Member Mathiak has also detailed a number of options other than closing near eastside schools, which she does not support.
WI State Journal Editorial




An open letter to the Superintendent of Madison Metropolitan Schools



Dear Mr. Rainwater:
I just found out from the principal at my school that you cut the allocations for SAGE teachers and Strings teachers, but the budget hasn’t even been approved. Will you please stop playing politics with our children education? It?s time to think about your legacy.
As you step up to the chopping block for your last whack at the budget, please think carefully about how your tenure as our superintendent will be viewed a little more than a year from now when your position is filled by a forward-thinking problem-solver. (Our district will settle for no less.)
Do you want to be remembered as the Superintendent who increased class size as a first step when the budget got tight? Small class size repeatedly rises to the top as the best way to enhance student achievement at the elementary level. Why would you take away one of best protections against federal funding cuts mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act? Rather than increase pupil to teacher ratios, have you checked to see if the pupil to administrative staff ratio has been brought closer to the state-wide average? (In 2002, Madison Metropolitan schools were at 195 children per administrator; the rest of the state averaged 242 children per administrator.) Have the few administrative openings you?ve left unfilled over the past few years actually brought us into line with the rest of the state?

(more…)




Some interesting insight into another district’s budgeting process, knowledge, and challenges.



Shane Samuels:

There are those who like to work with numbers, and then there are those who figure school budgets. They’re not necessarily the same person.
School finance consists of a labyrinth of property values, student enrollment totals, federal aid, and state aid. Only two people in Chetek claim to understand the funding formula from top to bottom: Superintendent Al Brown and business manager Tammy Lenbom.
A couple times of year their budgetary work catches the public’s eye – once in September when it comes time to pass the budget at the annual meeting, and once about this time of year when Brown and Lenbom propose that budget for next fall.
The budget proposal period is more visible, because that is when we find out how those financial decisions will affect people’s lives – teachers who may be forced to look for new jobs, or students who might have their favorite class offering taken away from them.
While it takes a professional to explain a school budget line item by line item, this article is an attempt to at least summarize how school administrators and the school board reach their budgetary decisions, as well as detailing some of the struggles they face.
The timetable

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The difference between Maya and Marj



Isthmus gave the candidates a chance to make one last pitch for votes before next Tuesday’s election.
The statements of Maya and Marj say a lot about them as people and potential board members.
Marj repeated her line on all of her experience and said:

I have developed a finely honed instinct for what works and what doesn’t.

By contrast Maya said:

The community will be a welcomed partner with our public schools.


In other words, Marj said, “I KNOW what’s right and wrong.” That’s the board majority’s persistent response to outside input. “We know what’s right and wrong. Thank you very much. You can go away now.”
While Maya says, “I welcome a partnership,” which reflects an openness to the community.
I’m voting for Maya.




Yes to strategic planning, no to last minute referendums and school closings



On March 26, I voted no on Carol Carstensen’s proposed three-year referendum for several reasons.
First, a referendum requires careful planning. Two weeks notice did not allow the Madison School Board to do the necessary analysis or planning. Ms. Carstensen—not the administration—provided the only budget analysis for her proposal. The board has not set priorities because the board it is just beginning the budget process.
Second, the referendum is not part of a strategic long-range plan. The district needs a ten-year strategic plan, and such a plan must address the structural deficit created by state revenue limits. It must also bring businesses, community organizations and the City of Madison into the solution. While referendums for operating dollars will be necessary, without planning they are of limited use.
Third, relief from the state revenue limits is not on the horizon. Governor Doyle has no proposal for eliminating the revenue limits. Madison’s state representatives recommend that we focus our lobbying efforts on small scale, stop-gap funding issues. Only Ms. Carstensen and the teachers union seem to think that change is coming soon.
There are some steps that the school board can take to increase public confidence and pass operating budget referendums in the future.
1. Direct the administration to find the best ways to use the Doyle Building to generate revenue for the district. In 2006, the board defeated this proposal (Kobza and Robarts voting yes, Carstensen, Keys, Lopez, Vang and Winston voting no). Using the building as a revenue-generating asset could also move administrators to school buildings and help keep the schools open.
2. Negotiate changes in health insurance coverage for teachers to minimize future costs. Administrators and other unions have recently made such changes without losing quality of health care. Dane County has a competitive health insurance market that can help use save dollars and protect quality of care.
3. Take the closing/consolidation options presented by the Long Range Planning Committee off the table. Look for more focused approaches to saving money, such as moving the Park Street Work and Learn Center into an under-enrolled elementary school as we did in the past when we housed WLC at Allis School.
4. Invite the community to join in a strategic planning process as soon as possible. As long as the state and federal governments shirk their responsibilities and the state over-relies on residential property taxes to pay for essential local services, there will be a gap between the tax funds available and the cost of the high quality, comprehensive k-12 school system that we want. We need a plan as badly as we need the elimination of the revenue limits and a progressive tax to adequately fund our schools.
I am ready to support operating budget referendums based on a strategic plan and best use of the revenues that we have.




Strange, strange budget process



I’ve never seen a budget process like that being followed by the MMSD and board.
Without having a budget, the board appears poised to close schools and lay off teachers. Who or why would anyone make these types of decisions out of context, that is, without a budget, with out even looking at options other than those recommended by an administration hell bent on preserving as much power and as many positions as possible in the Doyle Building?
It’s just insane, and supposedly rational people on the board think that it makes sense! Do they check their brains at the door when they walk into a board meeting?




2007 Wisconsin Charter Schools Conference



From the Wisconsin Charter Schools Association:

The 7th annual Wisconsin Charter Schools Conference, co-sponsored by the WCSA and DPI, will be attended by educators, parents, students, school officials, university people, community leaders, state officials, and many other charter friends. Conference Flyer (PDF).
Dates: April 15-17, 2007 (Sunday afternoon through Tuesday)
The Sunday afternoon (4/15) Wisconsin Charter Schools FAIR is open and FREE to the public. Conference sessions on Monday and Tuesday (4/16-17) will focus on planning, authorizing, implementing and operating high-performance charter schools.




I have a few comments on separate courses for students of different abilities



I think that it is important to have opportunities for advanced students to obtain seperate instruction is subjects they excel in. It is my belief that by doing this we don’t sacrifice diversity, we actually increase it.
My logic is as follows. If gifted students are not given the challenge they need in school, they will not achieve as much as they can. If the public schools are not able to provide for these childern, then parents of gifted kids will pull them out of school. Unfortunately, only involved parents with money will have the ability to give their kids the alternative education like private school. Thus, the public schools will be left with few children at the top end of the education spectrum since it can’t provide for them.
My belief that this is true comes from my home town in California. We have one elementary school in a wealthy area that is known to have much better educational opportunities for students. Parents in other districts constantly try to move their children to this school. Due to declining enrollment, other school districts have stopped letting students switch schools. To still provide for the children, the school in the wealthy area became a charter school. Now, parents can move their children there without incident. But, the other public schools are left without their brightest students. If the other public schools could provide for their brightest, the public schools would include all of the students.

(more…)




School Board rejects referendum



From a story by Deborah Ziff in the Wisconsin State Journal:

The Madison School Board voted against asking taxpayers to help stave off budget cuts as Madison public schools face a projected $10.5 million budget shortfall.
The board voted 5-2 against holding a June referendum, a measure proposed by School Board Treasurer Carol Carstensen. Outgoing board member Shwaw Vang joined Carstensen in voting for the proposal that would have asked taxpayers for an additional $34 million over the next three years.
Board members who voted against the referendum said it was too hastily drawn up, without enough time to refine a referendum question or engage in a campaign to drum up support. Board member Lucy Mathiak said the board has known since October that it would need to make tough budget decisions.


Susan Troller’s story in The Capital Times is here.




“Cooking the Numbers” – Madison’s Reading Program



Joanne Jacobs:

From the Fayetteville, NC Observer:

Superintendent Art Rainwater loves to discuss the Madison Metropolitan School District’s success in eliminating the racial achievement gap.
But he won’t consult with educators from other communities until they are ready to confront the issue head on.
“I’m willing to talk,” Rainwater tells people seeking his advice, “when you are willing to stand up and admit the problem, to say our minority children do not perform as well as our white students.”

Only then will Rainwater reveal the methods Madison used to level the academic playing field for minority students.
This is an odd statement. The racial achievement gap is accepted as an uncomfortable fact everywhere; it is much discussed. No superintendent in the U.S. — except for Rainwater — claims to have eliminated the gap.

Today, Rainwater said, no statistical achievement gap exists between the 25,000 white and minority students in Madison’s schools.
Impressive, but untrue, writes Right Wing Prof, who looked at Madison reading scores across all grades.

I found a graph comparing Madison to five similar districts in Wisconsin, all of which do much better than Madison on fourth-grade reading.

Joanne was in Milwaukee and Madison recently to discuss her book, “Our School“.
Related Links:




Seattle Superintendent’s Mid Year Report



Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Raj Manhas [777K PDF]:

A detailed document on the progress of the priority projects from the 2006‐07 Workplan is attached. Through the project tracking system that is under development as well as additional discussions with project managers, we have captured information on:

  1. What have we accomplished through February 2007?
  2. Are we on‐track to complete the project by August 2007?

The table below reports on the status of our priority projects with respect to completion by August 2007. 16 projects (or almost 60% of the total) are expected to be completed on‐time and another 10 projects are expected to be at least partially completed by August 2007.




Closing Marquette: A preposterous idea



A letter to the editor that appeared in the Cap Times:

Dear Editor: As leaders in the Marquette neighborhood, we are extremely disappointed with the discussion of possibly closing Marquette Elementary School.
The Marquette neighborhood is an incredible success story. The economic upswing of this neighborhood has been tied directly to the positive programs being presented at Marquette and Lapham schools.
The $3.5 million addition and improvements made to the O’Keeffe/Marquette complex a few years ago brought incredible stability to this neighborhood. The voters and taxpayers citywide realized the importance of the improvements in keeping families in the downtown area and overwhelmingly approved this expenditure. It would be an egregious slight to abandon this elementary school as throngs of young families have moved into the Marquette neighborhood and greatly improved the housing stock and precipitated a building boom.
It is unprecedented that a diverse neighborhood that could walk in close to 300 students to fill their re-modeled school in a kindergarten through fifth grade configuration would be threatened with closing. It would be beyond belief that a School Board would ask a neighborhood to send five busloads of students to a crowded Lapham building at a cost of $36,000 per bus or $180,000 for the upcoming school year. We support the continuing elementary programs at Marquette and Lapham and keeping O’Keeffe Middle School at its current size.
We realize the school funding dilemma that the whole state faces has led to this situation. We are hoping that these inequities will change and that the option to de-stabilize our community is taken off the table.
Judy Olson
6th District alderperson
Anya Firszt
president,Greater Williamson Area Business Association
Gary Kallas
director, Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center
Published: March 22, 2007




More school closings in next budget



The board might as well start planning for the next budget’s $10 million deficit.
Making a decision on closing more schools now will allow for a more orderly transition in the years to come.




Winston supports school closings



At last night’s candidate forum at the Warner Park neighborhood center, Winston was the only candidate who said he’d vote yes to closing schools.
He proudly listed his connections to the Northside, while missing the irony of being the only one who would close the Northside’s Sherman Middle School.




Reality Check: Taxpayers Pay For Lobbying



Colin Benedict on Channel3000:

Wisconsin taxpayers are paying millions to lobby state lawmakers, in many cases, for more money.
Dane County does it too — it spent nearly $175,000 last session, WISC-TV reported. Part of it was for more money from the state to pay for county nursing home patients, and Dane County argued against the taxpayer bill of rights.
Rock County spent about $6,400 on similar issues, WISC-TV reported.
Schools do this as well. The Madison Metropolitan School District spent $133,000 on lobbying, with some of the tax money spent trying to get more tax money into the classrooms.
The district is on record fighting against revenue limits and against limits to local control, WISC-TV reported.




Testimony asks for three commitments



Thank you for your service and thank you for your request to hear from the community.
My name is Shari Entenmann and I’m here as a parent of 3 young children entrusting you with their school experience.
As you move forward with the budget process there are three things I’d like you to commit to:

1. Our downtown schools need to be vital, they are the heart of our city and why many of us moved here – myself included. Let’s not unravel what’s been built and what we can accomplish in the future. We want our schools to be vibrant and attractive so others choose to live here like I did.
2. Consider the details carefully – often it’s the details that matter:

a. What about the TEP program. My understanding from parents directly involved in bringing TEP to Lapham that part of what’s needed to make the program a success is the SAGE class sizes.

• Will Lapham still have TEP
• If TEP then SAGE, if SAGE is there room to consolidate?
• If not TEP, where will it go, back to Emerson – but wasn’t there concern about it being too much for one school?
• When making these decisions you have to consider this vulnerable population in this TEP program.

b. What about the alternatives program. Steve Hartley gave a very inspiring presentation last year at Marquette (when we were going through this exercise) and it was clear to me and others that the keystone to the success of the program is separating the kids from their age-group peers. Are you sure the proposal to move the program to Sherman has considered this, I didn’t see that consideration in the presentation to the board a few weeks ago.
c. Is the proposed larger middle school too big? I hear the comparison to Hamilton as a reference that it’s not. However, I don’t believe that’s an appropriate comparison. This is a very different population and I’ve heard concern from many teachers, and educators that’s it’s too big for this population, particularly with our resource restrictions.

3. An open process that allows all things to be discussed and considered with community involvement. We’ve heard several times that there’s nothing else to cut but things that effect the classroom and so everything must be on the table, even this drastic change that saves less than 700,000. However in all the discussion that’s lead to this point I haven’t heard any discussion on the following:

a. I’ve heard there may be more funds coming in the next few months – is this the time to propose such drastic changes – especially when these changes aren’t part of an overall plan but are part of the annual ad hoc widdling away process.
b. Extra-curriculars
c. Sports

Please consider what I’ve said. I believe it’s necessary to be successful because we live in a passionate community that strongly supports public education. Everyone needs to be involved.
Very sincerely, again, thank you for your service.
Shari Entemann




Hard MMSD Budget Still Has Wiggle Room



Scott Milfred:

It’s a contentious fact that has run through so many Madison School Board races and referendums in recent years:
Madison schools spend a lot — $12,111 per student during the 2005-06 school year.
If the district is spending that much, how can it be in crisis?
The answer is complex and a bit murky. Yet a few things are clear.
Liberal Madison has long spent more than most K-12 districts in Wisconsin. This was true before the state adopted school revenue limits in the 1990s, and the caps only reinforced this today.
“When revenue caps went in, everyone was basically frozen in place,” Madison School Superintendent Art Rainwater said Friday. “We do spend more than the state average. But that has been the expectation of our community.”
So why does Madison spend more? Berry points to Madison’s higher number of staff who aren’t teachers. Madison hires a lot of social workers, psychologists, nurses and administrators.
Madison spends more per pupil than Racine, Green Bay and Kenosha — as well as the state average — on student and staff services, administration and building and grounds. And Madison’s non- instructional costs are rising as a percentage of its spending.
“Madison is actually de- emphasizing instruction,” Berry contends.
In addition, Berry suspects Madison is over-identifying students for learning disabilities.

Links: Madison spending, student and staffing history. 2006/2007 MMSD Citizen’s Budget. Carol Carstensen’s thoughts on a 2007 Referendum.




MTI spending will likely top $10,000 for Moss & Passman



The Madison Teachers Union political action committee spent a little more than $7,500 in “independent expenditures” in support of for Juan Lopez and Arlene Silveira in last year’s school board races. The money paid for production and air time for radio and newspaper ads, but the figure does not include the newspapers’ charges for running the ad.
This year, MTI Voters (the official name for the union’s PAC) contributed the legal maximum – $1,560 – to each campaign committee of Marj Passman and Beth Moss.
We can surely expect MTI Voters to make independent expenditures for Passman and Moss equal to what the PAC spent last year.




Concerns Expressed on The Proposed Sherman School Closing



Channel3000:

Parents on Madison’s east side attended a meeting Tuesday to sound off on a plan that would close Sherman Middle School next year.
Parents and school staff packed a cafeteria Tuesday night to hear from the district and school board members about a plan that would consolidate Sherman with Blackhawk and O’Keefe middle schools.
The plan is estimated to save the district more than $750,000 in a budget that has a $10.5 million shortfall.
But parents said that the plan would not only uproot their children’s lives but close a school that has come a long way.




An Alt View on Concessions Before Negotiations



Carol Carstensen:

I thought it might be helpful to provide some facts and explanations about the topic of health insurance – hopefully this will clear up some of the misinformation and misconceptions present in the public discussions. It is important to remember that the focus must be on the total package settlement – because that is what has an impact on the budget. For example, Sun Prairie’s agreement to make changes in its health insurance (by using a joint committee to find a way to reduce health insurance costs) has been praised, as it should be. It should be noted, however, that Sun Prairie’s total package settlement was 4.75% – while Madison’s package, without switching health insurance carriers, was 3.98%. (A rough estimate is that a 4.75% settlement would have cost Madison about $1.5 Million more.)

Related:




A Note on Wellness & PE



Via a reader’s email message:

our school banned all vending machines 1 1/2 yrs. ago. Did it help? ABSOLUTELY NOT! The kids are now bringing sodas and candy in their back packs and eat it at lunch time. They do not eat in the lunchroom. Elementary students have snack time around 9:30 to 10:30 each day depending on what grade you are in. They have 30 min. What do they eat? They bring candy, chips, sweetened tea, sodas and kool aid bursts. The school lost money and yet the kids are still eating poorly.
What could be done?
Ban the sodas and snacks from home and take away the snack time and replace it with 30 min. of instruction time. or better yet, replace it with 30 more min. of PE time.




Limits of Law-Based School Reform



Mike Antonucci:

There’s an excellent book from 1997 called The Limits of Law-Based School Reform that I think everyone – especially lawmakers and public policy experts – should read. But the title alone should be enough for all of us who think passing a law to address a perceived education problem is sufficient to solve it.
It’s only human nature after winning a tough legislative battle to want to declare victory and go home. I’m sure the 186 Republicans and 197 Democrats in the U.S. House who voted for the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 didn’t think they would still be debating it five years later. The pattern is repeating itself in Utah.




“Bitter Medicine for Madison Schools”:
07/08 budget grows 3.6% from 333M (06/07) to $345M with Reductions in the Increase



Doug Erickson on the 2007/2008 $345M budget (up from $333M in 2006/2007) for 24,342 students):

As feared by some parents, the recommendations also included a plan to consolidate schools on the city’s East Side. Marquette Elementary students would move to Lapham Elementary and Sherman Middle School students would be split between O’Keeffe and Black Hawk middle schools.
No school buildings would actually close – O’Keeffe would expand into the space it currently shares with Marquette, and the district’s alternative programs would move to Sherman Middle School from leased space.
District officials sought to convince people Friday that the consolidation plan would have some educational benefits, but those officials saw no silver lining in having to increase class sizes at several elementary schools.
Friday’s announcement has become part of an annual ritual in which Madison – and most other state districts – must reduce programs and services because overhead is rising faster than state-allowed revenue increases. A state law caps property-tax income for districts based on enrollment and other factors.
The Madison School District will have more money to spend next year – about $345 million, up from $332 million – but not enough to keep doing everything it does this year.
School Board members ultimately will decide which cuts to make by late May or June, but typically they stick closely to the administration’s recommendations. Last year, out of $6.8 million in reductions, board members altered less than $500,000 of Rainwater’s proposal.
Board President Johnny Winston Jr. called the cuts “draconian” but said the district has little choice. Asked if the School Board will consider a referendum to head off the cuts, he said members “will discuss everything.”
But board Vice President Lawrie Kobza said she thinks it’s too early to ask the community for more money. Voters approved a $23 million referendum last November that included money for a new elementary school on the city’s Far West Side.
“I don’t see a referendum passing,” she said.

Links: Wisconsin K-12 spending. The 10.5M reductions in the increase plus the planned budget growth of $12M yields a “desired” increase of 7.5%. In other words, current Administration spending growth requires a 7.5% increase in tax receipts from property, sales, income, fees and other taxes (maybe less – see Susan Troller’s article below). The proposed 07/08 budget grows 3.6% from 333M+ (06/07) to $345M (07/08). Madison’s per student spending has grown an average of 5.25% since 1987 – details here.
UPDATE: A reader emails:

The spectre of central city school closings was what prompted some of us to resist the far-west side school referendum. Given the looming energy crisis, we should be encouraging folks to live in town, not at the fringes, strengthen our city neighborhoods. Plus, along with the need to overhaul the way we fund schools, we need a law requiring developers to provide a school or at least the land as a condition to development.

UPDATE 2: Susan Troller pegs the reduction in the increase at $7.2M:

Proposed reductions totaled almost $7.2 million and include increases in elementary school class sizes, changes in special education allocations and school consolidations on the near east side.
Other recommendations include increased hockey fees, the elimination of the elementary strings program and increased student-to-staff ratios at the high school and middle school levels.

UPDATE 3: Roger Price kindly emailed the total planned 07/08 budget: $339,139,282




$1.74B Tax and Fee Increases in Governor Doyle’s Proposed Wisconsin 07-09 Budget



Bob Lang, Director: Legislative Fiscal Bureau, 92K PDF:

A number of legislators have requested information concerning state tax and fee changes included in the 2007-09 budget recommendations of the Governor. This memorandum responds to those inquiries.
The attached table provides a brief description of each state tax and fee modification proposed in the Governor’s bill. The table consists of three parts: (1) tax increases and decreases; (2) fee increases and decreases; and (3) measures which would enhance the collection of current taxes or fees. Each entry in the table includes the agency name, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s budget summary document item that describes the change in more detail, a summary of the proposed modification, and an estimate of the revenue change due to the tax or fee modification.
In the table, GPR represents general fund revenue. Revenue to a program revenue account is signified by PR and SEG signifies revenue to a segregated fund. “Unknown” means that no estimate of the revenue impact is available at this time. The fiscal effects shown in the table reflect estimates made by the administration; estimates prepared by this office during budget deliberations may be different.

Steven Walters:

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposed two-year budget includes $1.74 billion in higher taxes and fees, according to a report by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau released Friday.
To put that number in perspective, it amounts to about $630 for each of the 2.76 million Wisconsin income tax filers for 2005.
The budget Doyle presented two years ago, before he won a second term in November, included $304 million in tax and fee increases, according to the non-partisan Fiscal Bureau.
The report says taxes would go up by a total of $1.37 billion by mid-2009, and listed the largest increases as:

Wisconsin residents paid 33.4% of income in taxes during 2006. More on Doyle’s proposed budget here.




Madison Superintendent’s 2007-2008 Proposed Budget Changes



Art Rainwater on the reductions in increases to the proposed 2007-2008 MMSD Budget [1.4MB PDF]:

Dear Board of Education,
The attached is my recommendation for the service reductions required to balance the budget for 2007-2008. They are provided to you for review in advance of my Recommended Balanced Budget for 2007-2008 which will be available on April 12, 2007. You requested that the service reductions be presented to you in advance to provide sufficient time for your study and analysis.
After 14 years of continuous reductions in our services for children there are no good choices. While these service reductions are not good for children or the health of the school district they represent our best professional judgment of the least harmful alternatives.
The process that we used to study, analyze, consider and finally recommend the items presented was done over a period of weeks. We first reviewed each department and division of the district and listed anything that could be reduced or eliminated legally or contractually. We narrowed that list to those items which we believed would do the least harm to:

  • Our academic programs,
  • The health and safety of our schools,
  • The opportunities for student involvement,
  • Our ability to complete our legal and fiscal requirements

The document presented to you today is the result of those discussions. The items are broken into four categories:

  1. Reductions to balance the budget ( Impact Statements provided)
  2. Reductions analyzed, discussed and not included (Impact statements provided)
  3. Reductions reviewed and not advanced
  4. Possible revenues dependent on legislative action

The administration is prepared to provide you further analysis and respond to questions as we continue to work to approve a final working budget in May.

2006/2007 Citizen’s Budget ($333M+) for 24,342 students. I did not quickly notice a total proposed 2007/2008 spending number in this document.
UPDATE: Overall spending will grow about 3.4% from $333M to $345M per Doug Erickson’s article.
Links: NBC15 | Channel3000




The Future of Our Schools: The Funding Crisis



The League of Women Voters of Dane County, Dane County PTO’s, Principals and School Boards
Panel Presentation featuring:

Questions to follow presentations
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
7:00 ? 9:30 p.m.
Meriter Main Gate Grand Hall
333 W. Main Street, Madison[map]
(free parking across the street)
All Welcome! Come and Bring a friend!
For more information:
The League of Women Voters of Dane County 232-9447




Madison’s Reading Battle Makes the NYT: In War Over Teaching Reading, a U.S.-Local Clash



Diana Jean Schemo has been at this article for awhile:

The program, which gives $1 billion a year in grants to states, was supposed to end the so-called reading wars — the battle over the best method of teaching reading — but has instead opened a new and bitter front in the fight.
According to interviews with school officials and a string of federal audits and e-mail messages made public in recent months, federal officials and contractors used the program to pressure schools to adopt approaches that emphasize phonics, focusing on the mechanics of sounding out syllables, and to discard methods drawn from whole language that play down these mechanics and use cues like pictures or context to teach.
Federal officials who ran Reading First maintain that only curriculums including regular, systematic phonics lessons had the backing of “scientifically based reading research” required by the program.
Madison officials say that a year after Wisconsin joined Reading First, in 2004, contractors pressured them to drop their approach, which blends some phonics with whole language in a program called Balanced Literacy. Instead, they gave up the money — about $2 million, according to officials here, who say their program raised reading scores.
“We had data demonstrating that our children were learning at the rate that Reading First was aiming for, and they could not produce a single ounce of data to show the success rates of the program they were proposing,” said Art Rainwater, Madison’s superintendent of schools.

Much more on Reading First and Madison, here.
Notes & Links:

UPDATE: Joanne Jacobs:

In part one of his response, Ken DeRosa of D-Ed Reckoning provides a reading passage altered to force readers to guess the meaning from context. Struggling this way does not inspire love of reading.
In part two, DeRosa analyzes the statistics to argue Madison students aren’t doing better in reading compared to other Wisconsin students; if anything, they’ve slipped a bit. Because the state reading test was made easier and the cut score for proficiency was lowered, all Wisconsin students look better. However, there was no progress in fourth-grade reading on the federal NAEP test.
With help from Rory of Parentalcation, who’s great at finding data, Ken shows that claims of fantastic progress by black students are illusory. Their scores improved on the easier test at a slightly slower rate than white students. It looks like to me as though blacks nearly caught up in basic skills but remain far behind at the proficient and advanced level. Perhaps someone who knows more statistics than I do — lots of you do — can find flaws in Ken’s analysis.

NYT Letters to the editor. Finally, others have raised questions about the MMSD’s analysis and publication of test score data.
Andrew Rotherham:

Diana Schemo’s NYT story on Reading First is not surprisingly sparking a lot of pushback and outraged emails, especially from the phonicshajeen. But, they have a point. There are problems with Reading First, but this may not be the best example of them at all…but, while you’re there, don’t miss the buried lede in graf eight…it’s almost like Schemo got snowed by all sides at once on this one…




East siders angered by school plan



From a story by Susan Troller in The Capital Times:

Recommended Madison school district changes that involve closing a middle school and joining a pair of elementary schools on the near east side are causing heated reaction in the Lapham-Marquette neighborhood.
“Do we know what we’re doing here and does this actually reflect best practices?” Marquette parent and district teacher Kit Rittman asked, reacting to a boundary change scenario that would include closing Sherman Middle School and consolidating students at Black Hawk and O’Keeffe middle schools.
Both schools feed into East High.
Changes would also involve combining students from Lapham, a K-2 school, and Marquette, which houses grades 3, 4 and 5, at the Lapham building on East Dayton Street. Space at Sherman would be filled by moving an existing high school alternative program there.




Another gem from Bill Keys and AMPS



Since Advocates for Madison Public Schools doesn’t allow access to the archived posts of its listserve, I post the following to illustrate the contempt these people feel toward anyone who isn’t in lock-step with their point of view:

To: advocatesformadisonpublicschools@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [advocatesformadisonpublicschools] Summer Exercise for “Advocates”
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 23:51:45 -0000
Here’s an interesting post from a local blog:

I wil be moving to the madison area soon and need to find schools that
realize “gifted” children do have special needs. I can not waist anymore time trying to get this point accross to educators because meanwhile my cildren suffer. Where is the the best public school for gifted children in the Madison area? I will purchase a home right next door and hopfully I can stop fighting to get my children a proper education

And so “advocates”…how would you answer if she ran into you at the
grocery store?

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Why Illinois Test Scores Went Up?: Changing the Test or Academic Improvements?



Via a reader looking at this issue: Stephanie Banchero, Darnell Little and Diane Rado:

Illinois elementary school pupils passed the newly revamped state achievement exams at record rates last year, but critics suggest it was more the result of changes to the tests than real progress by pupils.
State and local educators attribute the improvement to smarter pupils and teachers’ laser-like focus on the state learning standards—the detailed list of what pupils should know at each grade level. They also say that the more child-friendly exams, which included color and better graphics, helped pupils.
But testing experts and critics suggest that the unprecedented growth is more likely the result of changes to the exams.
Most notably, the state dramatically lowered the passing bar on the 8th-grade math test. As a result—after hovering at about 50 percent for five years—the pass rate shot up to 78 percent last year.
While the number of test questions remained generally the same, the number that counted on pupil scores dropped significantly.

Kevin Carey criticized Wisconsin’s “Statistical Manipulation of No Child Left Behind Standards“. The Fordham Foundation and Amy Hetzner have also taken a look at this issue.




3/5/2007 Madison School Board Candidate Forum: West High School



The Madison West High School PTSO held a school board candidate forum Monday night. Topics included:

  • Madison High School Comparison
  • A candidate’s ability to listen, interact and work successfully with other board members
  • Past and future referenda support
  • Candidate views on the $333M+ budget for our 24,000 students
  • Extensive conversations on the part of Marj and Johnny to lobby the state and federal governments for more money. Maya wondered how successful that strategy might be given that our own State Senator Fred Risser failed to sign on to the Pope-Roberts/Breske resolution and that there are many school districts much poorer than Madison who will likely obtain benefits first, if new state tax funds are available. Maya also mentioned her experience at the state level via the concealed carry battles.
  • The challenge of supporting all students, including those with special needs. Several candidates noted that there is white flight from the MMSD (enrollment has been flat for years, while local population continues to grow)
  • Mandatory classroom grouping (heterogeneous) was also discussed

I applaud the West PTSO for holding this event. I also liked the way that they handled questions: all were moderated, which prevents a candidate supporter from sandbagging the opposition. I attended a forum last year where supporters posed questions before local parents had the opportunity.
Video and mp3 audio clips are available below. Make sure you have the latest version of Quicktime as the video clips use a new, more efficient compression technique.

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Milwaukee School Board Reviews Their Superintendent



Alan Borsuk:

Less than a month before an election that is likely to leave School Superintendent William Andrekopoulos with a board that is not as favorably disposed toward him, the current School Board will hold a session Thursday to consider changing provisions in his contract.
School Board President Joe Dannecker said Monday that he wants the session to focus on how the board will conduct its annual review of Andrekopoulos’ job performance. The current contract says the way of conducting those reviews needs to be settled by the end of April. Dannecker also said he hopes the Thursday session will be conducted mostly in public.




Keys and Casteneda sing same song



After listening to Phony Tony Casteneda’s ludicruous charaterizations of those who post on this blog, I remembered a post by Bill Keys on a listserve sponsored by Advocates for Madison Public Schools. Bill and Phony Tony used nearly the same language and divisiveness. Here’s Bill’s rant:

FACTS? FACTS? FACTS?
Do you really believe that those who criticize public education are the least bit interested in INFORMATION?????
You shoulda been with us while campaigning for the referenda in 2005.
You’d know by now.
They are the Neo-cons and fascists who got us into Iraq, who support
amendments banning same sex marriage, who are opposed to sick leave for workers and living wages and health benefits as well, and who want to stop Mexican immigration even while eating the food that Mexican-Americans grow and harvest?
FACT?
They are not at all interested. A FACT never changed any of these folks’ minds.
‘Course that’s assuming they have any.
Bill

Not a single one of the Advocates for Madison Public Schools called Bill on this abrasiveness or questioned his assertions.
Remember, these are the people who advise and support Marj Passman. Do the comments of Bill and Phony Tony reflect Marj’s feelings? Apparently, we’ll never know. She’s mum to e-mails and requests for her to explain her positions.




Menomonee Falls School District Works with Community on 4 Year Old Kindergarten



Amy Hetzner:

When the Menomonee Falls School District opens its doors to a new 4-year-old kindergarten program this fall, private day cares in the village will open theirs to it, too.
Using an idea that’s catching on throughout the state, the district plans to partner with local preschool and child care centers to give 4-year-olds a half-day program that proponents say will give them an educational boost for years to come.
“The goal to all of this is to provide quality 4-year-old services for each and every child who resides in the school district, so when they come to 5-K they’ve got the same kindergarten basis,” said Marlene Gross-Ackeret, Menomonee Falls’ director of pupil services, and one of the key players in its 4-K initiative.
Almost every Wisconsin school district looking to add a new 4-year-old kindergarten program is considering such a collaborative approach, said Jill Haglund, an early-childhood education consultant for the state Department of Public Instruction who estimated that the partnerships exist in about 50 school systems. Even Milwaukee Public Schools collaborates with some community partners, placing its teachers at off-campus sites, despite having its own extensive 4-K programs.

Quite a contrast to the general Madison School District approach with respect to After School and classes taken outside our public school district. More here.




Confirmation of MMSD’s bargaining give aways



Roger Price provided a copy of the 2007 Voluntary Impasse Resolution Procedure agreement between the MMSD and MTI.
As reported earlier, if the MMSD and MTI go to arbitration, the MMSD agrees not make a final offer that would modify health insurance benefits for teachers or change the salary structure, which offers new teachers a starting salary of $23,000, a salary lamented by Marj Passman in her interview on WORT.
The agreement duplicates the 2005 agreement, as discussed here.




March Madison BOE Progress Report



March Madness is approaching! On the board level, madness can be characterized by the large assortments of topics and decisions that have been or will need to be made such as the superintendent search, budget, and other serious issues that require time, analysis and public discussion. I would like to give you a brief report on some of those topics.

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No Child Left Behind’s Effect on the States



The Economist:

FOR as long as there have been maths tests, there have been cheats. But whereas a schoolboy caught furtively copying his neighbour’s answers can expect a zero and an angry letter home, states that rig exam results are showered with federal cash. This is one reason why the No Child Left Behind Act, a noble attempt to impose discipline on American schools, needs revision before it merits an A grade.
The premise behind the law was sensible enough. Before it was passed in 2002, state education bureaucrats were reluctant to collect and publish the kind of data that would have allowed parents to make comparisons between schools, or to tell if a school was improving over time. Good schools received few rewards; bad ones had little incentive to improve. President George Bush sought to change that.
Under No Child Left Behind, students must be tested on maths and reading every year between the ages of eight and 13, and once in high school. Test results must be published and broken down by race. Schools that fail to show “adequate yearly progress” face penalties. Parents of children at consistently failing schools must be allowed to move them to better ones.
All good stuff. But there are catches. Federal subsidies to the states depend on students meeting standards that the states themselves set. States thus have a multi-billion-dollar incentive to game the system. In Arizona, for example, only one-fifth of eighth-graders were rated “proficient” at maths after taking the state test in 2003. Two years later, that proportion had magically tripled. Does this mean that the test got easier to pass? “Yes,” says Janet Napolitano, Arizona’s plain-talking governor.

Wisconsin’s academic standards have been criticized by the Fordham Foundation:

The report being released today by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington uses harsh terms in critiquing the standards that are intended to guide instruction in Wisconsin schools. “Depth is nowhere to be found,” it said of the science standards. “This document has no structure or method,” it said of the world history standards. “Skimpy content and vague wording,” it said in describing the math standards.
In June, a different group ranked Wisconsin No. 1 in the country in frustrating the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind law. Also in June, a third organization focused on Milwaukee and Wisconsin as examples of places where more inexperienced – and therefore, less proficient – teachers are disproportionately assigned to high-needs schools. And two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education rejected as inadequate Wisconsin’s plans for dealing with federal requirements that every student have a “highly qualified” teacher.

along with Kevin Carey: “Hot Air: How States Inflate Their Educational Progress Under NCLB “

Critics on both the Left and the Right have charged that the No Child Left Behind Act tramples states’ rights by imposing a federally mandated, one-size-fits-all accountability system on the nation’s diverse states and schools.
In truth, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) gives states wide discretion to define what students must learn, how that knowledge should be tested, and what test scores constitute “proficiency”—the key elements of any educational accountability system. States also set standards for high school graduation rates, teacher qualifications, school safety and many other aspects of school performance. As a result, states are largely free to define the terms of their own educational success.
The Pangloss Index ranks Wisconsin as the most optimistic state in the nation. Wisconsin scores well on some educational measures, like the SAT, but lags behind in others, such as achievement gaps for minority students. But according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the state is a modern-day educational utopia where a large majority of students meet academic standards, high school graduation rates are high, every school is safe and nearly all teachers are highly qualified. School districts around the nation are struggling to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), the primary standard of school and district success under NCLB. Yet 99.8 percent of Wisconsin districts—425 out of 426—made AYP in 2004–05.
How is that possible? As Table 2 shows, some states have identified the large majority of districts as not making AYP. The answer lies with the way Wisconsin has chosen to define the AYP standard.




Sparks Fly as the Madison Studio Charter School is Voted Down



The Madison School Board voted down the proposed Studio Charter School Monday night in a 4-2 vote (Against: Carstensen, Kobza, Silveira and Winston; For Mathiak and Robarts with Vang away).
Sparks flew when Lucy Mathiak asked Nancy Donahue about their interaction with the attempts to talk with principals and teachers about the proposed charter school [12 minute video.] Watch the complete discussion here.
Susan Troller has more:

There is disagreement among Madison School Board members over what put the nails in the coffin of a proposal to create a new fine arts and technology-focused charter school.
The Studio School suffered from being the wrong proposal at the wrong time, said board President Johnny Winston Jr., who joined board members Carol Carstensen, Arlene Silveira and Lawrie Kobza in voting against the plan at Monday night’s School Board meeting.
But board member Lucy Mathiak says that the vote was wrapped up in School Board and labor politics, and that the Studio School suffered from disapproval from Madison Teachers Inc., the district’s union.
But Mathiak, who along with board member Ruth Robarts voted in favor of what would have been Madison’s third charter school, said she felt the proposal was primarily doomed by disapproval from MTI.
She noted that the MTI’s School Board candidate questionnaire asks whether candidates support charter schools, and added that there was a MTI representative at Monday night’s meeting.
“There is definitely the feeling that the union does not look favorably on charter schools, although they are public schools, staffed by district teachers,” Mathiak said.
“I find it ironic that the same people who voted for a voluntary impasse resolution agreement regarding teachers’ contract negotiations are now saying that developing a charter school is something we can’t afford. We should keep all of our options open in the bargaining process … the potential for cost savings are very significant,” she said.
Mathiak is referring to a vote taken by School Board members in preparation for negotiations with the teachers’ union next month that included concessions from the district on bargaining over health care insurance.

Much more on the Studio School here along with some discussion at The Daily Page.




School Board Vote on the Studio School Tonight



In the context of the Madison School District’s financial challenges, it’s easy to understand why creating a new program may seem unthinkable. Yet creativity can prove a strong ally in times of adversity. Take the prospect of the latest charter school idea to come before the Madison School Board, and consider these points:
As a charter school, the Studio School can bring in $550,000 in federal grants over its first four years. These grants, earmarked for charter schools, are designed to help districts cover start-up costs. The Studio School can be implemented in a way that keeps operating costs in line with other elementary schools district-wide; yet as a charter with an arts and technology emphasis, it would have the ability to seek additional grants and sources of financial support.
The Studio School would be in an existing public school, just as the district’s bilingual charter school operates. This school-within-a- school model is a cost- efficient way to foster innovation. As a taxpayer and a parent, I see the Studio School as an excellent use of underused space. While its location has yet to be determined by the district and School Board, the idea poses interesting possibilities. Could a charter school draw some students from a nearby overcrowded school? Over the long term, might an innovative option help attract new families to a neighborhood where parents had once worried about the future of an under-enrolled school? And how might such an effort dovetail with our city’s development plans?

(more…)




Going to the Mat for WPS



Jason Shephard:

Suzanne Fatupaito, a nurse’s assistant in Madison schools, is fed up with Wisconsin Physicians Service, the preferred health insurance provider of Madison Teachers Inc.
“MTI uses scare tactics” to maintain teacher support for WPS, Fatupaito recently wrote to the school board. “If members knew that another insurance [plan] would offer similar services to WPS and was less expensive — it would be a no-brainer.”
WPS, with a monthly price tag of $1,720 for family coverage, is one of two health coverage options available to the district’s teachers. The other is Group Health Cooperative, costing $920 monthly for a family plan.
During the past year, the Madison school board has reached agreements with other employee groups to switch from WPS to HMO plans, with most of the savings going to boost pay.
In December, the board held a secret vote in closed session to give up its right to seek health insurance changes should negotiations on the 2007-09 teachers contract go into binding arbitration. (The board can seek voluntary insurance changes during negotations.)
“What we’ve done is taken away a huge bargaining chip,” says board member Lucy Mathiak. “Every other major industry and public sector has had to deal with health-insurance changes, and we’ve got a very real $10 million deficit.”
MTI Executive Director John Matthews says other employee unions “made a big mistake” in switching to HMO plans. Matthews has long maintained that WPS provides superior coverage, despite its higher costs and disproportionate number of complaints. And he defends the paycheck he collects from WPS as a member of its board, saying he’s better able to lobby for his teachers.

Much more on this issue, including links, audio and a transcript, here.




Concessions Made in Advance of MTI Negotiations by a Majority of the Madison School Board



It will be interesting to see how voters on February 20 and April 3 view this decision by a majority of the Madison School Board: Should the Board and Administration continue to give away their ability to negotiate health care benefits ($43.5M of the 2006/2007 budge) before MTI union bargaining begins? Read the 2005 MMSD/MTI Voluntary Impasse Agreement [1.1MB PDF; see paragraph’s 2, 10 and 11]. The 2007 version, alluded to in Andy Hall’s article below, will be posted when it sees the light of day.
This is an important issue for all of us, given the MMSD’s challenge of balancing their growing $331M+ budget, while expenses – mostly salaries and benefits – continue to increase at a faster rate. Mix in the recent public disclosure of the district’s $5.9M 7 year structural deficit and I doubt that this is the best approach for our children.
Recently, the Sun Prairie School District and its teachers’ union successfully bargained with DeanCare to bring down future costs for employee health insurance.

Andy Hall, writing in the Wisconsin State Journal asks some useful questions:

But with the Madison School Board facing a $10.5 million budget shortfall, is the board giving away too much with its promises to retain teachers’ increasingly pricey health insurance and to discard its legal mechanism for limiting teachers’ total compensation increase to 3.8 percent?

Yes, School Board Vice President Lawrie Kobza said Saturday, “I feel very strongly that this was a mistake,” said Kobza, who acknowledged that most board members endorse the agreement with Madison Teachers Inc., the teachers union.

State law allows districts to avoid arbitration by making a so-called qualified economic offer, or QEO, by boosting salaries and benefits a combined 3.8 percenter a year.

“To agree before a negotiation starts that we’re not going to impose the QEO and negotiate health care weakens the district’s position,” Kobza said. She contended the district’s rising health-care costs are harming its ability to raise starting teachers’ salaries enough to remain competitive.

The “voluntary impasse resolution” agreements, which are public records, are used in only a handful of Wisconsin’s 425 school districts, according to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.

Four of the 7 current Madison School Board Members were backed by MTI during their campaigns (Arlene Silveira, Carol Carstensen, Shwaw Vang and Johnny Winston, Jr.). Those four votes can continue this practice. Independent School Board members Lawrie Kobza and Ruth Robarts have spoken publicly against the concessions made in advance of negotiations. If you support or oppose this approach, let the board know via email (comments@madison.k12.wi.us), or phone.

Related links, media and transcripts:

  • What’s the MTI Political Endorsement about?:

    In 2006-07 the Madison School district will spend $43.5M on health insurance for its employees, the majority of the money paying for insurance for teachers represented by Madison Teachers, Inc. (MTI) That is 17% of the operating budget under the revenue limits.
    In June of 2007, the two-year contract between the district and MTI ends. The parties are now beginning negotiations for the 2007-09 contract.
    The Sun Prairie School district and its teachers union recently saved substantial dollars on health insurance. They used the savings to improve teacher wages. The parties joined together openly and publicly to produce a statement of the employees health needs. Then they negotiated a health insurance package with a local HMO that met their needs.

  • The MMSD Custodians recently agreed to a new health care plan where 85% of the cost savings went to salaries and 15% to the MMSD.
  • Ruth Robarts discussed concessions in advance of negotiations, health care costs and the upcoming elections with Vicki McKenna recently. [6.5MB MP3 Audio | Transcript]
  • What a Sham(e) by Jason Shephard:

    Last week, Madison Teachers Inc. announced it would not reopen contract negotiations following a hollow attempt to study health insurance alternatives.
    Not to put too fine a point on it, but anyone who suggests the Joint Committee on Health Insurance Issues conducted a fair or comprehensive review needs to get checked out by a doctor.
    The task force’s inaction is a victory for John Matthews, MTI’s executive director and board member Wisconsin Physicians Service.
    Losers include open government, school officials, taxpayers and young teachers in need of a raise.
    From its start, the task force, comprised of three members each from MTI and the district, seemed to dodge not only its mission but scrutiny.

(more…)




Teachers Reclaiming Assessment Through Rethinking Accountability



Chris Gallagher
THE EDUCATION report card for my home state of Nebraska in the spring of 1999 was mixed, according to Education Week. While children in the state ranked among the top 10 nationally in most academic categories, Nebraska nonetheless garnered only a C. Why? Largely because it does not administer statewide, standardized assessments and so is “lagging behind” in accountability. Both those reporting this verdict and most of the state and local officials receiving it seem to be resigned to it as a sure but unsurprising sign that we have more work to do to “catch up” with the rest of the country. It does not seem to strike most observers as odd that, although students’ performance is high, the state’s marks are only average. Until Nebraska develops statewide tests, it will continue to receive low grades, irrespective of what our students are doing. This kind of press may well propel the state to abandon its long-held commitment to local assessment and fall in line with the national movement toward state standardized tests.
This report and its handling demonstrate the extent to which educational tests have become “common sense.” To use a term proposed by Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, educational testing is “hegemonic” — that is, it manufactures consent by presenting itself (or being represented as) “obvious.” Although standardized tests came under intense fire for a short time in the 1970s, we have returned to this practice with a fervor perhaps greater than at any other time since schools in the United States began making extensive use of standardized tests in the 1930s. Even many educators who have long understood the limitations and outright injustices of standardized testing and the testing industry claim that the time has passed when resistance to testing is useful.
I think it is dangerous to be too sanguine about the prospects for reforming the assessment community and disrupting the commonsense script for education reform, in which schools are cast as damsels in distress, remote experts are cast as heroic saviors, and teachers are written out of the production altogether. We need to confront the fact that, finally, the persistence of the “crisis in education” is attributable in large part to two factors: the profit margins of the testing industry that maintains the crisis and the cultural distrust of teachers that the testing industry, along with the political and education establishments, endorses.
But the testing industry has been able to secure a spot in our cultural imagination and our stock exchanges not only because of the business acumen of its leaders (though that is part of it), but also because it plays to and plays up our cultural distrust of teachers. The corporate establishment, led by the political Right, works hard to create a “public” of concerned taxpayers: those who want to be sure that their “investments” in children pay off. Neoconservative columnists play to this audience constantly, stoking the fires of educational crisis and inspiring suspicions about the competence of our public school teachers…. This distrust is carefully nurtured to keep the present educational power structure intact: remote “experts” (the capitalists) develop educational tests and prepackaged curricula and send them off to school administrators (the managers), who then ensure that teachers (the workers) faithfully execute those plans. Students (the products) are thus shaped to the specifications of experts whom they will never meet and who may never have set foot in a classroom.
In other words, whatever the gains of movements like the one for authentic assessment, the prevailing wisdom about education reform has it that reform must be top down, not inside out. Underlying our embrace of the assessment industry and our cultural distrust of teachers is a fundamental belief that what’s missing in education today is “efficiency” and that the best way to ensure efficiency is to set up a corporate structure in which teachers are held accountable to corporate CEOs. What’s good for General Motors . . .




My Life and Times With the Madison Public Schools



Up close, the author finds that politics obscure key educational issues
Marc Eisen:

Where’s the challenge?
I’m no different. I want my kids pushed, prodded, inspired, and challenged in school. Too often—in the name of equity, or progressive education, or union protectionism, or just plain cheapness—that isn’t happening in the Madison schools.
Advanced classes are being choked off, while one-size-fits-all classes (“heterogeneous groupings”) are created for more and more students. The TAG staff has been slashed nearly in half (one staffer is now assigned to six elementary schools), and even outside groups promoting educational excellence are treated coolly if not with hostility (this is the fate of the most excellent Wisconsin Center For Academically Talented Youth [WCATY]). And arts programs are demeaned and orphaned.
This is not Tom Friedman’s recipe for student success in the 21st century. Sure, many factors can be blamed for this declining state of affairs, notably the howlingly bad way in which K-12 education is financed and structured in Wisconsin. But much of the problem also derives from the district’s own efforts to deal with “the achievement gap.”
That gap is the euphemism used for the uncomfortable fact that, as a group, white students perform better academically than do black and Hispanic students. For example, 46% of Madison’s black students score below grade level on the state’s 3rd grade reading test compared to 9% of white students.
At East, the state’s 10th grade knowledge-and-concepts test show widely disparate results by race. With reading, 81% of white kids are proficient or advanced versus 43% for black students. The achievement gap is even larger in math, science, social studies, and language arts. No wonder TAG classes are disproportionately white.
Reality is that the push for heterogeneous class grouping becomes, among other things, a convenient cover for reducing the number of advanced classes that are too white and unrepresentative of the district’s minority demographics.




Editorial on Milwaukee School Board Candidates



Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

The trick for voters is to elect a School Board that is most likely not only to keep up the momentum but to accelerate it. To that end, in Tuesday’s primary, we recommend Bruce Thompson for the citywide seat, Michael Bonds in the 3rd District and incumbent Joe Dannecker in the 8th District.
Reformers now run the School Board, but barely. Almost with each election, control of the board has long switched back and forth between the reform side and union side, which is beholden to the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association. We prefer the reform agenda, which is laying the foundation for success.




A K-12 View from 35,000 Feet



I happened to sit next to the Curriculum Coordinator (20+ years in that District) for a large, growing US School District recently ( north of 100,000 students). I found some of the comments interesting:

  • They cycle through superintendents every 2 to 3 years. The Supers are paid $300K+ with “lots of benefits”.
  • The new super is decentralizing all over the place, pushing control down.
  • They use trailers as enrollment moves around the community.
  • The new super wants to require any children in grades K-3 not reading at grade level to have only one task per day (beyond lunch, recess and PE) – read. This involves tracking.
  • I asked what sort of curriculum they used for reading: Whole language with “lots of phonics”. I asked if they used Reading Recovery. The person said that they evaluated RR but felt it was “far too expensive”.
  • Offer a great deal of IB and AP courses. They also have magnet schools, though the person said that they are less popular now that the district has gone back to neighborhood schools (evidently there was a successful reverse discrimination lawsuit). They have evidently received “a great deal of federal funds” to support IB and AP.
  • 8th graders who cannot read at grade level will go to a different set of curriculum or school than those who are at or above.

This district spends about $7,900 per student annually (Madison is in the $12,500 range).
Interestingly, this is the 2nd time during the past 12 months that I’ve sat next to an educator on their way to a conference sponsored by curriculum publishers.




Mayors and Schools



John Nichols noted that Madison’s Mayoral challengers have not raised substantive questions of the incumbent Mayor’s (Dave Cieslewicz) record, including schools:

No. 2, he has failed to offer much in the way of a vision for how this rapidly changing city should approach the future. How green should it be? Where does mass transit fit in? How do we diversify the economy? How do we make sure that the schools remain strong and popular with all the city’s residents? The mayor thinks about all these issues. He works on them in incremental ways and, frankly, he’s done so ably. Unfortunately, he has not communicated in a particularly bold or effective manner with regard to them. Once again, the vulnerability remains.
In politics, an incumbent’s vulnerabilities are meaningless if they are not exploited by his or her challengers. Ray Allen and Peter Munoz have failed, so far, to put a dent in Cieslewicz. One of them will survive the primary, and that candidate will have a chance to mount a more serious challenge. With the first critical test just days away, however, Allen and Munoz give every sign of having boarded the wrong trolley.

I’ve been surprised at the lack of Mayoral involvement in our K-12 climate. The Madison school district’s enrollment has been flat for years, while surrounding schools have grown significantly. Continued growth of our edge cities, business migration (Epic systems move to Verona), a growing budget, safety concerns and curriculum questions provide plenty of issues relevant to the health of our community. Around the country, as Jill Tucker notes in San Francisco, many mayors are active for obvious reasons on K-12 issues.
Why have the Mayor (and challengers) been quiet on substantive school issues?
Perhaps in Madison, where a local elected official recently remarked to me that “we don’t have a democracy” (think about that), the endorsement merry go round (maybe the deal with schools is that a candidate gets ground and monetary support, or help with a holiday party, if they stay out of K-12), the “remain silent” requirements of some and the fact that political upside in K-12 is difficult leads to the present situation. Or just indifference?
What do we, as a community, give up when candidates who have cut deals and agree to remain silent on certain issues are elected? What sort of example does this leave for future generations?




2005-2006 Milwaukee Public Schools Report Card



Milwaukee Public Schools:

School by school reports are presented along with a district overview.

Alan Borsuk has more:

“We have to do much better,” School Superintendent William Andrekopoulos said, summarizing it all.
But he pointed to improved graduation and dropout rates as encouraging and said he remains convinced reforms will bear fruit, even though it may take years to see that. “We need to stay the course,” he said.
The course itself has had plenty of bumps, as the high school redesign report showed. There are now 33 small high schools in MPS, with a wide range of success. An administrative report concluded, “New, small high schools continue to be difficult to develop and implement but show promise with some significant gains.”




Madison Schools Superintendent Art Rainwater on Budget Season



Art Rainwater:

Budget season is not as much fun as the other seasons. We approach budget season with anxiety because each new budget season means that we will again reduce the services that our students need. Under the current revenue cap law, yearly service reductions are a fact of life for most school districts in Wisconsin. The demands for students to gain more knowledge and skills increase every year while resources to meet their needs decrease every year.
Budget season creates intense concern among staff and parents and makes adversaries among friends. Priorities must be set, and when all of the input has been gathered and discussion completed, it is the responsibility of the elected Board of Education to make those final priority decisions.




Dozens of resource teachers work out of Doyle



According to the MMSD staff directory, 29 resource teachers in Educational Services, seven instructional resource teachers in Language Art/Reading and eight in Math work out of the Doyle building.
Why are those teachers located at Doyle? They work in schools, so they could be relocated in any number of buildings, freeing space at Doyle to house the Brearly Street programs.




Long Range Planning Meetings on possible school closing



I received this notice from a listserve:
Please Attend
Monday February 12th
8:00pm
Doyle Admin. Building
545 W. Dayton
Long Range Planning Commission
MMSD administrative staff will be discussing possible closing of Lapham
+++++++++++++++++
TUESDAY-February 13th
6:30pm
Marquette SCHOOL LIBRARY
LAPHAM/MARQUETTE PTG MEETING
FREE CHILCARE AVAILABLE




Spring 2007 Madison School Board Election Update



I’ve updated the election page with the following information:




School Closings & the Long-Term Outlook



School closings need to be considered in light of the long-term (5-10 years or more) outlook – a 3-5 year outlook, yet alone 1-2 years, is not nearly long enough when considering a measure whose impact lasts for many years, at a student/family level, as well as financial.
What muddies this school closing picture is the outlook for continued enrollment increases on the east side of town, not just the far west and southwest sides. I’ve heard the district is considering purchase of land not far from the interstate with an eye to building an elementary school there one day. It’s hard to imagine building a new school for $10+ million, when other schools less than five miles away have recently been closed. I believe the combination of continued growth on the east side, combined with the continuing increasing birth rate (births have been up every year here for the past ten years, which is a significant explanatory factor for why there is increasing enrollment pressures on almost all our city schools) will render school closures quite unnecessary.
However, the picture gets further complicated when we recognize that the MMSD budget will be $40 million smaller (in real terms) over the next five years (give or take). The only way to find that kind of money is to increase class sizes. The only questions are how, where, when, and by how much. (Which again is why I think a 5-year plan is needed, to ensure these painful adjustments are done in a way that least harms the quality of education.)
Ultimately, the appropriateness and wisdom of closing any school, from a strictly financial perspective, rests on what the long-term picture looks like. This picture needs to combine long-term enrollment projections (at a neighborhood/school level) with a variety of realistic scenarios as to how class sizes may change as the long-term budget situation continues to deteriorate. Without such projections, the district runs a serious risk of doing the wrong thing: by either closing schools when it later proves unnecessary, or by leaving them open when it later proves we would have done better to close them.
Peter Gascoyne
GascoyneP@aol.com
608-256-9680




School board candidates: What do you think of closing schools?



David Cohen suggested that I ask candidates their positions on closing a school on the isthmus or east side.
So, candidates, if you’re elected to the board, will you vote to support closing a school? A simple yes or no will suffice; however, if you’d like to elaborate, feel free.




Isthmus school targetted for closing



From all appearances, the MMSD administration desperately wants to close Lapham Elementary without giving serious consideration to other cost-saving options.
The 2006 East Area Task Force concluded that closing a school would be harmful.
Weigh in on whether to close a school by contacting board members and administators with this e-mail address: comments@madison.k12.wi.us




Local School Climate Tea Leaves?



A Capital Times Editorial:

At a time when Madison should be discussing the very real challenge of retooling our schools so that they can educate our young to be the leaders of the 21st century, when we should be getting serious about how to ensure that all citizens have access to affordable housing, and when we should be strategizing about how to diversify our economy in order to provide the jobs that will be required by our burgeoning population – and to protect the dwindling number of unionized industrial jobs that remain – the City Council will tonight discuss whether to put an advisory referendum about trolleys on the spring ballot.
Yikes!




Outline of math task force



I believe that the school board voted to move forward on the superintendent’s recommendation to form a math task force. The board asked the administration to:
Initiate and complete a comprehensive, independent and neutral review and assessment of the District’s K-12 math curriculum.

· The review and assessment shall be undertaken by a task force whose members are appointed by the Superintendent and approved by the BOE. Members of the task force shall have math and math education expertise and represent a variety of perspectives regarding math education.
· The task force shall prepare and present to the BOE a preliminary outline of the review and assessment to be undertaken by the task force. The outline shall, at a minimum, include: (1) analysis of math achievement data for MMSD K-12 students, including analysis of all math sub-tests scores disaggregated by student characteristics and schools; (2) analysis of performance expectations for MMSD K-12 students; (3) an overview of math curricula, including MMSD’s math curriculum; (4) a discussion of how to improve MMSD student achievement; and (5) recommendations on measures to evaluate the effectiveness of MMSD’s math curriculum. The task force is to present the preliminary outline and a timeline to the BOE for comment and approval.
· The task force is to prepare a written draft of the review and assessment, consistent with the approved preliminary outline. The draft is to be presented to the BOE for review and comment.
· The task force is to prepare the final report on the review and assessment.

More details of the superintendent’s plans are here.




Madison Schools’ “Restorative Justice”



“Madison Parent”:

The superintendent, school board president and other school board candidates are already talking as if this were a done deal. But what is “restorative justice,” and what will it mean to have student misconduct addressed with a “restorative justice” approach? A layperson’s online search leads to academic papers in the criminal and juvenile justice area from fields ranging from sociology, social work, philosophy and theology, but not much specific research or data on whether or how “restorative justice” has been found to work as an approach to addressing misconduct in schools. The decision to move away from a discipline-based approach to a “restorative justice” approach will have an immediate, on-the-ground, daily impact on the school climate and educational experience encountered by the students and teachers in our schools, and parents of children in the public schools here may very well have the following questions:




Whole-language Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing



Louisa Moats 324K PDF:

How to Tell When “Scientifically-Based Reading Instruction” Isn’t.
In this practitioners’ guide, renowned reading expert Louisa Moats (author of the American Federation of Teachers’ Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science and an earlier Thomas B. Fordham Foundation report, Whole Language Lives On: The Illusion of “Balanced” Reading Instruction) explains how educators, parents, and concerned citizens can spot ineffective reading programs that surreptitiously hide under the “scientifically-based” banner.
While the field of reading has made enormous strides in recent years—especially with the publication of the National Reading Panel’s landmark report and enactment of the federal Reading First program discredited and ineffectual practices continue in many schools. Although the term “whole language” is rarely used today, programs based on its premises, such as Reading Recovery, Four Blocks, Guided Reading, and especially “balanced literacy,” are as popular as ever. These approaches may pay lip service to reading science, but they fail to incorporate the content and instructional methods proven to work best with students learning to read. Some districts, such as Denver, openly shun research-based practices, while others, such as Chicago, fail to provide clear, consistent leadership for principals and teachers, who are left to reinvent reading instruction, school by school.

Press Release.




Online Classes Go Mainstream



Seema Mehta:

Hathaway, who hopes to be a novelist, is among 1 million kindergarten through high school student enrollments in virtual schooling across the nation, according to the North American Council for Online Learning, a nonprofit organization for administrators, teachers and others involved in online schooling.
Enrollment, counted as the total number of seats in all online classes, not the number of students, has grown more than 20 times in seven years, and the group expects the numbers to continue to jump 30% annually.
To deal with the growth, the University of California is launching an extensive effort to make sure applicants’ online high school courses are on par with traditional classroom instruction.
Nearly half the states offer public school classes online, and last year Michigan became the first in the nation to require students to take an online course to graduate from high school. In California, a state senator introduced a bill last week to allow public high school students to take online classes without depriving schools of the state funding they receive for attendance.




Seattle School Board creates ‘profile’ of the next superintendent



Jessica Blanchard:

The next leader of Seattle Public Schools should be inspirational, able to work well with others, committed to reducing the academic achievement gap and ideally will have experience as an educator, the Seattle School Board agreed.
During a marathon work session Wednesday, the board fine-tuned a list of 10 qualifications to create a “profile” of the person who will take over for departing Superintendent Raj Manhas later this year.

Seattle School Board Superintendent Search Page.




Zogby on Philadelphia School Governance Reforms



Andrew Rotherham:

Guest Post from Charles Zogby, he’s currently Senior Vice President for Education Policy with K-12* and the former Secretary of Education Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was active in the reform efforts in Philly while he was secretary. Responding to this post he writes: I wanted to respond to your recent post regarding RAND’s analysis of the various school management options deployed in Philadelphia. You note in your post that for profit and non-profit managers received more resources but did no better in producing academic performance. This is not an entirely accurate picture of either the conditions of the schools or the challenge that the private mangers were handed.