Gov. Chris Christie’s controversial salary cap on new contracts for New Jersey public school superintendents is on track to cut about 10 percent from the combined $100 million currently paid to school chiefs throughout the state.
The pay ceiling went into effect Feb. 7, despite challenges from a superintendents’ association, which says the cap will lead to massive turnover and discourage rising administrators from seeking the jobs.
Michigan’s Planned K-12 Budget Reductions
State schools superintendent Mike Flanagan is urging Michigan educators and parents not to “panic” over Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget plan that calls for spending cuts for cash-strapped public schools.
Flanagan said Friday in a podcast that Snyder is calling “for sacrifices from all of us, including schools” and urges school officials to remain calm despite the call for education cuts, The Grand Rapids Press reports.
“I’m asking all of us to hear this budget message and not do something I did as a superintendent 20 years ago and panic,” he said.
Snyder’s budget plan released Thursday proposes cutting public school funding by $470 per student, while intermediate school districts would be cut 5 percent.
Why does college cost so much?
David Leonhardt serves up a dialogue with Robert B. Archibald, and also David H. Feldman. Archibald starts by citing the cost disease and also the heavy use of skilled labor in the sector. I don’t think they get to the heart of the matter, as there is no mention of entry barriers, whether legal, cultural, or economic. The price of higher education is rising — rapidly — and yet a) individual universities do not have strong incentives to take in larger classes, and b) it is hard to start a new, good college or university. The key question is how much a) and b) are remediable in the longer run and if so then there is some chance that the current structure of higher education is a bubble of sorts.
I never see the authors utter the sentence: “There are plenty wanna-bee professors discarded on the compost heap of academic history.” Yet the best discard should not be much worse, and may even be better, than the marginally accepted professor. Such a large pool of surplus labor would play a significant role in an economic analysis of virtually any other sector.
Back to school for kids, teachers — But back to normal? Not quite
Matthew DeFour & Gena Kittner:
Madison schools will open Tuesday for the first time in a week, but it won’t be just any other school day.
Civil rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson will greet East High School students over the loudspeaker in the morning. Students have made posters in support of their teachers. And classrooms likely will be buzzing with discussion over the four-day teacher walkout prompted by Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to limit collective bargaining.
With that backdrop, district officials have been preparing principals and staff for what could be a dramatic day.
“We know that there’s a lot of emotion here and we need to recognize that there’s a lot of upset and upset in the parent community as well,” Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad said.
Meanwhile: Jesse Jackson to Address Madison East High School Students Tuesday.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Federal, state and local debt hits post-WWII levels
The daunting tower of national, state and local debt in the United States will reach a level this year unmatched just after World War II and already exceeds the size of the entire economy, according to government estimates.
But any similarity between 1946 and now ends there. The U.S. debt levels tumbled in the years after World War II, but today they are still climbing and even deep cuts in spending won’t completely change that for several years.
As President Obama and Republicans squabble over whose programs to cut and which taxes to raise, slow growth and a rising tide of interest payments – largely beyond their control – are making the job of fixing the budget much harder than in the past. Statehouses and governors face similar challenges.
You can lead kids to broccoli, but you can’t make them eat
Anyone who has ever tried to sneak healthy food into kids’ lunches knows what Chicago Public Schools is going through.
Sometimes kids openly embrace the new food. Sometimes they eat it without realizing the difference. And sometimes they refuse it altogether.
CPS has met with all three reactions this school year, when it stopped serving daily nachos, Pop-Tarts and doughnuts and introduced healthier options at breakfast and lunch. But in a sign of how challenging this transition can be for schools, district figures show that lunch sales for September through December dropped by about 5 percentage points since the previous year, or more than 20,000 lunches a day.
Schools can’t hide from Washington state budget ax
The Washington Constitution makes education the highest priority of state government, but that doesn’t stop lawmakers from cutting the money they spend on schools.
In fact, education spending as a percentage of the state budget has been declining for years.
In the past decade, education spending has gone from close to 50 percent to just above 40 percent of the state budget, despite the fact that some education spending is protected by the constitution.
The key to understanding state spending on education lies in knowing what qualifies as basic education and what does not. The definitions – some obvious, some less so – have been crafted over the years by state lawmakers, with pressure from the Washington Supreme Court.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?
Financial crooks brought down the world’s economy — but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them
Instead, federal regulators and prosecutors have let the banks and finance companies that tried to burn the world economy to the ground get off with carefully orchestrated settlements — whitewash jobs that involve the firms paying pathetically small fines without even being required to admit wrongdoing. To add insult to injury, the people who actually committed the crimes almost never pay the fines themselves; banks caught defrauding their shareholders often use shareholder money to foot the tab of justice. “If the allegations in these settlements are true,” says Jed Rakoff, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, “it’s management buying its way off cheap, from the pockets of their victims.”
To understand the significance of this, one has to think carefully about the efficacy of fines as a punishment for a defendant pool that includes the richest people on earth — people who simply get their companies to pay their fines for them. Conversely, one has to consider the powerful deterrent to further wrongdoing that the state is missing by not introducing this particular class of people to the experience of incarceration. “You put Lloyd Blankfein in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for one six-month term, and all this bullshit would stop, all over Wall Street,” says a former congressional aide. “That’s all it would take. Just once.”
But that hasn’t happened. Because the entire system set up to monitor and regulate Wall Street is fucked up.
Just ask the people who tried to do the right thing.
State Workers in Wisconsin See a Fraying of Union Bonds
Among the top five employers here are the county, the schools and the city. And that was enough to make Mr. Hahan, a union man from a union town, a supporter of Gov. Scott Walker’s sweeping proposal to cut the benefits and collective-bargaining rights of public workers in Wisconsin, a plan that has set off a firestorm of debate and protests at the state Capitol. He says he still believes in unions, but thinks those in the public sector lead to wasteful spending because of what he sees as lavish benefits and endless negotiations.
“Something needs to be done,” he said, “and quickly.”
Across Wisconsin, residents like Mr. Hahan have fumed in recent years as tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs have vanished, and as some of the state’s best-known corporations have pressured workers to accept benefit cuts.
Wisconsin’s financial problems are not as dire as those of many other states. But a simmering resentment over those lost jobs and lost benefits in private industry — combined with the state’s history of highly polarized politics — may explain why Wisconsin, once a pioneer in supporting organized labor, has set off a debate that is spreading to other states over public workers, unions and budget woes.
Ed Hughes on Madison Teacher Absences & Protest
Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes, via email:
It’s been a non-quiet week here in Madison. Everyone has his or her own take on the events. Since I’m a member of the Madison School Board, mine is necessarily a management perspective. Here’s what the week’s been like for me.
Nearly as soon as the governor’s budget repair bill was released last Friday, I had a chance to look at a summary and saw what it did to collective bargaining rights. Basically, the bill is designed to gut public employee unions, including teacher unions. While it does not outlaw such unions outright, it eliminates just about all their functions.
Our collective bargaining agreement with MTI is currently about 165 pages, which I think is way too long. If the bill passes, our next collective bargaining agreement can be one paragraph — way, way, way too short.
On Monday, Board members collaborated on a statement condemning the legislation and the rush to push it through. All Board members signed the statement on Monday evening and it was distributed to all MMSD staff on Tuesday.
There will be peace in the Valley. But anger in Wisconsin
It is no coincidence that the night President Obama sat down for a lovely dinner with a dozen of America’s richest executives in Silicon Valley this week, that protests in Wisconsin over budget cuts and union worker rights reached a fever pitch. Though the President paid lip service to the protesters, a well-heeled, well-funded voting bloc he will no doubt rely on heavily for the 2012 presidential race, he understood what mattered most — to him and America.
- Technology
- Innovation
- Globalization
- Education — as offered by highly competitive colleges and universities that have little to no monopoly power
- Entrepreneurialism – unshackled from government regulations, free from unionized labor and unfettered by legacy depictions of work and economy and business
Politics may force President Obama to become more actively, more visibly involved in the events of Wisconsin, where public worker unions, essentially America’s last remaining unions, fight for de facto guarantees of job security, lifetime healthcare, lifetime benefits, sanctioned limits on hours worked and on responsibilities blurred. But the President is acutely aware that, as protests in Egypt offered a glimpse into the future, protests in Madison, Wisconsinwere a reminder of America’s past.
This is Tea Party Redux. The Union Strikes Back. Yet just as with the angry tea party protests from two years ago, the song remains the same. Large swaths of Americans, having been party to an unspoken agreement that they would have a guaranteed middle class life, filled with highly targeted government benefits — which they repeatedy insisted they “earned” and which they knew could not survive should they be spread throughout the wider population — so too is it with the government worker unions. Unlike the entirety of the US population, they have a unique sanctuary within the American economy. Just like those in the Tea Party voiced their angry over policies that diminished their unique standing, in America and the world, so too do the protests in Wisconsin reflect anger and fear over exactly the same concerns. Both groups, of course, argued, believed perhaps, that what was good for them was good for workers, good for the middle class, good for America.
Unions vs. The Common Good
The Chicago Tribune via The Milwaukee Drum:
America’s labor movement can claim historic victories that have served the common good. Safer workplaces. Laws to protect children from workplace exploitation. The eight-hour workday. Those who are in unions can justifiably be proud of those and other accomplishments.
But how proud are they that the children of Madison, Wis., have missed school the last two days because so many of their teachers abandoned their classrooms and joined a mass demonstration? Joined a mass demonstration to intimidate the members of the Wisconsin Legislature, who are trying to close a $3 billion deficit they face over the next two years?
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has demanded that state workers contribute roughly 5.8 percent of their wages toward their retirement. He wants them to pay for 12 percent of their health-care premiums. Those modest employee contributions would be the envy of many workers in the private sector.
Walker wants government officials to have authority to reshape public-employee benefits without collective bargaining. Walker wouldn’t remove the right of unions to bargain for wages.
Former Monona School Board Member Mary Possin on Teacher Unions
To the Monona Grove School Board,
The group of people in this school district who have sat across the bargaining table from the MGEA is rather small, and I am one of them. Bargaining with the MGEA was, hands down, the most bizarre and surreal trip through the looking glass I have ever experienced. I could drone on about a myriad of frustrations, but all else aside, I could never understand their complete and utter failure to realize the MG school board was not only not their enemy, but we also lacked the statutory power to improve their wages and benefits. While we could partake in rearranging the deck chairs on our own little Titanic, purchasing additional life boats was not within our power. Simply put, they directed a whole lot of energy toward a group who was essentially powerless all the while engaging in job actions that did little but harm students, demoralize many of their own members and generate ill will among the public. At times my own children were targeted, so please understand what I say next comes within this context.
Dawn of the dumbest school data
Dawn of the dumbest data … data-driven dementia… data: It keeps teachers busy. Take your pick. But these cats at my school really have to be stopped.
As you may suspect, we here at my school are “data-driven.” That’s right. There is no substitute for data. And the best thing about it, from an administrator’s point of view, is that you don’t have to worry about how long it takes teachers to collect the data or if it is really of any value in the first place. Just collect that data and tell everybody that you are collecting it and using it to make data-driven decisions … for the kids. The rest, my friend, will fall into place. No worries.
Here is our scenario:
Why do great school systems fear charters?
I admire the erudite and public-spirited members of the Montgomery County Board of Education. Their superintendent, Jerry D. Weast, is one of the best in the business, a national leader with a smart staff.
So why are they so frightened of two little charter schools?
The Maryland State Department of Education shares my puzzlement. It looked carefully at the two most recent Montgomery charter applicants, Global Garden Public Charter School and Crossway Montessori Charter School, and promised them a $550,000 grant each once they got their charter approved. The charter groups had fresh ideas, energetic supporters and experienced educators, including two members of the Global Garden board who worked in Montgomery schools.
That was not enough to quell the fears of Weast’s staff and an assortment of internal and external advisers. Weast’s nine-page summary of their worries reads like a neurotic mother’s letter to her son at summer camp, bemoaning all the terrible things that might happen to him.
School Board Vote Called ‘Modern-Day Segregation’
In a controversial move, the Wake County School board in North Carolina voted to end its “busing-for-diversity” program in favor of sending children to schools in their own neighborhood. Host Liane Hansen talks with Superintendent Tony Tata, a military brigadier general and the former COO of the D.C. school system.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Thanks for flying Air USA. Please ignore the exits
Perhaps this comes from too much time spent on airplanes but this week’s White House budget projections reminded me of nothing more than a pre-flight safety video. The voiceover tells passengers to “stay calm and listen for instructions from the cabin crew in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure” as eerily placid actors carefully strap on their oxygen masks or inflate their underseat life vests before attending to their children.
Of course this bears no resemblance to the unbridled panic that would ensue if a hole opened up in the fuselage at 35,000 feet. Perhaps US government economists operate on the same principle as airlines who refrain from showing videos of passengers trampling one another underfoot as the cabin fills with smoke. On the current fiscal trajectory, investors in America’s Treasury market will rush madly for the emergency exits one of these days, but official forecasts assume they will never even break a sweat.
Of all the variables in any budget projection – economic growth, taxes, foreign military engagements – the thorniest is what Treasury investors will do. Discretionary items and even entitlements like social security can be cut but interest must be paid no matter what and, in the absence of perpetual quantitative easing, the government must pay what the market deems fair.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Enough with trickery; just fix the problem
The Milwaukee Journal – Sentinel:
Wisconsin’s fiscal crisis is real – not something ginned up by Gov. Scott Walker as a way to punish political opponents. The numbers don’t lie. Like many other states, Wisconsin is in a fiscal quagmire, and not one of Walker’s making.
The state has a budget hole of $3.6 billion for the 2011-’13 period. The budget must be balanced. But this time, it must not be “balanced” through trickery and gimmicks. This time, it should be balanced in fact as well as in theory. Walker intends to do that.
Walker is scheduled to deliver his budget address on Tuesday, although he may not release the budget document until later. We encourage the governor to show not only fiscal prudence but also ideological restraint. And we urge Walker to take special care with programs that help Wisconsin’s most vulnerable citizens. Fairness and compassion should not take a holiday.
Walker’s tough approach with state public employee unions in his budget repair bill is justified; their benefits for too long have been exempt from scrutiny. The governor’s proposals would save $300 million over the next two years, he says.
Why school zero tolerance policies make no sense
The discipline policy in Fairfax County public schools failed Nick Stuban.
Stuban was a 15-year-old football player at W.T. Woodson High School who committed suicide during a disciplinary process that he was forced to undergo after he purchased a capsule of a legal substance.
According to a story by my colleague Donna St. George, he was kept out of school for seven weeks and not allowed on the school grounds to attend weekly Boy Scout meetings, sports events, or driver’s education sessions. He killed himself Jan. 20.
This is not say the disciplinary system drove him to kill himself, or another boy before him in 2009. Suicide is complicated, and the reasons someone decides to take his/her own life are complex and often unknowable.
More schools convert to charters as California education funds dip
More traditional neighborhood schools are looking to operate as charters because they can get huge increases in funding as well as flexibility in how they use it.
The latest example is El Camino Real High School, one of Los Angeles Unified School District’s star schools.
Although conversions are holding steady at about 10 percent of new charters nationally, in California they’re on the rise. Long a forerunner in the charter school movement, the Golden State saw a jump in the number of conversions from six in 2009 to 16 in 2010, according to the California Charter School Association.
It’s a troubling pattern for school districts — every student enrolled in a charter means a funding loss, and defections of their own schools and principals are a blow to district esteem.
Milwaukee & Madison Public Schools to be Closed Monday, 2/21/2011 Due to Teacher Absences
Milwaukee Public Schools is closed Monday for Presidents Day, according to a statement on the home page of the district’s website.
Superintendent Gregory Thornton said in the statement he wants to “assure families that we intend to have classes on Tuesday as scheduled.”
The home page also includes a “fact sheet for families” about the demonstrations in Madison. It says MPS closed schools Friday because more than 1,000 MPS teachers attended the demonstrations. Another day of school will be added to make up for Friday, and teachers who were absent without leave face possible disciplinary action ranging from pay deductions to termination, according the fact sheet.
Members of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association union plan to participate in demonstrations in Madison on Monday.
The Madison Metropolitan School District, which was scheduled to be open for Presidents Day, will close because of “substantial concerns about significant staff absences,” according to a statement issues Sunday evening by the district.
However, classes are scheduled to resume Tuesday because the district “received assurances” that teachers would return then, the statement said.
Why the world’s youth is in a revolting state of mind
In Tunisia and Egypt, the young are rebelling against old rulers. In Britain, they are in revolt against tuition fees. What do these young people have in common? They are suffering, albeit in different ways, from what David Willetts, the UK government’s minister of higher education, called the “pinch” in a book published last year.
In some countries, the challenge is an excess of young people; in others, it is that the young are too few. But where the young outnumber the old, they can hope to secure a better fate through the ballot box. Where the old outnumber the young, they can use the ballot box to their advantage, instead. In both cases, powerful destabilising forces are at work, bringing opportunity to some and disappointment to others.
Demography is destiny. Humanity is in the grip of three profound transformations: first, a far greater proportion of children reaches adulthood; second, women have far fewer children; and, third, adults live far longer. These changes are now working through the world, in sequence. The impact of the first has been to raise the proportion of the population that is young. The impact of the second is the reverse, decreasing the proportion of young people. The third, in turn, increases the proportion of the population that is very old. The impact of the entire process is first to expand the population and, later on, to shrink it once again.
Gifted Programs Go on Block as Schools Must Do With Less
When she was just 3, Teela Huff understood how to add numbers. By third grade, she was tutoring her peers.
“She can explain the problems to you without making you feel stupid,” one of Teela’s classmates wrote of her, according to her father, Tom.
But Teela’s quick mind — she is now a 10-year-old fifth grader but reads at a 12th-grade level — meant her classes at Silver Oak Elementary in San Jose were often boring and frustrating. She finally enrolled in a program for gifted children, where students wrestled with things like mind-bending math riddles and thought-provoking questions like how to survive on a desert island. And she loved it.
Her new adventures in learning ended in September, however, when the Evergreen School District eliminated all programs for its 790 or so gifted children. The move was part of a statewide wave of cuts in a program known as Gifted and Talented Education.
California School District Uses GPS to Track Truant Students
Not even Ferris Bueller himself could have gotten around this one: A six-week pilot program by California’s Anaheim Union High School District is testing the use of technology to combat tardiness amongst the district’s seventh- and eighth-grade population.
How it works is fairly simple. Students with four or more unexcused absences in a year–approximately 75 are enrolled in the Anaheim test–are given handheld GPS devices instead of detentions or prosecutions. To make sure that said students are in school when they should be, the students are required to check in using the devices during five preset intervals: When they leave for school in the morning, when they arrive at school, lunchtime, when they leave school, and at 8 p.m. each day.
And if that’s not enough, students in the program also receive a phone call each and every day to tell them that it’s time to get up and get to school. An adult coach also calls the students three times per week to check up and discuss different methods the students can employ to ensure that they’re where they should be at any given point during the day.
Jeopardy is just the start for Watson
Americans must be either very excited about the artificial intelligence that IBM has built into a new computer called “Watson” or very scared. This week, when Watson competed on ABC’s Jeopardy against two of the best players in the quiz show’s history, the network got its highest ratings in six years. Crammed full of data from reference books and trained to understand questions in regular human speech, Watson wiped its human rivals out, correctly answering questions on everything from who wrote the Études-Tableaux for piano (Sergei Rachmaninoff) to who designed the Emmanuel College chapel at Cambridge (Christopher Wren).
The feat has been compared to the 1997 victory of IBM’s chess-playing computer, Deep Blue, over Garry Kasparov, the world’s champion at the time. But for a computer to master language is a far more unsettling encroachment on the sanctum of uniquely human behaviours than superiority in a game played on an 8-by-8 grid. Outside the walls of IBM headquarters, Watson has provoked mostly anxiety – over the practical question of what jobs it will destroy, and the metaphysical question of whether talking machines will erode our sense of what it means to be human.
To some extent, this is a misunderstanding. Watson is not a smart machine that has shown its intelligence by winning at Jeopardy. It is a Jeopardy-playing machine which, after years of tinkering by dozens of IBM’s top scientists, now works reasonably well. As big as a room, it combines a supercharged version of the grammar check on your word-processing software with a supercharged version of Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” button.
The standoff in Madison and the fallout for 2012
The explosive budget debate in Madison, like the explosive budget debate in Washington, is setting the table for 2012.
Part of the same struggle, the two battles are now feeding off each other, defining the parties and a broader political argument that both sides hope to somehow “settle” in the next election.
Some political consequences of the stand-off in Wisconsin are hard to predict, such as which side will win the fight for public opinion and where else the battle will “spread.”
Others are more immediate. One obvious consequence of Gov. Scott Walker’s push to curtail bargaining rights for public employees is the fire he has lighted under Democrats, labor and the left. While there are many ways the issue could play out over the coming months, this fact alone has significance for 2012, since by any measure Democratic voters were less motivated in 2010 than their GOP counterparts.
“Gov. Walker has done more to galvanize progressives and working people than anyone possibly could have done … By going at people’s throats and trying to destroy their rights, he has not only galvanized people in Wisconsin but across the country,” former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said in an interview Thursday, a day after launching a new political action committee.
Grand jury: We would abolish inept School Board
A statewide grand jury investigating the Broward School District issued a scathing final report Friday evening, saying there was evidence of such widespread “malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance” by school board members and senior managers alike that only “corruption of our officials by contractors, vendors and their lobbyists” could explain it.
Leadership in the district is so lacking, the jurors said, they would move to abolish the whole School Board if only the state constitution would allow it.
The panel met in secret for a year, reviewed hundreds of documents and took widespread testimony reaching from past and current School Board members to school principals and secretaries. The conclusion: The district suffers from “gross mismanagement and apparent ineptitude” on a grand scale.
Idealism, confidence about schools’ future seems to run short
What do we want in the schools our children attend? People have a lot more in common in answering that than you might think.
A warm, caring environment, one where teachers, staff, parents and especially children feel like they count.
Good teachers. Beyond all the debate about how to improve teacher quality, anyone who ever went to school knows there are people who are really good teachers and people who aren’t, because we had them both. And we want our kids to have good ones.
Small classes, or at least ones of reasonable size. The research on class size paints a somewhat mixed picture of how important it really is. A top flight teacher with a few more kids in the class is better than someone who is not very good with fewer kids. That said, show me parents who want larger classes for their kids and I’ll show you really rare parents.
Enriching programs. They come in a lot of different, very good forms, but in every case, these are programs in which children become good at reading and reasonably good at math. Students gain a grasp of science, social studies, history. They get exposure to music and art and physical education. They learn how to learn. Positive character traits and habits are built and reinforced. Students work hard but have fun, too.
Report: Public employees make less, including benefits, than private workers
Gov. Scott Walker argues that public employees can sacrifice more of their paychecks for health insurance and retirement because they pay so little for those benefits compared to workers at private companies.
Walker is correct about the disparity, but a new report by the liberal Economic Policy Institute suggests that looking at benefits alone is misleading.
The study looks at total compensation – pay and benefits together – and found that public workers earn 4.8 percent less than private sector employees with the same qualifications and traits doing similar jobs.
Average compensation for public workers is higher because the jobs they do – such as teaching – require a relatively high level of education, and a higher education is one of the main factors that drives wages up, said Ethan Pollack, a senior policy analyst at the institute.
Panoramas from Pro-union, Tea Party rallies at the Wisconsin Capitol
Click on the images above to view the full screen panoramas on mac/pc/iPhone/iPad and Android devices. Look for one or two more panoramas tomorrow.
I’ve posted a number of still images, here.
Many Madison residents went about their weekend as always, including the ice fisherman captured in this scene (look closely for the eagle):
Average Milwaukee Public Schools Teacher Salary Plus Benefits Tops $100,000; Ramifications
For the first time in history, the average annual compensation for a teacher in the Milwaukee Public School system will exceed $100,000.
That staggering figure was revealed last night at a meeting of the MPS School Board.
The average salary for an MPS teacher is $56,500. When fringe benefits are factored in, the annual compensation will be $100,005 in 2011.
MacIver’s Bill Osmulski has more in this video report.
Related Links:
- Michelle Malkin posted an extensive roundup of Wisconsin teacher and administrator compensation information, including a list of the highest paid, with Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad topping the list (The Wisconsin Taxpayer reported his total compensation is $256,715).
- Appleton Post-Crescent DataMine: Search Wisconsin teacher salaries and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel version
- Wisconsin demographics, including income data via the Census Bureau and a City Data Summary
- indeed.com Wisconsin teacher salary information.
- www.weac.org salary & benefits search summary, salary only search, benefits only.
- Madison Teachers Salary & step level information
- Somewhat related: The proposed IB Madison Preparatory Academy plans to operate outside of the Madison School District’s Teachers Union. (Collective Bargaining Agreement)
Finally, the economic and political issue in a nutshell: Wisconsin’s taxbase is not keeping up with other states:
- New Geography’s 2010 “Best Cities for Job Growth” is worth reading. Oshkosh-Neenah tops the list at 145 while Madison lands at 152. College Station, TX (compared to Madison with local editorial comments) is #3 while Austin is #9. Jacksonville, NC ranks #1. Methodology.
- Dave Baskerville: Wisconsin Needs Two Big Goals – Minnesota’s per capita income is currently $4500 more than the Badger State’s.
- The unrest in Wisconsin this week over Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to cut the bargaining rights and benefits of public workers is spreading to other states.
- No, real change starts with all stakeholders
Madison School District’s “K-12 Literacy Program Evaluation”
1. Intensify reading instruction in Kindergarten in order to ensure all No additional costs. Professional development provided by central students are proficient in oral reading and comprehension as office and building-based literacy staff must focus on Kindergarten. measured by valid and reliable assessments by 2011-2012. Instruction and assessment will be bench marked to ensure Kindergarten proficiency is at readinQ levels 3-7 {PLAA, 2009).
2. Fully implement Balanced Literacy in 2011-12 using clearly defined, Comprehensive Literacy Model (Linda Dorn), the MMSD Primary Literacy Notebook and the MMSD 3-5 Literacy Notebook.
a. Explore research-based reading curricula using the Board of Education Evaluation of Learning Materials Policy 3611 with particular focus on targeted and explicit instruction, to develop readers in Kindergarten.
b. Pilot the new reading curricula in volunteer schools during 2011-12.
c. Analyze Kindergarten reading proficiency scores from Kindergarten students in fully implemented Balanced Literacy schools and Kindergarten students in the volunteer schools piloting the new reading curricula incorporated into a
Balanced Literacy framework to inform next steps.
d. Continue pilot in volunteer schools in Grade 1 during 2012-13 and Grade 2 durino 2013-14. 2011-12 Budget Addition Request $250,000
3. Incorporate explicit reading instruction and literacy curricula into 6th grade instruction.
…..
3. Review previous Reading Recovery recommendations, with Additional Reading considerations to:
- Place Reading Recovery Teachers in buildings as needed to (displaced rate when new teacher is hired).reflect the needs of 20% of our District’s lowest performing first graders, regardless of what elementary school they may attend;
- Analyze the other instructional assignments given to Reading Recovery teachers in order to maximize their expertise as highly skilled reading interventionists
- Ensure standard case load for each Reading Recovery teacher at National Reading Recovery standards and guidelines (e.g. 8 students/year).
- Place interventionists in buildings without Reading Recovery. Interventionists would receive professional development to lift the quality of interventions for students who need additional support in literacy.
Additional Reading Recovery and/or Interventionist FTE costs. 1 FTE-$79,915 (average rate when teacher is re-assigned). 1 new FTE-$61,180 (displaced rate when new teacher is hired).
Related:
- 60% to 42%: Madison School District’s Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags “National Average”: Administration seeks to continue its use
- Madison’s use of Reading Recovery has long been controversial
- Hanover Research Council
- Madison School District Literacy Advisory Committee
- Letter to Isthmus on Madison School District Reading Progress.
- 2005 Madison reading scores.
The Wisconsin Teachers’ Crisis: Who’s Really to Blame?
On Tuesday, Feb. 15, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan convened hundreds of teachers’-union leaders and school-district leaders in Denver to discuss ways management and labor could work together better. Kumbaya!
Two days later, all hell broke loose in Madison, Wis. The flash point was Republican Governor Scott Walker’s plan to address the state’s budget gap by making public employees contribute more to health care coverage, coupled with a proposal to eliminate collective bargaining for most public employees — including teachers. Democratic state legislators went into hiding to thwart a vote on the measure, and schools closed as thousands of teachers left their classrooms to descend on the state capital.
The two episodes vividly illustrate the hope — and the reality — of labor-management issues in education today. As Madison becomes ground zero for the debate over government spending and public-sector reform, some hard questions are getting lost in political theatrics and overwrought rhetoric. Here are questions Wisconsin’s governor, labor leaders and President Obama should have good answers for but so far don’t:
Reno’s IB High School
Wooster IB High School: Reno, NV
# Design and implement strategies to meet high expectations while providing the support necessary to maintain student engaegment. (RIGOR)
# Embrace the teaching and learning of the core academic skills that build on foundations, connect to real-world applications, and ensure success beyond the classroom. (RELEVANCE)
# Encourage individuals to be self-advocating and responsible by promoting a positive, safe and accepting environment. (RELATIONSHIPS)
# Act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and high expectations for the diginty of the individual, group and community. (RESPECT).
Wooster’s website includes a course syllabus.
Nevade School District School District preparing to face difficult decisions
Cuts in its 2011-12 fiscal year budget figure to be painful for the Lyon County School District, but District officials hope to make sure those cuts have as little effect on students as possible.
District officials began brainstorming sessions last week, with the input from the members of the Board of Trustees’ Budget Committee, to begin to identify and list priorities for which programs they are willing to cut.
LCSD Director of Finance Wade Johnson said the District’s administration and the Board of Trustees will work to create a priority list of cuts and how much each cut could potentially save the District.
Then, when the District receives its actual budget figures, it will make whatever cuts have been prioritized to get down to the actual budget figure (listed for expenditures).
“Making concrete plans is premature, but we do need to start planning,” Johnson said.
The Lyon County School District supports 8,730 students with an annual budget of $92,147,208 ($10,555,24/student). Locally, the 2011 State of the Madison School District reports $379,058,945 in planned 2010-2011 spending for 24,471 students. Madison’s per student spending this year is $15,490.13.
Charter schools are the Justin Bieber of education reform – a fad gone too far
President Obama released his 2012 budget proposal earlier this week to a fanfare of predictable criticism from the right and a few cries from the left. In a budget that saw cuts to many cherished programs, one of the big winners was education – with an 11 percent boost in total funding. Within education spending, however, the popular charter school movement wound up as a slight loser – with proposed funding reduced to $372 million after a pledge of $490 million in last year’s budget.
While some charter school advocates may wring their hands over the slight reduction in proposed funding, the rest of us should be asking whether charter schools have been adequately scrutinized as part of a “tough choices” budget.
A tale of three teachers: Checking in with protesters inside the Wisconsin Capitol
There are as many stories to tell about the ongoing protests at the state Capitol are there are protesters – tens of thousands. This is a story about three protesters I spoke to today. I noticed them because of their sign: “Sauk Prairie teachers.” On the back was another message: “Stop GOP Class War.”
All three teach at Sauk Prairie High School. This is the second day in a row that they’ve come to Madison to protest Scott Walker’s move to strip them of their collective bargaining rights and undercut their unions. It probably won’t be the last.
Their names are Betty Koehl, Alison Turner and Lynn Frick. Betty has taught at Sauk Prairie High for nearly 30 years; she’s a Sauk Prairie native and a graduate of that school. Alison has taught for eight years. It is her second career. From 1993, she worked “in this building as a legislative aide,” for state Reps. Mark Meyer and Gwen Moore. Lynn has been a teacher for 26 years, 21 of them at Sauk Prairie.
I ask each of them why they are here, and what they hope to accomplish.
Responds Betty, “I taught social studies for 30 years and, as a citizen and worker, I have to stand up for my rights and show my students that it’s important to stand up for what you believe in.”
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: University of Wisconsin Athletic department’s budget is increased 6.3% (!) to $88.368 million for 2011-12
The University of Wisconsin Athletic Department had its operating budget request of $88.368 million for 2011-12 approved without rancor or debate Friday.
Members of the UW Athletic Board voted unanimously to allow the department to spend $5.29 million more than its current operating budget of $83.219 million, an increase designed primarily to address two major capital projects.
The matter-of-fact process and calm pulse of the meeting was in contrast to the mood at the Capitol, where protesters, controversy and edgy rhetoric defined a state budget crisis.
Asked to weigh the two developments, UW athletic director Barry Alvarez acknowledged that sooner or later they will become one.
Nampa police: Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna threatened, vehicle vandalized
Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna’s vehicle was vandalized overnight at his Nampa home and he and his family have received threats, he told police.
“Yes, he has made us aware of threats to him and family members and we are looking into those, and we are aware of those, and we are doing what we can to provide protection,” Nampa Police Deputy Chief Craig Kingsbury said.
On Saturday night, a man who identified himself as a teacher reportedly showed up at Luna’s mother’s home in Nampa in order to speak with her about the superintendent’s contentious education reform plan. Luna happened to be at his mother’s house at the time, Department of Education spokeswoman Melissa McGrath said.
“The man was very angry… the superintendent did feel threatened,” she said. The man eventually left after Luna spoke to him for several minutes. Luna told the man it was an inappropriate place and time, and later filed a police report, McGrath said.
Madison Superintendent Nerad calls on teachers to return to classroom
Madison School District superintendent Dan Nerad called on teachers late Thursday to end their protest and return to the classroom.
“These job actions need to end,” Nerad said in an e-mail to families of students. “I want to assure you that we continue to examine our options to more quickly move back to normal school days.”
Madison schools are closed Friday for a third straight day. Nerad also apologized for the closures.
On Thursday, state and Madison teachers union leaders urged their members to report to the Capitol on Friday and Saturday for continued protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining proposal.
“Even though the Madison School District can only react to the group decisions of our teachers, I apologize to you for not being able to provide learning for the last three days to your students,” Nerad said.
Related: Judge denies Madison School District request to stop teacher sick-out and “Who Runs the Madison Schools?”
On The Recent Madison Events
Jackie Woodruff, via email:
For the last five years Community and Schools Together (CAST) has worked hard to assure that students in Madison and around the state have access to excellent educational opportunities. With you, we have been amazed by the events at the Capitol this week. The massive outcry is justified. The radical changes contained in Governor Walker’s so-called budget repair bill will harm education and the future of our state.
The bill takes several unnecessary steps, such as limiting a union’s ability to collect dues. These steps have no relevance to budget repair, but are instead about damaging union effectiveness.
Making public education work relies on trust and partnership. Despite Wisconsin’s strong record on public education and despite all the benefits our communities receive from public education, Gov. Walker has decided to break trust and partnership with WEAC and other unions. In so doing, he has unnecessarily broken the state’s relationship with teachers. The outcry has been mobilized by the broad assaults to organized labor, but they are marked most visibly by the many teachers, parents, and students who have provided the core and bulk numbers to the strong protests.
We support the protests and are against the bill. The bill damages our ability as a community to improve our schools. The bill takes an existing, deficient educational policy regarding school funding, leaving caps and constraints on school boards to raise revenues locally, but denies collective bargaining – one of the key measures that was needed to form the original policy. We believe the net effect is extremely damaging to education – destroying a climate of trust and good will that has served as a cornerstone of the collective bargaining process. We may pay less in taxes, but teachers, classrooms and students will suffer.
Quality teachers are essential to quality education, removing their right to bargain collectively demonstrates great disrespect for their contributions and will make it more difficult to attract and retain the quality teachers our children need.
CAST, instead, welcomes reasonable and rational debate on educational funding and policy. We believe that policy should allow collective bargaining, equity, and the opportunity for community involvement to answer critical funding needs schools may have – given the likelihood that the state is unable to fund them appropriately.
CAST also calls for the safety of protesters and for those working to protect public safety at the Capitol. We ask Governor Walker and others responsible for state leadership to open debate, to seek to find rational budget policies that best represent the communities they serve. We look forward to our teachers and students returning to the classrooms, where together they create the foundation for Wisconsin’s future.
Submitted by Jackie Woodruff
Treasurer of CAST
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire — William Butler Yeats
DNC/Organizing for America playing role in Wisconsin protests
The Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America arm — the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign — is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.
OfA, as the campaign group is known, has been criticized at times for staying out of local issues like same-sex marriage, but it’s riding to the aide of the public sector unions who hoping to persuade some Republican legislators to oppose Walker’s plan. And while Obama may have his difference with teachers unions, OfA’s engagement with the fight — and Obama’s own clear stance against Walker — mean that he’s remaining loyal to key Democratic Party allies at what is, for them, a very dangerous moment.
OfA Wisconsin’s field efforts include filling buses and building turnout for the rallies this week in Madison, organizing 15 rapid response phone banks urging supporters to call their state legislators, and working on planning and producing rallies, a Democratic Party official in Washington said.
An Email From Russ Feingold’s New PAC
Russ Feingold’s Progressive’s United, via email:
Jim,
You’ve probably seen it all over the news this week: Your neighbors across Wisconsin are standing up and speaking out against the outrageous push by Governor Walker and Republican legislators – backed by big business — to strip public workers of their collective bargaining rights.
I went on the Rachel Maddow Show Wednesday night to talk about what the protests this week in Wisconsin mean for our state and our country – and how our new grassroots organization, Progressives United, is joining the fight.
Watch the video of my appearance with Rachel Maddow now — and get information about joining a Wisconsin rally in your neck of the woods:
The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011: Wisconsin = F
Sheldon M. Stern, Jeremy A. Stern
Presidents’ Day 2011 is right around the corner, but George Washington would be dismayed by the findings of this new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Reviewers evaluated state standards for U.S. history in grades K-12. What they found is discouraging: Twenty-eight states–a majority–deserve D or F grades for their academic standards in this key subject. The average grade across all states is a dismal D. Among the few bright spots, South Carolina earns a straight A for its standards and six other jurisdictions–Alabama, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and the District of Columbia–garner A-minuses. (The National Assessment’s “framework” for U.S. history also fares well.) Read on to learn how your state scored.
The Wisconsin History Report Card:
Overview
Wisconsin’s U.S. history standards, for all practical purposes, do not exist. Their sole content is a list of ten eras in American and Wisconsin history, followed by a few brief and vague directives to understand vast swaths of history and broad historical concepts. Determining an actual course’s scope, sequence, and content rests entirely on the shoulders of local teachers and districts.
Goals and Organization
Wisconsin’s social studies standards are divided among five strands: geography, history, political science and citizenship, economics, and behavioral sciences. Each strand consists of a “content standard”–a one-sentence statement of the strand’s purpose–and a one- paragraph “rationale” justifying its importance. The history strand also includes short lists of ten chronological/thematic eras for Wisconsin, U.S. history, and world history. The ten listed eras of U.S. history are said to apply to grades 5-12, and those for Wisconsin history to grades 4-12.
NJ education chief: Overhaul teacher tenure, pay
New Jersey’s acting education commissioner on Wednesday unveiled a plan to overhaul the way teachers are evaluated — and the consequences of poor evaluations.
Under the concept unveiled by Christopher Cerf, many key decisions about teachers — including whether they receive lifetime tenure protections, how big their raises are and which ones are laid off when budgets are slashed — would be based largely on how much their students progress.
Cerf said making the changes are essential to improving schools in New Jersey, where the public education system by many measures is among the best in the nation — but with a serious caveat. Schools in the state’s impoverished cities generally perform poorly — and at great expense.
Seattle’s Science Curriculum Alignment
Seattle Public high schools have a wide variety of really good science classes. They range from the BioTech program at Ballard (celebrating its 10th year in 2011) to Marine Science to Forensics and many others. Here is a link to the SPS page on this issue.
The district is now moving onto science curriculum alignment as part of their overall alignment process. I do understand the idea of alignment so that students who move from school to school (and it happens more than you might think) will find the same level of instruction. This is fine.
The issue is that the district wants to make 4 science classes mandatory for graduation. Those classes are physical science, biology, chemistry and physics.
What that means is that most of the other science classes, unless they get certified as a substitute for one of the four, will be electives (AP and IB science courses will also count as substitutes). With so many other subject requirements for graduation, it is unlikely that most of the elective science classes would survive. It would be a big loss.
Urban Prep Academy of Chicago celebrates perfect college acceptance
Every member in an Illinois school’s senior class has been accepted into college for the second time in the school’s two-year history.
“No other public school in the country has done this,” said Tim King, CEO and founder of Urban Prep Academy in Chicago.
The school was established to battle the low high school and college graduation rates among black men.
“We are Urban Prep men,” said Israel Wilson, a 2010 graduate and student at Morehouse College. “And at Urban Prep, we believe.”
The 5 Biggest Myths About School Vouchers
One of the most contentious budget debates this year may be over something the president did not include in his 2012 spending plan — school vouchers. Now more often called “scholarships,” vouchers have been debated for decades, but support for these initiatives is on the rise.’
Let’s start with D.C. After years of discussion, Congress established a plan in 2004 to give 1,700 students in Washington a voucher of up to $7,500 to attend private and religious schools in the city as alternatives to the frequently lousy neighborhood schools. The program was controversial from the start — it was the first federal funding for vouchers in three decades. But in 2009, under intense pressure from the teachers unions, Congress and the Administration began to dismantle the program and no new students are participating today. New Speaker of the House John Boehner says restoring the program is a top priority.
Blogging teacher blogging again
The Central Bucks teacher who was suspended last week for complaining about her students defends herself online and in an interview.
The Central Bucks East High School English teacher who got suspended last week for complaining about her students on a blog is at it again.
And she is making no apologies for what she said – defending herself through her blog and in an interview with this newspaper Monday.
“While I never in a million years would have guessed that this many people would ever see my words, and I didn’t even intend them to, I stand by what I wrote and I think it’s good that people are aware now,” Natalie Munroe wrote on her blog Saturday morning.
Washington, DC Mayor Gray is misguided on school vouchers
IF D.C. MAYOR Vincent C. Gray isn’t careful, he could well argue the District out of $60 million in federal education dollars. Testifying before a Senate committee against the voucher program that enables low-income students to attend private schools, Mr. Gray (D) was warned that extra money for the city’s traditional and public schools was likely conditioned on congressional reauthorization of vouchers. Money alone isn’t reason for Mr. Gray to change his mind, but given that District children benefit from the program and that parents are desperate for the choice if affords, it’s unfathomable that he is opposing this worthwhile program.
Mr. Gray was among those who appeared Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs as it considered legislation to extend the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, including an important provision to allow new students to be enrolled. Mr. Gray said that efforts should be focused on improving public schools, that Congress was inappropriately intruding into local affairs and that D.C. parents have enough education choices, given the number of flourishing charter schools and the public school reforms starting to take hold.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Just How Deep are the Federal Spending Cuts?
The headlines appear to say it all. “Painful Cuts in Obama’s $3.7 Trillion Budget.” “Budget Director Calls Steep Budget Cuts Necessary.” “Obama Budget Pivots From Stimulus to Deficit Cuts.” “Cuts to Target Working Poor, Middle Class and Students.” On and on they go.
But how deep are these cuts really? Take a closer look, and they turn out to be less than meets the eye.
Consider: President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget proposes to spend $3.48 trillion on everything except interest on the national debt. That’s a 7 percent increase over what the government spent in 2010. And keep in mind that in 2010, there was a lot of stimulus money flying out the door.
On Wisconsin
A lot of people have a lot to say about the union protests in Wisconsin and the governor’s plan to curtail collective bargaining for teachers. Those on the ground are best qualified to hash out the big issues, so I’ll just add three morsels to the conversation.
1) Sickouts. The Madison school district and others were closed yesterday due to teacher sickouts. There has been some debate about whether this constitutes an illegal strike, but for a protest that centers on public employee collective bargaining, it’s ironic that whatever you want to call it, yesterday’s protest was a violation of the Madison teachers’ collective bargaining agreement.
Madison teachers are allowed five personal leave days per year, but are required by contract to notify the principal at least three working days in advance. Since the teachers themselves didn’t have that much notice of the protest, they had to use sick leave. The contract spells out in exacting detail the purposes for which sick leave can be used. Union rallies are not among them.
Some may consider the protest a matter of principle or civil disobedience, That’s all well and good. But remember, the only reason to call in sick is so you still get paid for the day. So go ahead and yell. Just remember who’s paying for the microphone.
The Madison contract also contains this provision:Therefore, MTI agrees that there will not be any strikes, work stoppages or slow downs during the life of this Agreement, i.e., for the period commencing July 1, 2009 and ending June 30, 2011. Upon the notification of the President and Executive Director of MTI by the President of the Board of Education of the Madison Metropolitan School District of any unauthorized concerted activity, as noted above, MTI shall notify those in the collective bargaining unit that it does not endorse such activity. Having given such notification, MTI shall be freed of all liability in relation thereto.
Whatever you call it, it was certainly an “unauthorized concerted activity.”
ACE Statement Regarding MMSD (Madison School District) Actions
Don Severson, via email:
Attached is the Active Citizens for Education statement regarding the MMSD Board of Education and Administration actions related to the Governor’s Budget Repair Bill.
Here is the link to the video of the MMSD Board meeting on 02/14/11
http://mediaprodweb.madison.k12.wi.us/node/601 go to the 9:50 minute mark for Marj Passman.
Letters from the Board and Superintendent to Governor Walker are accessible from the home page of the MMSD website.
http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/Glaringly, there is no leadership from the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education nor administration for the overall good of the community, teachers nor students as evidenced by their actions the past few days. Individual Board members and the Board as a whole, as well as the administration, are complicit in the job action taken by teachers and their union. The Board clearly stepped out of line. Beginning Monday night at its Board meeting, Board member Marj Passman took advantage of signing up for a ‘public appearance’ statement as a private citizen. She was allowed to make her statement from her seat at the Board table instead of at the public podium–totally inappropriate. Her statement explicitly gave support to the teachers who she believed were under attack from the Walker proposed budget repair bill; that she was totally in support of the teachers; and encouraged teachers to take their protests to the Capital. Can you imagine any other employer encouraging their employees to protest against them to maintain or increase their own compensation in order to help assure bankruptcy for the organization or to fire them as employees? All Board members subsequently signed a letter to Governor Walker calling his proposals “radical and punitive’ to the bargaining process. With its actions, including cancellation of classes for Wednesday, the Board has abdicated and abrogated its fiduciary responsibility for public trust. The Board threw their responsibility away as elected officials and representatives of the citizens and taxpayers for the education of the children of the District and as employers of the teachers and staff. The Board cannot lead nor govern when it abdicates its statutory responsibilities and essentially acts as one with employees and their union. Under these circumstances, it is obvious they have made the choice not to exercise their responsibilities for identifying solutions to the obvious financial challenges they face. The Board will not recognize the opportunities, nor tools, in front of them to make equitable, fair and educationally and financially sound decisions of benefit to all stakeholders in the education of our young people.
Don Severson
President, ACE
Clips from Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad’s News Conference on Closed Schools & Teacher Job Action
Matthew DeFour: (watch the 15 minute conference here)
Madison School District Superintendent Dan Nerad discusses on Wednesday Gov. Scott Walker’s bill, teacher absences, and Madison Teachers Inc.
Related:
- Sparks fly over Wisconsin budget’s labor-related provisions (July, 2009)
- Isthmus event coverage roundup.
- WisPolitics Budget Blog
- Madison Teachers Website MTI PDF: At Issue Walker Attacks Public Employees MTI PDF: Events Week of 2/14/2011
- WEAC website
- NEA website
- Randi Weingarten
- AFT website
- Wisconsin, Tennessee seek sharpest curbs on collective bargaining by Susan Troller
- Wisconsin School boards association changes tune, fears harm from Walker bill
- Dane County’s efforts to ‘protect’ employees likely to backfire by Jonathan Barry
- MATC OKs contract that preserves no-cost pensions
- Walker to gut Milwaukee Public Schools, break up UW, education leaders say
- Madison Mayor wants to rush on city employee contracts extension
- The Racine post
- With Wisconsin’s QEO Gone, schools bargain harder on teachers’ contracts, much more on the QEO, here
- Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman: “the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee.”
- Active Citizens for Education Statement
- Madison School District recent communications.
- Was Wednesday’s ‘sick out’ by Madison teachers an illegal strike?
- Unions want to overturn election result.
- FDR: Public-sector unions must not be allowed to strike
- Democrat National Committee Playing a Role in Organizing the Protests
- Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding
Dave Baskerville is right on the money: Wisconsin needs two big goals:
For Wisconsin, we only need two:
Raise our state’s per capita income to 10 percent above Minnesota’s by 2030.
In job and business creation over the next decade, Wisconsin is often predicted to be among the lowest 10 states. When I was a kid growing up in Madison, income in Wisconsin was some 10 percent higher than in Minnesota. Minnesota caught up to us in 1967, and now the average Minnesotan makes $4,500 more than the average Wisconsinite.
Lift the math, science and reading scores of all K-12, non-special education students in Wisconsin above world-class standards by 2030. (emphasis added)
Wisconsinites often believe we lose jobs because of lower wages elsewhere. In fact, it is often the abundance of skills (and subsidies and effort) that bring huge Intel research and development labs to Bangalore, Microsoft research centers to Beijing, and Advanced Micro Devices chip factories to Dresden.
Grow the economy (tax base) and significantly improve our schools….
Which Teachers Should be Let Go First?
If teacher layoffs are needed as school districts around the state balance budgets, who should go first?
Under the current system, teachers with the most seniority are protected from cuts. Some lawmakers are trying to change that with a bill that would allow districts to cut those who aren’t effective, regardless of how long they’ve been on the job. Teachers “with a track record of closing the achievement gap” would be safe.
Sonya Langford, a seventh grade teacher in the University Place School District, wrote an interesting “letter to the editor” for the Tacoma News Tribune . She says the proposed House legislation would “send our public schools back years.”
Barcode-to-Bibliography App Makes College Ridiculously Easy
Sometimes a technology comes along that is so great it seems almost unjust to former generations. Aviation. The personal computer. The polio vaccine.
One gets the same feeling today when considering a new app out for iPhone and Android. Quick Cite, a 99-cent app, automates the task of putting together a bibliography–that arduous list of books, articles, and other sources consulted that goes at the end of a master’s thesis of PhD dissertation. The first thought you have is, “How much time scholars will henceforth save!” The next thought you have is, “Anyone who got a PhD before the year 2011 was a poor sucker.”
The app works by using the smartphone’s camera to scan the barcode on the back of a book. Then it emails you a citation formatted to fit one of four common bibliographic styles: APA, MLA, Chicago, or IEEE. The app was one of seven developed over seven sleepless days by seven undergraduates at the University of Waterloo. Thus they called the week-long experiment in coding creativity and class-cutting “7Cubed,” and even made a little video about it.
Did Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber raid schools for human services?
Money for schools is always a hot topic, even more so as the Legislature starts tackling the budget for 2011-13. Earlier this month, Gov. John Kitzhaber released his proposal, including $5.558 billion for K-12 schools. That figure, charges former Oregon House candidate Dan Lucas in an online post, sacrifices schools for the Department of Human Services and the Oregon Health Authority.
“Governor’s proposed budget raids K-12 school funds to grow DHS again” is the title of the piece, posted on the conservative-minded Oregon Catalyst. Lucas explains that Kitzhaber not only takes $225 million out of the State School Fund but that he gives the money to human services, which is growing by $333 million.
Since the budget is set anew every two years, it’s hard to trace one agency’s growth to the demise of another. But we wanted to know if Lucas’s numbers were accurate. Is K-12 losing money from the previous two-year period? Is social services growing? How much is one to blame for the other?
Colorado school district has wealth, success — and an eye on vouchers
Douglas County, a swath of subdivisions just south of here that is one of the nation’s wealthiest, is something of a public school paradise.
The K-12 district, with 60,000 students, boasts high test scores and a strong graduation rate. Surveys show that 90% of its parents are satisfied with their children’s schools.
That makes the Douglas County School District an unlikely frontier in the latest battle over school vouchers.
But a new, conservative school board is exploring a voucher system to give parents — regardless of income — taxpayer money to pay for their children to attend private schools that agree to abide by district regulations. If it’s implemented, parents could receive more than $4,000 per child.
The proposal’s supporters argue that competition can only improve already-high-performing schools.
Related: A School Board Thinks Differently About Delivering Education, and spends less.
Colorado’s Douglas County School District spends $8512.74 per student ($476,977,336 for 56,031 students in 2009). Madison spent $15,241 per student in 2009, a whopping $6,728.26, 79% more than the “wealthy Denver suburbs”.
Iowa Governor Unveils New Preschool Plan
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad unveiled on Tuesday his new preschool program designed to award scholarships to low-income families, setting aside $43.6 million in state appropriations.
“By providing all Iowa children the opportunity to attend preschool, we will reduce the need for special-education services and for children to repeat grades,” Branstad said in a press release.
The Iowa Preschool Scholarship eliminates universal preschool for 4-year-olds, but it aims to provide $3,000 scholarships to eligible 4-year-olds who attend at least 10 hours of preschool a week beginning in the 2011-12 school year.
Under the annual scholarship, families pay costs on a sliding scale depending on federal poverty guidelines up to 300 percent poverty. The plan means higher income families to pay full tuition.
Related: Madison’s planned 4K program.
The US Department of Education Has Failed
The new makeup of the House of Representatives has brought with it new leadership on the House Education and Workforce Committee, and fresh ideas about education policy. Chairman John Kline (R-MN), at the helm of the committee that will be charged with overseeing a possible reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) this year, is already asking hard questions through a series of committee hearings on the effects of ever-growing federal involvement in education.
Last Thursday, the House Education and Workforce Committee held a full committee hearing to examine the challenges and opportunities facing the nation’s classrooms. The hearing included testimony from Ted Mitchell, CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund; Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom; Dr. Tony Bennett, Indiana superintendent of public instruction; and Lisa Graham Keegan, founder and president of the Education Breakthrough Network.
The hearing comes as national policymakers consider a possible reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the implications for local schools. Each of the expert witnesses’ testimonies on the subject favored empowering those closer to the student. In his testimony, Bennett urged the federal government to get out of the way of states so that state and local leaders can more effectively meet student needs:
School Board Votes For Independent Review Of Budget Per Union’s Request
Tensions were high and the hallways packed for a special meeting of the Rockford School Board on proposed budget cuts to close schools, eliminate programs and layoff more than 300 employees.
Earlier this week the Rockford Education Association questioned whether those cuts need to happen at all, and now they’re offering to pay fifty grand for an independent review.
Today, the board was split but approved a motion 4-3 to support the union’s request
“The main reason is because it is projections, it is projections, legitimate projections based on trends, and I don’t see the point to second guessing that,” said School Board Member Jeanne Westholder.
“I think it is worth while to take a look, either to put it to rest or to be sure that we have the accurate figures to vote on,” said School Board Member Alice Sautargis.
The district’s finance team says they need to cut 50- million dollars, while the union believes it’s more like 15- million.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Obama’s 2012 Budget Proposal: How It’s Spent
Shan Carter & Amanda Knox:. Sam Dillon & Tamar Lewin and Valerie Strauss have more on the President’s proposed $3,700,000,000,000 budget.
Terrence Keeley:
President Barack Obama has unveiled a hugely disappointing budget, cutting only a few percentage points from the $100,000bn in projected US federal deficits over the remainder of this century. Why was it such a dud? Because Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – the entitlement programmes that will comprise more than 60 per cent of all spending just a decade from now – were left untouched.
Deck chairs are being rearranged on the Titanic. American politicians promise their constituents an ever-expanding social safety net, but with no intention of paying for it. Most experts know entitlement reform is essential, but few political leaders dare to lead – because doing so would be self-immolating.
Mr Obama’s budget should have proposed much more significant cuts, but ultimately it is the US Congress that is responsible for tax and spending legislation. Mr Obama’s budget is therefore aspirational, but unbinding. In the vernacular – he proposes, Congress disposes.
To put this failure right America’s leaders must begin to make a strong moral case for entitlement reform. And to develop this argument they should turn first to an unlikely source of policy advice: The Vatican.
The logic behind president Obama’s budget has one extremely sensible feature: it distinguishes between spending that simply adds to consumption, and spending that really does mean investment. His analogy over the weekend – that a family cutting a budget would rather not cut money for the kids’ education – is a sound one. We do need more infrastructure, roads and broadband, non-carbon energy and basic science research, and some of that is something only government can do. In that sense, discretionary spending could be among the most important things government could do to help Americans create wealth themselves. And yet this is the only spending Obama wants to cut.
But the core challenge of this time is not the cost of discretionary spending. Obama knows this; everyone knows this. The crisis is the cost of future entitlements and defense, about which Obama proposes nothing. Yes, there’s some blather. But Obama will not risk in any way any vulnerability on taxes to his right or entitlement spending to his left. He convened a deficit commission in order to throw it in the trash. If I were Alan Simpson or Erskine Bowles, I’d feel duped. And they were duped. All of us who took Obama’s pitch as fiscally responsible were duped.
Origami finds new dimensions at MIT
“We’re trying to get people to understand it’s not about paper boats and cranes.”
So said Yanping Chen, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology sophomore, as he expertly folded and refolded a 6-inch square piece of paper. Six minutes later, he set down in front of him — what’s this? — a paper crane. Only it did not resemble any crane a grade-schooler might make from a beginner’s origami primer.
Chen’s had five tiny heads and looked ready to fly away at any moment. But then he’s no origami novice, either. Chen arrived at MIT with a sophisticated knowledge of origami design, quickly connecting with like-minded enthusiasts through OrigaMIT, a club for serious paper folders who know how to push the envelope, not just turn one into a paper yacht.
More on the Seattle School District Construction Management Audit
I, along with other citizens, had written to the State Auditor several years back, complaining about the BEX capital building program. When you write to the Auditor, they log your letter and make sure you get a follow-up (I know that seems odd to have a public entity actually listen and keep track of your concerns but that’s just how the SAO rolls.)
The letter said some points made in the audit like:
Google, China, and Chinese College Students – Part III
A speech which was seen by many in the US as a strong step in the right direction or even as not strong enough was in fact a gift to the Chinese government.
Before Hillary Clinton’s speech, for many Chinese students the conflict was between Google and the Chinese government. After the speech, it was Google / US government vs the Chinese government – US interests vs Chinese interests. Concerns this might be the case were earlier expressed on this site here and here.
An analysis of Clinton’s words misses the point. Most of the students didn’t know them. All that mattered to the students was that the US government had aligned itself with Google and now “Google” & “US government” were synonymous. The existence of such a close partnership was not at all a stretch for Chinese students to believe since they were already very accustomed to a blurry line, if any, between government and business in their own country – often associated with corruption.
Young people need hope to thrive in school, beyond
Rising stock prices signal upbeat expectations – echoed by employers and consumers – that the economy is finally bouncing back, Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke says.
California’s young people aren’t so sure.
Three in 5 of them, age 16 to 22, now express sharp worries about finding a job or working long hours to pay for college, according to an eye-opening poll out last week. No civilization thrives when the next generation lacks optimism and chutzpah.
Colorado “Governor Hickenlooper’s Class Solidarity”
The Grand Junction Sentinel headline today says it all: “Hickenlooper Proposes Huge Budget Cuts.” Yes, while Colorado’s new governor campaigned on promises of being an education governor, he has just proposed historically massive cuts to Colorado’s already comparatively underfunded public schools. If that wasn’t enough, he had the nerve to pretend he isn’t choosing this path for his state, telling reporters “There’s nothing I’ve ever grappled with as long and hard as” education cuts.
Evidently, we should all shed tears for the allegedly remorseful guv… except, we shouldn’t. Because he’s as much making this choice as circumstances are dictating it.
Yes, it’s true – the new governor must propose a balanced budget and the legislature cannot raise revenues in the short-term. Thus, the education cuts. However, it is also true that this governor has been running around Colorado insisting he cares about education while simultaneously saying he opposes efforts to raise public revenues through any changes to Colorado’s hideously regressive tax code.
Role for Teachers Is Seen in Solving Schools’ Crises
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, convening a two-day labor-management conference here on Tuesday, argued that teachers’ unions can help solve many of the challenges facing public schools.
But as the conference opened, that view was under challenge in a number of state capitals.
Republicans in several states have proposed legislation in recent weeks that would bar teachers’ unions from all policy discussions, except when the time comes to negotiate compensation. In Tennessee and Wisconsin, Republicans have proposed stripping teachers’ unions of collective bargaining rights altogether.
Education historians said the unions were facing the harshest political climate since states began extending legal bargaining rights to schoolteachers decades ago.
The conference, convened by the Department of Education, drew school authorities and teachers’ union leaders from 150 districts across the nation to Denver to discuss ways of working together. To participate, each district’s superintendent, school board president and teachers’ union leader had to sign a pledge to collaborate in good faith to raise student achievement.
Rhee’s five big missteps
Richard Whitmire’s deft and revealing book about former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee chronicles a difficult time in the history of the city’s schools, when good people fought hard against one another because of sharply contrasting views on how to help our children.
The book is “The Bee Eater,” the title a reference to a moment when Rhee as a young teacher gained respect from her unruly Baltimore students by killing and swallowing a wayward insect flying around her classroom. The point was that this young woman had a taste for aggressive, if sometimes unappetizing, action.
The question of Rhee – her history, her iron confidence, her successes and failures – is still a hot topic. I got twice the usual page views on my blog last week just by raising the issue of her early teaching results. In this book, Rhee fans like me will enjoy remembering her unexpected success in bringing energy and sanity to the District’s central office, closing 23 underused schools and getting an innovative new teachers contract. Her critics will nod as they read of her needlessly alienating city officials and good teachers and carelessly reawakening the race issue. Whitmire makes his admiration for Rhee clear but seems as baffled by some of her decisions as many of her friends were.
Union leader calls for Madison schools to close during planned sickout
The Madison School District is preparing for “excessive” teacher absences Wednesday, and a teacher union leader urged school be closed because few teachers are expected to show up for work.
School officials announcement Tuesday in a letter to parents they expected many teachers to call in sick Wednesday.
The letter was distributed the same day nearly 800 Madison East High School students — half the school — walked out to participate in a demonstration at the state Capitol protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to limit public employee bargaining power.
Students at West, Memorial and at other schools around the state — from Shullsburg to Sheboygan — also participated in demonstrations during school hours.
As of Tuesday evening, Superintendent Dan Nerad said a higher-than-usual number of teachers had called in sick for Wednesday, though he declined to disclose exact numbers. He said the district would monitor the expected absences overnight before deciding whether to cancel school.
Jessica Vanegeren and Susan Troller have more.
Crisis Mode Persists for Detroit Schools
Two years after his appointment as emergency financial manager for the Detroit Public Schools, Robert Bobb has outsourced many services, unearthed corruption and closed a number of schools.
Yet the district’s mammoth deficit has continued to grow during amid the state’s downturn and growing pension and debt obligations, and the city’s schools are still grappling with longstanding problems, including political battles involving the state, school board and teachers’ unions and a long-term exodus by students.
With weeks left in his term, Mr. Bobb has put forth some radical ideas to overhaul the system. One would split the district into two entities to help retire its debt, along the lines of the government-engineered bankruptcy of General Motors. Another would use money from a national tobacco settlement to inject $400 million into the Detroit schools and some 40 other deficit-ridden Michigan districts. A third is modeled on post-Katrina New Orleans, where a shrunken district was remade with mostly charter schools.
On Rhode Island Charter School Expansion
Governor Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 elicited concern from charter school supporters when he announced last month that he would take a “thoughtful pause” before expanding the state’s charter schools. The governor made waves again earlier this month when he shook up the state’s Board of Regents, which helps oversee Rhode Island’s public schools. Given the importance of public education, we took a pause of our own to consider these changes.
Former state House Majority Leader George Caruolo will take over the chairmanship of the Board of Regents from former Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice Robert Flanders Jr. ’71. Flanders, along with several other board members Chafee replaced, supports Education Commissioner Deborah Gist. Teachers’ unions are often at odds with Gist, especially over her support for charter schools, and how well Chafee will work out his disagreements with the commissioner is a looming question. Caruolo is known as an effective politician. We hope he puts his skill to use, shaping conflicts between Chafee and Gist into compromised agreements to take action, not discord-fueled gridlock.
Real reform is the only way to improve Rochester schools
In his recent “State of our Schools” presentation, the Rochester schools Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard showed that three years into his tenure, Rochester’s schools have had slow, but measureable progress in elementary and middle school achievement levels, fewer suspensions and more students graduating high school.
Still, Rochester continues to struggle with many challenges common for large urban communities in the state and throughout the country – challenges that will take much longer than three years to significantly improve.
While Rochester’s school superintendents come and go, one district fixture remains: Adam Urbanski, the long-time head of the Rochester Teachers Association. He recently wrote in this newspaper that Rochester schools are “worse off” in the last three years, a period which happens to coincide with the Brizard’s tenure.
Rochester, NY 2011 State of the Schools PDF Presentation and Scorecard Strategy Map. Rochester’s 2010-2011 budget is $694,515,866 for 32,000 students. $21,703.62 per student. View Rochester’s 2010-2011 budget presentation document here.
Related: The 2011 State of the Madison School District reports $379,058,945 in planned 2010-2011 spending for 24,471 students. Madison’s per student spending this year is $15,490.13.
Big moment for Chicago schools
Chicago’s school reform movement faces one of the most important moments in its too-short history. Don’t underestimate what’s happening right now. The future of a school system with 415,000 children is at stake.
Here’s why:
The most powerful and persistent champion of Chicago school reform, Mayor Richard Daley, will leave office in May.
No one knows who will be leading the Chicago Public Schools in a few months. The quite capable interim CEO, Terry Mazany, and chief education officer, Charles Payne, are on a short-term lease. The next mayor will choose the next CEO. No major candidate for mayor has identified who would get the job in his or her administration.
Green Bay school superintendent proposals sought
The Green Bay School Board agreed Monday to send requests to about 17 search companies — including the one used to recruit Superintendent Greg Maass — for proposals to guide its efforts to find a new school leader.
Maass announced last week he will leave his Green Bay post at the end of June. He plans to accept a similar position in Marblehead, Mass., pending background checks and contract negotiations. He’s been in Green Bay for three years.
Illinois-based Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, the recruitment company that the Green Bay board hired last time to conduct its search, said it would waive its consulting fee because Maass is leaving within five years, School Board president Jean Marsch said. The district paid the firm $22,000 and covered another $12,500 or so in additional expenses, for things such as advertising, travel and lodging, in the search for Maass, she said. The district still would be on the hook for the additional costs.
But members said they’d still like to hear what other search firms have to offer.
Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad previous position was in Green Bay.
Open High Blazing New Path
Imagine “one-on-one tutoring for every student in every subject” and you get a picture of Open High School, a virtual charter school serving 250 Utah students in ninth and tenth grades, expanding to up to 1500 students 9-12 by 2014.
Aptly named, the Open High School of Utah Trailblazers are forging new paths in multiple arenas,s but what sets them apart is their commitment to use open education resources (OER) where possible and to share what they develop under Creative Commons licenses.
The curriculum is hosted on MoodleRooms learning management system (but they miss their BrainHoney gradebook).
Nerad gets one-year extension as Madison schools superintendent
The Madison School Board approved a one-year extension of Superintendent Dan Nerad’s contract on a 5-2 vote Monday.
Board members Lucy Mathiak and Arlene Silveira voted against the extension. Maya Cole, Beth Moss, Ed Hughes, Marj Passman and James Howard voted to extend the contract through June 30, 2013.
Only Mathiak and Hughes spoke during the meeting. The board has been discussing Nerad’s contract in multiple closed-door meetings.
Mathiak didn’t address why she voted against the extension but said that she had reviewed board minutes, e-mails, notes of conversations and newspaper articles as she completed an evaluation that she received in December.
Print me a Stradivarius: How a new manufacturing technology will change the world
THE industrial revolution of the late 18th century made possible the mass production of goods, thereby creating economies of scale which changed the economy–and society–in ways that nobody could have imagined at the time. Now a new manufacturing technology has emerged which does the opposite. Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did.
It works like this. First you call up a blueprint on your computer screen and tinker with its shape and colour where necessary. Then you press print. A machine nearby whirrs into life and builds up the object gradually, either by depositing material from a nozzle, or by selectively solidifying a thin layer of plastic or metal dust using tiny drops of glue or a tightly focused beam. Products are thus built up by progressively adding material, one layer at a time: hence the technology’s other name, additive manufacturing. Eventually the object in question–a spare part for your car, a lampshade, a violin–pops out. The beauty of the technology is that it does not need to happen in a factory. Small items can be made by a machine like a desktop printer, in the corner of an office, a shop or even a house; big items–bicycle frames, panels for cars, aircraft parts–need a larger machine, and a bit more space.
Q&A with Madison schools superintendent Dan Nerad
WSJ: What is Madison’s biggest challenge?
DN: Unless we get more of our kids to standards, children will not remain strong and the community will not remain strong. Our vision has to be about advancing learning for all kids while we work to address these very notable achievement gaps for certain groups of kids. It’s not an either-or. It’s not a zero sum. That’s why I believe we can be about a conversation about achievement gaps and we can be about a conversation about how we can better serve talented-and-gifted students.
WSJ: Is that the central tension?
DN: That’s the manifestation. If it’s about human capital development, it has to be about all kids moving forward, but there’s real constraints around that because we do in fact make budget decisions year by year and people feel disaffected by those budget decisions. There’s real concern, and I’m right in line with that concern, that we aren’t doing enough to face these achievement gaps in an aggressive enough way. (Other) people feel very strongly that we’re not doing enough to advance the needs of our advanced learners.
WSJ: Summarize your first 2½ years in Madison.
DN: We immediately jumped into a referendum discussion. The need for that was identified prior to my coming. We spent a considerable amount of time in that first year focused on those issues. From there I worked with the board on some board reorganization. And then it moved into comprehensive strategic planning with our community. From there we did the reorganization of the administration. Creating a teacher and a parent council was part of our thinking about how we do our work differently. And then we had a major focus needed on this current year’s budget. That was a very difficult conversation. We were looking at this huge gap and this huge amount of money. There has been one major thing after another. Take one, it’s significant. Take them all, it’s been very significant. And while I’ve been here 30 months, I’m still learning the culture of this organization and of this community. I’ve tried to be sensitive to the culture and there’s been some tension about how we’ve done our work and has it been sensitive enough to the culture. None of that is lost on me.
Much more on Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad, here.
The Madison School Board votes on the Superintendent’s contract tonight.
Khan Academy Education Videos Arrive in the Bittorrent App Studio
Imagine an organization with one mission – to provide a world-class education, for free, to anyone, anywhere. Now imagine having instant access to all that knowledge directly in your BitTorrent or uTorrent client.
Today we launched a brand-new app in collaboration with Khan Academy, a renowned not-for-profit organization fulfilling the mission of global education through video classes. We are extremely honored to support their vision.
The Khan Academy exemplifies the type of content creators for whom we built the App Studio – independent artists looking to build relationships with our global community of over 100 million users. With the Khan Academy, we have the added bonus of helping to promote a worthy cause through technology innovation.
Beating ban stirs debate in S. Korean schools
With the new school year starting in March, high school teacher Jennifer Chung is worried about coping without her longtime classroom companion — a hickory stick for smacking misbehaving students.
“I don’t know if I can survive the jungle of 40 restless boys in each class, let alone keeping them quiet with no means to punish them,” said the 36-year-old maths teacher in Gyeonggi province surrounding Seoul.
Education authorities in Seoul, the country’s largest school district with 1.36 million pre-college students, last November banned corporal punishment.
Gyeonggi and one other province followed suit, with the new rule to take effect there in March.
The Tragedy of Elgin Cook & Other Milwaukee Public Schools’ Black Athletes
I’m certain many of you read (or heard) about Milwaukee Hamilton star basketball player Elgin Cook’s sudden departure from the team. I’m also certain you heard his mother has taken him out of state fearing for her son’s life due to his (alleged) role in what led to the Milwaukee King basketball player being shot. If not, click here to read the story on jsonline.
My comments aren’t going to address the drama Cook and the other boy got themselves caught up in. I’m focused on a tragedy that continues to occur with the Black Student-Athlete over and over in Milwaukee Public Schools. I’m sick and tired of reading and hearing about OUR BEST (and average) student-athletes being academically ineligible before, during and after the sports season. What the hell is going on when kids who are being offered scholarships to play in college cannot maintain a simple 2.0 gpa?
Let’s look at Cook for a moment. In the jsonline article, it mentions that he missed the first 3 games of this season due to being academically ineligible. Yet, in October he signed a letter of intent to accept a scholarship to play basketball at Iowa State. How is this possible? It’s one thing for OUR kids to be lacking the grades and preparation for higher learning, but it is another thing when large colleges and universities know they aren’t ready but bring them in anyway.
Closing the Achievement Gap Without Widening a Racial One
There is no more pressing topic in education today than closing the achievement gap, and there is no one in America who knows more about the gap than Ronald Ferguson.
Although he is a Harvard professor based in Cambridge, Mass., Dr. Ferguson, 60, spends lots of time flying around the country visiting racially mixed public high schools. Part of what he does is academic, measuring the causes of the gap by annually surveying the performance, behaviors and attitudes of up to 100,000 students. And part is serving as a de facto educational social worker, meeting with students, faculty members and parents to explain what steps their schools can take to narrow the gap.
The gap is about race, of course, and it inevitably inflames passions. But there is something about Dr. Ferguson’s bearing — he is both big (6-foot-3) and soft-spoken — that gets people to listen.
Morton Sherman, the Alexandria school superintendent, watched him defuse the anger at a meeting of 300 people. “He talks about these things in a professorial way, a kind way,” Dr. Sherman said. “It’s not about him. He doesn’t try to be a rock star, although he is a rock star in this field.”
Parables teach lessons of Milwaukee Public Schools’ struggles
Three parables for Wisconsin’s educational times:
• No. 1. Once there was an enormous omelet, as big as a city, full of all sorts of stuff. Some of it was great. A lot of it was lousy. Almost nobody liked the omelet. “We can make it better by unscrambling it,” some people said. But you can’t unscramble an omelet. So everyone who tried to do that moved on to other things.
• No. 2. Once there were a bunch of big kids playing baseball. A little kid – well, he used to be a big kid, but things changed somehow – ran up and said he wanted to get in the game. He began throwing rocks at a tree to show how good he could pitch. The big kids said that was nice. Actually, they hoped the little kid would go away.
• No. 3. Once there were children who stood each day at the busiest corner in the city. Everyone could see they were hungry. Drivers who went by said the kids ought to be fed. Politicians said the kids ought to be fed. Everyone said the kids ought to be fed. The end.
OK, so they’re not very entertaining parables. Sorry. I’m not even sure how well they fit what’s going on. In fact, I really hope there’s a much better ending to the third one. The history of the last couple decades around here supports the pessimistic storyline that leads to nothing. But this is a new day. Maybe something good will occur.
Which brings me to the proposal to break up Milwaukee Public Schools into a set of smaller districts.
School-stimulus benefit may be short-lived
In the two years since Congress made the federal government’s largest one-time investment in public schools, change has rippled through classrooms from coast to coast, as districts have expanded school days, improved teacher training, and tried to tie teacher evaluations to student performance.
But the stimulus package’s long-term impact on public education is far from certain and may already be flagging, according to a three-month investigation by 36 news organizations working in collaboration with the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news outlet, and the Education Writers Association. Indeed, the research found that many of the resulting policy changes are already endangered by political squabbles and the massive budget shortfalls still facing recession-battered state and local governments.
“We have a long way to go,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, adding that his goal is for the United States to lead the world in academic achievement.
Wisconsin Teachers Union plan too late to help schools
Under its “performance pay” proposal, teachers would get more for staffing hard-to-staff schools and filling hard-to-fill positions. Pay would also be related to regular employee evaluations — if in some as-yet-undefined, possibly very weak way. WEAC president Mary Bell declined to specify how closely student test scores should track with evaluations and thus pay hikes, for instance.
Protecting pay is, of course, the most important of the union’s objectives in its reform plan. But pay is a function of how much money is available, and while WEAC is advocating paying better teachers better salaries, it’s not in favor of cutting pay for teachers who aren’t so good. This is about a bigger education pie, in other words, not about the same pie cut into different-sized pieces.
Pay is also a function of who’s handing out the raises, and WEAC is doing what it can to ensure those partly or mostly responsible for handing out the raises are as sympathetic as possible.
To wit, it would like to see the majority of the members on a teacher’s evaluation panel be teachers themselves — thus paving the way, it seems to me, for a lot of good reviews.
“It’s an extremely difficult task,” Bell said of evaluating one of your peers, but one that can work because “people care so deeply about the quality of the profession.”
Related: 2010 Fall Election – WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators in a Losing Cause.
Texas Governor Perry’s call for $10,000 bachelor’s degrees stumps educators
When Gov. Rick Perry challenged the state’s public institutions of higher learning this week to develop bachelor’s degree programs costing no more than $10,000, including textbooks, Mike McKinney was stumped.
“My answer is I have no idea how,” McKinney, chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, told the Senate Finance Committee. “I’m not going to say that it can’t be done.”
Tuition, fees and books for four years average $31,696 at public universities in Texas, according to the Higher Education Coordinating Board. Sul Ross State University Rio Grande College is the cheapest, at $17,532.
The governor’s call for low-cost degrees comes as legislative budget writers and the governor himself have proposed deep cuts in higher education funding — cuts that would put pressure on governing boards to raise tuition, not lower it.
But officials of some university systems — whose governing boards are fully populated by Perry appointees — nevertheless struck an upbeat tone, or at least a neutral one. As McKinney, a former Perry chief of staff, put it: “If it can be figured out, we’ve got the faculty that can figure it out.”
A spokesman for the University of Texas System said, “We look forward to reviewing details of the governor’s proposal.”
This is exactly the kind of thinking we need: fresh approaches toward all aspects of education.
Hip Hop Studies at Madison West High School
The Wisconsin State Journal, via several kind reader emails:
Students in a new Hip Hop Studies class at West finished a unit on hip-hop history by writing verses. A few excerpts:
“‘Why do you study hip-hop?
Isn’t it just rappers that never ever stop?’
That right there’s the problem,
People think it’s just angry pop.
And even though they don’t know
They go and talk about the videos
And go and slam it on their shows
One reader notes: “Is this the fabulous programming that we may lose if West (gasp) has real honors classes? “.
Much more, here.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Bye, bye easy money
Don’t fixate on the financial crisis. Our economic problems have been far longer in the making, and would have caught up with us sooner or later anyway.
That is one of the conclusions I take away from two striking essays: “The Great Divergence”, published in Slate last September by the journalist Timothy Noah; and The Great Stagnation, just published as a short e-book by the economics professor and blogger Tyler Cowen.
The two essays describe two disturbing trends that, while logically separable, seem to be related. Noah discusses a sharp increase in income inequality in the US since the early 1970s. After analysing many explanations, he concludes that the chief culprits are a tolerance for super-high salaries and bonuses on Wall Street and in the boardroom, and a failure of the US education system. Blaming China is considered, but largely dismissed.
Cowen begins with the fact that median family income in the US has barely increased, again since the early 1970s. Its growth rate has been about 0.5 per cent a year after inflation. The median family income is the income of the family in the middle of the income distribution. It is a useful measure precisely because it ignores the action at the top: if a Connecticut hedge fund manager made an extra $11bn in a year, this would raise the mean income of the US’s 110 million-ish households by $100 each. It wouldn’t alter the median income by a cent
California Chinese program prompts school board recall
Four members of a suburban school board are being targeted in a recall effort over their support for a middle-school language program funded by the Chinese government, one of the members said Friday.
Hacienda La Puente Unified School Board President Jay Chen said he and the three other members of the five-member panel were being served with notices of intent to circulate recall petitions, each signed by 12 residents of Hacienda Heights in east Los Angeles County.
Chen, along with board members Norman Hsu, Joseph Chang and Anita Perez, voted last year to approve the agreement with China’s international language-teaching agency to cooperate on the so-called Confucius Classroom Mandarin program.
Number of $100,000 retirees skyrocket in California teacher pension system
More proof that pension costs are spiraling out of control: The number of retirees earning $100,000 or more from the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) has increased dramatically since 2009, according to new data obtained by the nonprofit California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.
For those of you not familiar with the foundation, it’s one of the leading advocates for pension reform in California. On its website, the foundation publishes searchable databases of retirees earning $100,000 or more from a couple of state pension systems, including CalSTRS, the pension system for retired California teachers.
The foundation initially obtained the data for its “CalSTRS $100,000 pension club” database in May 2009. Back then there were 3,010 retirees earning $100,000 or more annually from CalSTRS. Earlier this month, the foundation obtained updated data from CalSTRS and the number has grown to 5,308 (5,309 if you count one woman earning $99,998.88).
That’s a 76 percent increase. In less than two years.
Playground politics: Devolving power over schools while tightening purse strings requires guile
THE success of the government’s bid to create new “free schools”–funded by the state, but able to set conditions for staff, pick and choose from the national curriculum, and so on–rests on its ability to wrest power from local authorities and give it to community groups. The policy is a key element of David Cameron’s “Big Society”, but suffers from the same difficulty as the overall project: pushing through devolution in a time of austerity is tricky.
The aim of free schools, which are based on American and Swedish models, is to give parents more choice and promote competition. New schools can be established by parents, teachers, charities, religious outfits, universities, private schools and not-for-profit groups. They will be given public funds based on how many pupils enroll, with those from poor families attracting a premium.
School Board Dysfunction
“In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.” – Mark Twain in Pudd’nhead Wilson
I was somewhat dismayed by the article in last Saturday’s Daily News about the sudden thud in the bargaining process between the Red Bluff Union Elementary School Board and the teachers’ union. It was a year ago last August when I congratulated the District and the teachers’ union on the agreements they made to stave off fiscal problems for the 2009-2010 school year. Based on the article in the Daily News things are not so harmonious at this point. I have faith that in a community like ours things will work their way out, but it is difficult to tell given the limited statements made by the School Board representative and statements about filing a grievance or an unfair labor practice charge.
Saturday’s article was followed up by coverage of the School Board meeting on February 8; it was equally dismaying.
Tiered Diplomas Abandoned in Rhode Island
Advocates for low-income, minority students and students with special needs, including the Rhode Island Disability Law Center and The Autism Project of Rhode Island scored a major victory in Providence last week when Education Commissioner Deborah Gist announced she would scrap a plan for a three-tiered high school diploma system tied to standardized test scores.
The plan called for students with high scores to receive an “Honors” diploma, those with average scores to earn a “Regents” diploma, and ones who score “partially proficient” to be granted a basic Rhode Island diploma. Children who fail the test would have the opportunity to take it again. If they fail a second time, but other requirements are achieved, they could still graduate with a certificate.
Opponents claimed the proposal created a state-sanctioned caste system that would stigmatize struggling students and haunt them when seeking future employment or college admission. Based on recent test scores, they countered that almost all students who were poor, minorities, had disabilities, or were learning English would get the lowest tier diploma, if they even got one at all.
Gov. John Kitzhaber plans a powerful Oregon education board, connecting school funding to performance
Gov. John Kitzhaber aims to fix Oregon’s broken school funding system by consolidating power and money into a single board for all levels of education — a board that he would chair.
What youths need, he says, is a system that allows them to improve at their own pace, with funding that is targeted at schools and programs that are getting results.
On Friday, the governor ordered the creation of an investment team to design the framework for an Oregon Education Investment Board that would oversee education for children from birth through college. He will name the 12 members of the team next week.
Proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School Budget
Urban Leage of Greater Madison:
The Urban League of Greater Madison (ULGM) is submitting this budget narrative to the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education as a companion to its line‐item budget for Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men (Madison Prep). The budget was prepared in partnership with MMSD’s Business Services office. The narrative provides context for the line items presented in the budget.
Madison Prep’s budget was prepared by a team that included Kaleem Caire, President & CEO of ULGM; Tami Holmquist, Business Manager at Edgewood High School; Laura DeRoche‐Perez, ULGM Charter School Development Consultant; and Jim Horn, ULGM Director of Finance. Representative of ULGM and MMSD met weekly during the development of the Madison Prep budget. These meetings included including Erik Kass, Assistant Superintendent for Business Services and Donna Williams, Director of Budget & Planning. The budget was also informed by ULGM’s charter school design teams and was structured in the same manner as start‐up, non‐instrumentality public charter school budgets submitted to the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board in Washington, DC. DCPCSB is widely regarded as one of the most effective authorizers of charter schools in the nation.
In addition, Madison Prep’s Facilities Design Team is led by Dennis Haefer, Vice President of Commercial Banking with Johnson Bank and Darren Noak, President of Commercial Building with Tri‐North Builders. Mr. Noak is also the Treasurer of ULGM’s Board of Directors. This team is responsible for identifying Madison Prep’s school site and planning for related construction, renovation and financing needs.
……
Budget Highlights
A. Cost of Education
In 2008‐09, the Madison Metropolitan School District received $14,432 in revenue per student from a combination of local, federal and state government and local property taxes. The largest portion of revenue came from property taxes, $9,049 (62.7%), followed by $3,364 in state aid (23.3%), $1,260 in federal aid (8.7%) and $759 in other local revenue (5.3%). That same year, MMSD spent $13,881 per student on educational, transportation, facility and food service costs for 25,011 students for a total of $347,177,691 in spending.
In 2010‐11, MMSD’s Board of Education is operating with an amended budget of $360,131,948, a decrease of $10,155,522 (‐2.74%) from 2009‐10. MMSD projects spending $323,536,051 in its general education fund, $10,069,701 on food service and $8,598,118 on debt service for a total of $342,203,870. Considering the total of only these three spending categories, and dividing the total by the official 2010‐11 enrollment count of 24,471 students, MMSD projects to spend $13,984 per student.3 This is the amount per pupil that ULGM used as a baseline for considering what Madison Prep’s baseline per pupil revenue should be in its budget for SY2011‐12. ULGM then determined the possibility of additional cutbacks in MMSD revenue for SY2011‐12 and reduced its base per pupil revenue projection to $13,600 per student. It then added a 1% increase to it’s per pupil base spending amount for each academic year through SY2016‐17.
ULGM recognizes that per pupil funding is an average of total costs to educate 24,471 children enrolled in MMSD schools, and that distinctions are not made between the costs of running elementary, middle and high schools. ULGM also understands that the operating costs between all three levels of schooling are different. Middle schools costs more to operate than elementary schools and high schools costs more than middle schools.
Reviewing expense projections for middle and high schools in MMSD’s SY2010‐11 Amended Preliminary Budget, ULGM decided to weight per pupil spending in middle school at 1.03% and 1.16% in high school. Thus, in SY2012‐13 when Madison Prep opens, ULGM projects a need to spend $14,148 per student, not including additional costs for serving English language learners and students with special needs, or the costs of Madison Prep’s third semester (summer).
B. Cost Comparisons between Madison Prep and MMSD
Staffing Costs
In 2010‐11, MMSD projected it would spend $67,133,692 on salaries (and benefits) on 825.63 staff in its secondary (middle and high) schools for an average salary of $81,312. This includes teachers, principals and in‐school support staff. In its first year of operation (SY2012‐13), ULGM projects Madison Prep it will spend $1,559,454 in salaries and benefits on 23 staff for an average of $67,802 in salary, including salaries for teachers, the Head of School (principal) and support staff. In its fifth year of operation, Madison Prep is projected to spend $3,560,746 in salaries and benefits on 52 staff for an average of $68,476 per staff person. In both years, Madison Prep will spend significantly less on salaries and benefits per staff member than MMSD.
Additionally, MMSD spends an average of $78,277 on salaries and benefits for staff in its middle schools and $79,827 on its staff in its high schools.
Additional documents: budget details and Madison Prep’s Wisconsin DPI application.
Matthew DeFour:
The high cost results from the likelihood that Madison Prep will serve more low-income, non-English speaking and special education students, said Kaleem Caire, president of the Urban League of Greater Madison, which is developing the charter school. The school also plans to have a longer school year, school day and require students to participate in volunteer and extracurricular activities.
“What we’re asking for is based on the fact that we’re going to serve a high-needs population of kids,” Caire said. “We don’t know yet if what we’re projecting is out of line.”
Caire said the proposal will likely change as potential state and federal revenues are assessed.
A Republican charter school bill circulated in the Legislature this week could also alter the landscape. The bill would allow charter schools to receive approval from a state board, rather than a local school board, and those that don’t use district employees, like Madison Prep, would be able to access the state retirement and health care systems.
Much more on the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter school, here.
Madison School District Considers 7.64% ($18, 719.470) Property Tax Increase for 2011/2012 Budget
Erik J Kass, Assistant Superintendent for Business Services:
The following analysis is done using the PMA Model information and is looking at the cost to continue budget figures that will be provided to the Board on March 14, 2011. The analysis includes the impact on the median home in Madison, and for that figure we contacted the City of Madison Assessor and were provided that value at $241,217. For comparative purposes ofthe effect on this home, we are using the assumed value from the 2010-11 analysis of$246,041 or 2%morethanthecurrentmedianvalue. Theequalizedpropertyvaluationforthe2011-12 budget year is also projected to decrease by 2.00% as part ofthis analysis.
What is the projected All Funds Property Tax Increase for the 2011-12 Budget Year?
$18,719,470 or a 7.64% increase when compared to 2010-ll actuals.
Where does the projected All Funds Property Tax Increase for the 2011-12 Budget Year come from?
Prior Decisions by the Board ofEducation:
Recurring Referendum from November of 2008: $4,000,000
4-K Levy Increase to start program: $3,554,415
Referendum Debt Service: ($2.327,900)
Subtotal: $5,226,515
Decisions to be made by the Board of Education:
Projected Revenue Limit Growth ($200 per pupil): $7,774,514
Projected Loss in State Aid: $4,515,523
Community Services Fund (MSCR and Non-MSCR): $469,460
Exempt Computer Aid (property tax relief): ($261,927)
Property Tax Chargeback ($4.615)
Subtotal: $13,492,955
Total $18, 719.470
The Madison School District’s 2010-2011 budget increased property taxes by about 9%.
Council: Strive for high grade points, not big political points
After Detroit, Milwaukee is the country’s most segregated city. The Milwaukee Public School District (MPS) has an endemic racial achievement gap, in which, in terms of aggregate statistics, African American students perform three to four years below their European American counterparts in both math and reading. Combine this with a general dearth of resources — as is common to virtually all of public education — and you have a recipe for inadequate schooling that is failing its almost 90,000 students.
The crisis in Milwaukee is indicative of the educational crisis roiling the nation. Across the United States, school districts are facing enormous budget deficits, decreasing enrollment and intense pedagogical and ideological debates questioning the very foundations of modern education. The debate is particularly vociferous here in Wisconsin, where the Wisconsin Education Association Council feels threatened by Governor Scott Walker’s educational platform. This past Tuesday, however, WEAC introduced a series of reforms it would endorse, many of which took observers by surprise, and received mixed reactions.
The reform drawing the most ire is the proposal to carve up MPS into multiple smaller districts to make them more manageable, and thus more successful. However, as pointed out by one observer, this separation of districts would probably mirror racial divisions within the city, compounding instead of alleviating racial achievement gaps.
Rhee to lawmakers: Put kids first
Michelle Rhee, a national voice on education reform, told state lawmakers Thursday that charter schools and vouchers for low-income students have a place in public education, but in a blend with strong traditional schools.
“Vouchers in and of themselves are not the answer. Charters in and of themselves are not the answer,” said Rhee, who last fall stepped down as chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools after three years in which she was both lauded and derided for her overhaul of the school system.
“The answer in my mind is a really strong traditional public school system. That has very specific strategies to turn around failing schools [and incorporates both vouchers and charters].”
Rhee is on a national tour talking about education reform, particularly teacher evaluations and performance.
Madison School District Considers Replacing Lawson HR/Financial System; School District Consortium to Dissolve
Madison School District is one of the members of the Wisconsin School Consortium (Consortium) for Human Resource/Financial Business Solution System. The other member school districts are Racine, Middleton-Cross Plains and Verona.
Madison implemented the current system solution (Lawson) in 2003-04 and began the Consortium in 2005-06. To assure that the Consortium districts are getting the best value on their HR!Financial Business application software and related services, the Consortium opted to have a competitive RFP process for the following areas:
Evaluation of K-12 business application software including our current vendor, Lawson Software Evaluation of hosting vendors related to the business application software
The RFP process began in May where there were four qualified responders. The Consortium held all day demonstrations that were both on site and electronically through involving numerous representatives from the following areas of: Human Resources, Finance, School Sites, Food Service, Community Service, and General Administration.
The Consortium then moved their consideration primarily toward two of the vendors with reference calls, another set of demonstrations for further detail clarification, site visits and a virtual site visit
At this point the Consortium members are at a consensus that they will be dissolving the Consortium where two members, Verona and Middleton-Cross Plains are looking at one solution, Racine is considering staying with the current solution, and Madison is considering moving forward with a different solution because of the improved and integrated functionality combined with cost savings.
Notes & links on Madison’s Lawson implementation, here.